Flat packed dreams and Swedish meatballs

If you just need to organize

Clutter and mess

There’s only one place

And it’s really the best

 

 It sells lovely boxes

And pictures for walls

Flat packed bookcases

And spicy meatballs

 

It’s big and it’s brilliant

With arrows on the floor

And showrooms, a warehouse

A big spinny door…

 

…You know the answer,

Let’s hear you all cheer,

Hip Hip and Hooray!

We’re off to IKEA!

 So here’s the deal. I’ve moved house into our marital home (as of 25^th May anyway). But all my clothes are in a bin bag in my room because I don’t have a wardrobe. And so we went to IKEA. The Boy borrowed his Mum’s big car to fit all the lovely furniture in and we set off at 4pm on a Friday afternoon. Once we got there The Boy had to have a little play on the trolley, obviously. He scooted around smiling like a dog with his head out of the window. Then it was time to get down to business. Off we went, following the arrows, as is the IKEA rule, looking at all the beautiful pretend rooms. The Boy thought it was hilarious to wheel the trolley through the pretend kitchens and bedrooms saying, “Hi, yes, sorry, just looking….you have a nice kitchen” etc.

 
The real drama started when, 30 minutes before closing time, we were only just out of the show room and into the ‘market’. It started to be a bit like supermarket sweep at this point, frantically grabbing things off the shelves. We got to the warehouse (10 minutes to closing) and began running up and down the aisles with our fully loaded trolley, looking for the right wardrobe. Now, I love IKEA, but the cheap prices and sleek designs come at a price. Nothing is called its real name. If the labels read “Delicious oak coffee table”, or “tall strong wardrobe”, or “that white wall clock everyone owns”, we would all know where we stand. When Crazy Meg and I moved into our old flat we rung up an IKEA receipt about a foot long. We highlighted everything that was mine so when we moved out we would know who had bought what. Except by then we had forgotten what SKUBB was. And LACK. And even GRUNDTAL… SO we had to google every single name, find its picture and identify it like they were accused criminals in a furniture line-up parade.
 

Anyway, all the wardrobe frames, doors and shelves are called PAX apparently at IKEA, so we had a right nightmare trying to find the one we had spied in the showroom. Halfway through dragging a door onto our trolley I remembered I’d forgotten the ONE thing I actually wanted from this once-wonderous now-hellish place; magnetic spice tins. SO I legged it into the lift, 5 minutes til lights out, back up to the showroom to get them. When I came back, The Boy informed me that we had the doors, frames, shelves and hinges for the wardrobe but the handles were….

    ...in

           the

              showroom…

For goodness sake.

 He ran once more up to the dreaded showroom while I tried to drag a flattened chest of drawers onto the trolley. The lights flashed and a voice on the tannoy asked us to leave because it was almost tomorrow and no-one should be shopping at IKEA past 10pm. It was like the end of a night out when a club flashes its lights and sweeps the stragglers into a pile in the corner.

Eventually, The Boy came back and we wheeled everything through the checkout. Obviously we had put all the heavy flat packs the wrong way up on the trolley so they couldn’t be scanned. And obviously the cupboard doors were too long for the car. We had to drive home with them between our heads in the front seats like a partition. It did mean we got to play a fun game of ‘Blind Date’, where we took it in turns to be Cilla, the creepy guy after anything he can get, and the ditzy blonde (George’s favourite role).
 
Despite all the drama, I still love IKEA. I’m sitting here at my sturdy yet affordable coffee table, watching the cheap yet beautifully scented candle flicker in the evening atmosphere and I feel happy. There are boxes with labels in cupboards and clothes colour co-ordinated in my wardrobe.

 

Everything has a place in my house.

Now if only I could organize my thoughts in the same way…

 

Love Hannan xx

"NO" 100 lighters and "NO" rhumba of rattlesnakes!

I saw this movie once about a man who got some magic into him and then he had to say "Yes" to everything he was asked because he was a real ol' meanie and the magician thought if he said "yes" to people instead of "no" then he would be a nicer person. I thought the concept was a bit flawed though because what if someone said "Have you seen someone prettier than me today?", or "Does my chin look big in this...?" or "Do you want the last mini egg?" (hoping he would say no). Yes isn't always the best answer. That's what my brain tells me...I wish it would tell my mouth sometimes...

I have this anxiety thing where I say "yes" in panic to tricky (or sometimes easy) questions just to escape an awkward situation.

I once went into B&Q because I was meeting The Boy in 10 minutes and had to kill some time. I was wandering around looking at wallpaper samples and checking my watch when I heard an announcement on the loudspeaker....

             "In 4 minutes, any customers standing by the table in the garden furniture section of the store
                                 will win a special prize..."

My ears pricked up. My brain was saying "NO NO don't bother! It'll be something you don't need and you'll definitely have to spend money. SAY NO" but my feet were already walking.
I got there and stood waiting patiently alongside 3 other people. 'Twas a bit embarrassing because we all knew why the others were there so we just looked at the garden furniture casually until the lady appeared behind the table. To cut a long story short, the 'prize' was a postcard sized sample of a magic cloth called Magicloth and as there were only 3 other people next to me (actually 2, one bailed after getting the wonderous prize) the woman made eye contact through her entire presentation and pretty much asked me personally if I wanted to buy a full size Mummy Magicloth to go home with the baby one I already had. Of course my anxious mouth had said "Yes please" before my brain had registered the question and I left the shop with not just 1 A2 sized Magicloth but 6!!! AND a Magicloth MOP!

I cannot say "no" in awkward situations. I once went into the bank a few years back to ask them to change my mobile number on their file and left with a Gold account...somehow. I went home and told my Dad and he came back into the bank WITH ME and asked them to cancel the account, informing them I had got confised and didn't really need to pay £20 a month for global travel insurance. Embarrassing.

It's a nightmare! When I go into shops, banks, answer the door, The Boy has to come with me if there is any slight chance I might be offered anything ever at all.

One day, The Boy was not with me and I stood on my doorstep for an HOUR just smiling, nodding and taking literature and books from a Jehova's Witness because I was too scared to say "no thanks, I don't need this literature, I already know about God". I've walked away backwards from street information people (the ones with the clipboards) saying all kinds of things to get them to break eye contact with me...

..."oh, I really erm.... ahh you see I'm late for...ah....OK, I will in a minute..on my way back...?"

instead of just saying "no thankyou".

I fear that I will end up in a house with many useless items like a hundred lighters ("6 lighters for a pound lady?") or a rhumba of rattlesnakes ("Could you hatch these eggs for me Hannan?") or a lodger who sells my nail varnishes for crack ("Can my buddy stay with you when he comes out of jail Hannan?")

I think "YES" has its place. Like when someone says
                              "Do you have a minute? I could do with a shoulder to cry on",
or
                      "Can you spare some change?"
or
            "Big Issue miss?"

But I think it takes a strong smile and a confident Hannan to say a kind "no". BUT today I did that. A man rang up asking if I would like to discuss the cost of storing my belongings in a big yellow crate (...?) and I said "No thankyou, I don't need to store my belongings in a big yellow crate. Have a nice weekend"

And I think he will. And so will I.

 

Love Hannan x :)

I love love...

Once upon a time a man called Valentine fell in love. Someone shot a love arrow through his heart and he loved everyone he saw from that moment onwards...

I love love...

I love the kind of love I have for my family. Imagine that house out of 'UP'. Every happy memory I have of my family is like adding one more balloon onto that old man's little house. That time my Dad walked me down the road to the petrol station that was being rebuilt and we watched the diggers and lorries, and then he bought me some chocolate for my 'Friday treat'...
                                     ...there's a little blue balloon tied onto the house...

That time my Mum painted my nails when I felt ugly to make me feel beautiful...
                ...there's a little yellow balloon tied to the house...

That time my sister wrote me a note just saying she hoped I'd had a nice day and stuck it on my door to see when I came home from school....
                                                    ...there's a little pink balloon tied to the house...

All of those times and a million more meaning that the house is lifted up so high that nothing can pull it down or stop it flying. That's how I feel about the kind of love I have for my family. It makes me soar.

The kind of love I have for The Boy is sort of the opposite. Him and I are trees, planted next to each other in a field. Instead of balloons lifting me up and away, I feel like our love grounds and fastens me tightly to the ground. No storm will uproot us. Every word of encouragement we give each other, every hug or kiss we share, each time he says he loves me, or I say love to him, we grow more roots and reach them deeper. I hope that in 50 years, we will be like two ancient gnarled Oak trees in a farmer's field. Every year the farmer will say "eeh I wish I could get rid of them old trees but their roots are so deep, and they are so solid it would be impossible! Anyway they are beautiful and wonderful so they can stay in my field forever..." That's how I feel about the love I have for The Boy. It grounds me.

I love the kind of love I have for my friends. A good friendship is symbiotic (a word I learnt from my friend's 3 year old son!) which means we work together, like an Olive Baboon and an African Elephant. (Google it if you don't believe me! They're best pals!) You need a shopping buddy? I'm there. I need a shoulder to cry on? You're there!
I sometimes wonder if the reason people do kind things is because they hope that someday down the line, they will be repaid their good deed, like believing in karma. I hope not. I am trying hard to do my 'kind deed every day' and so far it's going OK. I try to show my love for people by trying hard to help them when they need help. Some of my friends have had a really tough time recently and I imagine they feel a bit like the future is a foggy forest, there's no way of knowing which way they are going or the outcome of their trials. It's a horrible feeling, knowing there's nothing I can do to make things right, so all I can do is be helpful. I sometimes worry this isn't enough but I can't make the world right except by loving people. So that's what I'll do. If they need me they know they can ask and I'm always there.

That's the best thing about love. It's always there :)

Love love love Hannan :)

P.S. Happy Valentine's Day! Hope you felt loved on Thursday.