A little over a week ago, I shared that my baby turned one.  But, I didn’t tell you that my parents visited from Minnesota to celebrate.  They arrived on the 24th and stayed until this Saturday.  My dad has had a rocking chair since I was a baby.  He’s addicted to it.  So, he bought one for our house so he had one while visiting.  Well, I think it’s ugly, so when they’re not here, it stays in the large basement bedroom.

Yep, it’s buried under the sleeping blanket we use for our backyard picnics.  Well, we were a little slow to bring it up this visit.  I swear my dad became physically sick because he didn’t have his rocker.  Then, we realized what the problem was, hauled the chair up from the basement and he was completely fine from that point on.  So, for the past week, we’ve lived with our living room disassembled a bit.

The Dolce chair moved to the guest bedroom, the matching club chair took its place and the rocker took the club chair’s place.  Musical chairs, I tell ya.  You might have noticed something is missing, too.  If you haven’t, maybe this picture will help.

Yep, the child’s desk we’ve used for the past four years is gone.  My sister just bought a house, so she asked if we would send our small desk back for her.  Fortunately, that desk was a temporary solution from day one, so we loaded it up and said good riddance to it.  Even though I hated that desk with a passion, I’m sort of missing it.  Without the desk, I have no designated place to surf the web, which is fine because of the laptop, but the cords bug me.  Anywhere I sit, the cord follows.

And yes, our house is messy without my maid mom here.  Just kidding, mom.  Our house usually has this kind of mess.  Check out our living room.

On a really good day, (or really bad, depending if you prefer the mess) our house looks like this.

We always have my family haul things out from IKEA, like a Ribba frame for my new print from Little Brown Pen.

Occasionally, they return home with some goodies, too.  Other than the desk, we sent my parents home with a floor lamp that we were no longer using, a bag of books, and another bag of clothes.

Speaking of giving things away, I’m taking Jen’s 30 in 30 challenge to purge our home of thirty items in thirty days.  Technically, those four items we pawned off in April, so they count, right?  Or is that wishful thinking?  Maybe we’ll count them if we’re short at the end of the challenge…

Now you’ve seen our house strewn with toys and cords and in disarray with chair swapping.  Are feeling the itch to get some spring cleaning done?  Care to join me and Jen to shed our homes of 30 items?  Have you received furniture from a friend or family member recently?  Maybe you’re addicted to a rocking chair just like my dad?