Welcome to my stuff 3

Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Welcome to My Stuff™ . This is the time of the week when I take a snapshot of various belongings found throughout my home and share them with you, our home audience. Today's edition of Welcome to My Stuff™ is a very special one indeed because not only will I be showing you some of my stuff, I will specifically be showing you some brand new stuff. Everyone loves brand new stuff, right?

Nod heads in unison, please.

I really should have taken a before pitcure because this room looked totally different until just today. Our TV lounge once was home to a mammoth cherry wood corner cabinet that served as our entertainment center and a mammoth pressboard computer desk that served as our computer desk. The two items together took up a gigundous amount of space in this 11'x12' room, so much so that our sleeper sofa once pulled out would extend all the way to the edge of the desk and make late-night bathroom trips a real hassle for whatever guest slept closest to the window. What's more, the room was never completely put together. Since the baby came along we were forced to squeeze our guest room and a home office into one room. This made for a room full of mismatched bulky furniture and an ambience similar to that of the dorm of two heterosexual fraternity brothers.

Yes, it was that bad.

And then there was Ikea, and Ikea was good.

Actually we already had one piece from Ikea in the room. It seems like it was only a few months ago that my wife and I were flipping through the language-free pictograms that make up the Ikea assembly directions trying to figure out how to put together the mammoth computer desk, otherwise known as the Jerker. If you've been to an Ikea you know that all the individual pieces of furniture have cutesy little Swedish-sounding names like Hensvik, Markör, and Tweedle Deedle LinGenberry Küche. Ok, I'm just kidding about the Tweedle Deedle Lingenberry Küche, but that does sound like a dessert you could buy in the store's cafeteria. Anyway, the mammoth desk that was in the room was named Jerker.

On Meryl's first trip to Ikea we walked away with the three new pieces of furniture you see here, the tv stand, the bookshelves and the computer desk to the far right. Their names, by the way, are Lack, Expedit and Mikael respectively. I put the computer desk together myself but Elaine tackled the other two items pretty much on her own. Well, I had started the bookshelves by joining two incorrect pieces together, but she finished it in spite of my goof. Isn't she something!

We are definitely book and tchatchke people, so it was no problem finding things to fill the new shelves. It's a work in progress but we've gotten a good jump on things. If you look closely you should see the full PeeWee's Playhouse video series, a School House Rocks video, a shelf dedicated to travel guides, a trinket box with a gargoyle on top and a Smurf mug filled with pens and pencils.

There's no prize if you find them. I know some bloggers offer prizes for people who correctly answer trivia questions and other such nonsense. This isn't one of those blogs. Should you spot the hidden items in the photo, the reward you receive will simply be instrinsic. If on the other hand you're in the Atlanta area and you'd like to be able to say you own something once owned by Kevin of cocktailswithkevin.com, $50 and a pickup truck that can haul it away gets you the corner piece entertainment center or $25 gets you the Jerker with an additional shelf.

Where else can you get a Jerker for that incredibly low price?

You can't.