Awash in a sea of McDonalds toys, Lego and Barbie shoes.

A few facts about me:

I live in a pretty small house (2 bedroom, roughly 800 square feet)

My kids have way too much shit.

For this reason, today I faced the grand undertaking of A) cutting them loose of some of this shit B) cleaning behind, around and under the various dressers, shelves and other nooks and crannies that was home to all their shit and C) find a way to organize and store remaining shit, so that the children are able to keep the place in some semblance of order.

I need a drink.

Oh look, here's one right here.  Lucky me.

So I can safely say that the girls bedroom is now immaculate.  The rest of my house looks as though a herd of drunk elephants ran through it.  Blindfolded.  Carrying large shoulder bags while suffering from vertigo.

It ain't pretty, let's leave it at that.  But that's tomorrow's project, along with laundry and going through their clothes.  That's right, today was just toys, books and the like.  I haven't even touched their clothes.  I have a weeks worth of dirty laundry in the hamper, yet they still can't close their drawers.  That ain't good.

As it stands I have a nice little pile in the corner of stuff to get rid of, and roughly one bag of garbage.  Getting rid of the stuff may pose a problem though.  You see, I think I may have been black-listed by Freecycle for what I thought was a perfectly innocent post.

One of the ways I'm trying to free up some space in their room is to get rid of the giant metal single-over-double bunk beds they currently have, and get a set of twin bunks.  So I posted on our local freecycle group that I was looking for a set of twin bunk beds.  I included in my ad that I might be willing to trade for the set I have currently.

Well, an hour later I got a nice little verbal spanking from the moderators:

Greetings,
Freecycle...s' only purpose is to keep usable items from going to land fill sites.

One of the rules that you agreed to when you joined Freecycle was that "bartering" was not allowed. Everything must be free.

Because of your inappropriate posting your future postings will be moderated to insure [sic] that you abide by our rules.   

Here's my posting:

My girls currently have one of those metal framed Single-Over-Double bunk beds but it takes up way too much room. I'm looking for a set of twin bunk beds so we can open up some floor space in their room.I'd be willing to trade the bunk beds I current have. The bed and the mattresses are in good condition, the frame is red.

I dunno.  Maybe it was because I forgot to add the word "also" to the "willing to trade" part.  Either way, Bite Me Freecycle.  Oh, and an extra effyoo because that should be 'ensure' not 'insure'.  So, yeah, it looks as though my posts are going to be moderated to make sure I'm not offering sexual favours or drugs or something in exchange for bunk beds.  Or bunk beds for crack of sexual favours.

This is a giant pain when you have stuff to get rid of.  After my verbal spanking, I sent a short apology stating that I would be more careful.  Pretty congenial of me if I do say so myself.  So since then I've made roughly 8-10 posts both for things I am looking for (for all ye crafty endeavours) and stuff I'm offering (namely, my kids shit) and not a single thing has shown up in the group or the mailing list.

So thanks a lot, Freecycle.

this half-assed weekend post is brought to you by a simple dude