Diet Coke Plus tastes like crap.

That is all.

More stuff has left via Freecycle. Even the bed frame tomorrow, as despite my “offer” going unnoticed last week, a “wanted” was posted today. I picked up some nice baskets from someone else; I gave one to Lisa and kept one that’s just lovely and will work as a hamper, off-season sock storage (yes, this is a problem that I have), or even an extra seat.

I got a shoe rack at Ikea. It looks and works perfectly fine. Better than the Pile O’Shoes method, anyway. The curtains in the guest room are up (and hemmed, even) and look just terrific. Just really, really great. I’m thrilled. The little finials on the rods really complete the package. I also ripped out the little soapdish and toothbrush holder in my bathroom and put up a glass shelf instead. That also looks like a million bucks if you don’t look too closely at the spackle behind it.

As soon as the people come and take away the desk, I’ll be able to make room in that room for the entertainment/storage cabinet from Lisa’s basement. Once that’s in, I’ll be able to get rid of the thrift-store nightstand that’s currently serving as a server rack and the square foot of floor that’s serving as reference book storage. Then I’ll reinflate the guest bed and put it up on its stand and make it up as a real bed.

Also I brought the Death Spikes downstairs and set it/them up under my actual desk where it/they should have been for years now.

Current hurdles to be got over include what to do with the random stuff (not pens, not files, not computer parts) that was in the desk and what to do with the dollhouse (it’s so frigging big). I also need to strip and recycle my old desktop computer and CRT monitor and finally hang the Harry Potter poster in my room (a project I gave up on a few months ago in profane frustration). Then I’ll be able to move on to a new project, which will probably involve cleaning out closets.

It’s all so exciting and so very satisfying. I’ve never gotten much satisfaction from cleaning (I belong to the school of “it’ll just get dirty again tomorrow”), but I am getting it from this.

I emptied my old computer desk (see below) and consolidated all my pens and pencils (except see below) into one box. It is an amazing box. I cleaned out everything in front of the bookcases in my living room and made room for my new Ikea drop-leaf dining table, which I finished putting together. I took everything that isn’t books out of the bookcases and put it in the trash, in the drawers in the new table, or in the storage closet outside. I put all my videotapes in the storage closet outside. I emptied the box of books that’d been in the corner for four years into the bookcases. I put the Series of Unfortunate Events display in the corner, after searching the house for the missing book 6 and finding it mysteriously in the display, behind book 13. I blamed two-time visitor and age-appropriate series fan Erin for this. I put together my new Ikea rolling filing cabinet/supplemental desk thingie and filled it. I moved the tiny end table I used to keep there to a different spot at the foot of the stairs, where it’s now a landing strip. I threw away most everything that was in that spot before. I consolidated all the for-sale Lego into one bin and put it in Max’s corner. I moved the dining chair that was there to the new dining table.

I threw away a ton of hair and skin products and consolidated what was left in the vanity into nifty new storage boxes. I used Clorox wipes and the brilliant, brilliant Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to make both my bathrooms look pretty much new. You wouldn’t believe what a Magic Eraser can do to a cheap chrome faucet. I put all the loose computer stuff on the record-and-photo cart (it’s a real thing, it just doesn’t have a name beyond its function) into a cool antique wooden box I forgot I had. I pulled all the [redacted] off the [redacted] for Lisa and Cindy’s Christmas present project and put them in a pretty flowerpot I forgot I had. I packed up the meat hook to mail to Jeff, after thinking and rethinking trying to get it onto an airplane next month.

I dusted. A lot. The Pledge duster with the spray in the handle works better than the dry Swiffer duster on wood and laminate. The dry Swiffer works better on cobwebs and on plastic (including electronics) and glass. Neither one works worth a damn on the floor around the washing machine, which was awful and required me on the floor with a sock over my hand. And a preemptive apology to the sock.

I partially assembled the crib. I realized I had thrown away both the hex wrenches that had come with my new Ikea furniture, and the correct size hex bit was missing from my toolbox. I asked David to borrow a hex wrench, and he couldn’t find any of his. I went to the hardware store and bought a new set (on the same trip, incidentally, I picked up a copper pitcher from a Freecycle person for Lisa). I finished assembling the crib. The next day, I found my hex bit, plus a second hex wrench I didn’t know I owned. Awesome.

I gave away many things on Freecycle. I cannot recommend Freecycle highly enough. My computer desk is leaving next week, destined for a high school student whose room is full of boxes because the desk he’d had since kindergarten finally fell apart this year. Already gone are my miniatures cabinet (for which I apologize to my parents, who schlepped it here with great care, but it went to someone who wanted it more), a bunch of colored pencils and chalk and such, all the VHS movies I’ve replaced with DVDs, a set of drawer pulls I bought without realizing they didn’t fit my dresser, a bag of K’nex toys I got at a garage sale and never played with, and a Brita water pitcher filter dating from the time I had, you know, a Brita water pitcher.

I installed one of the glass shelves I bought at Ikea, using the awesome-sauce cable shelf bracket kit I got as a gift a couple of years ago. The design award-winning cable shelf bracket kit. Whose design genius I understand completely as of today. If it wasn’t such a pain in the ass to do this sort of thing with my weak-ass electric screwdriver, I’d take it apart and reinstall it just to marvel at how smart it is. I put all my Eeyores on the shelf. They’re temporary tenants until I can convince myself the shelf is as strong as the bracket instructions say it is. [Seventy-five pounds on two screws, only one of which is in a stud? Really? I think I’ll use it for stuffed animals for a bit first.]

I took the special riser legs (“extra storage space”) off my queen bed frame and stored them and disassembled it. I also listed my queen bed frame on Freecycle, but no one wanted it. Bastards. No one wanted the few pieces of silverplate I didn’t want to keep, either.

I also have the following things listed on Freecycle right now: my collection of mouse pads, minus a few special favorites; those cool useless-to-me long skinny boxes I got at the ReStore years ago; and the wooden “e” and “w”-that-looks-like-an-“E” I used to display on my desk.

Tomorrow evening I’m going back to Ikea, partly because it’s an excuse to go see Lin and Max and partly because my Giant Brain forgot that you need two sets of finials—not one—to finish two curtain rods, and you need two sets of curtain-rod-mounting hardware—not the zero I bought—to put them up. I’m also returning the other glass shelf upon learning that the awesome-sauce cable kits (I have another one) are designed for slightly thicker shelves. They come with little spacers, but I used both sets to put up the first shelf, so the second shelf is going to need to be thicker.

Near-future projects include actually mailing that box to Jeff, finding more things to give away, lowering the prices on all my Lego in hopes of moving it faster, and reinstalling Office on my main computer because I am a masochist.

Last night we played Scrabble using only proper nouns.

It was shockingly difficult. Lisa won, having come out to an early and dramatic lead when she used GABE (as in Kotter) to make MIR (the space station) into MIRA (Sorvino) and FRY (from Futurama) into FRYE (Cameron), for something like a billion points. She also did well later in the game with GUZA (a writer on a soap opera or some damn thing), with the Z on a triple-letter score. QUARK also worked well for her. I think my best word was either GOOGLE or BORAX.