Achieve anything in a month.

I didn't make it up. I think it was an author who wrote that her mother used to say that you can achieve anything in a month. I'd like to think it's true so I decided to test it during April. Obviously it says 'anything', not 'everything' so I had to choose my anything. 

I would've liked to have chosen 'learn to play the piano (again)', or, 'improve my Hebrew', or even, 'write the first draft of a novel'. But I know myself and I wouldn't be able to concentrate on a big project outside of work whilst there are loose ends in my life. By this I mean smaller projects that I've been ignoring. They sit on my shoulders, gently taunting and generally hindering my concentration. So during April I'm going to tie up all the loose ends.

April 1st - That side table.

I picked up this table from next to the dumpster on the corner. I've never taken anything from the dumpster before but I've been watching You Tube videos about people who restore furniture from thrift stores and I fancied a go. I brought the table upstairs and there it sat for months with its horrible blue legs and formica top. On Thursday I finally did something with it. 

I had an old tin of primer in the cupboard under the sink. I think it was from when the decorator painted my front door which is laminated steel. I know you need primer to paint over formica so I was half set.

For paint I raided my daughter's craft box and found some white, in liquid form that looked like it would do the job. It didn't look quite enough so I mixed it with the black to make grey. But that didn't look enough either so I mixed in the red to make an aubergine colour. Not what I would have chosen in a paint shop, but better than the horrible blue and formica. 

I primed and then I painted. I should've used a gloss paint, or finished off with a laquer and maybe some beeswax.... I'm making this up from what I've seen on the telly. Bottom line, I didn't spend anything on this project and thus, the top, whilst no longer looking like formica, did look a little dull. And then I found two place mats from Kakadu that fit perfectly on the top.

Voila, one loose end done and dusted. 

April 2nd - Those empty glass jars. 

A friend opened my food cupboard a few weeks ago and burst out laughing. She too had a whole shelf of empty glass jars saved from coffee, jam, pasta sauce, etc... And like me, she had no idea why she was saving them or what she was going to do with them. 

I do use old coffee jars for storing dry goods like rice, barley, couscous, salt, sugar, and oatmeal. One small jar is always in the fridge with homemade salad dressing. In previous years I've decorated jars and filled them with sweets or nuts for Mishloach Manot on Purim. All this does not excuse about 30 glass jars and counting, sitting idle in the cupboard. 

Today I used up all the leftover vegetables in the fridge and some from the freezer to make an enormous batch of soup. I filled seven jars to go in the freezer. Then I made another batch of soup and filled six more jars. One jar didn't have a lid so that was chucked out, and one jar was used for the leftover paint from the table (thereby creating another loose end as I've nothing else to paint). 

That's 15 jars cleared from the cupboard. The rest are sweet little jars that I will have to find a use for because I can't bear to throw them out. 

Nine other loose ends for April.

Editing and backing up the Midlife Singlemum blog.

Editing my digital photos which were done in December but need updating.

Making another photo album for myself as the one I made in December was for DD. 

Decluttering paperwork which is loosely filed but needs tidying up. 

Taking loads of decluttered stuff to the second-hand shop. 

Decluttering and organising my computer files. 

Doing my tax returns for 2020 as I've finally collected all the relevant forms.

Decluttering my phone, especially the phone contacts. 

Decluttering and organising my emails.

It's a challenge, but it wouldn't be a test if it weren't a challenge.