Well, Hello There April!

My friend for the next few months.

I love the first day of the month. It always feels like a fresh start, or clean slate. Any goals that I haven't yet reached, or better yet started, can be reignited and begun again with gusto. Today's restart began with a morning run. My second of the year. And by year I mean since last spring and not January 1st. My first run of the year was just last weekend so I feel I'm off to a good start. Baby steps, right?

The real restart however was bringing my urban bike (sort of a race bike but with flat bars instead of those curly-q bars) up from the basement along with our trainer. The trainer allows me to set up my bike indoors so that I can essentially ride "in place," and thus, start my training for the 100 kilometer bike race I signed up for: the Tjejvättern. I signs up for this craziness along with four of my girlfriends, one of whom planted the idea in our heads a couple of months ago.

Am I completely crazy? Or can I, in my right mind, call it adventurous? I'm hoping for the later and especially since the farthest I've ever ridden my bike at one time was around 60 kilometers. The good part about it, as a couple of friends have wisely pointed out, is having a fitness goal to inspire and motivate me. And participating in it with friends ensures instant training partners, and lots of fun, right?

I'll get back to you on my progress. And no, unfortunately, this is not an April Fool's prank. Somehow I completely missed being an April fool, and making someone else an April fool this year. It's sort of refreshing actually.

But I have to ask, were you an April fool?

A Clean Slate

I love to open my iPhone and see a big number 1 on my calendar app. It feels like a fresh start knowing we have a whole new month ahead. A clean slate, if you will. Time to start new projects and possibly some pre-spring cleaning? A friend of mine decided a while back to start getting rid of one item of clothing per day to clear out her closet and dresser clutter. While I think it's a great idea, I am too much of a pack rat to commit to actually parting with one item per day. I can do maybe a couple of things each month. That feels more acceptable to me. However, I plan to focus my clean slate energies on some home improvement-related projects for now. 

On this particular first day of the month, I am feeling inspired to take out my paint brush and overalls and brighten things up around here. We've been working on our guest bedroom for a while now: painting over wallpaper on an accent wall, putting a built-in desk in the window cubby, and hanging some art on the walls. The accent wall however still needs another coat of paint, as the first batch ran out before I could finish. At first it seemed that the wall would be okay sans an additional coat but when you are lying in the bed you can clearly see the blotchiness. It definitely needs another coat. We actually bought the paint a few months ago and it's been collecting dust in the closet since. So I may start there with adding another coat of paint to the wall I painted, um... embarrassing to say nearly a year ago. 

We've also been working on our bedroom recently. We bought a new bed and I can honestly say that it is definitely to blame for all of my late arrivals to work the past few weeks. I don't know if my boss would buy that however so I'm keeping that bit to myself. But anyway, aside from a new bed, we have actually painted over one wall in the bedroom already. Before we moved in it was the one thing I insisted on, as it was navy blue and I am not a blue person. I apologize in advance to all of you blue fans out there, but who paints a bedroom wall navy blue? Not me, that’s for sure. We painted a dark, charcoal gray over it, though the navy still comes through in my opinion. And since we are discussing my opinion just now, it is my opinion that we repaint the bedroom wall again. My husband actually agrees and we have looked at a lighter, [clean] slate gray shade. Maybe we'll have the painting done in time for the delivery of our headboard. One can hope anyway... 

And while we are on the subject of home improvements and clean slates, there is one other project that I'd like to tackle and that is to paint one of the walls in our living room. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it as it is but we’d like to add some touches of our own to spice things up a bit. When we moved in one of the walls was painted red. At the time we decided we could live with it so it stayed. Now, however, we'd like to paint it a warm shade of orange. We are on a bit of an orange kick... still. 

So that’s it for my clean slate projects. I hope you all have a very happy weekend!

PS. Speaking of clean slates, when I was a kid I asked my mom if she wrote on a slate with chalk when she was in school. Kids say the darnedest things, don't they? :-D

Top image courtesy of Kiahveeloy, on Instagram.