Lenten goals

I don't fast (I should).  I don't give up some nasty vice (I should).  Instead, I felt challenged by a song I sang twice on Ash Wednesday.

I'm taking it literally instead of the way it was probably intended, but maybe that's the way God is speaking to me.

One line in the song mentioned "clearing the chaos and confusion".  In my mind, presumably, to make way for the peace of God.  

I'm not necessarily going to blog about all of this, but every day in Lent I am going to try to organize something in the house.  My massage therapist asked innocently, "What happens when you run out of things to organize?"  Yeah.  She doesn't really know me.

I actually started on the project last week.

I need to update my basement progress posts, but let's just say that the two older girls are happily in their bedrooms now.  I can reclaim my sewing room/office.

I didn't way to just move everything back in the way it was.  This is a change to make changes.

I started with a good steamcleaning of the carpet. And then I moved on to the furniture.

For years this door was the top of my sewing table.

Perched on top of a filing cabinet and with two table legs at the other end, it provided a smooth, big surface for my sewing machines.  I loved it.  

Yvon has taken on a role at the church that has added two boxes of files to our lives, so I thought I would use another filing cabinet as the other leg this time.  It's a different size, but the same height.  Could work.

But every piece of furniture was a different color.  That wasn't going to work for me. 

Before the whole basement project started, I purchased a small spray painting tool.  I love the work that it does, but it takes space to do.  I did a few pieces in the summer on the lawn.  Grass grows and the painted tops get cut off in time.  I love not having to protect stuff.  But this is the wrong season for that.    This is the part of the basement that is not yet finished and doesn't mind getting a coating of spray paint.  It's nice to have this open, destructible area.   (That centre item is an actual sewing table, and the topic of a separate post. Ignore it for now).

Painting complete.  This is what I ended up with.  On the first day of Lent we moved the furniture into it's space and I refiled and threw out old paperwork. 

 I know it's weird that the larger cabinet sticks out like that, but I wanted to use what we had.  We've spent far too much money on furnishing this year and this was never going to be a perfect solution.  The paint does help to unify the pieces though.   

Then I added this IKEA shelf horizontally.  Hmmm, now it's not unified anymore.  I don't want to paint it though because it's in perfect condition and the type of furniture that can be moved around to other uses.  I left it as is.

Once I fill in the cubbies with all white SKUBBs (that means another trip to IKEA), a white strip of wood to cover the door hinge areas and a quick swipe of white paint for the end of the door (I missed it with the sprayer), and I think it will do.

Lent Day 1:  No more filing cabinet in Alice's bedroom, no more filing boxes in the living room, no more printer on the floor, and a whole bag of paper to recycle.  The chaos has retreated one step.

Notice that my sewing table has no sewing machines?  Although the paint is a week old, I'd like it to cure longer before I start scratching it up with the machines.  They remain in Alice's closet for now.  That is an area on the Lenten list too.