Monday, January 29, 2018

February Celebration and Project

A decent haul for the Yedidya Bazaar next week.
As announced at the beginning of the year, I am choosing a celebration and a project for each month. January was celebrating Turning over a new leaf. The project was to organize all my papers, teaching materials, paperwork of every kind, and be up to date with all work assignments, grading and preparing courses. I've necessarily had to extend January's project into February as my students are sitting their mid-semester exam on Feb 6th and I'll have 40 papers to mark before the following weekend. And there are one or two other jobs that need finishing off, as I mentioned yesterday.

I also said that February had to start early. The celebration for February is Spring. The almond trees are beginning to blossom, the weather seems to be getting a bit warmer (though I've not given up hope completely for a late snowfall next Sunday - it's happened before), and the days are getting longer at the evening end.

On Wednesday it's Tu B'shvat (the 15th of the lunar month of Shvat). This is a minor festival celebrating he new year for trees. We eat lots of different fruits, we plant trees, we sing songs about the almond blossoms, and we look forward to the annual pilgrimages to see the hillsides covered in anemones (that's poppies to you and me).

And the  project is Spring Cleaning. It's a sort of extension of getting the paperwork in order but it's also one final declutter towards minimalism, actual cleaning with soap and water, and possibly some new furniture, but only if I get rid of some old furniture first.

I was going to have a more nature orientated project in keeping with the Tu B'Shvat theme and keep the spring cleaning for March when it's warmer. However, they brought the Yedidya Bazaar forward by a month this year so I've got to get all my clutter over to them this week. And DD's school market is on Friday, so she is taking a load of old toys that I had to get down yesterday to sort through.

I am pleased to see that my Yedidya Bazaar haul is nowhere near as big as last year. A sure sign that all this decluttering is having some long term effect. However, what's in the photo is only what I put away in October when I did my 500 Clutters Challenge. I fully intend to get all this stuff over to Yedidya and then spend the weekend going round looking for more clutter as the final drop off is on Saturday night. For the record, I only managed 250 clutters for the challenge but that's because I refused to tackle my wardrobe which still has outfits in it from 30 years ago.

I'm sorry not to be helping at the Yedidya Bazaar this year as for the second year, I'm teaching on Sunday. Give me a few more years and I'll be able to leave DD at home while I go and help in the mighty marathon sorting that takes place all night on Saturday. Or maybe DD will come and help too.


2 comments:

  1. Boy - you are certainly going to have a busy week! Good luck with it all - you should certainly see a big difference in your apt. after donating so much.
    Wish I could say it was Spring like here. We had another snowfall last night and it feels like -20C out there right now. It's beautiful and sunny but bitterly cold! I don't have to go out until this evening when I go to my volunteer session so just working on some paperwork until then. I have to stay in today as yet more telephone Techs are due - or rather were due between 8am and 10am this morning. It's now 11am and no sign of them. They are probably related to the two who showed up yesterday, wandered around, and then disappeared without even telling me they were leaving. BELL Canada managed to knock out a bunch of people all over the province last Monday so I haven't had a landline for 9 days now! I'm now in the middle of a Twitter war with them!
    I was at a concert on Sunday and a lot of Jewish music was featured. This venue has "Gospel Hour" on the last Sunday of the month but gospel is a stretch - it's features more World Music or old hippy stuff but the organizer finds some wonderful musicians and singers. The 3 that were featured this week explained that it was a special weekend to do with Spring & with music and a couple of them had written new songs for their congregations. They always finish with something really rousing that gets everyone on their feet and this week it was Woody Guthrie's "Ezekiel's Wheel" - all the nice Jewish ladies who had come to support the singers were the first ones on their feet and a fun day was had by everyone.
    We used to have the Yedidya Bazaar (although it was spelled a bit differently) here in Toronto every Spring and it was hugely popular. They stopped doing it a few years ago but I'm not sure why.
    Hope you get everything on your list accomplished - I am using you as an incentive (although I've already done the whole clothes closet purge) so I'm a wee bit ahead of the game. Have a great week!

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    1. Sounds like you had a busy week too. Our weather is now firmly in the teens (13 - 17 degrees this week and warmer over the weekend. I thought there was a storm coming for the weekend but not so. I don't think we'll be getting any snow this year after all. :(

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