My resolutions for 2018 were mostly made up of Day Zero Project goals. Some of which don't sound very exciting but ticking things off my to-do list makes me happy, no matter how mundane they might seem.

My 2018 Resolutions

Most importantly I wanted to spend more time with my favourite people. I both failed and succeeded. Some people I saw a lot more of, others not nearly enough.

The Day Zero goals were as follows:

Put all posters / pictures / paintings I have into frames and get them on the walls!
Falling at the first hurdle, I don't think there was a single photo or print or painting hung. This will soon change when I start to put the finishing touches to our bedroom now that it's been redecorated.

Buy / make shelves for the kitchen, kitchen cupboard, bedroom, and bathroom
My Dad made a gap filling shelf unit for the kitchen but the other shelves are still on the list.

Read a book every month with that month in the title
Done. I started with The Two Faces of January by Patricia Highsmith and ended with December by Elizabeth H. Winthrop. I'm planning a review post soon.

Finish decorating the entrance hall
Done! It was the gloss work that needed to be finished and I just kept putting it off. I'm so relieved to have it done and off the to-do list. Now I need to finish it by finding and hanging a coat rack.

Decorate our bedroom in a gorgeous deep bluey green
I had the paint ready and waiting. Then changed my mind and spent ages choosing a different shade of green. But when I told Andy I was painting the bedroom green his face expressed the fact that he wasn't keen on the idea, so we agreed on a different colour and the redecoration was finally completed in November.

Decorate the downstairs toilet
Done. I didn't stray far from what we already had, I just refreshed the walls using a similar colour (creamy beige), stained the mirror frame as it had faded, and added a pot plant. I have a print that I want to hang but I want to get it professionally framed.


Buy a printers tray, hang it on a wall and fill it with mementos
Done. It's on the wall, and has a few more spaces filled but I don't see it being completely filled any time soon. I'm in no hurry, the idea is to fill it with memories over time. The latest addition is a small Christmas bear.

Spruce up the front door
Nope.

Kondo the kitchen
Nope.

Kondo the pantry
I made a start but failed to finish the job properly, and now I need to start all over again.

Kondo the cupboard under the stairs
I made a start early in the year but it still needs to be finished. The Marie Kondo method calls for the process to be started and finished in one day and I can see why, once started it's so easy to keep putting it off, for clutter to creep back in.


Sand and repaint the side entrance door
Done! After fitting a new door and painting it a delicious shade of green in 2017 I was gutted when the paint was scratched, so one day in the summer I sanded it down and repainted it. And yesterday I noticed another scratch...

See a psychic
Done.


Photograph the same landscape across 12 months and make it into a calendar
Done. I'll pop all the photos in a separate post. I don't know if I'll turn them into a calendar as I received two for Christmas and a third seems wasteful but it is lovely to have this record. I think I'll do it again this year with a different view.


Visit seven restaurants in seven days
Either for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, or even just for dessert. This is how I decided to celebrate my birthday. In reality I had two days of eating out and that was more than enough. I needed to pace myself. Maybe this year?


Read a book set in my hometown
Done. The book I chose was 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson. My friend used to live on this road, so I know it well. It was really enjoyable to be able to picture the house and garden, and the town being described in the book.

Host afternoon tea
Nope.

Eat battered pizza, followed by battered Mars bar. Just once.
Nope. I mentioned this to Andy and he agreed, we just didn't make it happen.

In addition to these Day Zero goals I added the following;


A ban on buying books (with the exception of those needed for my reading challenge).
Fail! In January I spent 59p on a book for May (Bertie, May and Mrs Fish: Country Memories of Wartime by Xandra Bingley). I didn't even read it as it turned out I'd already purchased One Day in May by Catherine Alliott for the challenge back in December '17, but I'd completely forgotten that I'd done so.

In April I found three books in a series I've been reading; 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith. They were the next three in the sequence so I justified the purchase by telling myself it might be a while before I come across these books again. It doesn't take much to convince me to buy books.

As we got to the middle of the year the ban went out of the window completely. In total I purchased 36 books in 2018. I read 40, of these only 5 of them were books I purchased during the year, the others were already on my shelves. Clearly I need to buy less or read more.

Make the most of my weekends
I wanted to avoid the feeling of a weekend wasted and vowed that I would have a plan for the weekend in place by each Friday evening. It worked pretty well, although sometimes my plans weren't very exciting, it gave my weekends a focus. I now have a set of Weekend posts to look back on.

With Andy working almost every weekend throughout the year, and being self employed myself, the days of the week seem to blend into one and the weekends had lost all meaning. Doing this helped me to create a little more structure to my week.

As predicted I didn't do everything on the list but that's fine, there are plenty of other things I did do instead. It gives me a good start for my 2019 resolutions, which I'm currently pondering.

What do you have planned for the year ahead? I'm still pondering my resolutions...