40 days

I need your help. I have to make it to the end of term without totally losing sight of who I am and why I'm doing this. Previously, to get myself through things I have focused on finding something beautiful (and free) to fix my attention on. I have lots of that now, lots to be happy about, and lots to celebrate... but I still have to get to the end of term- sane! So, I thought about having a countdown and therefore I had to count up to start off with; I only counted days in school and hey presto the Magic Number is .............40.

40 days and 40 nights - a testing time, how appropriate a number. Lent is 40 days, didn't Noah live through 40 days of rain on the ark: his wife HAD to have been a knitter, maybe she was a spinner too with all that readily available animal fibre. I can hear their conversations, "40 days of rain dear? Yes love, that'll be fine... building a boat... because God said so... Ok love -k2tog, yo, rpt- that'll keep you occupied for a while won't it - decrease at the same time at the beg of the row - O hang it - yes, off you go love... all the animals in pairs God says, alpaca, sheep, goats, silkworms... lovely!"

I do not have a marriage to support, nor an ark to be stiffled in. I just have to go 40 days until the end of term. What shall it be? I won't be able to do a Kilimanjairo type conquest; according to my local radio station, the largest free standing mountain in the world - free-standing? I understand the meaning but is that the technical term? Sounds kind of funny to me. What are all the others doing: keeling over? Freefalling?

Day 1 is tomorrow. Things this challenge will also Not Be:

• 40 cookery delights
• 40 novel ways to make housework fun
• 40 dazzling witty engaging reviews (I've used all my best words for reports)
• 40 completed projects
• 40 'stylish' and 'affordable' make-overs
• 40 days with Bruce Parry (I wish!!)
  

Actually, excuse the interruption but it has just occurred to me that blogs make a very welcome alternative to talking to the wall, the plants, the goldfish... I continue, things this challenge will Not Be:

• 40 days to self-improvement
• 40 things you must do before... (else it could so very easily slip into being 40 ways to talk myself out of a job that pays the bills and into that vague atticy impoverished existence called Finding One's Real Calling)
  

So, my dear reader(s) do you have any special requests? I need it to be something positive, encouraging, distracting and bloggable!