Losing it

Have you ever lost an object and searched for hours, only to find it in the most obvious place, right under your nose? 'Hidden in plain sight', I call it, and the fact that I have a catchphrase for it, just shows how often it happens. Well, as you may know, I lost my mojo a while ago and just couldn't get it back. Soul-searching, bargain-hunting, pleasure-seeking - whatever I tried, I was looking in the wrong place. What I should have done is to look hard under the clutter in front of me.

I was feeling overwhelmed with stuff. You see, the problem with buying all these great bits and pieces from car boot sales and the like is that you have to find somewhere to put it all. In my mojo-less depression of the last few months I kept buying stuff, but had completely stopped making anything with it, or selling it. In a small house like ours, the build-up is fast. A box of vintage china has to stay in the hall, a box of old dolls lives in the bedroom, a bag of fabric on the landing, a dolls' house shelf - well, just in the way, frankly. I have plans for all these things, but it just wasn't happening.

My workroom was the most cluttered. I had rearranged it in April, but never really finished it. I hadn't found a place for everything and had just piled clutter on top of clutter. There was a small gap that I could just squeeze through to sit in my chair. I could reach my computer keyboard and mouse, but every inch of my two (!) desks was covered with stuff. Papers, books, bits and bobs, unfinished or unstarted projects of all kinds - somewhere at the bottom there was a fossilised packet of Polos and the footprint of a woolly mammoth. I had let it overwhelm me. I couldn't even start to put things away, as there was nowhere to put it.

Mr Kitsch came to my rescue. I had told him rather feebly that I needed more storage in my workroom, but I couldn't work out how I was going to do it. Normally Mr K. leaves the planning and rearranging of rooms to me. He'll provide the muscle when needed, but I'm the instigator and he joins in reluctantly. But I was feeling depressed and hopeless and didn't know where to start. Mr Kitsch took over. "We just have to accept it's a big project," he said, "like Megastructures." That was the key. He loves those 'Megastructures' TV programmes, about building giant dams, tunnels or bridges. As soon as he thought about it as a Megastructures project, he was away.

It was a big project. We had to take everything out of the room, so that we could move out two heavy chests of drawers and replace them with larger storage shelves. It was like unpacking the Tardis, with a couple of Mary Poppins' bags thrown in for good measure, as more and more stuff came out of the room and filled up the rest of the house. It took three days and two trips to Ikea to get the bulk of it back in place. I still haven't managed to get absolutely everything sorted, but I now have a work room I can work in.

Better than that, I have a workroom that is calmer and less overwhelming. It's helping to clear some of the clutter from my mind, and I feel ready to complete some of those unfinished projects. I think I may have found my mojo...