Happy New Desk

I just had to take a picture of my desk overhaul before it returns to its usual bomb site status (which I predict will occur around 2:03pm on Tuesday.)

See those baskets, and the top of that three-drawer thingy? For the last 18ish months they've housed stacks of paper so tall they hung out over the shelves entirely. Not to mention all the bits and bobs that are always taking over the desk itself. You know how brains work - why have one idea when you can have three? and then you have to put the notes for the other two somewhere, which is usually in a pile of mail and magazines and brochures.

It took about five hours to do this job yesterday, my gift to myself for a new year with my thoughts collected. I found notes for 17 knitting patterns in various stages of near-completion, all but one or two of which were begun in 2010. And amazingly, there were some short stories and essays in the mix as well, almost as though I did any writing last year, which suggests I must have done without noticing.

I did something else last year too - took an outing to a pottery painting shop with some friends. Just last week in fact, and after I did the desk cleanup I picked it up from the shop that fired it so it could go straight to work as my new creativity mascot:

I copied the colours and flower design from a vintage apron that had belonged to my mum's mum, and while I wish I'd trusted the firing process and left a lot more white (I thought I'd end up with unglazed patches, which turned out not to be the case) I'm pretty happy with the result.

And so is my sheep-shaped tape measure.

Hope your new year is making as happy a start, and more importantly, goes on to be great!