EMBROIDERY HOOP

The disappearance of my embroidery hoop taught me a valuable lesson today. 

I've been wanting this embroidery hoop for a little while now, knowing full well that it was lurking in the house somewhere. Trouble was, I had no idea where.

Now, I am the kind of person who hates not knowing where things are. I get very frustrated when I can't find the thing I need. Sometimes I even get full on angry and start turning boxes upside down, making a huge mess, which makes me even madder. It's a vicious circle. 

I tried to look for it the other day, but did a bad job of it because I was mad. 

So this morning, I decided to try something new. 

I took a deep breath and decided to look for it again, resolving to keep very, very calm and think logically. 

"If I was an embroidery hoop, where would I be?"

I looked first in the fabric box where I figured it would be chilling with friends such as the embroidery threads, fabric, and sewing accessories. It seems the hoop must have done something to upset such friends because it was not in there. Usually at the point frustration levels would be escalating to maybe a 6 out of 10. 

Next I looked in the big "stuff" box. As an embroidery hoop is "stuff" it didn't seem unlikely that it would be in there with other "stuff" like spare christmas cards, a can of spray primer, a scooby doo colouring set, and a box of screwdrivers. Alas, on this occasion the hoop had not ventured to hang out with other "stuff". 

Usually at this point frustration would be 9 out of 10, and rage would be creeping in at maybe a 4 out of 10. 

But not this time. I kept my cool. 

"what next then?" I thought to myself. "craft. cross stitch is a type of craft, right?". So I decided I would look in the craft drawers. Usually the craft drawers are reserved for things one might use to make cards, but sometimes other things sneak in there too. 

I started with the top drawer. Nothing but various colours and sizes of paper. 

Next drawer. Looks like ribbons. So many ribbons. 

I was about to move on but my new RATIONAL thought process dictated that maybe there might be something under the ribbons. 

So I delved deeper. 

My heartbeat quickened, but this time with excitement instead of rage. The edge of a smooth wooden hoop was peeping out from under the ribbons, 

AN ARC OF HOPE.

It was true. It was real. There it was, the embroidery hoop I had been searching for!

So today I learnt that when you are looking for something that feels like it is lost forever, like happiness, or hope, or an embroidery hoop, all you need to do is take a deep breath and keep calm while you search in the depths of the universe. Or some boxes. Whatever. 

(also learnt that I can stretch out a rather uneventful and boring search for a pretty insignificant object into a relatively long blog post. Go me,)