As is true of many of my projects, clearing the table in my office took me longer than expected, but today, I finally achieved my goal.

Here is how the table appeared this evening:

and here is how it appeared just nine days ago:

Clearing the table has been quite a process because I wanted to actually deal with the things on it rather than just put them somewhere else to be dealt with “later.”

To that end, I must have gone up and down the stairs at least a hundred times and reached out to both friends and strangers to find homes for things that are “useful,” and today, I finally finished. Which left me to wonder: what should I work on next?

While I trying to figure out what to do next, I mulled over this Facebook status update from a high school friend:

I have always believed that in life if you cannot be a shining inspiration then you should at least be a dire warning. Today, dear friends, I am that warning. We have all been there- in desperate need of a haircut now! And maybe when we were young and foolish we had a friend do it and cried for months. But one would certainly think that at the age of 55 I would know better than to -Wait for it- CUT IT MYSELF!!!! For those of you who ‘always cut my own hair- well …shut the f*** up. ‘But there are all of these youtube videos and it’s so easy and really foolproof!!’ Well, that has worked for me in the past BUT I thought I’d try a new ‘technique.’ All I can say is that I look like one of the less well groomed cast members of Orange is the New Black.

The friend in question had shared a photo she had found on the internet of a gentleman who had a haircut that she believed closely approximated hers, and that photo reminded me of the worst haircut I had ever had in my life.

At the time of my own bad haircut, I had been so distraught I was unable to think clearly; many tears were shed as I watched and waited for my hair to grow. In retrospect, I wish I had worked through the tears and crocheted myself an awesome wardrobe of hats and hairbands to help me through those dark times, so today, in honor of every bad haircut anyone has ever had to endure (whether self-inflicted or paid for), I worked on the lavender earwarmer/headband that I had unearthed while I was clearing the table in my office.

The earwamer/headband was of my own design and the first one I made was in my beloved Red Heart Super Saver grape fizz and was meant to coordinate with a pair of fingerless gloves I had already made:

This time around my goal was to write a pattern for said earwarmer/headband, and while I don’t know where the notes I made at the time are, by examining the partially completed project:

I was able to take notes to be used in writing the soon-to-be finished pattern, and I even made some progress on the project itself:

Not all DIY projects end in disaster, but even when they do, sometimes the effects can be ameliorated with yet another DIY.