I’m so frustrated with myself. No clue when was the last time I’ve seen this thing (wallet of crochet hooks). Yesterday I searched every project bag, every bag of my yarn stash, every drawer, nook and cranny where I might have put it absent-mindedly. I just went through them all again today. I have memories of seeing it on the breakfast table, on my desk (where the cat tried to annihilate the decorative tassle on its zipper), and in a project bag. I’ve moved it somewhere. I want to start a new project but need a hook of unusual size that is in the wallet. I haven’t been motivated to crochet in a while, and I caught a spark over the weekend by finishing up another project. Blegh. Fuck.
Thank you for reading my rant while I wallow in self-loathing.
P.S. This thing is neon fucking pink and bigger than a paperback book. I must have a forgotten project bag smushed into a closet or left out in the camper. I thought I accounted for all my half-started projects though.
Doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a try:
If you had the thing in your hand right now, and you had to put it away where would you put it?
Think of a few options and check those.
If you eventually find it and it wasn’t in the first place you though of, put it there when you put it away next.
The fastest way to find a lost item is to buy a replacement. As soon as you get the replacement home, the old one will reveal itself.
Recently confirmed this technique also works for items borrowed by others but not returned.We’ll see. The number one thing on my kids Christmas List is Super Mario Galaxy because we had 3D All Stars and it was his favorite game but it’s been lost for a long time. Wherever it is, I suspect the cases for my Odyssey and BotW carts are with it…those cases went missing (but not the carts) around the same time.
So of course we had to buy another copy of 3D All Stars, now at an elevated price.
I’m sure I lost it, too. Probably during a home improvement project. I’m certain it’s somewhere in the house in some bucket I stored whatever tools I was using that particular day. Like, I can practically see the cases in my mind. But I can’t find that damn bucket anywhere.
Oooh I hate this. Spend hours looking for something, knowing you have it, but then having to buy another only to find the thing a week later.
That’s right up there with cleaning up or organizing, finding a thing you didn’t need at the time that you knew was useful, and then needing it 6 months later and not remembering exactly where it was you last saw it - but you know you’d seen it.
I once lost my car keys for like 2 weeks and had to use the replacement keys, dumb stick without a remote. The keys were inside a hiking backpack I stowed away in the basement. No idea when or why I put them there.
My steps are usually this:
-
Blame everyone else, someone MUST have stolen or maliciously misplaced your items.
-
Tear whole apartment apart (hence the name). Of course you cannot find it.
-
Grieve and move on. The thing you yearn for is irrecoverably lost.
1.Blame everyone else, someone MUST have stolen or maliciously misplaced your items.
2.Tear whole apartment apart (hence the name). Of course you cannot find it.
Oh my god, I am so ashamed when I do this. Like, I know they only do it 5-10% of the time, but I ‘ask’ them if they’ve moved it nearly every time.
-
I got a new cell phone right before a vacation a few months ago. I ‘hid’ the old cell phone so it wouldn’t get moved or wander off while I was out of town because I still needed to transfer everything.
I’m sure I’ll find it someday.
How long does your frustration and self-loathing last before you get distracted?
I’ve already replaced it with the zen and mindfulness I that produce from crocheting with new gear.
Going off the memory of the cat wanted to destroy it. When I want to hide stuff from cats it goes up high, or it goes in cabniet, or in something they won’t like or want. Could you have put it in a plain paper or plastic bag so the cats wouldn’t have been drawn too it? Or the closet high up spot or cabniet to where the cats were attacking the wallet? Good luck finding it!
Like my keys and wallet.
I can be reasonably certain I didn’t leave them somewhere smart.
This advice always gets downvoted, but it works for me. I’ll offer it for what it is.
When I lose something I’ll take a moment and politely ask the thieving house elves to give it back. Then I stop thinking or stressing about it. I usually find it within a day.
My strategy is to pretend I have it and start looking for where I can put it with gradually increasing stress. I try to hold something of similar size and imagine I am running late. Usually works, and if not now I am also stressed, so bonus.
I will leave out some of my Trader Joes dark chocolate peanut butter cups as an offering. I hope this pleases the Fae.
Pizza, they like pizza.
Where did you look first? “Don’t put it down, put it away”
Think where you would logically look for the thing in your hand and put it there works really well.
Anyway all that advice is useless now since you put it somewhere really safe, you have two options, buy new object, old one will magically appear once money is spent or in the drawer you open to put away the new object.
Option two is invent time machine.
Good luck!
What I do when I do this is go to the store to buy a replacement. When I get home I will then usually find the original item within a day, my record is in a few minutes.
The timer has started. Just got back from the craft store. 🙃
Instead of trying to remember where you put it, imagine if you had it in your hand and you wanted to put it away where you would put it. Imagine you’ve never own one of these before (this is important so you don’t pollute your thought process with all your previous search efforts).
You brought it home from the store, you used it and it rattled around for awhile until you decide to put it somewhere for future use. Where is that place? Would that place have existed when you put your actually owned needles away before? If not, where would the place that existed have been?
I’d try looking on the floor, underneath and behind furniture, and between/behind seat cushions etc.
If you’re like me and hate crawling around on the floor and can’t always see behind the furniture, you can use your cellphone camera to look for you. If it ends up in a place that’s hard to reach, like between the desk and the wall, you can try securing a magnet to a piece of string and “fishing” for it.
Ooh. Behind the desk. This has potential. I always forget to look there. Desk butts up to a window, and cats use this windowsill to come and go from the off-limits desktop, and totally knock stuff off all the time. But one of my furry sweethearts has parked herself on my lap, so looking will have to wait until I am dismissed.
What were you thinking about or feeling at that exact time, can you trace back to it?
Bonus if you were listening to music or what was the ambient noise that was happening at the time?
Lol i was probably thinking that I didn’t want to put down my project in order to go to some board meeting/networking event/family function. “I’ll be riiiiiight back.” 😄
Ooh, that’s peak weird spot time. I’d look, like, behind the couch, in case I set it on the back. Or if you have any weird little surfaces, check their vicinities. There’s a chance you put multiple things there, and when searching for one, mixed the other in somewhere close at hand. At least, if you’re like me lol
Indeed, there are multiple project bags loitering on the back of the couch! 😂
Try to grab onto any hook like a current thought at the time or smell or sound that can help guardrail you back into the knowledge of what you factually did and where you put shit
I have a bunch of screws laying around somewhere, that I intentionally put in a “safe place,” that I need to reassemble my weed whacker. It’s been like 4 years.
The good news is that you’ll probably find your crochet hooks long before then. Probably.
😒
My problem with keeping screws in a safe place is that, by the time I see them again, I’ve forgotten what they go to
Instead of setting them aside, I put them in a plastic baggie, write on it what they are for, and tape/magnet it to a wall or toolbox, somewhere prominent.
Works a charm for me.
A few weeks ago I hid my backup drive behind a picture frame. “This is a great hiding place”, I thought. Took me a week to find it.
If you really want to hide it, in a place your really won’t lose it, put it inside another computer, and leave it disconnected
I find that intentionally trying to hide things just makes this occurence 10x as likely.
Just password protect it and leave it where it’s convenient. I would hope that you aren’t in a situation where getting robbed is likely.