Snow this week. Winter is officially arrived. I am slowly working through my project. It seems like such an easy concept, a simple cupboard with a door, shelves and a drawer, (maybe 2). I am a little discouraged because it really is the simplest one in the class and I feel like a dolt. I am trying to learn as much as I can from it, and I have so much to learn, but I worry that others seem to be learning more because their projects are more complicated, ...even though I am maxed out.
Here it is after I finished the joinery. The shelves each have 3 sadistic little vertical through-tenons called Alan Peters on each side holding them in the case. I could probably drop this tiny box off the Empire State Building and it wouldn't break apart. What I learned on this phase? Overkill. Everything I try has an
enormous learning curve. Tim demo-ed a sliding dovetail on the router and router-table so, never having made one before and not having any experience with the machines I decided to put a sliding dovetail in where i have a divider in the bottom of my case where my drawers will be. It took Tim 10 minutes to show us how to do it but it took me ALL day and then...I did something wrong.
Ellie and I signed up to take a ornament-making class this week-end where we are learning about the lathe. Pretty exciting, except I couldn't quite get it right. By the end of this 1st day I was really wondering what is the matter with me. The teacher was talking about a book he is reading called The Talent Code, and that we learn a lot more when we make mistakes. I came home and hugged my dog, did some laundry, went to the grocery store and made some chocolate petit-fours:
Yeah, I guess I just needed to know that I can do something sorta okay. But just now, I looked up the book and sure enough, it is about how much more we remember and learn when something doesn't go perfectly, and also, that if we keep practicing and go very slowly and actually make errors but keep at it, there is a possibility of getting really really good.I am taking that idea to sleep with me tonight ...along with Betty.
Georgia! You crack me up. You are doing just fine and are right on pace with the baby coffin. It is just school, not a job, afterall. Now the petit fours, on the other hand look questionable and I think I need to do some quality assurance up close and personal on them...!
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