Bookcase update

So the bookcase is together. It still needs more nails in it and some support brackets to make it stronger so it'll hold my records without collapsing. Plus, it also needs a backing, which will make it less wobbly. Actually, I'm surprised, but it's not that wobbly. I guess it's the overkill on the nails, because I'm paranoid about it falling apart on me.

So in the final judgement, I'm incredibly psyched with myself. It looks like a bookcase. It stands like a bookcase. It's not immediately falling apart. Yes, the shelves are pretty uneven, but it still works just fine at its intended purpose. I put some records in it last night as I left to test drive it, and it looked great, wacky shelves notwithstanding. I felt very proud.

The main thing is, I did it, and I learned a whole lot in the process - both about how to build something, and about how to conquer the fear of screwing up. I'm already thinking about my next project - a CD holder (yeah, I probably should have started small and worked my way up to the bookcase, but my typical m.o. is to start with the more difficult challenge). I need to keep doing new projects because it's the way I will become comfortable and more experienced at doing this; also, it will keep me present in the lesson I learned that the best way to feel powerful is to jump in and try things that challenge you. It's already making me feel up to tackling other challenges. For instance, I'm thinking that sometime by the end of this summer, I want to try and teach myself the rudiments of sewing. My mom had two old sewing machine - one a really nice 70s Singer machine that's really sturdy and less complicated than the newfangled computerized ones. I think it would be a great thing to practice and learn on. I would like to at least be able to sew a hem properly so I don't have to take my pants to the tailor for that.

the ought to be working meme....

well, for me it is, anyway. I noticed this in grinninfoole's journal and I thought it was a good idea for a meme:

Who Are You Stalking?
Here are the journals of interesting people I'm reading who are not my actual friends:

twilight: A young woman in D.C. who is serving with the diplomatic corps under the Secretary of State and gets to travel the world as a result. Interesting and yet in many ways mundane glimpse at life around the men and women of the State Department and the Diplomatic Corps. Don't expect any state secrets to be revealed, but it's oddly fascinating to see the letter Colin Powell wrote to his staff when he resigned, or to find out that Condi Rice is on the Atkins diet. Plus, she often posts great pics of all the exotic locales she visits.

ginmar: A really interesting soldier who just finished a tour serving in Iraq and is now writing about her life back home and lots of reflections on current events. If you go back to her old journal posts, it gives a great sense of what it must be like for the average footsoldier over there, i.e. the vast majority of soldiers who aren't there to engage in combat, but to keep the supply and reconstruction project going. A no-nonsense-brooking, strongly opiniated person, she is also often very funny and she breaks lots of easily-made misconceptions about who joins up and serves: She's an ardent and wonderfully confident feminist, somewhere between liberal and libertarian, an obsessive watcher of shows like "Buffy" "Angel" and the like, a cat owner, a fanfic writer and a voracious reader of political and sociological texts.

jacksonpublick: Livejournal of one of the two creators of "The Venture Brothers," an animated show on The Cartoon Network. If you're a fan, it has great inside info on each of the episodes, the creation process, plus very funny stuff on how the censors at CN think. Jacksonpublick is also quite self-effacing about his success and hardly ever mentions that he was also a writer for the short-lived but brilliant "The Tick" animated and live action serieses (sic).


There you have it. Want to participate in this meme? Post who your stalking with a link to my journal. Have fun....