What was a difficult decision you had to make?

https://thecoffeemonsterzco.com/blogs/midnight-blogging/journaling-prompts

I’ve been struggling for years with the mental hurdle of “I’m not going to do it if I can’t do it perfectly the first time.”

Recently, I had to escape that mental trap while working on one of those DIY “book nook” dioramas that have become popular in the last few years. I had assembled one before and really enjoyed the experience even though I knew that one was far from perfect. That’s because that particular book nook was designed similar to those wooden “puzzles” that are basically just a kind of advanced LEGOs where you need to snap the pieces together. It also had most of the scenery pieces pre-painted, so to speak.

But none of that was true of the second one.

Here’s the deal with the second one. It was a delivery mistake, and I hadn’t actually ordered one of them for myself. I had ordered a handful of different DIY book nooks as Christmas gifts for my siblings, each one lovingly picked out to match something they enjoyed. One sister was magic, the other was photography. My older brother got one themed after a Sherlock Holmes-esque detective agency. My younger brother, with whom I share a lot of personal tastes in hobbies (more so than my other siblings) got one that was supposed to be cyberpunk themed.

Well, imagine my surprise and delight when I eventually received TWO of those cyberpunk themed ones! I’m guessing there was an error in the inventory system that caused the company to ship me two identical items. My original order, which had been split based on where inventory was available, was sent from two different warehouses.

Since I hadn’t ordered a book nook for myself (I ordered and assembled something else that actually WAS the snap together kind) I did the right thing first and contacted the company to let them know of the error. They were very kind about it, and, since it was around the holidays, they told me to keep it as an extra gift. Now, I will freely admit that this was the result I was hoping for, but I totally would have shipped it back had they requested it.

I had ordered all these items closer to Thanksgiving, so we’re going to fast forward to about a week and a half ago when I discovered some problems. Those problems being what I’ve been hinting at so far.

So, I’m sitting down in my newly cleaned and reorganized hobby space, and I crack open the box for the kit. I pulled out several bags of different sizes, all filled with various kinds and sizes of wood pieces and random stuff, the instructions, and these huge sheets of paper that had all kinds of decals on them. My heart sank a little at the last parts because I started having flashbacks to cutting out things for the first book nook. Mild regret setting in, I decided to look through the instructions and make sure I had everything that they said I would need.

Imagine my dismay when the instructions (which had a section at the very beginning that details out EACH piece that should come in the kit) say I should have some glue in one of the plastic zip bags AND THERE’S NO GLUE TO BE FOUND.

That’s okay, I’ve been collecting hobby tools and adhesives for other projects, I should be fine.

After that initial investigation, I put everything away and decided to start over the weekend.

I should have looked closer at the instructions, because I completely glossed over the fact that I didn’t see the little nibs and holes on pieces that indicate they just snap together.

So, come the weekend, I get started and that’s when I realized what the glue referenced in the instructions was ACTUALLY for. Glueing together hundreds of little tiny wood pieces AND the paper decals that covered most of them. (Okay, maybe not hundreds, but there was definitely more than one hundred.)

Regardless, I had already resolved to work on it, so I dove in.

I cannot tell you how many times throughout this project that I had to stop and remind myself that it’s not going to be perfect and THAT IS OKAY. I also had to stop myself from giving up and just throwing it all away a couple times, but that’s partly because one of my roommates cats snuck into my hobby space while I was at work and made a snack out of some of the tiny electrical components that came with the kit.

Ultimately, I powered through the irrational feelings and finished the book nook, and even though it isn’t perfect I’m actually happy with the result. Making it through those kinds of difficulties also gave me a chance to learn something new about the experiences people go through when they custom build cool art things like these from scratch. If I ever get another one of these DIY kits, or something similar, I’ll have a better appreciation and understanding for them.