My hands are not pretty. I have given up long ago on manicures or even painting my fingernails. Fingernail polish winds up chipped and horrid looking in a matter of a day or two and then usually I can't find the time to redo it. My nails almost always are broken, chipped, and jagged. And, you can forget about those pretty artificial nails that so many women wear they wouldn't last a day and I would be crazy I wouldn't be able to work.
My hands are never idle hands they are busy working hands and that is when I am the happiest. I love working on typewriters, cleaning up antiques, making jewelry or mixed media, cooking, knitting, or even driving a tractor with a grain cart attached during harvest.
Then something new happened yesterday! I bought an antique rotary phone and got it home and surprise surprise it didn't work. So, straight to the internet I went using my fingers again to try and troubleshoot the phone and that led me to a crazy diagram which to be quite honest I didn't even know if it was the correct one for the model of phone that I had. So, I proceeded to open up the phone and saw that there were several different wires inside the phone and they were various different colors. So, with my trusty diagram along with a few screw drivers, a pencil, and a flashlight I went straight to work.
First, I studied the diagram and followed along all the different wires and through a process of elimination figured out that a few of the wires were attached to the improper places and one of them was detached altogether. So, I started switching them around making sure to note exactly where I was taking them from so that if it didn't work I could switch them back to their original places. Then after switching a few of the wires I plugged the phone in and gave it a try and through trial and error and a few trips back to the dining room table to my diagram and tools I made one last trip to the phone jack and it worked!!! And, the awesome thing is it works better than all the newer phones we have in the entire house cell phones included.
All I can say is you just have to be willing to try new things and don't be afraid that you are going to mess something up. Seriously what do you have to loose? A broken phone, a girl with some gumption, a few tools, the internet, and some time was all I needed. I hope this motivates you all to try something new. Now get started!!!
I'd also love to hear about your new skills!
