Since late last summer I’ve been beating myself up with regard to my model railroading ‘structure building’ hobby.
It all had to do with me finally getting motivated last yr around this time (Feb/2023), getting back to my hobby table building my “kits” (I hadn’t done anything project-wise during all of 2021 nor 2022). So, it was a big deal to getting back and start making things again.
Then, something (I believe) occured in my personal life in/around July and I just stopped building; some minor depression occurred.
First, weeks went by, then months went by, and I could see I was in a rut, or a tiny bit depressed, or tv (and/or FB) was occupying a significant amount of my time.
By the way, the TV watching area is two feet away from my project/hobby table area. They both are in the sunporch on the main floor (i.e., not in the basement). There are four huge windows and a sliding “patio” door letting in huge amounts of sunshine (during the weekends, or in the evenings BEFORE the time change in early Nov). Yes, some of this is due to S.A.D., but it started 4 months before it started getting dark at 5pm.
Sometime in the middle of all this, I got the notion in my head that I had only finished six kits last spring, which caused even further negativity in my head.
Today, I came across a spreadsheet on my work computer which I was using to track kits I had started, had completed, etc. It was last updated April of last yr.
I was going through the list, and looking at pics I posted in FB albums and I realized I somehow miscounted.
I actually started 11 kits, AND, completed ten of the eleven.
Ok! Not as bad as I thought it was; but I still could have done more the latter half of the yr.
So – I started building HO scale kits in early 2017. Here’s the break down, and you can obviously see I’m not consistent.
2017: started 18, completed 13, left 5 unfinished.
2018: started 8, completed 3, left 5 unfinished
2019: started 19, completed 18, left 1 unfinished
2020: started 11, completed 8, left 3 unfinished
2021: started 2, completed 1, left 1 unfinished
[Searching for new home, then packing/moving to new home spring/summer 2021]
2022: started zero, completed zero
[Getting settled into the new home, etc.]
2023: started 11, completed 10, left 1 unfinished
Seven yr total: 69 started, completed 53, still to finish: 16.
~75% completion ratio.
The average, it looks like to me (and including 2021/2022), I start about ten kits a yr, and finish eight of those ten.
Removing 2021/2022, started an average of ~14 each yr (over 5 yrs), finishing ~11 each yr, leaving ~3 kits unfinished each yr.
The photos are in reverse chronological order (first pic is last one built in 2023; last pic is first one built in 2023)
Like those of you with knitting or quilting, or sewing hobbies, I have a stash of kits in the closet that will last me for the next hundred yrs 😱😉🤓
