I'm finally done!

Complaining to Mary about my difficulty with altering the clock (our latest dollar store challenge) seems to have done the trick. She emailed me back yesterday with this advice: "Take one look at it, tell yourself it's only a plastic clock, nothing more and that you've had much more difficult things to do in life. Pretend it's 2 dimensional, but in two directions. Then you will have psychological control over it and it will be yours to do with as you please. The creativity will then flow boundlessly. (If this works, tell me and I'll market it)."
You've gotta love Mary. She's so upbeat and inspiring. To make a long story short, I took her advice. I decided to drop the plan to cover a mini flashlight with matching paper so people could look inside the clock and just simplify things.
But I can't deny that I found the whole process aggravating. As I said to Mary, I think much better on a one-dimensional surface. I'd rather spread out in all directions than wrap my mind around an object because the object always seems to defy me. I couldn't use Photoshop to erase the scratches on the magnifying glass, for example. However, in the end I think I did answer Carmi's question: "I wish I had more time for timelessness!"