EEE PC!!! I miss the age of netbooks - I had a similar one, the MSI Wind - my favorite computer ever :')
I think starting with alterations to clothes I bought at thrift stores or sales helped me a lot - I did a lot of that before I ever tried making something from a pattern. Even making a simple garment from scratch can feel like a big project, but if you're just taking in the sides of a shirt (for example), it's easier to get it done and feel good (even though picking out the seams first is so annoying)
Good luck sweet baby!!
Haha, I love that kind of thing too - even if there's a "better" off the shelf alternative, it's fun to figure it all out and design it exactly the way you want. it feels like doing a sudoku or writing a story or something to me. I feel like I wouldn't be working in tech if I hadn't initially gotten into making my setup just right with scripts - before that point I just didn't have a lot of programming tasks that caught my interest, but I learned a lot that way and eventually branched into other stuff too.
I like sewing - I make a few pieces of clothing once in a while but usually I'm just mending things or adjusting the fit of store-bought clothes so that they look better on me.
I also love gardening - growing vegetables outside and mushrooms inside. I'm pretty new to both but the mushrooms in particular are really fun - many of them grow a lot faster than vegetables, so it's exciting to have a faster feedback loop and try little experiments to find what works.