Thanks for sharing all of the pics and info on your manual transmission journey!
Would you mind sharing what your shop charged for the job? I would totally understand if you didn't.
I'm in a similar situation regarding access to a lift/limits of my skills, fears about botching the job. I have surprised myself and I've done almost everything on this car myself but I just haven't been able to find the time to learn to weld and I sure am not going to practice on the single most important non human/non cat thing in my world.