Tag Archives: puzzles

Sunday Relaxation

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Sunday. It’s a beautiful word in my world because I fiercely protect my time on this day.

I typically do a few chores to prepare for the week and then spend the remainder of the day doing whatever feels right. Sometimes that’s cleaning a closet or weeding a junk drawer.

Yesterday I passed my time doing a puzzle, writing a little and reading some. It was a glorious, quiet day with some podcasts and absolutely nothing that annoyed me.

It was exactly what I needed.

Adventuring is fun. Work is rewarding. Yet we sometimes need a break from it all. Take that break as much as you can, as often as you can. You won’t regret it.

A Puzzle Parable

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A few weeks ago I solicited advice for putting together this puzzle. It was a gift from my fella who thought I would like the artwork that includes two adorable penguins. I like penguins and it really is up my alley so he gets bonus points for knowing me so well.

Unfortunately, this is a much harder puzzle than I’m used to with pieces of irregular shapes and sizes and a dark sky that’s nearly impossible to decode. It took a while but I finally made peace with the fact I am never going to finish that dark sky. 

And that’s ok.

I thoroughly enjoyed completing the lower half and seeing these adorable creatures take shape. That’s the part that means the most to me. Still, it  took a while to stop feeling like a failure and to admit that not finishing the rest isn’t really a big deal. 

And honestly, if I had continued trying to distinguish between the 41 shades of dark blue that make up the indistinguishable texture of this sky, I might have actually lost my mind. 

This seems like a good parable for the small problems of life. 

How many times have you faced a situation where you’ve had to surrender? Where you’ve taken care of the important stuff but can’t quite figure out the rest? What does it matter if you can’t do the part that is inconsequential when you’ve figured out the parts that really matter?

One important part of humanity is accepting that you don’t have all the answers. It’s understanding that there are things we cannot possibly comprehend or know. We can shuffle around the pieces all we like and try to distinguish between the undistinguishable all we want. That doesn’t mean it will make a difference. 

Sometimes it will just make us crazy.

Solving The Unsolvable With Help From The Cat

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Christmas brought me a new jigsaw puzzle. This 500 piece puzzle features some cute woodland creatures gathered around a fire in a forest clearing. 

It’s larger in size than a typical puzzle and the pieces are cut in unusual ways. They aren’t uniform and some are rather large while others are kind of small. I knew it would be hard because so much of the image is dark night sky and snowy trees. 

I had no idea it would be the hardest puzzle I have ever worked on. 

It has been set up on the dining room table for couple of weeks. If I have a few minutes, I stop and fiddle with it a bit. Some of the pieces are cut odd oddly enough you can’t tell if they’re border pieces or if they are just cut straight. Edges are usually my first step and I build inward. For this one, I did what I could with the edges before focusing on the animals. 

That has worked well but I’m now up to sky and trees and the pieces all look alike. I was lamenting this fact Sunday night as I sifted and dug through hundreds of pieces that are devoid of any defining characteristics. 

Scout isn’t permitted on the dining room table so he was blissfully unaware there was a project underway until he noticed this weekend. Now he can’t unsee it and refuses to leave it alone. 

He hopped up on a chair and began carefully and oh so gently moving pieces around. He wasn’t sure what was happening but finding 500 small cardboard pieces at his disposal was awfully handy for an idle little boy who only has dozens of store bought cat toys to amuse him.

He normally is forced to play with old bottle caps and wadded up papers he fishes out of a trash can.  This was a delightful change of plans, he seemed to say, as he gently pushed three sky pieces to the floor below. 

Isn’t this a great analagy for life? 

I mean, you’re walking around life with a box full of small problems that you’re doing your best to fix and puzzles you’re trying to solve. Then someone else comes along and decides to offer unsolicited advice or blatantly meddle and you’re back to square one in the search for answers.  

Sigh. 

Such is life. 

While I do my best to keep the cat away from the puzzle, I can’t resist asking a question. Do you have tips for assembling a puzzle like this? I would appreciate help before I descend into madness! .