My sweet darlin’ daughter took it upon herself to be the Valentine’s fairy this year and put together gift bags for the entire family – I raised a fantastic girl who grew up to be the most amazing, selfless, thoughtful woman I know. The whole family is doing their best to get through all the “firsts” after losing a loved one, and she decided to try and make our first Valentine’s Day without her beloved grandmother a good one for us all. I’m so proud of her and how she truly wants to take care of us all. 💝

She did a great job, and of course she went a little overboard and for my present I received the most adorable wooden puzzle from Artifact! How sweet is my girl? So sweet!

This puzzle is just the cutest! The artwork is by Randal Spangler, and I don’t think I’ve assembled any other puzzles with his artwork before. I don’t know where he’s been hiding, but I adore the look of this one and hopefully I’ll be able to find more puzzles with his images on them. 🙂

I’ve only just started working on it, and have already succumbed to my OCD; the pieces are all laid out on the board in very orderly rows. I started with the pieces just all over the board willy nilly, but my brain can’t function well with things in such disarray. And there’s something very soothing about getting all the pieces lined up neatly, I can’t really explain it. My hunch is that many of us who love jigsaw puzzles have a little bit of the OCD, and putting things right by getting the picture put back together gives us immense satisfaction.

The pieces are very squared off and geometrical looking, but that doesn’t mean it’s overly easy, because it most definitely hasn’t been so far.

I love the interesting cut and the squared off connectors, and I’m looking forward to seeing the completed puzzle – it’s so adorable! It shouldn’t take too long, the puzzle is only 182 pieces so it should be completed today if all goes well.

Thank you to my darlin’ sweet baby girl for the amazing gift, I love it – but I love you more! 💗