Let’s Play Football

On May 23, 2020May 22, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles8 Comments

This is another thrift store puzzle that mom bought (I still probably have a year or more of thrift store puzzles that she bought to get through). Even though Karmin quality isn’t great I did this one because she bought it – and I love dogs and dog puzzles!

As soon as I opened the box and felt the pieces I knew it wouldn’t be the best quality or assembly. The fit wasn’t great and the pieces were pretty thin, but it was a fantastically adorable image and at least all the pieces were there. And I just cannot resist doggy faces, they’re the best!

Let's Play Football 1

Happily playing tug-of-war with a scarf, so cute! I started with the scarf because they were the easiest pieces to pick out, other than the sky most of the pieces were different shades of brown. The scarf leads to two adorable, happy puppy faces – irresistable!

Let's Play Football 2

The smiling face of this dog, and the scarf makes me think of Lady from Lady and the Tramp. It looks a little like the same breed, even though I don’t think it is; it’s really the smiling face.

Let's Play Football 3

You know I can’t resist a sad puppy face either. It just makes me want to give belly rubs and pets and scratches everywhere to make this little guy/girl happy!

Even with less than premium quality, this puzzle was entertaining for me; they don’t all have to be perfect for me to enjoy them. The quality wasn’t the best, but I had a good time anyway; watching the faces come together, figuring out the best way to assemble the sky, finding those pieces of the football that I didn’t pick out the first time, etc. I needed quiet, meditative distraction and this puzzle provided it.

Perfect puppy profiles provided puzzle play, plus peaceful pondering. 🧩💗

Still Nothing…

On May 22, 2020May 22, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling6 Comments

Still nothing in progress, unfortunately. But I am determined to do some puzzling today, even if it’s only a mini puzzle.

I did start sorting a larger puzzle, but it was too dark and had too many pieces – and to be honest I just gave up. It seemed overwhelming, and it was my fault for choosing the wrong puzzle at the worst time.

Thanks to my puzzle pal Penny there are several 100 piece puzzles here to choose from, and I also have a winter/Christmas themed micro puzzle from Wentworth that is only 40 pieces.

Gotta get back on the horse! Or at least maybe a puzzle with a horse?

Hope you are all well, healthy, and working on an entertaining puzzle. 🙂

If My People…

On May 21, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles6 Comments

This image is fabulous, but unfortunately the quality of the puzzle didn’t match. This puzzle had the thinnest pieces I’ve ever seen from Sunsout – it almost felt like a Cardinal puzzle from the dollar store. The fit wasn’t great either. In addition, a missing piece and two pieces that had been chewed by a pet or a child. Why would someone donate a puzzle like that? I don’t get it.

The image of hands repairing a battle-worn American flag is absolutely beautiful, and I truly wish it had been licensed to a company with better quality. That seems harsh, and it is; but this is my blog – about the puzzles I do and my opinions about them. That is my opinion.

Even for Sunsout this was terrible quality. Thin, bendable pieces and a bad fit made it less than pleasurable to work with. I finished it because my mom bought it, we both adored the image, and I wanted to see it through for her. If those things weren’t attached to it I’m not sure I would have kept going with such a terrible quality puzzle.

The artwork was painted after the 9-11 attacks and inspired by a Bible verse from 2 Chronicles. It contains hidden images; of the twin towers with rising smoke, of evil, of someone praying, and more. They were hard to find in the reproduced image, and even harder to photograph so that I could show you here. You can see, even without a closeup, the nail imprint on the left hand showing that it is Jesus mending the flag. If you’d like to see all of the hidden images you can check out the artist’s website which shows each hidden image and its meaning. (As a side note, the box this puzzle came in had absolutely no information about this artwork, the hidden images, or the artist).

This was a thrift store purchase, so as happens sometimes my puzzle had a couple of issues – the obvious missing piece in the flag, and the fact that someone or something used a couple of the pieces as a chew toy. Missing pieces happen, it isn’t a big deal to me. The chewed up pieces annoy me though. If you’re donating puzzles and you know a couple of pieces are chewed up – just don’t donate. Again, this is just my opinion.

If My People 1

These two pieces look relatively alright here, but they were mangled and I had to work to get them back in the right shape and fitted together. You can see the creases in the pieces to show how bent they were. Annoying.

Great image, terrible quality – it seems like I say that about Sunsout puzzles quite a bit, doesn’t it? They’ve been added to my boycott list along with Ceaco, it just isn’t worth the frustration for me. I need to be strong and resist the temptation when I see a fabulous image from a company that doesn’t have good quality. Sounds simple, but it’s not always easy for me to resist a beautiful image, I must admit. I’m a bit of a puzzle junkie.

Shocked? I know, right?! 😇

Cereal Boxes

On May 20, 2020May 19, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

I had a really good time with this one – as is usual for almost all collages – and insomnia helped to make sure that it was assembled in less than 24 hours. It certainly helps me get more puzzling done, but I’m not sure it’s great for my health. 😐

The piece quality was very good on this puzzle; thickness, shapes, and fit were all quite nice. The image reproduction though, wasn’t the best. There was quite a bit of fuzziness on many of the cereal boxes. It seems to be a recurring problem with White Mountain collage puzzles, but I still buy them because they make me happy to assemble them, fuzzy spots or no.

Cereal Boxes 1

What in the world is this cereal doing in a collage of fun cereals? This is your parent’s and grandparent’s cereal! If I had to eat this there would be so much fruit and sugar on it that it would be obscene. Yikes.

Cereal Boxes 2

Kix was the only cereal shown with 3 separate boxes. This was my favorite of the three, but it definitely isn’t my favorite of the cereals. I remember being younger and mom buying this cereal and we were not happy about it. To me it was so boring and tasteless, it was like chewing on little round puffs of styrofoam. Blech! When my kids were younger and we were on assistance, I remember that this was one of the few cereals you were allowed to buy for them. They had to be relatively healthy with as little sugar as possible, and I always opted to buy the Chex cereals for the kids instead, they were much better tasting if you ask me.

Cereal Boxes 3

This is one of my favorites, probably tied with Lucky Charms in the number two spot. Graham Cracker cereal – yum! (My favorite isn’t a General Mills cereal, so it’s nowhere to be found in this puzzle).

All in all I adored this puzzle, not only was it fun to assemble it brought back great childhood memories for me. 🥣💗

No Puzzling In Progress

On May 19, 2020 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling29 Comments

I’d show you a picture of an empty board today, but to be honest the puzzle that was in progress three days ago is still sitting there. It is complete, but it’s still on the board and I haven’t started anything else. 😐

To be completely honest, I’m in the middle of a major depressive funk that has me doing almost nothing all day long. Usually I don’t discuss things like this, but I think part of the problem with mental health issues is that we don’t discuss them – and I’ve seriously had enough of pretending to be happy and positive all the time.

Many of us around the world have depression, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having it or admitting we have it. By talking about it, we find out that although it may seem as though we’re alone – we are not. And also that having depression or anxiety isn’t a failing, it doesn’t make you weak, it doesn’t mean you’re a “mental case”; it just means that you’re human and you may have a chemical imbalance. Just because you put the word “mental” in front of “illness” doesn’t mean you’re crazy.

I’m not crazy. I may love jigsaw puzzles to an almost unhealthy degree, but I am not crazy. I’m depressed. I have serious anxiety problems – still not crazy.

A couple of years ago I developed an “electrical problem” in my heart. It caused a serious rapid heartbeat called tachycardia that had me hospitalized twice and in jeopardy of having a heart attack or a stroke. Since then I’ve had to take medication to keep the electrical system in my heart working properly; the only problem is that it cannot be taken with antidepressants. I’d been on antidepressants for many years, but in the choice between being less depressed and having a heartbeat – you can imagine which one I chose.

So, with the changes in pain medications that cause me serious problems and more pain, the world in the midst of a pandemic costing many lives, and a host of other small things – I’m having an extremely tough time right now. And if we don’t talk about things like being anxious or depressed – or both – things aren’t ever going to change or get better.

So instead of telling you what’s in progress today and pretending that all is well; I’m telling you that all is not well, nothing is in progress, and I am just doing the best I can.