Happy National Puzzle Day my friends and fellow P.A.D.S. sufferers! Today is the day to enjoy whatever kind of puzzle that makes you happy; crosswords, sudoku, word searches, jigsaw puzzles, etc. Of course you know which is my favorite – my beloved jigsaw puzzles. 💜

National Puzzle day is also the day I talk about those I love who made me the Puzzle Goddess that I am today. I’ve talked about Mom and Grama in past years, and this year I’m going to tell you about some others who have been there for me – especially during the dark time in the past year and a half that I left my puzzles for a while.

My daughter doesn’t do many puzzles, but she is always on the lookout for ones I’d like and loves to surprise me with a great puzzle for no reason other than she loves me. She listens to me talk about them even though she isn’t nearly as interested in them as I am, and reads my blog every day. If there’s a fun puzzle on the board when she comes to visit she’ll sit down and work on it with me for a little while – it makes me happier than I can express, though I wish she had more time for visits and puzzling. She’s been a wonderful friend to me since we both lost my mom, and we’ve both leaned on each other whenever we need to. I love her to puzzle pieces and I’m so proud to be her mom! 💗

My friend and fellow puzzle blogger Penny is another who has helped me tremendously, especially when I wasn’t blogging or even touching puzzles. She was always nudging me back towards my puzzles and the blog, even when I wanted nothing to do with them at all; she knew exactly how much to push and when to back off. If it weren’t for her I’m not sure if I would have come back to the blog and my jigsaw puzzles when I did (or perhaps at all). She’s been a true, dear friend to me even though we’ve never met in person, and she is the one to thank for helping me come back to the hobby I love so much – even though “thank you” doesn’t quite cover it. She’s a fellow P.A.D.S. sufferer, a member of the puzzle posse, and a true blue friend. 💙

So whether you have a posse of your own, or prefer to puzzle by yourself I hope you spend at least a little time today with whatever type of puzzle makes you happy. I think I’ll work on a jigsaw puzzle for at least a little while today, as I’m reflecting on those who have loved and supported me and helped me become the proud puzzle geek I am today.

Love, hugs, and peaceful puzzling my friends!

Playful Parrots – Unidragon – 291 pieces

This was quite a fun puzzle to put together; challenging enough to keep me engaged, with beautiful colors – I wish the quality and attention to detail were better.

Unidragon is a newer puzzle company, their pieces are about the thickness of a Wentworth puzzle, but the wood used doesn’t feel as dense (if that makes sense). It’s a very good fit for a wooden puzzle, the piece shapes aren’t overly obvious in the finished image – no huge gaps. The piece shapes are interesting and not the usual cardboard puzzle shapes, which makes for a more entertaining assembly.

There were a good amount of whimsies for a 300 piece puzzle. Lots of interesting birds, fruits, and flora and fauna. The dragon at the top curled around the puzzle piece is the Unidragon logo.

My fellow puzzle blogger Nicola sent this to me in a puzzle swap, and in her post about this puzzle she wasn’t sure of one of the shapes (the one just below the butterfly and above the parrot with the crest feathers standing up) – it’s a dragon fruit. I had to look it up to be sure, but I’m confident that’s what it is. If I didn’t watch The Great British Bake Off I wouldn’t have known what it was either, I’ve never cooked with it – and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it in a store!

The design of the pieces makes it so that you don’t have to put the birds in the order that is shown on the box, the ends of the branch for each one is shaped the same so that they can be moved around in any order you like. Very cool!

This puzzle also came with eight extra pieces so that if you wanted to, you could put each parrot on it’s own perch. Four for each side – all exactly the same. The problem with the extra ends…..the image on the pieces that allows you to put each bird on it’s own branch weren’t quite aligned properly with the image on the puzzle itself – you can clearly see that they don’t match up.

These pictures show the two problems I had with this puzzle. Left shows that images don’t align and chipping off of the image. Right is more image chipping.

This puzzle was sent to me by a friend, and it had only been assembled once before me. Wooden puzzles are more expensive because they are sturdier – you are supposed to be able to assemble them more than once – over and over, in fact. If after one assembly this is what happens then I’m not that impressed with the quality.

The first wooden puzzle I ever bought myself has probably been assembled and disassembled six or seven times so far – not one piece has any part of the image coming off. Are my standards are too high? I don’t really think so. If I’m going to spend a larger part of my puzzle budget on a wooden puzzle, I expect that I will be able to put it together several times and that it will hold up well.

If it doesn’t, it isn’t worth it.

---

Many, many thanks to Nicola for throwing this in with our swap. I thoroughly enjoyed assembling this – problems and all. 🧡