Ji-Ga-Zo Puzzle Problems….

On October 30, 2021October 28, 2021 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling15 Comments

This is another puzzle I first posted about over four years ago, and I’m still getting emails and comments looking for help. Well, hubby and I spent a few hours trying to get things figured out and we seem to have come up with a solution.

Many people have contacted me looking for help installing the software that comes along with this puzzle; you need the software to upload a picture so the program can create a “map” for you to assemble your chosen image. It seems everyone is unable to install the program. Well, after much trial and error, searching the web for answers, even finding old laptops to see if older operating systems might help we seem to have it figured out.

It’s something to do with an expired “certificate”. I do not profess to know much about computers, so I honestly couldn’t tell you what in the world this is all about. I asked my puzzle pal Penny who works with computers, and we had a pretty long discussion about whether or not this is the right way to do things, and whether or not I should post about the solution we came up with.

I need to preface this by saying that this is NOT official technical advice, this is just a workaround that we found to let us get the program put on our computer and get it running. Please take what I’m telling you for what it is; a mildly computer literate old lady trying to help put the program on your computer so you can play with this puzzle. Nothing terrible happened to my computer when we employed our solution, so hopefully it won’t have any dire consequences for anyone else – but there are no guarantees. Please don’t hold me responsible if there is a problem.

The solution we came up with was to reset the date on our computer. I set mine to 2016. Once I did that the program installed with no problems whatsoever. As soon as it was installed we reset the system to the current date and time and ran the program. There was no issue with uploading pictures and making maps.

I hope this helps anyone who has been having problems with installing the software onto their computers.

Happy Almost Birthday To Me!

On October 27, 2021October 27, 2021 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous4 Comments

It’s not quite my birthday yet, but there are early presents coming my way today! According to the delivery website/app a big box of puzzles that were ordered what seems like forever ago will be delivered today! I’m so excited that the use of exclamation marks is getting out of control!

I ordered a metric crap-ton (technical term) of micro puzzles from Wentworth, along with a 200 piece Christmas puzzle. You’re shocked, right? That’s fair. Regular readers know that Christmas/holiday puzzles are just not my pile of pieces, but this one is very different and looks like it’ll be really fun to put together.

You’ll be even more shocked that quite a few of the micro puzzles are holiday/winter themed as well. But, they are all very different than the average holiday images and full of cuteness, silliness, and just plain prettiness. There are three that are just winter puzzles, and those can wait until after the holidays to be assembled. With this delivery, and the puzzles that are already here, there will be lots more holiday puzzles than usual on the blog this year. Looking forward to it? I am!

It doesn’t matter if they’re Christmas images or not, there’s going to be a delivery today (if all goes as planned) of a big box of puzzles for me. Wooooo hooooo!

The PADS is flaring up today with expectation and excitement! Happy dance! 💃🎶💃

Where In Neverland Is It?

On October 24, 2021October 24, 2021 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous4 Comments

Tink, help us find it!

It’s been four and a half years since I completed an enormous 40,320 piece puzzle (this is only 1/10 of it), and I am still to this day receiving emails and comments on the blog asking me where the Mickey Mouse icon is in this section. Well, today I decided to show everyone instead of just telling them where to look.

There is a hidden icon of our favorite rodent in each section; the one in this section not only seems to be the most difficult to find, it’s also the largest – which I think is why so many people get thrown off when looking for it. In the other nine sections it’s quite small; the markings on a deer in Snow White, a small bubble in Fantasia, etc. But the one in Peter Pan is huge in comparison, and therefore it doesn’t register at first when you’re looking for it. It didn’t for us anyway. Not at first.

Back when the puzzle first arrived, my husband and I, two of our three children, and my mother SCOURED the booklet looking for the icon in this section. Some of the others were easy to find, and we already had it in our heads that it would be small and somewhat hidden. The Peter Pan section is very dark, and we all looked at every inch of the image to try and find it. When someone finally said, “Hey could it be these clouds? They’re perfect circles, it’s gotta be this right?”, we weren’t certain but thought that it was probably the icon. After thoroughly looking through the image in the booklet, and seeing every single piece of the actual puzzle, our conclusion was that the cloud was, in fact, the icon we’d all been searching for.

The picture I took of this completed section has quite a bit of glare on it, making it very hard to see. So here’s a picture from the large booklet that comes with the puzzle (this was easier than waking up the enormous puzzle from under my bed where it’s sleeping).

Can you find it? Tink’s fairy dust is pointing the way….

I’ve added arrows pointing to the ears. They faked us out making the other icons so small and this one so big – it’s even bigger than Tinkerbell herself!

Don’t feel bad if you couldn’t find it on your own – when we put the puzzle together and it was large as life in front of everyone many people had to be shown even after being told where it was. I’ve even got a picture of me on my hands and knees crawling on the puzzle to show someone. 😊

Benefits of Blogging

On October 18, 2021 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling, Miscellaneous6 Comments

My darling (sometimes frustrating) husband dragged my butt out of the house yesterday to shop for a couple of things we needed. I truly despise shopping – unless it’s for puzzles. Knowing that, the first place we went was to a store that had puzzles, so I’d at least be a little happy to have gone shopping.

After a year in the sunken place with pretty much zero puzzles assembled and none blogged about, my memory of which puzzles I’ve assembled is shaky at best. While the hubs was “helping” me pick out puzzles there were times when I couldn’t remember whether or not I’d assembled a puzzle. Mostly these were collages, I’ve done so many and sometimes they look so similar that honestly there was no certainty whether or not I’d already assembled it. Sometimes I was certain, I’ve definitely done that one – many times I was clueless.

Here’s where the title of today’s post comes into play….one of the benefits of my blog is that I post about every puzzle I assemble. All that was needed was for me to take out my phone and search the blog. If the title isn’t there, it hasn’t been assembled by me. What a lovely resource!

I know there are plenty of people who use apps or lists to keep track of assembled puzzles, and that’s awesome. If it works for you then that is what you should do. For me though, it’s completely unnecessary. A benefit of being a puzzle blogger that I hadn’t even thought of. 😎

Another benefit I hadn’t realized is the memories of people and loved ones found in my writings. My mother is all over the place here, and re-reading through my old posts the past couple of weeks has been sweet/lovely/sad/funny and many other adjectives I cannot put into print due to my lack of coherent thoughts about it and also a lack of sufficient amounts of caffeine this morning. The gray cells aren’t completely awake yet today.

I’ve truly been enjoying reading through all the old posts. I just got through Christmas 2019 and the debacle of the 12 Days of Christmas puzzle advent calendar. I find I’m still pissed at Ceaco about it, and also when I’m ticked off I tend to be quite funny. Some of those posts really made me laugh!

Seeing puzzles I’d forgotten that I’d assembled, the ones I hated and the ones I loved, the posts where hubby had ticked me off about something, or my Buddy made me smile or laugh, seeing all the fun pictures, reading through the comments – all of it – it’s been lovely for me to help me in trying to get back to my former self as the Puzzle Goddess. (My mom named me that, I would never presume) I wouldn’t say The Puzzle Goddess is 100% back, but she’s on the road home and will hopefully be here soon. 🧚‍♀️

In no way am I trying to get anyone to start a blog – about puzzles or anything else. This weekend of reading through My Jigsaw Journal and having to leave the house to go shopping have brought into focus for me the two unexpected benefits of my blog. There are plenty more (again, just for myself) but these two reasons presented themselves to me this weekend and I thought I’d share them with you.*

*Partly because I find them to be two awesome benefits that showed themselves recently, and partly because the posts where I was more “chatty” about life and the goings on here at the My Jigsaw Journal household were more interesting and fun for me to re-read.

A Work In Progress…

On October 15, 2021October 15, 2021 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling6 Comments

So I finished my 500 piece puzzle yesterday, and thought that I really should put together a 1000 piece puzzle. But to be honest it kind of terrified me – it seems so very long since there was a puzzle with that many pieces on my board. I really was quite apprehensive about it, so much so that I texted my puzzle buddy Penny to get some back up! She encouraged me, and even gave me a couple of suggestions to try so it wouldn’t seem like such a big undertaking.

Does this sound ridiculous to you? It does to me, I completed a 40,000 puzzle for crying out loud! Geez lady, get a grip. Anyway, thank you so much Penny, you helped more than you know!

It seems ridiculous to say it out loud, but it looks like the last 1000 piece puzzle I put together was in July of 2020. Holy crap! It’s been 15 months since I’ve sorted or assembled a “larger” piece count, and it was truly intimidating for me to even think about even sorting it; there was much anxiety. Thank goodness for my long distance Puzzle Posse. 💗

This morning I’ve finally started sorting it (hubby had to go into work today so the board is mine for a few hours), and I’m doing just fine. No overly anxious thoughts, and it looks like it’s going to be a fun assembly once the sorting is done. If you were wondering, it’s a collage from Re-marks. Can’t wait to see how it goes, wish me luck!