I know what I’ll be doing to celebrate our “independence from tyranny” – reading a banned book and using my feeble female brain to make decisions for myself. How about you?
*I’m in a mood, I make no apologies for it.*
If you’re celebrating it – Happy Independence Day; if you’re not – Happy Tuesday!
We made our way back home, and now’s the time to recover from vacation. There were lots of little wooden puzzles assembled, and I’m looking forward to sharing them all with you.
Hope you’ve all been well, and working on lots of fun puzzles!
Blooming Heart – Crafthub – 80 pieces? (I’ll count them up later)
Here’s another of the terrible quality wooden puzzles from Crafthub; unfortunately I bought three of them to make the shipping cost worthwhile so there’s still one more after this one. Even though the first one was so frustrating that doesn’t mean I would just get rid of the other two – of course I’m going to put them together, exasperating as they might be.
I’m not sure why, but as we were packing for our trip I threw both of these remaining Crafthub puzzles into my suitcase. It turns out that was a good idea though, because there are still several days left on our trip and I’m almost out of puzzles. The horror! 😱
Yesterday morning when talking about them with hubby a fantastic idea popped into my head; so believe it or not I was actually excited to start working on one of the crappy puzzles right away – even though there are two Wentworth puzzles in my suitcase that have not yet been assembled.
Once this puzzle is complete I plan on committing what normally would be a terrible puzzling sin in my own eyes – I’m going to glue this wooden puzzle. Shocked? I don’t blame you – never thought I would hear myself put all those words together in that order. Never. Ever. Wooden puzzles are such a joy to work with that prior to these Crafthub puzzles I would never have even considered gluing one. Part of the reason they’re more expensive is that they can be assembled over and over, even passed down through family sometimes. Gluing a beautifully made wooden puzzle is a TERRIBLE idea if you ask me, you would never again be able to experience the delight and satisfaction of assembling it.
But here is my thought process; these puzzles are NOT beautifully made, not ones I would ever want to assemble again, and inflicting them on anyone else by giving them to friends or donating them elsewhere doesn’t seem like a good idea either. The only positive with these puzzles so far is the beautiful images, so the thought came to me that it would make a lovely little wall hanging or decorative tchotchke – why not glue the sucker and at least get some future use out of it?
That’s my plan anyway, I’ll let you know how it goes. 😎
There’s been quite a bit of puzzling so far on our trip, even more than I anticipated! We spent the weekend up in Northern Michigan with my sister and brother-in-law at their cabin – a bonfire all weekend long, lots of sitting around and visiting, several puzzles assembled with family, and plenty of good food and good times.
Hubby designated himself in charge of the fire, and he took this picture early one morning when the rest of us were sleeping. I told him it was a beautiful image and my sister-in-law said it would make quite a difficult puzzle. It’s very pretty, but I don’t think I’d be interested in a puzzle with this image unless it was a wooden one with a Victorian cut – otherwise it would be way too difficult for these old eyes.
I brought several puzzles for myself to put together while we were on vacation – because I purposely don’t want to be “entertained” while we’re on our little holiday. Hanging around and not doing much at all is my favorite kind of vacation. I was showing my sister-in-law all the different puzzles I’d brought, and she was excited to do a couple of them – at one point I told hubby that I may not have brought enough puzzles, we were gonna run out if we kept putting them together so quickly!🤣
Of course his answer to that was that we should find more puzzles to buy. (I sure did find me a good husband, didn’t I?)
We have a few different posses here – The Puzzle Posse and The PADS Posse being the most prominent. So to all posse members, here’s my question of the day – how are you? It’s not a question I’m asking in passing that I don’t really want to hear the answer to; I’m truly asking how you all are and I am sincerely interested in your answers.
Asking how others are doing and actually listening to their answers is so important in any friendship or relationship – and it’s so good for your well being to be able to really talk to someone about how things are going and how you’re doing physically, mentally, and emotionally. I find sometimes it’s easier to share online than it is to have these conversations in person: if you feel the same way and are inclined to share, please let me know how you’re doing. Everyone deserves to be heard.
I’ll go first…
I’m having a hard time right now dealing with the many stresses in my life, and I find myself diving headfirst into my puzzles so that I don’t have to interact with anyone in my family or others who may stop by. I sit in front of my puzzle board and either work on the puzzles themselves or on the blog so that when someone comes in to see me I’m busy “working” on something and there isn’t as much conversation as there normally would be. It isn’t healthy, and I’m doing my best to stop hiding in the puzzle room.
We have a trip coming up in a couple of weeks, so I’m stressed about making sure the blog has enough puzzles ready to be posted, getting all of our stuff packed and ready, and making plans so that my boys and the house are taken care of while we’re gone. There are lists being made, conversations being had, and much anxiety taking place on my part. It’s supposed to be fun, a 10 day trip up north to Michigan to see our family, and it will be fun once we get there; but the pre-trip preparations are stressing me the bleep out.
I’m healing, slowly, from my oral surgery – one way I can tell is that the chronic pain I have in my hip and leg is back in full force. In the beginning all I could feel was the dental pain, now I’ve got them both together. Thank goodness for pharmaceuticals is all I have to say about that. Additionally, I don’t speak the same way I used to because of the surgery, and am embarrassed to have to speak in public when I go out. It’s causing a great deal of depression and anxiety; my dentist tells me it will right itself in time, but it’s been over two weeks already. I want my speaking voice back the way it was, and even though I know it isn’t true my brain has convinced me that I’ll be talking like this forever. 😢
So that’s how things are with me. How are you all doing?
June is both PTSD Awareness month and Alzheimer’s/Brain Awareness month. As someone who has experienced PTSD and the damage it can do to your life, I’m just doing my best to make sure all my puzzle posse friends are doing ok – or at the very least have someone to talk to.
As far as Alzheimer’s/Brain Awareness, I hope you all know how good puzzles are for your brain. They help with memory, spatial awareness, pattern recognition, fine motor skills, and much more. They are also calming, relaxing, and stress relieving – puzzling releases dopamine into your brain – it makes you feel good!
So I’m advocating that you puzzle when you can, talk to us – or anyone – when you need to, and perhaps consider donating your completed or unwanted puzzles to a local senior center or retirement home/community. I’m sure they will be most appreciated, and can especially help those with Alzheimer’s or dementia.
