Post #1500!

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Miscellaneous16 Comments

Can you believe it? This is post number 1500 for my little blog – the one I thought would be finished once I completed my monster 40,000 piece puzzle. The picture above is from the very first post ever on My Jigsaw Journal, a few days after I received the giant puzzle from Germany in September of 2016. It seems like a lifetime ago, although it’s only been about 5 ½ years.

It wasn’t my plan to become a puzzle blogger, I began this as a way to keep family and friends updated on the giant Disney Memorable Moments puzzle that I was assembling. Social media isn’t my thing, I have no facebook, instagram, twitter, etc., so I created the blog to post about which section I was working on and how it was going. But I realized once I started that I love everything about puzzles; I love shopping for them, looking at them, reading about them, talking about them, assembling them, and writing about them too.

I ended up with many more “followers” than just my family and friends, and was surprised to see that people from around the world were reading my posts and keeping up with them every day. It helped keep me motivated to make progress on the enormous puzzle every day, and I also found a community of like-minded puzzle geeks – what a blessing I didn’t even realize that I needed!

One thousand five hundred posts, that’s quite a lot; I’ve written about puzzles in progress, and my lack of progress on them when I’m dealing with life. I’ve written about my family, puzzling with mom and how much happiness that brought me, and working on puzzles with each of my children and my husband too – and the joy of sharing my passion with them. I’ve written about my puzzle pal Buddy, who kept me company while I puzzled, and always watched over me away from the puzzle board as well. I show off the puzzles I’m proud of, the ones that were fun and the ones that were just….meh….and warn you all about the ones I wish I’d never found. I share my life through the puzzles I complete, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the friends I’ve found here.

So congratulations to me for keeping with it; and many, many, many thanks to my faithful friends who come here to see the puzzles I assemble, read about me and my posse, my struggles with P.A.D.S., depression, anxiety and life in general, and who keep me company on my puzzling journey. I don’t think I’d still be here doing this if it weren’t for you all, thanks for sticking around.

Congrats to us all on post number 1500! 🎉🧩🎉

The Seven Chakras – Eagle Update #2

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles3 Comments

Well, I received my re-worked eagle chakra puzzle, and have finally succeeded in assembling the multipiece whimsy that represents the eagle itself – triumph!

I couldn’t be happier with the customer service I received from Liberty Puzzles, and am grateful for both their assistance with this problem and their fantastic puzzles. Once my request alerted them to my dilemma with the eagle chakra, they wasted no time in communicating with me and resolving the issue. If you ask me, they get an A+ for excellent customer service.

So, here’s the picture that tens of readers have been waiting for – all of the whimsies from the eagle puzzle – including the multipiece representation of an eagle……

See that eagle above our woman in the lotus position? That’s the little bugger that caused me so much grief; I had all the proper pieces pulled, I just couldn’t get them to fit together properly. But a little tweak from the puzzle designer to correct a slight miscalculation and voilà! Success!

This puzzle set was so fun and interesting to assemble, and I’ve also received a hint about how they all connect together (which was what I suspected you could do when it was put together the first time). So I will definitely be working with these beautiful puzzles again, especially so that I can try to connect them all together in the proper order.

And when I do, I will take a picture of the seven of them attached together as one – to show you these amazing puzzles again, and how much intricate design goes into one of their creations.

I’m still astonished by this set of stunning wooden puzzles and how much thought went into their composition and construction. Absolutely sensational!

Clever Women are Dangerous Too

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Clever Women are Dangerous Too by Joe de Mers – Clementoni – 500 pieces

I know it’s only January, but this is the winner for best puzzle title so far this year – love the title and the puzzle. What a fun assembly, and even with all that black it isn’t as difficult as you might think.

The fit was loose, but otherwise it’s a great quality puzzle. I don’t get to do many Clementoni puzzles, I find that the 500 piece puzzles are just about right for this brand; other than the slightly loose fit the quality was excellent. 💗

I have an in process picture because I texted it to a friend while I was working on it; I don’t usually take them. I absolutely adored this image, it’s quite different than the usual subject matter – and it’s pretty darn cool too. 😎

Fantastically great puzzle!

National Puzzle Day 2022!

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

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!

Classic Movies

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles14 Comments

Classic Movies – Re-marks – 1000 pieces

My oldest son and I put this one together in about two and a half hours, and we had a great time with it! I love a collage puzzle, and he LOVES old movies – the perfect combination.

This was the only puzzle I received this year for Christmas; he bought it for me but it’s being glued for him to put up on the wall in his room. He’s good about getting puzzles for me that he’d like to keep – but he also wants to assemble them with me – that’s the real gift. 💝

The fit on this Re-marks puzzle was extremely loose, it made it a bit difficult at times. I’m not thrilled with the recent update they’ve done with their chipboard; it’s very slick feeling on the back and if I’m not careful it slides right off the board when I’m trying to get pictures. Frustrating!

Dracula is my son’s favorite movie out of the 39 in this image, and mine is Rear Window. To be honest there are only eight movies that I’ve seen – what an uncultured swine I am! My son has seen fifteen of them, almost twice as many as I have. But to be fair he’s been a movie buff since he was very young – and he loves the classics; the movies he hasn’t seen he still has a wealth of facts stored in his brain about each one. He can tell you so much information about movies it would make your head spin!

Anatomy of a Murder (middle image) is a movie that makes me think of mom; I remember her telling me how scandalous it was when it came out. It’s a courtroom drama dealing with a rape and there were words used that had previously never been spoken in American films such as “contraceptive”, “climax”, and “spermatogenesis”. And apparently the talk of a woman’s underwear being torn off was quite racy in 1959. Oh my. If only those pearl clutchers could see the movies we have today. Yikes. Double yikes!

I loved puzzling with someone side by side again, that hasn’t happened much since mom died – I miss it. And I’m thankful my baby boy decided to come out of his room for a couple of hours and spend some time with his old mom. It made my day. 💖