A little bit of progress today, just over 300 pieces to go! Either tomorrow or Sunday it should be finished. Most likely tomorrow, because hubby likes to help at the tail end of puzzles. He can swoop in when it’s almost done and help finish it, without having to do any of the hard stuff. That’s ok, I enjoy having someone work on a puzzle with me. It’s nice to talk and help each other find pieces, it makes it seem more fun even though I think puzzles are fun even if it’s just me working them. Sometimes I even let him put the last piece of the puzzle in if I’m feeling generous. That last piece is the best!

I got two whole rows filled in on the left side of the puzzle, and am working on filling in the bottom before the actual twinklies start. Shouldn’t be too much longer now and I’ll be 100% done with Cinderella and 20% done with the entire puzzle. YES!!!

As of right now I’ve decided to do Dumbo next. That may change before I actually have to pull the bag and start sorting, but I doubt it. The adorable little elephant is up next. I may have to be reminded of how adorable he is later on when I’m sick of looking at his face (you know, how you feel about your kids or your spouse when they’re being buttheads) 🙂

Don’t change that dial!  A complete Cinderella should be up next!

I didn’t work very long on the puzzle today, but got a lot done because it’s so near the end and the pieces seem to go in faster. I’m already deciding what section to do next. I was thinking Dumbo (so cute with Dumbo taking a bath), my husband suggested The Jungle Book (my favorite Disney movie, best songs!) I’ll have to see what mom says tomorrow and see if there’s any agreement or if we have 3 different suggestions. Bambi and Beauty and The Beast look like the easiest ones to me, so I want to save them for the last two.

Finally finished all the dark pieces, dark blue border and edge pieces. Yay me! I put all the remaining pieces on trays separated by shape, and was even able to find those two bleeping pieces I was missing in the middle of the stagecoach. YES!!! I quit early tonight and am laying in bed with my heating pad and my dog. I may even work on my Civil War Generals puzzle if I can’t sleep yet.

Visiting day with mom tomorrow so progress will be minimal. I will try to work some in the morning before I go and in the evening after I get home. Hopefully before the weekend is over this baby will be done and out of my hair. 3557 pieces down and only 475 to go! Perhaps I worked faster on this one because I wanted to get it over with. But even when it was frustrating me I was still kinda enjoying the frustration, because I know once I get to the end and every piece is in it’s proper place that I will be so proud of myself!

Super frustrating day working on the puzzle, there are so many pieces that are the same shape and color with only minute differences and I kept finding pieces I had placed incorrectly. Grrrr!

It’s getting close, I may be able to finish this by the end of this weekend. We’ll have to see. I’ve been pushing myself to get it done, perhaps working when I should be resting, and it’s catching up with me. I have to take it a little more slowly. There are still PLENTY of pieces left in this puzzle, maybe about 33,000!!

It’s looking really good, but man is this puzzle even harder than it looks! Of course if it were too easy it wouldn’t be as much fun. I may be able to finish the dark blue and the edge tomorrow. Have to wait and see how I’m feeling, I might need to take it easy and not do as much as I have been doing. Hopefully all the dark will be finished at least, that stuff is kicking my butt!

Hubby installed the new light above my workspace and I can really tell the difference, especially in the picture I was able to take. Barely any glare at all and it looks like a much nicer image to me. It is extremely nice to have a bright enough light to work by that isn’t too much. He tried an LED light, but holy guacamole was it too bright! I didn’t want to seem ungrateful but it gave me a headache, and the glare off of Cinderella’s dress was intense. He was unfazed by it and stopped after work today to get another light to try. Success!

It doesn’t feel like I got much accomplished today, but when I look at yesterday’s picture compared to today’s I actually got quite a bit done. By the end of the day it was frustrating me that I couldn’t seem to find any pieces I was looking for. I did, however, find several pieces that I had placed incorrectly. Got those all relocated to their correct positions, eventually achieved today’s goal of 200 pieces and was able to stop without tearing my hair out and having a tantrum.

I’m gonna do my best Scarlett O’Hara impression …. ahem …. “Tomorrow is another day!”

It was so hard to make myself stop working on the puzzle this evening! Every piece I put it seemed easier to find and it was going faster than it had during the day. But I know how long it takes to get the blog post for the day done, and I didn’t want it to be after midnight when I got it finished and posted.

I got a lot more finished than I expected to, which is always a good thing. I filled in almost all the holes in the lower part of the puzzle, except for those two darn pieces in the stagecoach. I know they’re hiding in the container with the twinklies, but I’m not rifling through the whole thing looking for 2 pieces. When I get there I will find them I’m sure.

I was also able to fill in inside the blotchy magic swirls, which was more difficult than I thought. There’s a repeating pattern and there were several times where the piece fit perfectly but on closer inspection it was just a little bit off in color or design. Have to be more careful with the darker pieces where it isn’t as easy to tell the difference in shades of the same color. Still, not tedious or frustrating for me.

I’m going out tomorrow morning to shop for discounted Halloween candy (thrifty, frugal, cheap, tightwad – any of these names are fine with me) 🙂 Once I get stocked up on bad for me snacks that I don’t really need, I’ll be back home for the day and ready to get back to work on Miss Cinderella. I’m hoping to get a big chunk of it done since it’s going faster as I go along.

Also, in addition to tomorrow’s update I’ve decided to add short posts about puzzles I’ve done this year. I do have them on pages on the site, but thought it would be good to break up the monotony of only updates about the big puzzle, since I’m not doing the extra puzzles fast enough. I think an additional post every other day is how I’ll start. We’ll see how it goes.