The filling in is coming along! It seemed every piece put into the puzzle today didn’t make much of a difference, but at the end of the day when I compare this evening’s picture to yesterday’s  – wow! I actually made quite a bit of progress. Did my best to not get frustrated but it’s much slower going with mostly dark/solid colors left. I found that breaks were needed more often so as not to get discouraged.

I had wanted to fill much of the solid colors in before beginning the twinklies (which is what I call the 2 edges with little bursts of light), but I couldn’t seem to find any piece I was looking for to fill in holes. At the end of the day every piece I tried to fit in seemed to be the wrong one. It may be that a good nights sleep and a break from the puzzle is all that’s needed.

I may try and work on my secondary puzzle tomorrow as well, I have been ignoring it because progress on the big guy was going quickly. But I feel the need to complete a puzzle. It may still be a few days before I get to the end of Snow White, so it will be nice to work on a puzzle I can finish relatively quickly. I have most of the windows completed, now it’s a matter of putting together the rest of them, reading what they’re saying and putting them where they go in relation to each other. Hopefully I will have a picture of an actual completed puzzle at the end of the day!

Made some good progress today, including finishing the border – HOORAY! That thing drove me nuts today. Too many pieces fit or seemed to fit and it was trial and error to get it done. I was so frustrated I had to leave it alone and come back to it hours later. I was out of sorts today, normally I don’t let something like that frustrate me. Usually I am able to sit, concentrate and work through it. *Doing my best Scarlett O’Hara* – Tomorrow is another day!

I had problems standing today to work on the top half of the puzzle, so I flipped the board around to be able to sit and work. Also spent an hour or so sorting what was left of the solid color pieces by shapes. Still have the “twinklies” to sort through. I plan to do that while watching tv tomorrow. Little bits at a time.

My eldest son was given the task of finding me soundtracks of all the movies represented on the puzzle, and got 9/10 in no time at all. He already had some of them, found some more, and we had to reserve the Bambi soundtrack at the library. I probably have 2 or 3 days (hopefully) left on Snow White, so I’m hoping to listen to the soundtrack nearer the end.

All of these movies have good memories for me. It’s interesting that 7 of the movies are from my childhood, and only 3 are from when my kids were young. I know all the songs to each of them, we watched a LOT of Disney at our house. I guess that’s why I really wanted to do this particular puzzle, the images hold great memories for me AND it’s a Ravensburger. Their puzzle quality is amazing, and they came up with an image that I truly am happy to be working on. I’ve wanted to do a large piece count puzzle, but hadn’t been able to find one that I really enjoyed the image. I was taken by the Keith Haring Double Retrospect, but although I enjoyed the artwork I wasn’t sure that the puzzle itself would be one that would be enjoyable to assemble. There are only 7 or 8 colors in the whole thing! Perhaps after I finish Unforgettable Moments I might be brave enough to try tackling Double Retrospect if I can still find it. Although I will most likely have to wait a while and catch up on all the puzzles I have purchased that are patiently waiting on me to start working them. Puzzle me! Don’t forget me! I’m collecting dust! 🙂

I almost feel like I’ve hit my stride – another amazing day of progress 🙂 I may need those Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs songs sooner than I thought!

Thinking of my grandmother today, it’s the 2nd anniversary of her passing. She is the one who got me started doing jigsaw puzzles. It seemed she always had a jigsaw puzzle going, and she didn’t mind little kids grabbing pieces and trying to help her out. She would become completely absorbed in them and sometimes stayed up all night working on them. I remember spending the night at her house, kissing her goodnight as she sat in her chair with a jigsaw puzzle laid out on a board on the footstool. Woke up the next morning and there she was, in the same spot, working the same puzzle! When I was little I thought it would be so great to be a grownup and stay awake all night doing a puzzle if I wanted to. It is nice!

She was only able to work 300 piece puzzles in her later years, failing eyesight and dexterity; but she was a lover of jigsaws to the end. Sometimes I think of all the choices we have now, all the different puzzle companies around the world that we have easy access to because of the internet – it makes me kind of sad that she never got to try some of those puzzles of amazing quality like Ravensburger, Jumbo, Heye, Schmidt. She wasn’t a collector, she just enjoyed doing the puzzles and bought what was available to us in our small town. Milton Bradley is one brand that comes to mind, whatever she could get at the dime store, etc.

I’m thankful to her for getting me started working puzzles when I was young. It’s a hobby that I love, especially now when I am unable to work and have lots of time to fill. I miss her, but every puzzle I do makes me think of her and smile. What would she think of my enormous puzzle? Probably she’d laugh and say “good luck sweetie!”

I was planning on trying to finish my secondary puzzle today, but I got caught up in the big one, things started falling into place 🙂 and I didn’t want to halt any forward progress. I decided to start with whatever yellow/ish pieces were left, and then worked on light green and whatever else popped out at me. I have pieces pulled to work on the rest of the green tomorrow. It’s difficult to work on the puzzle for any length of time, as I am unable to sit or stand for more than a few minutes but I’m trying to make the best of it and do what I can. I’m proud of what I got done today!

I wonder how many people have purchased this puzzle worldwide. It would be interesting to find out exactly how many units Ravensburger has sold. I definitely won’t be the first to finish it, but I’m not doing this competitively, it’s for fun and a sense of accomplishment. It will be months and months before I’m done, but I’m looking forward to each section of the puzzle. Even just finishing the first section will be a super accomplishment – it will be twice as many pieces as the largest puzzle I’ve ever done.

I almost feel like I should have the soundtracks to each of the movies and listen to the songs while I work on each section. It would be fun at first but would probably become repetitive very quickly. Not unlike having little children at home and watching the same movie over and over, or listening to the same song over and over again. Ok, now that I actually wrote that down, I’ve talked myself out of it – or at least out of listening to the songs the whole time. Perhaps while I’m in the home stretch and on my last day or so it would be fun to hear all the songs again. There’s a job for one of my boys, finding me the soundtracks to put on my phone or computer. It also makes me want to work on The Jungle Book next, because that’s the best soundtrack in my opinion. It’s the one I remember most from my childhood, we used to listen to the songs on an 8 track tape in our van. Yikes! I’ve totally dated myself with that last sentence 😮

It doesn’t look like much today, but I was able to put about 150 pieces in there! I put a tally counter on my phone, and I absolutely love it. Especially when I’m just kinda looking through pieces and filling in blank spaces here and there, it can seem as though you haven’t really accomplished much. With the tally counter I just touch my phone whenever I fit a piece into the puzzle. Then when I look at the number of pieces I feel as if I’ve made progress even if it doesn’t look like much has changed on the puzzle.

Three of the dwarfs finally got all or almost all of their hands and I did some general filling in. I’m at a loss as to what I should try to tackle next. Perhaps I’ll get all the remaining pieces laid out on trays and see what jumps out at me. Any suggestions? It seems as though there isn’t one color or area that would be easy to pick out to work on next. Lots of shades of brown/tan/yellowish that are similar, but I know once I start working on an area it will come to life and look as though it was simple to put together. That’s how it usually goes.

I also want to put in some time on the other puzzle I’m working on. I haven’t touched it since we started prepping for the hurricane, and it will be good to be able to make some progress or hopefully finish it.