It’s so sad that this puzzle wasn’t any fun. I mean, just look at it, a jumble of different images, no cottages or kittens, no landscape, no brush strokes, it didn’t have 200 sky-colored pieces – what a colossal disappointment…. NOT!

OF COURSE I LOVED THIS PUZZLE! It’s everything a growing girl needs; a collage with bright colors, interesting images, a fun theme, it’s all there. 🙂

This puzzle had been assembled by several people before it got to me, but was still in great shape. White Mountain puzzles can sometimes be hit or miss, but this one was very good quality. And they have some of the very best collages around, so even if they quality disappoints a little with one puzzle, I’m always willing to take the chance with another. I’m a collage junkie.

I’ve been reminiscing about the 80s quite a bit lately, and if you’re sick of hearing about it you should move on with your daily routine and stop reading this immediately, because there’s going to be a lot more reminiscing here today. This puzzle is titled I Love the 1980’s, and I did. I still do. It’s more fun for me to think about the 80s right now then spend too much time worrying about this bleeped-up world we’re living in today. JMHO of course.

I remember every single thing shown in this collage. I haven’t seen every television show or movie, didn’t own every one of the toys, or listen to all of the music – but I remember each one. The Police, for example – not my cuppa, as we say. I was a cheerleader (insert laughter and groans here) and there were some older “mean girls” on the squad who tried and very often succeeded in making my life miserable. They LOVED The Police; always listening to them and talking about them during practices and bus rides. So my teenage brain decided that if those b*tches thought they were great, that this band definitely wasn’t worth my time. Therefore – (sorry Sting) – I never purchased or listened to any of their music. I didn’t buy the album shown here, but I definitely remember it.

I remember all of it, but have chosen just three sections to show and talk about. Otherwise I’ll sit here all day with my 80s mall hair and neon pink and green earrings like, totally going on and on. Barf me out! Gag me with a spoon!

I loved Cyndi Lauper – still do. People who express themselves in their own way despite what others think of them are awesome in my book, and Cyndi is one of those people. Her music was upbeat and fun, sometimes thoughtful and haunting and beautiful, love it! Plus, I kinda had that hairdo for a while. LOL It wasn’t bright red, or quite that long, but it WAS shaved close on one side and a little wild. 😉

Pop rocks are just plain fun in my book, even now as a gray-haired old lady. I never believed the whole “if you eat pop rocks and drink Coke you’ll explode” crap, but it was hilarious to listen to, that’s for sure. My mom loved Pop Rocks too, and I remember being very selective about what candy I would buy with my allowance – Pop Rocks usually made the cut and I always shared them with mom.

I chose this section of the puzzle because even though I’ve never seen an episode of this show, it was HUGE in the 80s and the cliffhanger at the end of that one season was the topic of conversation for the entire summer. Seeing this makes me miss the cliffhangers at the season’s end of a show. Did they die? Is that character killed off? Who did that? You don’t really see that much these days. There are too many shows and no real seasons anymore.

Forty years ago at the end of the season, a gloved hand was shown shooting J.R. Ewing, the show’s main character and villain; fade to black. Who shot him? Will he live? What’s going to happen? Because at the time there were pretty much only three networks on tv, everyone knew about it and it was the topic of conversation the whole summer. It was a huge deal. HUGE. Seriously, it was in the paper, serious news shows talked about, it was on the cover of Time magazine for goodness sake!

Can you think of a show on now that would garner the same sort of attention? I can’t. Our viewing options number in the hundreds, perhaps thousands every day. Too many shows, no real seasons anymore, too much going on. I remember being thrilled to watch the last episode of the season for my shows, because most of the time there was a cliffhanger – so exciting! And then we had to wait all summer until the new season started again to find out what happened. I miss that shared experience and excitement.

I could talk about, at length, pretty much everything shown on this collage. However, that would make for a ridiculously long post and you would all get bored eventually. Feel free to discuss or ask me anything in the comments if you’d like, perhaps we can continue our 80s discussions there. 😉