A few weeks ago, Bart and I wandered into a local thrift store, looking for some sort of project to occupy us, and we wandered out with this.
Two thousand pieces of early nineties, low resolution flowery glory. What made me think that two thousand pieces was a good idea?
Our weekend hiatus to Virginia Beach delayed our progress, and it took over our dining room table for more than a week. It was a long and winding road, but eventually we prevailed. Astoundingly, not one single piece of our thrifted jigsaw puzzle was missing.
I am a total puzzle nerd. Growing up, I was constantly working puzzles, and I literally wore out all my puzzles by putting them together so often. My brother, also a puzzle aficionado, occasionally got me diabolical jigsaw puzzles to try to stump me (think “Where’s Waldo”) but to no avail. I totally believed my parents when they said I should go to “puzzle working school” when I grew up. I also wanted to major in Puzz-3D design in college…true story. My hopes and dreams were dashed when I realized neither of these were actually, you know, real. But that didn’t keep me from enjoying puzzles as a child and now as an adult. Bart isn’t as puzzle crazy as I am, but he enjoys them, too.
In our current state of having few obligations and more free time, we thought this might be a fun distraction for a few nights, and it turned out to be a winner. And despite (or because of?) the challenge of the first puzzle, we were inspired to try another one. This time, we picked one a little smaller and a whole lot more funky.
It was that or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and we thought blue meanies would be more fun than that weird crowd of people.
A one-thousand piece puzzle seemed less massive yet still somewhat challenging. However, this puzzle practically fell together; I don’t know if it was more distinct objects or more fun colors, but we whizzed through it in barely over a day compared to that garden puzzle. It was a lot of fun to watch it come together, though, and I think it would be the perfect one to pull out for a puzzle night with a little help from our friends. So, if you’re into puzzles and are in the area, just swing by and we’ll have a puzzle night.
The Taylor Approximation 