Puzzle Time

no, I don't know why the pic loads upside-down

On the cold and dark weekends of winter, when I don't have a whole lot else to do, it's time to bring out the puzzles.  I always feel a bit old-fashioned these days when I sit down with a jigsaw puzzle; it's such a low-tech option for entertainment.  But, it's one I've loved since I was a kid.

These days, I don't start to put one together until I've finished everything else I needed to get done for the weekend, because once I've started the project, it becomes an addiction.  I stay up too late.  I procrastinate on cooking - and eating.  I tell me to get up from the table.  I promise I'll do it after I find one more piece.  OK, one more.  Just one more.  You see how it goes.

It's a great way to get in touch with my inner two year-old:

All the pieces are mine.
No, thank you, I wouldn't like your help.
I don't care if you can see a bunch of pieces I'm missing.  Don't even think about touching my puzzle.
DON'T TOUCH MY PUZZLE!

I first started to put them together in second grade.  My genius of a teacher always had one on the table in the back of the room, and if you finished your work, you were allowed to go back there and work on the puzzle.  I tried very hard to finish my work early.

We also put them together as a family when I was a kid.  It started out as good fun, but then, as our abilities grew, the fights started.  I was often the transgressor.  If someone had a puzzle out on the table, I'd wander by and find a piece, and then another, and before I knew it, I'd finished a whole section.  At which point, the person who started the puzzle would cry foul, and I'd be in trouble.  (deservedly so; if you weren't the one who started the puzzle, you weren't supposed to work on it without them.  I knew the rule - and vigorously enforced it if it was MY puzzle...)  So much for family togetherness.

It was the perfect activity for this cold after-holiday weekend...