A New Year and New Hobby

Hello Friends!
Wow!  It is hard to believe that it has been almost a year since I posted last.  Where does the time go?  Most of my regular followers probably already know that I will be, once again, having a total knee replacement in about a week, so I am firing up this blog again to report on that adventure.  In the meantime, however, I'm also going to catch you up on some of the other things going on in my world.

At some point, this past winter, Hubs and I refreshed our old dormant interest in completing jigsaw puzzles.  We did them in college - in fact, it was one of the first things we did together when we met in the fall of 1979 (along with other mutual friends).  We also did some in the early years of our marriage (early '80s).  However, it had been years since we'd done one until the fall of 2017. Then we got each other some puzzles over the holidays, and the interest has sort of taken off!  Since then, we've done quite a few.  Enjoy some photos of our adventures in jigsaw land:

We have a system.  We always do the border first, and we put all the pieces on cookie sheets and other baking pans.  Sometimes, we sort by color or font style and sometimes not.  

We make the puzzle on a card table so we can move it around.  The bigger ones usually take us 2-3 days.  We usually work for 2-3 hours at a session.  We listen to music and get up and walk around.  Sometimes we switch seats to get a different perspective.  

This colored pencil puzzle actually had a couple of pieces missing at the top of the orange pencil.  Ironically, there were pieces missing from that same brand on one we did back in the '80s.  

(Sorry - I don't know why I can't get these next few turned correctly!)

The kitty's back leg proved very challenging on this one! 

I think this next one might be our favorite so far:

One of the puzzles that Hubs gave me as a gift over the holidays was one that was custom made from a photo he had taken of me at the zoo with the giraffes.  Here is that one:

It proved to be a little more challenging than we anticipated because of the sea of purple that is my shirt, and the excess of brown ground through the fence.  There was also a lot of plain sky that was a little challenging to do.  

If you notice the pattern of most of these, there are many individual divided items to work on.  We both find that to be the most fun type of design.  They are called "collage" puzzles.  So far our favorite brand is White Mountain Puzzles - they have a lot of collage puzzles, and label them as "intermediate" in difficulty.  Most of the ones we do are 1000 pieces but that has varied somewhat.  We do have a couple that are 1500 pieces.  

We are amassing quite a collection.  We might need to get a shed for the backyard to keep them all in!  I wonder how long we can wait to do one a second time, and will they be easier the second time around?  

Stay tuned!  I can assure you there will be more jigsawing happening in the months ahead!  

Are you now in the mood to do a puzzle?  Have at it and enjoy!  

Thanks for reading.  There will be more blogging happening here in the next 2 months.  Talk to you soonly!

:)Amy