Puzzling

[Sam writing] 

Many of you know that I love jigsaw puzzles. In my regular life, I'm usually too busy or it feels like too much of a mess to pull out a puzzle. So, they are saved for special times like long weekends, family gatherings, and school breaks. Here, I have a lot of downtime. It's nice to live at a slower pace and with very little stress -- I keep reminding myself to savor it. But it can definitely feel boring, lonely, and unproductive. Puzzles to the rescue! 

During our first week or two, we found a real gem at a charity shop -- A 1000 piece map of Ireland puzzle. I couldn't wait to bring it home and get started. Every good puzzler knows to start with separating out the edges pieces. The box was dumped and the sorting commenced; however, as the sorting progressed, very few edges pieces were in the pile, and I was feeling very suspicious. Agh, the downfall of used puzzles!! Who donates a puzzle with NO EDGE PIECES??? (Well, there were 9 edge pieces.) Undeterred, Lily and I were committed to piecing together the pieces we had. This was a good challenge and kept us busy for a quite a while. Eventually, we placed every single piece from the box and sat back and had good laugh! 

    

    

Returning to the same charity shop a few weeks later, we selected another puzzle and a board game. Hoping to avoid another surprise, we told the shop ladies about our previous purchase and asked to open the boxes for inspection this time.  It was good thing we did -- the "Gaelic Conquest" game only had a board and some cards, but no pieces or dice. We passed on that one. We dug around in the puzzle box and noticed plenty of edge pieces, so we were willing to risk it. Feeling bad for us, they only charged us half price for the puzzle and said we could have the game for free, thinking we could find some buttons or something to use as game pieces.  The game turned out to be similar to Trivial Pursuit with questions about Irish history, geography, and culture. We had another good laugh trying to learn some fun facts, but ultimately giving up. 

Lily's selection of the "cute cat" puzzle was a redeeming success! All the pieces!

I wasn't planning to invest in puzzles on this trip, especially because I know we won't be able to bring any home. But for 5 euro, I could not pass up this challenging beauty: "Under the Wave, off Kanagawa" a famous woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai from 1831 featuring Mt Fuji.  I was feeling slightly disappointed when 2 edge pieces and one of the dark horizon pieces were missing, but it was still fun even with the sense of frustration thinking any of the white sky pieces could be missing as I painstakingly assembled the vast sky looking for subtle clues with coloring and shapes to fit the pieces. Then, surprise! Chris needed to move the couch and discovered the 2 missing edge pieces. And a few days later, I found the missing dark piece tucked in among Kate's school supplies -- little stinker was trying to have the "last" piece!

 

    

   

Finished! Along with a piece of pumpkin latte cake made with a pumpkin from the garden. YUM! 

So, now I guess it's time to pull out the map puzzle to see if it's easier the second time. 

Also, if anyone has a favorite pumpkin recipe, please email me. We have many pumpkins!