I truly thought the puzzle I bought for this Christmas would be hard but not too hard. It was a beautiful scene, lovely colors that might be grouped and worked on by individuals as they chose to help, just the right combination for a family puzzle making experience.
Andie suggested we start the puzzle on Saturday. So we cleared the dining room table and opened the puzzle and set to work.
My first frustration was that every piece seemed to be warped. If you got two pieces that fit together, they wouldn't stay together because they curled up on the edges. I've never, in my 61 years, had a puzzle that was warped like that, never. Nissa suggested it was when they glued the picture to the backing and cut before it was really dry. She just might be right.
Everyone helped at some point. Andie and I did the bulk of the work but Jake sat with us for quite a while on Saturday. When everyone left on Monday the puzzle still had about half of it to be finished.
I worked until the wee small hours of the morning Monday and Tuesday nights. What I was finding was some pieces fit in two places with similar coloring. Since the pieces didn't fit together really great with the warping, it was often hard to tell you had a piece in the wrong place. When I finally almost finished one evening at 2am, I had 10 pieces laying on the table to be put in the puzzle, I had 10 spaces available in the puzzle for pieces, and none, no, not one, of these pieces would fit in one of the spaces. Good Grief!!!
I determined I should leave this for Nissa and Todd's arrival on Friday. Maybe fresh eyes would be helpful. Claude even sat down and got some corrections made but we still did not have it complete. There were still 5 pieces that needed to find a home in that puzzle. Claude does not do puzzles. This was a big help from him.
When Nissa and Todd arrived, they sat down and found some pieces that were probably in the wrong place. We played with combinations and suddenly the final pieces went into place. It was great to have the puzzle complete. I had actually gotten to the place where I was ready to put that puzzle back in the box and call it as good as it was going to get.
A huge thank you goes to each member of our family who helped in any way with this year's puzzle. Another successful venture pulled off through family participation.
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