Passing the crazy along.
Growing up, one of two specific things would happen when we got together with my mom's family: there would be a game (or two) of Scrabble and there would be a puzzle put together. Sometimes both happened. Scrabble involved a dictionary, challenges, and quiet concentration. The puzzle involved at least 1,000 pieces, work late into the night, and quiet concentration.
Scrabble, I'm still not good and can be easily beat by my 10 year old. But puzzles? I love them.
Over winter break, it wasn't unusual to find one, two, or sometimes three puzzles going at once.
The younger two concentrate mainly on 60 - 100 piece puzzles. The nice thing about this is that it is hard to mix them up.
My oldest? She's moved on to 500 piece puzzles. It's on newspaper because we originally started at the kitchen table, but moved to the dining room because it was hard to eat and not mess up the pieces.
Me? I've finally figured out a good way to store a work in progress. I took a big moving box and opened it up. After cutting it in half, I was left with a piece I could fold in half and store under my couch. It's easy to pull out and work on, then put away when we're out of time.
As for passing the crazy along, when we get to a certain point in the puzzle, I am forced to start sorting pieces. And by a certain point I mean when we open the box. As I'm sorting out the edge pieces I'm making piles of likes. Toward the end it gets a little more severe - by color and shape all lined up.
Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this.
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8 comments:
As your Sister, the crazy is also built into my DNA. . .
I totally do that. And the moving box under the couch is brilliance. Thank you! :)
I do the same tihng with puzzles. My dad made a puzzle board with a sheet of plywood and some small (1x1 inch) strips of wood around its edge. He glued poster board over the top of the plywood, giving us a smooth surface to slide pieces across, and put felt pads on the bottom to protect tables.
I'm so glad you're passing this on to your kids. It's great for the brain! Still love, love the puzzles! Want to play Scrabble next weekend or another puzzle? G'ma
I haven't done a puzzle in years. But yes, I always pulled out the edge pieces first, and made piles of 'like' items.
But they were never in such neat rows!
I haven't done a puzzles in AGES! But they are heaps of fun...I hope my kids love puzzles as they grow up :) Don't know that I ever lined up pieces though... :)
W and I usually do two puzzles in the winter and they take up residence on the fancy dining room table. I am going to snatch this idea!
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