Days 21 - 25: Light at the end of the tunnel on the animals, I think!

Haven't posted progress in a while as we were really busy getting ready for Derek's first birthday party with lots of cupcake baking and decorating (seasame street characters) and then getting the house ready for the party. Now that that is over and done, I am back at the puzzle. Still some slow progress as Derek was sick for a while, hubby was sick for a bit, and now I've gotten it too. No fun at all.

Here are some new pics of my progress on the animals. As you can see, it's mostly just the camel, horse, and donkey that left as big sections. Hoping to have that done by the end of this next week.

I think I will focus on the clownfish next as I know they will be a lot of work since the colors are so much alike on many of the fish. And I will save the blue water area for last. Should be fun! I'm excited about making even further progress soon.

Thanks for reading!

Days 16 - 20: Animals Galore!

Okay, I'm finally on a good streak of getting to work on the puzzle a bit more. I've spent about a week working on it again and have made some pretty good progress on the animals as you can see below.

Here's a bit more of a close up of the animals. I'm still amazed at how small the animals look on the puzzle poster and how big they actually are when you put them on the puzzle board.

I'm definitely feeling like I've got some good momentum on this now and I want to continue working on it more and more. I truly feel, if I had the time, I could work on it all day. It's still difficult to find time to get to it with a 1-year-old around and then trying to spend time with hubby once the little one goes to bed at night.

Alas, I will get there....eventually. Derek will probably be in high school when I put in the very last piece of the very last section, but what can I do. LOL

Thanks for reading!
Penny

Days 11 - 15: Balloons and Animals

Finally had a chance to work on the puzzle for several days in a row, a little bit at a time, but nonetheless som progress at least.

Close ups of the mostly finished balloon section.

The balloons are mostly done. At least with all the pieces I have managed to find in my initial sorting. I am sure there are a ton more pieces mixed in with the clown fish. When I first started sorting it was before I had worked with any of the balloon pieces, so I'm sure there's lots more in there.

I also started on the animals. I was amazed at the size of the "leaping" cheetah (or is it a leopard?). He's quite wide. I have also assembled most of the other "sitting" leopard, the larger zebra, small parts of the smaller zebra, and most of the largest giraffe. The two zebras, so far, have been the hardest of the animals. The stripes on the larger zebra go in different directions at times making it a bit more confusing.

and

The other two smaller giraffes have been started as well, but not quite finished with those either. Will start working on the elephants next, as well as the panda bear.

Believe It or Not...I am Still Here!

I know most of you probably think that I've just given up on the puzzle and am never going to finish. However, that is not the case. I have not worked on it in months, that's true, but I am still thinking about it a lot and trying to figure out when I can get back to it again. I am hoping this weekend will be my first puzzling opportunity since September!

We have some friends coming over to celebrate New Year's with us and the wife really enjoys working on puzzles too so I'm hoping that we can get in some puzzling time while they're here.

I have just been putting off getting it set up on the table again because we had the whole issue with the table top being replaced and then we had some dinner parties followed by Thanksgiving and then Christmas and I just didn't want to be setting up the puzzle and taking it down multiple times so I just left it rolled up. But, I am ready to get back into it full force now that the holidays are over.

Hopefully all the people who have been reading the blog up to the point where I last posted will remain with me and see that I haven't given up hope.

Okay, will post some pictures by the end of this weekend on some new progress.

Thanks for reading.

Can You Teach a 6-month Old to Tell Time?

I'm trying to figure out a way that I can get my 6-month-old son to know the difference between Mon - Fri and the weekend. LOL Doesn't he realize that if mommy stayed up until 12:30 a.m. working on the puzzle that he should just automatically sleep until 8 a.m. even though he went to bed at 7:30 p.m. the night before? LOL I just don't understand why this is not happening - what am I doing wrong here? :)

Anyway, I had planned on working on the puzzle a little more this evening, but I am wiped out tired and ready to hit the sack.

Tomorrow may be a little tricky too for working on the puzzle. I have to make a key lime pie (a good one, not the typical ones you find in FL) and then we're heading over to some friends for the afternoon.

Hopefully only a few more days on the balloons and then I can move on to the clown fish. I have decided to tackle those next rather than doing the animals first. I know they will be somewhat easier than the fish so I'd rather do the fish first and get them out of the way so that my last section will be easier.

Days 9 & 10: Real Progress

I finally feel like I've made a little bit of progress with the puzzle. I have been able to work on it for a couple of hours over the last two evenings after Derek has gone to bed. Most of the balloons are at least halfway completed now. Here's a couple of pictures from two nights ago.




A little bit of balloon detail:



and



The left side of this balloon was driving me nuts until I realized that I actually had two of the orange pieces upside down and in the wrong spot. Once I fixed that the left side of the balloon went together much easier...imagine that!



Day 10 Progress - Not a huge amount of difference other than the right side.



Close up of the right side:



Left side:



Middle:



I'm hoping to get some time later today to work on it a bit more, but we'll see how that goes. Making tacos for dinner tonight with friends who are coming over this afternoon to watch a movie and have popcorn. Should be a fun day!

#1 - Weird Places to Find a Puzzle Piece

I was able to do a little work on the puzzle yesterday and even had my first (but undoubtedly not the last) experience with finding a puzzle piece in a strange place. I was downstairs working on the puzzle while my son was taking a nap. Later on when he started crying to get up, I went upstairs and bent over the crib to pick him up and found a puzzle piece right there inside his crib! I think it had just fallen off of me as I wasn't working on the puzzle prior to putting him down for the nap and it was in a place where I would have easily seen it had it been there when I first put him down. It was really weird though. Evidently it was on my shirt or stuck to my arm and made it all the way upstairs and into to his room before falling off into his crib. Thankfully it fell where it did as it was easy to spot and not on the floor where I might not have noticed it for who knows how long.

I haven't made a lot of progress, but I do have more of the balloons done. I will be taking new pictures tonight or tomorrow morning and posting soon.

Day 8: A Change in Strategy - Not an Error in Math

No, there's nothing wrong with my math skills...I have decided to change my strategy as far as counting the days it takes me to do the puzzle. Prior to this post I was counting each day as a new day in the overall total length of time I've had the puzzle, but then I realized that's kind of stupid since there are times when a week goes by without my even touching the puzzle. So today I figured out what day I would be on if I only counted the days where I actually worked on the puzzle. This will make my numbers much better looking and somehow not quite as sad as having to put that I'm on Day 33 already when I've just barely started doing the balloons. And I'm still going to try and keep track of my hours. I believe I am still at 13 puzzling hours since I haven't worked on the puzzle in over a week now due to various circumstances. I probably won't be getting to it again until Sunday though, but hopefully that will be a day where I can make some decent progress since my husband will be home and can help take care of our son.

Bigger Doesn't Always Mean Better

Here's a case where bigger does not always mean better. Ravensburger Puzzles (one of the big kahuna's in the puzzling industry) is about to release their response to Educa's current record holder (Life) for the World's Largest Puzzle. This new puzzle will be 30,000 pieces! But the major difference? This new puzzle is HIDEOUS! Of course there will be those die hard puzzlers who will complete it not because they like the picture, but only because it's going to be the new world record holder. I gaurantee I will never buy or want to make this puzzle. I cannot stand the picture, and if I don't like the picture there's NO WAY I would ever finish. It's going to be difficult enough to finish "Life" and I LOVE that picture.

Going to Try an Experiment!

I'm going to try an experiment when I get my table back. As you can see in the pictures in previous posts, the puzzle barely fits the table width wise. The puzzle is about 42 x 60 and even though my table is 44" wide, the last inch on either side slopes down slightly in a carved edge. So thereby the very edge pieces on the puzzle are also slanting down. I am afraid I'm going to end up losing pieces this way so I'm going to try turning the puzzle 90 degrees so that the width of the puzzle is using the entire length of the table. It will easily fit that way and then I'll just have to keep the part of the puzzle I'm not working on at the time rolled up at one side of the table. I saw pictures of the people at Jigsaw Jungle (whom I bought the puzzle roll from) did this when they were doing the puzzle and it seemed like it worked okay for them. I will just need to make sure my chairs are all the way up against the table so that the puzzle doesn't roll off the side of the table and "crash".