Good people, I enjoy a good puzzle. The Younger and I are copacetic this way. A couple of weeks ago, I was in need of a puzzle diversion and gifted myself the chance of putting together this puzzle first…even though I had given it to The Boy for Christmas (and he hadn’t opened it yet). Nailed it in three days. (The Younger helped with a few pieces here and there.)
In this last puzzle adventure, I realized something key to my puzzling exploits: It matters what the picture on the puzzle is. I enjoy vibrant colors (like this one) with symmetric shapes (like this one) over buildings or people (like this one…doesn’t have). And now that I figured out my sweet spot in puzzles and am ready to treat myself to a new one, they’re harder to find than someone holding a 3-pack of yeast in one hand 12 rolls of Charmin in the other.
Couple this with my preference to throw my dollars toward an indie bookstore to find my next puzzle instead of to Ye Olde Amazon, and this has become quite the questy challenge. Where is the outrage and backlash and people throwing shade at others who are hoarding all of the beautiful puzzles?
On the bright side: It’s a good time to be a maker of puzzles, I believe.
No matter the circumstances, it’s always delightful to find something particularly enjoyable when you’re not really expecting it. Another new development in the regular routine is that the girls are old enough for The Boy and I to leave them home alone for short amounts of time while they’re occupied with certain activities that tend to be all consuming. This may be quite the head scratcher that it took us this long to figure this whole aspect of parenting out, but our children are just fine by themselves while we run a mile or two together.
I mean, if my children are able to multiply fractions and figure out the order of operations for a multi-step math problem, they can probably figure out how to stay alive for a few minutes.
The Boy doesn’t run as often as I do or for as long as I do, but we’ve been able to manufacture some pleasant chats in the nicer weather with some regularity now. Lo and behold, it makes running a wee bit more delightful. This boy is still a keeper.
You know what else is a keeper? My children once went for over a week during these past since mid-March without whining about dinner even once. I kid you not…we’re got up to around 9 dinners in a row. Who knew that they each had it in them all at the same time? It was a precious time of zen (and good conversation).
Folks. My children nailed it, despite having 2 potential dinner offerings to unravel them (i.e. we dared to try new things). And then they scorned my D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S from scratch lemon cake, which I offered up as a big old, sweet HOOZAH! And they turned it down. They are heathens. Still keepers, too…but heathens.
