A Puzzling Situation

Near the beginning of last semester, I stopped by an apartment of girls in my Relief Society and saw a puzzle spread out on their table. As I spent a while talking and getting to know them, I learned that many of them love to do puzzles. So, the next time I had a chance, I went to DI and purchased a fun little $1 puzzle to gift to their apartment. When I was there, I saw a puzzle that I just couldn't pass by. It was a 1000 piece, Thomas Kinkade design of his painting "Home for the Holidays." And, it was likewise only $1.

After I practically stole the thing (at least that's what it felt like since my joy was worth far more than just $1), I made great plans to do it over the Thanksgiving break when I knew I would have the kitchen table to myself and could spread out without bothering anyone else. Seriously, when people would ask me what I was doing for Thanksgiving, I would explain how I wasn't going home (do I even have one of those?) but that I had planned to watch all three "Jurassic Park" movies and do a puzzle and maybe read some. It was that big of a deal.

Check out what my table looked like over Thanksgiving break!

That's a lot of pieces to fit in all by myself in such a short time. Between the various dinners, movies, and other activities I had planned (including homework, I guess), I figured I might need to ask some friends for help on my puzzle. That was quite alright with me. Doing puzzles reminds me of when Mom and I would do Thomas Kinkade ones when it was just the two of us living at home. It also reminds me of Thanksgiving day when the Hooses and our family would usually do a puzzle or play games after eating our feast. I know some people have a thing for doing a puzzle completely on his/her own, but I'm fine with sharing the fun. I think it's a great time to have fun talking to someone and when you're done a pretty picture is usually left.

Going forward a few months, you'll find that I never did finish that puzzle. I tell ya, it was hard! The pieces were such similar colors, and the box was no help because the colors on the box were more vivid than the colors on the pieces. After a couple of weeks of that puzzle being on the table (and even with getting help from many other people who stopped by the apartment), I got tired of it being in the way. So, I put it all on a box and carefully moved it down to the basement. Unfortunately, it never took priority again (even over Christmas break like I had imagined it would), and I finally decided to put it all back in the box and save the challenge for another time. Here's how far I finally got:
Not too splendid, eh? Oh well. Let's hope the fact that I got it from DI doesn't mean that any pieces are missing for when I actually attempt to finish it!