Puzzle Time

One of my happiest memories of childhood was putting together jigsaw puzzles. Don't feel sorry for me, and I won't feel sorry for you if you don't enjoy them. It may be generational, remember we didn't have as many ways to entertain ourselves. Books and Puzzles were fun not chores, and our family generally worked on a 1000 piece puzzle on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. After church on those two days, there was still lots of time to devote to finishing a puzzle.

While my sister was here in February, we put together most of a puzzle(1000 pieces) from a painting by Charles Wysocki. He called it, "Maggie, the mess maker" and the puzzle looks like my sewing room on a good day.

•  First turn over all pieces
• find the edges and assemble them
• sort by colors or items you can see in the puzzle picture
• fill in the blanks, :)

 We didn't have time to finish the puzzle, but had a great time working on it while she was here. In the hours while she was traveling, the puzzle gave me something to do so I wouldn't worry about her while she was flying home. The last time we were together was at our daughter's wedding. So another 10 year anniversary and a lot of long overdue hugs. We'll hopefully see each other again this fall or next year. I owe her a return visit. Fall seems like a great time for that. We've lived in TX for 30+ years, and fall days here are often not that thrilling, and occur in December. One of the funny things was that I'm wearing the same shirt in 2 pics taken over 10 years apart. I do love that shirt, it has wonderful colors and holographic film dots all over it!

















No longer will I have a feline assistant, biting the thread as it rolls off the spool, or pushing pieces of cut fabric at me as I chain piece... KirbyKat truly did that while I was working on the Double Wedding ring quilt I made for our daughter and her husband. That quilt, and they will have their 10th anniversary this summer. :) Buddy another furbaby we have lost to the Rainbow Bridge. Liked to sit and watch and occasionally bat the chain piecing coming out on his side. BobKat is not my kat, his heart belongs to my husband. Plain and simple.

We have two wonderful grandchildren who have slept on and under that quilt. And it is currently "home base" for grandson who is just about to switch over to full fledged walking. A year passes quickly as you watch a baby growing and changing. I looked on this drive and that, trying to find a picture of their quilt, or one of the baby on the quilt... Maybe on some future post.

This picture was taken of me, the year I made the quilt. I'm cheesing it up in front of my 60 red carnation bouquet that my husband sent. I love the smell and longevity of carnations. He sends me a birthday bouquet every 10 years. It is a wonderful bouquet and of course, gets bigger each time. When I was 50, my principal at that time, delivered the bouquet  to me, and was clearly impressed. Because less than a month later she received a bouquet of 50 red roses. I wouldn't have swapped mine for roses, carnations last and so has our marriage! We are coming up on 50 years of marriage.