It’s been so cold this week that yesterday my front door actually froze shut! I got out the hair dryer and thawed it enough to get it open. Now that’s cold. Needless to say, it was a good week to stay in and puzzle (after the shoveling was done.) I finished this 750-piece puzzle called Farmer’s Market in three days. I loved all the color, and it had so many fun little details. Made me anxious for summer and farm fresh veggies 🙂
This was another library puzzle swap find. I’ll admit, as I got toward the end, I kind of held my breath until the last piece was put in. Happily, they were all there 🙂
It looks like winter’s not done with us yet, here in Southern Ohio. A few days ago, they started warning us that Snowstorm 2.0 was on its way. I’m so thankful to be (mostly) retired and not have to deal with getting up and out on these cold, snowy winter mornings. However, I did have plans for this morning. Today is my sister’s birthday and I had planned to stop by with coffee. So, at eight o’clock, without so much as a whisper of snow in the air, I headed to Tim’s. (Have I mentioned that I love our new Tim Horton’s, lol?)
I grabbed a couple of lattes and some strawberry cheesecake muffins (yummm) and headed out to Marge’s house in the country.
What better gift for a crafter than a gift card to Michael’s? (I love that you can see Marge’s husband in the background, sliding the birthday cake he made her in the oven!)
I also crocheted her a scarf, because aren’t handmade gifts just the best?
I like to pick up pieces of old costume jewelry at garage sales and thrift stores. Especially pins. They are nice to have on hand for jewelry art. I thought this sweet bird pin would give the scarf a little extra punch!
She loved it!
The scarf was the first I had picked up my crochet in probably three years. Working full time while putting out a book a year, there just wasn’t time for everything. I’d forgotten how much I missed it. I need to restock my yarn supply for future projects but thought I’d use up my odds and ends by making some headbands.
I had a lovely little celebration at Marge’s house this morning. I had been there just over an hour when the skies let loose and the snow began to fall. I don’t enjoy driving in snow, especially on country roads, so I cut the visit short and headed home.
But I made a lovely memory today. Thank You, Lord, for the gift of sisters 😊
Well for Pete’s sake. I was so excited to start this cute puzzle I got at the puzzle swap earlier this month. Even though it was 1,000 pieces, about twice as many as I like to do, I could not resist the scene and got right started on it. And it was fun. I spent almost three weeks on it. Some parts went together easily, like the flowery hat and the red coat. Some areas were more challenging, but each section I completed brough a sense of satisfaction. Until I got to the very end last night and discovered there were twelve empty spots and only ten pieces left in the box. I couldn’t believe it. The pieces were all sealed up in a freezer bag inside the box when I opened it.
I even got out the flashlight and searched in the dark corners of my living room to make sure I hadn’t dropped any on the floor. I hadn’t. So though it was thoroughly enjoyable, this puzzle will forever be unfinished business. I know that in the grand scheme of things, this little upset is not even worth mentioning, lol. But I so hate to not finish what I start 😦
Looking for a positive, I will say this puzzle gave me a lot of hours of enjoyment. But I really wish the person who swapped it would have made a note on the box that two of the pieces were missing. I still would have brought it home and put it together, but knowing ahead would have saved me the disappointment. I’m not sure now what to do with it. I don’t want to swap it back at the next puzzle swap with missing pieces. I could write a note on the box and donate it to Goodwill and maybe someone would still want to do it. Or maybe I should just throw it out.
What are your thoughts? Would you start a puzzle knowing there are two pieces missing??
Wow, has January been a wild ride, or what? Monster snowstorms. Subzero temperatures for days. Sheets of ice that closed roads, schools, churches and businesses. And a new experience for me. My pipes froze this week ☹ But even in the midst of the storm, God was faithful and I found so much to be thankful for.
After dripping the faucet faithfully every night for a week, I forgot on Wednesday night and woke up Thursday to frozen pipes. No coffee. No water for Miss Emma’s bowl. Barely enough in my water bottle to brush my teeth! My landlord came over and after about an hour, he managed to get the pipes thawed with no damage. I’m so thankful for the gift of running water!
After forty-four years in the workaday world, I retired this week. Could I have hand picked a better time? No getting up early to clean off the car, fight the snow, and trudge off to work! No need to go out at all, but I found a reliable plow man to dig me out, just in case 😊
I’ve stayed pretty close to home this week, I’ve read some great books. I’ve made slow progress on my current WIP, Blackberry Summer. I got out my crochet after a two-year hiatus and actually finished a project! And I made great strides on my new puzzle.
Another day would have probably finished it, but my friend Sharon called and asked if I would like to go out and about today. I’ve barely left the house all week. It was time to rejoin society.
Our adventure started with Tims and a caramel latte.
Then we headed down the road to check out the brand-new Goodwill.
So many cute things!
We love thrifting!
I was pleasantly surprised to turn a corner and see that my sister had the same idea!
Marge and Sharon checking out the books!
I didn’t buy anything today. They have not had time to stock a good selection of books, and I really don’t need any clothes. Today was just for the fun of poking around. Afterwards we popped into the Piggly Wiggly next door. Since my spinach adventure earlier this week, I’m kind of on an omelet kick and though I don’t eat a lot of ham, I thought this diced ham would make a nice filling.
Though I am retired, I’m going to continue to work a few hours a week, for a little spending money, and to keep myself from becoming a recluse – which I could all too easily see happening. After a week away, I’m looking forward to working tomorrow. I miss my team 😊
It’s been a long, cold, January, but it has surely shown me my blessings. I’m thankful for my sweet, cozy little home. I’m thankful for food, and for water. I’m thankful for friends and for small adventures. And though my hands are cold this week, my heart is so, so warm.
It’s 25 F today, with a real feel of 13 and though the wind is whipping, the sun is shining and the skies are the prettiest pale blue. I went out for a bit this morning and it was brutal, lol. I ran up to clean the church and then stopped to enjoy a cup of coffee with my sister. Other than that, I’ve been hanging out at home with Miss Emma today.
This will be my last week of working full-time. After this week, I will drop down to just one or two days a week. But I hope I never get over being thankful for the blessing of a day off 😊
Thank the Lord I am finally starting to feel better. Still drained, still a bit stuffy, but so much better than I have felt in the last few weeks. There were a lot of things I could have done around the house today. I want to do a major deep clean and declutter. I need to start getting my paperwork together for my taxes. And there’s always laundry. But today, I’m giving myself permission to just “be.”
I made a pot of chili.
I lit some candles for warmth.
I wrote a key scene for Blackberry Summer that I’m feeling great about 😊
The rest of the afternoon… I haven’t decided whether I want to work on a puzzle or my crochet project. But either thing will be lovely.
Thank You, Lord, for chili in the crock pot on a cold, windy day. For candles and coffee and faithful old hound dogs. For so many hobbies and interests. And for days off to enjoy them 😊
My last puzzle of 2025 became my first puzzle of the new year. I like scenes with little boxes, a different picture in each one. Though it was 1000 pieces and I’m more comfortable with 500, I loved all the little snowmen so I decided to give it a try. It was a lot more complicated than I expected and I almost gave up on it. With the patterns in the border repeating, I gave up on putting the edgies together first and just started working on random boxes. It took about two weeks to finally get the edge pieces done and another week before I put in the last piece 🙂 I’m glad I persevered, but I think I will stick with 500 piece puzzles. At least for awhile 🙂
Last week during my mini vacation I spent some time organizing my closet. With the days, and especially the nights, turning colder I had to make room to store my air conditioning unit. I also had to start putting away the capris and lightweight tops to make room for sweaters. I filled two small bags for Goodwill, so I felt pretty good about my progress. I also went through my puzzles and found a couple I just had no interest in putting together. There is one particular puzzle though… I put it in the ‘donate’ bag twice. Twice I took it back out. I got it at a yard sale a couple years ago because it looked fun. The puzzle was broken up into segments featuring old TV shows, many of which I remember watching. The problem is, it was a 1,000 piece puzzle. I have not put together a puzzle of that size in quite awhile. The more pieces, the smaller they tend to be. It creates a strain on my eyes. Plus I don’t have room on my card table to properly sort that many pieces. But I decided to give it a little more time, because really, it did look fun 😊
Over the weekend our bright blue October sky turned grumpy, gray and rainy so I took that as an invitation to light the candles, put on the music, and finally start that 1.000 piece puzzle.
I finally finished it today. It was quite a challenge and in the end, I still had not completed a 1,000 piece puzzle – I completed 999. If you look closely, you will see that Jethro’s chin is missing. Oh, my aching OCD!!
Would I have started the puzzle if I’d known there was a piece missing? Probably. Am I glad I spent the time on a defective puzzle? Absolutely. It’s just one of those little reminders that life is never perfect, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good 😊
Back at the beginning of summer a woman came into the store where I work and wanted help printing out some photos she had stored on her phone. Easy enough. We plugged her phone into the kiosk and when her photos appeared on the screen, hit “print all.” There were three hundred of them – all puzzles! Turned out she was decluttering (I really need to do that again!) and had taken pics of the puzzles she’d completed in the last few years so she could pass the puzzles on to others and still have a lovely photo album showcasing her work. I was delighted to have found a kindred spirit. We talked for a long time about our favorite brands and themes of puzzles. I particularly liked her farm scene puzzles, and I told her so. The next week she came back to the store with a bag of puzzles for me! Since it was summer and I am mostly a cool weather puzzler, I tucked them in the back of the closet for later. Normally my puzzling season begins in October, but I started in September this year.
This one is called ‘Hello, Sweetie.’ I loved this farm woman with her tulips by the fence, her lambs and her faithful dog at her side 🙂
I finished this one, called ‘Planting Season,’ yesterday. Love the Amish couple, the beautiful horses, and the little red wheelbarrow. I see the dog also makes an appearance in this scene. Maybe the Amish couple and the farm wife are neighbors and the dog makes his rounds 🙂
I still have five or six puzzles in the closet. Not nearly enough for the puzzling season ahead. Thankfully I have lots of fellow puzzlers who are happy to share 🙂
Some days are easy. My work day flies by. I’m a problem solver who knows how to get things done. The people I encounter (well, most) are cheerful and pleasant. I come home energized, ready to walk the dog, throw in a load of laundry, work on my latest book.
Then there are the other days. The hard ones.
The kind where I drag myself home from work, unable to think about even one more thing. These days take everything I’ve got, and more. These are my puzzle days. These evenings are made for lighting a candle, pouring a coffee, and tuning into beautiful music. On these days, all I can do is puzzle. And puzzling is enough.
I love to slip into these magical little worlds that take shape one piece at a time (kind of like putting together my stories, but puzzles don’t require anywhere near as much time or brain power to create. Some days I just don’t have anything left to bring to the table.)
I just finished this one, called The Old Pumpkin Farm.
I love the fall scenery. The pumpkins and the red truck and the wooden gate that swings wide and seems to say, “Come on in!”
I’m so thankful for work days that seem like they will never end but finally do! For slow evenings. For candles and for music, and for puzzles 🙂
A few weeks ago I raided my sister’s puzzle cabinet. It was well past Christmas, but we were in for some snowy weather and this one was cute, so I brought it home and started it, thinking it would be fun. I was wrong, lol. At least at first.
This is what my sister and I refer to as a “piece an hour” puzzle. You know, the kind where you stare at it and manage to fit in about one piece every hour. I don’t always finish these, but I decided to give it a chance. I have a hard time giving up on books and puzzles. This one did a thing I hate. It had flat edged pieces that appeared to be edgies but weren’t. I finally gave up on putting the edges together and worked on the barn instead. It took four full sittings for me to find my groove with this puzzle, but I’m glad I didn’t give up on it. After I finally connected with it, it did turn out to be fun 😊
But I’m done with cold weather puzzles until at least November. Next up, Black Bears and Butterflies…
M. Jean Pike 