The Reality of Puzzles

I’m a middle school teacher. One of my colleagues has put puzzles on a table in the hall for kids to work on during passing time, when they need a re set…super clever centering tool…and with a map of the US..geography lesson too!

I just got a puzzle board today!!!! The product description included “for moms…” And yup, that’s me. Mid forties and thrilled. We have a tiny home and would set up a folding table for puzzles. This is better – slides right under the couch. And it rotates!!! I’m hopefully my tween may join in like he did when he was wee and we can puzzle together.

My ex and my boys used to have a big puzzle going all the time in the winter – it’s one of the things I miss about our family. I didn’t have the patience to “puzzle” with them, but I would sit with them and read or grade papers (teacher) and they would always save the final piece for me so I could pop that one in and say I finished the puzzle! They actually modge-podged a few of them and hung them up. It was a nice family thing and I do miss it.

If I put a puzzle out, the whole family will descend on it like a pack of dogs on a steak. I usually put them out for holidays on the kitchen table so people are all together in the kitchen, chatting, but out of the way of the cook. We usually finish a 1,000 piece in a single day because it’s so hard for everyone to walk away. Also, for some reason years ago, I started using an English accent while looking for pieces and so now we all basically talk like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins every time.

I love puzzles but my mother-in-law turns the pieces upside down, so it’s an extra challenge (I am a puzzle observer when she’s working on one because it’s too much).

Lol, my brothers won’t do puzzles with me anymore because I have “too many rules.”

My husband and son love having a puzzle going. Starting around age 5, my energetic kid would happily sit for an hour working on a puzzle. He’s the type of person who can just see the pieces and pluck them out of the box one by one putting it together. BUT… we don’t have a lot of space for an ongoing puzzle, so it’s always taking up the dining table and feels cluttered to me. We got a puzzle board so that in theory it can be moved (Reader, it never gets moved). How are people without room for a dedicated table managing puzzles? I’m trying to figure out a solution or just let it go, especially because of previously mentioned attention holding for the kid.

I love a puzzle. I’m trying to spend less time in front of the TV and have found that working on a puzzle with music or an audio book on in the back ground is very relaxing for me.

I occasionally enjoy doing a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but some of my children will go through phases of working them constantly! They’ll work the same one up to ten times in a row! Once the baby dumped six 500+ piece puzzles out; when they were all dually separated and worked, my son exclaimed “That was so much! Can we do that again?” !!!! If only that type of persistence extended to things like chores and schoolwork….

Wow, I found my people. A reader on here mentioned a long time ago that they listen to true crime podcasts while puzzling and I thought, how have I never thought of that! Now it’s my thing :)

We started the tradition of christmas advent puzzle… everyday til christmas, starting on the 1st the elves bring a few pieces of a puzzle that we make together every morning as a family. We started with 200 pieces. Now my son is 11 so we re doing 1000 pieces. My husband and I usually spend the night of the 30th of november making the puzzle in secret until 4 in the morning so the elves can start dropping their little packages on time for the next day… i love it though the night before is exhausting but we usually don t find a good puzzle until last minute!

My parents live in an apartment in an extended care facility. When I visit, I often find them at the communal puzzle table. EVERY time, the puzzle that they’re putting together is the hardest puzzle ever invented.

When my husband and I were in our 20’s we went on a hiking trip and stayed at a beautiful lodge that offered handmade wooden puzzles. They were the absolute perfect way to end a day of hiking. Grab a beer and a puzzle, sit by the fire and unwind after climbing a mountain. The lodge is no longer in existence and we have 2 kids now who don’t yet have the attention span for it yet, but every fiber in my being wants to create that again one day.

I pulled out a headlamp to do a jigsaw puzzle at Thanksgiving this year. Got roundly made fun of but I love being in the puzzle zone.

Someone I used to do puzzles with would sneakily take one piece and hold it until the end so they would be the one who had the “last piece” Kinda ruined the “team work” of the assembly for me. Sigh…😒

One Summer I worked at one of those swanky “retirement homes”. They had a beautiful British style library: wood paneled walls, loads of burgundy and plaid,ceiling to floor bookcases filled to the reams with lovely books. My favorite feature: there was a community puzzle atop a table, and everyday people would drop by a connect a piece, maybe two. Some residents would sit for a while and work on it longer, some employees will drop by on their breaks. It was so comforting to take a moment and stop to see the progress or alas, to find a missing piece. Then when it was completed, we would all gather around it proudly, in aw at everyone’s work!

I love puzzles. I am slowly teaching my children to get into them (they are all 5 and under).
Some of my favorite childhood memories are of the extended family gathering in one house at the beach and always having a puzzle going. It was the perfect activity to do all together or in small groups. Waiting on everyone to go to the sand? Spend 5 minutes on the puzzle. 20 minutes till dinner? Puzzle time! Such a low-pressure way to hang out with others.

It takes all kinds, but people who want to make puzzles (puzzles! of all things!) into a competition should are not welcome at my puzzle table lol

jigsaw puzzles are such a silent pleasure for me i’ll do the whole thing myself and then allow my kid to help with the last few pieces. it’s a win-win — trading that final moment of glory and satisfaction for longer moments of relaxed, quiet processing on my own.

I love puzzles. I will do them with anyone or by myself. I’ve learned they allow me to slow down to be with my kids. I have two kids who puzzle with me and two who don’t join, but cuddle up next to my body as I puzzle. I’ll have my oldest’s feet draped over my lap while she reads a book, I puzzle with the other two, and the last child will be playing with her toys at my feet on the rug. Puzzles for the win. For years I have dreamed of having a designated puzzle table, a round one, but I don’t want to risk breaking up the set up we already have.

I HATE puzzles. There, I’ve said it!

LOL puzzles always sound like a good idea until we are in the middle of it, irritated

One of my dearest friends assembles puzzles from the center outward, which to me is like biting into an apple starting with the stem, but you know, it makes her very happy – and when we vacation together, she’s the one who stays up all night like a one-woman elven workshop and presents the rest of us with a big old finished puzzle in the morning, so who am I to judge?