Puzzles---Memories

Do you remember the very first puzzle you ever did? I don't. Some of you wise guys are thinking, "They didn't have puzzles when you were young." Funny!

For Christmas Lina and Billy gave us one of those large popcorn tin. All of you have probably received this same gift at least once in your lifetime. The difference with this tin is that on top of the tin was a 500 piece puzzle...the puzzle matched the design on the tin..a farm scene. This got me thinking about PUZZLES.

When Bob and I lived in Chicago on Kedvale Street. We had the sweetest Christian Norwegian landlady you could ever have..Mrs. Isacksen. She would always make her Sunday dinner on Saturday night. The smell would drift up to us on the second floor where we lived. Another story for another time. Dear Mrs. Isacksen was always working on a puzzle. One day she told us why she always had a puzzle in the works. "It keeps my mind off of me, and it keeps me from feeling sorry for myself." (She was quite elderly when we met her..her husband had left her...she raised her only son by herself.)

The next person I rememer doing puzzles was my wonderful sister, Kathy. She did many puzzles...some she even glued together and framed. (My sister Louise has one of those hanging in her home..a gift from Kathy.) My mother and her would often be doing a puzzle at our mother's house. When God called Kathy home to heaven, my mother just quit doing puzzles. I would get her one for Christmas hoping she would start it... couldn't do it...too many memories connected it to her daughter.

Now I do remember doing puzzle in Berean's Day Care with the K 3 & K 4 kids. I always enjoyed doing the easy ones. Hated it when they would take a large one with lots of pieces and couldn't finish it. Guess who got to finish it....?

For the longest time, I haven't done or thought about puzzles. (Tired of the word yet?) Well, when Gary and I got married, we would often visit his stepmom, Willie..yes, that's the name she goes by. Actually it's Willabelle. Everytime we visited her, there was a unfinished puzzle on her dinner room table. Gary and I would stay a couple of hours and sometimes work on her puzzle with her. We felt great when we left...we found maybe at the most 5 pieces that actually fit.

This story does have an ending. My suggestion: TRY STARTING A PUZZLE. It's fun! No time limit..The one Gary and I recieved from Billy and Lina...finished it yesterday, February 6, 2008...during that wonderful snow storm we had. Find a place that you can leave it and work on it when you have a few minutes. Some of you with younger kids..perhaps you have already done this. Puzzles are really relaxing, engages you in conversation with the person or people you are doing it with. And most of all you can do it at your own speed..finish it in a day, month or even perhaps a year.

Enjoy the pictures from our own experience with a PUZZLE.