Conquering the Puzzle!

We all have weird things we do. One of my quirks is that I like to count pages when I read. I could never accurately describe what this is, so I have a 55 second video below to show you what I do:

That's a little weird, right!?

Doing puzzles allows me to indulge in my love of counting and sorting. 

Before we go forward I have to mention that I simply could not be as organized as I am if it weren't for my Jigsort 1500! Paul got it for me for Christmas. He assures me he paid less than $100 for it and I hope he's not lying...

Here's my set up, the Jigsort on a little TV stand my Uncle Bob made.

The Jigsort!

It has extra panels, perfect for my sorting quirk!

Here is how I approach a 1000 piece puzzle.

 First, I decide how many pieces I want to sort at a time. For a 1000 piece, it's usually 100. So I count out 100 pieces and flip them right side up. As I count them, I sort out the edge pieces and make a pile of those.

Then, I sort out all of the pieces left that aren't edge pieces. I'll make a pile of sky, a pile of horse and buggies, a pile of people, a pile of the house on the left, the house on the right, and so on. You get the idea? (Yes, I usually have a pile of random pieces that I don't know where they go!)

Then I count out 100 more pieces and do it all again!

Eventually my little puzzle towers get too tall and I have to spread them out on different sections of the Jigsort.

Once everything is sorted, I put together the edges. Usually that doesn't take me too long. Then I choose a pile of sorted puzzle pieces to put together first. For this puzzle I chose the little red store at the bottom left of the picture.

Then I keep choosing little sorted piles and slowly, everything gets connected.

I don't always work from bottom to top, and I didn't with this one. It just so happened that the different sections I chose first were all on the bottom half so it looks like I worked my way up.

I will admit, many times I save the sky until the end.

Finished!

I feel like THE SHIT!

Aaaaand... less than a minute after I am done with the puzzle, I put it back in the box.

What's done is done.

Now that I showed you how I do a puzzle, here are some questions people often ask me about puzzles....

1. How many puzzles do you have? Over 100.

2. Can I borrow one? YES!

3. What do you do with the puzzles when you're done? If I think I will do them again, I will save them. If I don't want them anymore, I will donate them or give them away.

4. Have you ever quit a puzzle? Yes, many times. If it is not fun, I won't do it. Sometimes I quit if I have like 100 pieces of sky left and it all looks the same. I'm outtie.

 One time I was at the dining room table and sorting a Christmas Cookie puzzle. Paul walked by and commented, "Wow, that's looks hard." I looked at the puzzle and said, "You're right, I'm not doing it," and dumped everything in the box. Paul felt really bad because he thought he made me quit the puzzle. I told him he only saved me time as I was even having trouble with the edge pieces! I once quit a puzzle of the Grand Canyon. Can you imagine how hard that puzzle was!?

5. Where do you get your puzzles? Mostly thrift stores because you can get really good puzzles for $3 or less. Sometimes I'll do Dollar Tree (I only like the Puzzlebug 500 piece puzzles from there.) and if I'm splurging, I'll get one off Amazon.

6. What's your favorite type of puzzle to do? 500-1000 piece puzzles are my favorite, but sometimes I'm in the mood for a 300. Charles Wysocki is clearly my favorite kind of puzzle to do! I also like Jane Wooster Scott and Heronim.

7. How do you do puzzles with two cats!? Well, Jelly usually leaves my puzzles alone while I'm doing them. Christmas is the one who wants to mess with the pieces, so I keep a squirt bottle nearby. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get scratched by Chrissy while he was getting frisky near a puzzle!

 You're on thin ice, Chrissy!

 Do you see the irony?

Chrissy loves to lay on them once they're done.

 As for storing it when I'm taking a break, that's really where the Jigsort 1500 helps me out because I can easily move the puzzle somewhere else or cover it with the panels.

One time Jelly did cause some major puzzle drama. A couple weeks ago, I had spent about 2 hours sorting a 1000 piece puzzle and 1 hour starting to put it together. I had my Jigsort set up just like the first picture in this blog post depicts. Jelly hopped up on the couch and stepped on some of my sorted pieces. I stood up to collect a couple pieces that fell on the floor. Well, the Jigsort must not have been centered on the little stand I put it on because 5 seconds after I stood up, it crashed to the floor...

THE WHOLE PUZZLE fell apart as well as several sorted stacks. Some of the pieces went under the couch where there is cat hair and dust.

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, I told myself. You will NOT cry over a puzzle because there are people in the world who have REAL problems...

I didn't cry, just sadly put all the puzzle pieces back in the box. I'll do the puzzle again sometime, but I'm not ready yet. It still stings!

Do you like puzzles?

Did you actually just read a whole blog post about puzzles?

I can't believe I actually wrote this...