Monday, July 31, 2006

puzzle me this

Once upon a time approximately five months ago The Hater and I went shopping for a puzzle. This would surprise you if you knew that neither of us are very good puzzle-put'ters.

The clinic where I work has a special puzzle table where patients, family members, and staff can work on jigsaw puzzles. We have a shelf full of puzzles that people have donated to the clinic, and many of our patients enjoy having something to do while they are getting chemotherapy. We've done several artsy-type puzzles that we've backed and hung on the walls.

Lo, an idea was born! The Hater and I went shopping for a puzzle that we'd like to hang in our apartment. It would be cheap art tied with memories of some of my sweetest patients. We found the perfect puzzle for our future nursery.

(Of course this was all prior to the c-bomb. Our nursery plans have since been put on the virtual back-burner until we get a negative scan and my hormones are straightened out.)

It's not the best picture, but you can see the seven dwarfs walking towards the little cottage in the woods -- and at the bottom it says "Off to Home We Go". It's too sweet. How could you not fall in love with that puzzle? How perfect for a nursery!

We found this 1000 piece Disney Fine Art puzzle at Barnes and Noble up the street. We had no idea that the puzzle pieces would look mostly the same -- or that it would be so hard to put together! It took them over a month to get the edge together. Every week we would put some together, tear more apart. It was really a two steps forward, one step back ordeal.

They begged me to let them take it apart. They muttered things under their breath. They threatened me and called me names. But I held out for the nursery. I even begged my puzzle-putting friend to put it together for me if my coworkers tore it apart while I was gone. I needed the puzzle.

Ta-da. Today we finished it. It's been a long five months for them to finish the masterpiece, which now holds the "longest" table time of the many puzzles we have put together. Nary a piece is missing, which in itself is a small miracle.

We covered the back in contact paper and I carefully braved the wind to carry it out to the car. (The Hater is still being my most wonderful driver.) We'll look for a frame this weekend.

3 comments:

genderist said...

It should be noted that I found about 25- 30 pieces of the puzzle myself. True, that's not much for a 1000 piece puzzle, but it's a huge victory for my non-puzzle-putting self.

Sister says there's a rule that if I find a puzzle piece, we all have to stop and clap our hands.

She's the puzzle genius of the family.

Unequivocal_Prowess said...

I am so proud of you and your work! I had no idea that was the puzzle you were working on! I wish you would have told me, remember when we saw that? It was so cool!

I cannot wait to see it, and I had no idea it was that hard, that's scary!

Now, you just need to find frames for all of the stuff I have all around the house here...

Anonymous said...

Good job on being diligent enough to put that together. I know those thousand-piece puzzles can be maddening at times. I used to put one together every Christmas when I was in high school and it drove my parents nuts dealing with all the finished pieces. But I never took the initiative to actually frame them because that would just make too much sense. ;)