YA and I decided in November that maybe we should take up jigsaw puzzles now that the weather had turned cold. In the past, jigsaw puzzles have driven us both a little crazy; we have to worry about the kitty messing with the puzzles, neither of us had a lot of extra time and we both can get a little obsessive occasionally. But thanks to sheltering-in-place and neither of us working, we don’t have the same objections that we used to (except the kitty). We did a Ukrainian egg puzzle in November – took us about 5 hours, both of us working on it the whole time.
Right after Solstice, we pulled a puzzle down from the attic. It’s a 1000 piecer and it’s a doozy – no straight edges and lots of little pictures within the main puzzle. We’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks and we still haven’t been able to identify all of the outer edges. YA is particularly good at seeing the design of a particular piece and figuring out where it goes. I’m better at identifying pieces by shape. But this puzzle is currently getting the better of both of us although we haven’t given up yet.
In our prior life, having a puzzle on the table in the living room this long would have made me crazy and I am having to fight this feeling. So much so that I decided to try to figure out how long it will take us to finish this one. We’ve done about 350 pieces so far. I’m assuming the tipping point (the point at which you’ve done enough of the puzzle that the pieces start going together more easily) will be between 650 and 700 pieces. Right now we are going pathetically slowly; we averaging about 10 pieces a day (if we both spend a bit of time on it – it’s really hard to keep at it at this point). So, taking into account the eventual tipping point and days when we ignore it entirely, I figure it will take us another 45-50 days to finish. It could be spring before we are done with this thing!
When was the last time you had to do math? In your head, on paper or using a calculator (or Excel)?
