Aside from needing a fresh hobby to take me away from screens, one of the reasons I decided to start doing puzzles more often this year was because I was due to have a surgery that I was pretty sure would take me out for at least a couple of weeks if not a full month. As much as I enjoy video games, movies, et al, I wanted something more tactile to do during that time that didn’t require too much from me.

I had that surgery and quickly found out that there would be no puzzling until I felt well enough to sustain attention and sit upright without struggle. That took most of the expected two weeks I thought I would spend doing puzzles and games, neither of which I touched more than a few minutes in that time because I was just too exhausted. I’m just now getting back to it, a little over three weeks out, having spent more than my fair share of time watching shows and hitting my limit with screens again. I’m not 100%, but I’m finding in the past few days that the time spent on puzzles again is helping getting my brain and body back into shape where I feel more confident about doing bigger things again soon. I imagine they’ll be helping me in the next few weeks to get back to something resembling where I was pre-surgery. It hasn’t been what I thought – doing puzzles in the first weeks – but will be something that takes me from week 3 into the next month or two as I repair. So it goes. Good thing I planned ahead and got specifically autumn-specific puzzles to do.

For now, I worked on these in the mid to late summer this year.

Galison Astrology Foil Puzzle

I broke out the good camera for this one. After sorting the pieces into color families, I was struck by just how pretty this puzzle is. The gold foil and the dark blue to plum red gradients really worked for me visually. This ended up being a challenging puzzle because of the large blocks of similar colors so I was staring at it almost a full week, in the end discovering one of the pieces was missing. Boo. Alas, it was a thrift store puzzle, as many of these have been. I’m just surprised to have found it at the thrift store at all because it was one of the first puzzles on my imaginary wishlist.

Buffalo Water World Puzzle

Another thrift store puzzle that I almost didn’t get. What appeal do whales have to me? But something about Redina Tili’s art got me (wanting that Moss puzzle now). This puzzle ended up being pretty challenging and I had to practice patience with it as its border of colors were so similar and the fluid, organic illustrations made for a not particularly intuitive struggle.

Ceaco Pop Lolli Pop (Chupa Chups) Foil Puzzle

This fully foil puzzle was 500 pieces, which is about as much as I had limit for. I learned doing this one that my home lighting makes it really difficult to differentiate colors if the puzzle is overly glossy, shiny, or fully designed with foil. But, at 500 pieces, and strong line work throughout the puzzle, I was able to get through this fairly quickly. It was a fine distraction for my anxiety.

Buffalo Confection Street Puzzle

I played a little unintentional prank on myself starting this puzzle the day before I had my surgery. Having it out, having the edge pieces done, and having the sorting started the morning of helped provide some distraction so I could deal with the brutal hunger I had mixed with the intense next-level anxiety in the hours before surgery, but coming home and staring at the puzzle I couldn’t work on for over a week was a bit annoying. Thing I couldn’t do remained lingering. I eventually decided to take the color sorted trays to my bed and slowly pick at pieces that way, which probably only cut a day off my time as I remained exhausted for another week. Ultimately this took 19 days from start to finish. Had I been entirely healthy, it wouldn’t have taken long. Nevertheless, this was another Charles Wysocki puzzle, and save for the trees – seriously, fuck those trees – it was mostly a fun experience. The colorful imaginary world created with the art hit the spot and it was a beautiful, wholly necessary distraction from myself.

RoseArt Reading Nook (My Happy Place Series) Puzzle

I needed a smaller puzzle with crisp imagery next, so I chose this 750 piece puzzle. After I got started I thought maybe I should have gone with 300 or 500 instead since I was still pretty tired and feeling crappy, but once I tackled the initial color sorting and edges and realized what made sense where, the puzzle flew by. It was just easy enough for where I was while still taking me out of my head. I also really like this art style when it comes to puzzles, plus the image itself hit home as someone who likes books, plants, and sitting under blankets. 0/100 for having a cat on my lap (get off me, I’ve got places to be) but I get the sentiment there, too. Hope to do more puzzles by this artist in the future.

Elena Essex Woodland Magic Puzzle

What is it about mushrooms? Why? I mean, I like a bit of mushroom in food dishes, but what is it about the idea of them? Why are they appealing? Nevertheless, adding a subtle rainbow of color in a mix of mushrooms, and I got me some fresh wall out of this puzzle purchase that I’ve been looking at every day since I got it so many months ago. As I was feeling well enough to sustain attention by the time I started this, it didn’t take very long to conquer. I was amused at the end that despite how much white (well, cream) is in this puzzle, there wasn’t a single piece that was 100% white. Certain mushrooms were more of a challenge, but overall this puzzle was a quicker one once I fully sorted out the colors. I really want more Elena Essex puzzles but I imagine I’m really going to have to luck out finding one at a thrift store. Hopefully in the coming year I’ll be feeling more reliably with it and maybe I can take more trips to both my local thrift store and the further away ones and maybe, just maybe, I’ll find one.

For now, spooky season is upon us, and if there’s another one of these puzzle posts, I’m fairly certain it’ll have some ghosts, witches, or pumpkins in it.

I’ve knocked off several cheap and thrift store puzzles in the past few months. I took some chances and literally paid the price on a few of these, but I’m still learning what sort of puzzle images, brands, number of pieces, and quality work well for me, and overall it’s been worth the learning.

A few puzzles into this post I finally got a proper surface (not packaging cardboard on the floor) to do puzzles bigger than 500 pieces, and about a month ago I serendipitously happened to visit the garbage area where I live to find someone had dropped off an old Ikea table that – after I cleaned it – I can now use for smaller 1000 piece puzzles if I wish. Pretty crazy how I was thinking out loud about that in the last puzzle post and I ended up with both solutions. Seems to me the universe appreciates my lowered anxiety at this time thanks to staring at screens less.

Onto the puzzles I did earlier this summer.

Buffalo London Rain Puzzle from the “Cities in Color” Series

I’m not a fan of the semi-realistic digital art style common with puzzles lately, but I paid a measly $3.99 for this and it ended up being a fairly enjoyable experience. At 750 pieces it wasn’t terribly challenging, but the art style took a while to decipher what went where once I’d conquered some obvious parts. This had a lot of similar colors in it. I don’t see too many copies of this online now as it’s an older puzzle, so pardon the overpriced Walmart link.

Ppuzzling Enchanted Mushroom Library Puzzle

Well, we have to learn somehow. I had an inkling this was an AI image, but I couldn’t let the cheap price go and decided to give it a chance. Much of the image was clear, if dark, but logic broke down at the attempt of lettering on the books that gave away that it was definitely AI made. I ended up spending less time than perhaps I might have as I eventually ended up using the back letters of the pieces to help me make sure the pieces were at least in the right quadrant as some of the leafy parts were painful. Note to self: stick to recognizable brands.

Cra-Z-Art Catching Rays Lighthouse

Gorgeous puzzle, but the color family has a target audience of younger people, and with that I might have expected missing pieces if I hadn’t lucked out with the thrift store puzzles already. Three pieces just gone, and of course that led to some confusion while I was putting the puzzle together. Similarly, the puzzle had lint and a scent akin to having been in a kid’s hands and placed on a gross carpeted floor, so I was washing my hands a lot working on this one. Otherwise, this puzzle, despite it’s clear color zones, was a challenge. It wasn’t difficult at all since I could easily tell the general area where something worked, but it still took some real thought.

Aquarius Beetlejuice Puzzle

I didn’t pay full price for this one, but I bought it new since it came with a lunchbox tin and I’m a sucker for pretty bags and boxes. As with the movie poster, there are whole zones of single colors, which made this puzzle a pain in the ass to finish. The unusual puzzle shapes made it extra interesting, at least.

Catfly Mushroom & The Black Cat Puzzle

Pretty sure this was another AI puzzle, with similar letters on the back, so I ended up doing a lot of sorting based on those letters rather than focusing primarily on the image itself. The design is more cohesive and attractive, at least, but of course it’s nowhere to be found online. In any case, I got through this one a day or two faster than most because of the quadrant sorting I did.

RoseArt Pop Tarts Party Puzzle

This puzzle kicked my ass. To say it was a challenge is an understatement. I ended up leaving the brand lettering to do last, thinking that would be the hardest part because of how many times those words show up in the puzzle, but it was the texture of the sprinkles and frosting that got me. Since I had finished the Mystic Maze puzzle I hadn’t yet spent a full week on a puzzle, but I spent over a week on this one tediously trying to sort out which sprinkles went where.

Blanc (Buffalo Games) Day at the Beach, Mexico Puzzle

I needed a breezy choice after the previous puzzle, so I chose a 500 piece puzzle. I think any larger piece amount would have made this puzzle tedious, but at 500 it was fairly easy to sort out the subtle color and texture shifts of the sand and water. This was my first Blanc puzzle – my local store couldn’t get enough of them last year and it had been heavily discounted – and it was an interesting change of piece shapes with a slightly bulkier feel.

Buffalo Dancing Pheasant Farms Puzzle

My first Charles Wysocki image and it won’t be my last. This puzzle was challenging – fuck them trees, yo – but hit that sweet spot of still being fun every time I sat down to work on it. Despite some blocks of similar colors and textures, the image was crisp enough to decipher where something belonged with minimal issue. Still can’t believe I only paid $4 for this and not a single piece was missing.

Buffalo Rendezvous Positano Puzzle

Another challenging one I paid next to nothing for. I was able to sort out sections of items but it took some time to figure out exactly what went where. I thought the sky and moon of this one were going to be difficult, but it ended up being the first thing I finished as the rest of the image was proving difficult. I was going back and forth between sections slowly finding a place for a single piece at a time after I conquered the obvious spots. I think about this time I learned 1000 piece puzzles really need to be properly sorted out, too.

I’ve done several more puzzles since Rendezvous, but I wanted to give a relatively brief update before what’s probably going to look like a tonal shift by the time I update about the next batch. Much of this batch was about experimenting with cheap puzzles, seeing what sort of images might appeal, and getting a sense of what works for me before I start paying more than $5 for puzzles I don’t intend on keeping. I’ll undoubtedly end up doing more sketchy thrift store puzzles, but from here I know I want images that appeal to me aesthetically and brands with history.

Currently looking forward to doing more Magic Puzzle Company puzzles and checking out some Aimee Stewart retro art puzzles, but the season beckons spooky and autumnal images and some of those will likely be first in line. Might even read something spoopy and burn some spicy candles to match.

I grew up doing puzzles. Little me assumed this was normal until, one day, a kid came over who was fully confused by the most basic puzzle meant for a toddler I had sitting out. I don’t know why this simple puzzle was so challenging for him or why it seemed simple to me, but it occurred to me that maybe I was growing out of puzzles.

I don’t remember puzzles in the house after I was 8 or 9 years old. I’m sure they happened – maybe at school – but they weren’t feature for sure. I read books, I tried to write, I watched movies, I rode my bike, I played video games, I wandered around the woods when there were woods to wander. And then I felt too old for Disney merch and too young for the huge puzzles I saw old ladies tinkering with at a residential home nearby. I assumed puzzles bigger than 50 pieces were meant for the retiree crowd just looking to waste time between soap operas and too-early dinner.

After my mom got sick enough that I knew her condition was permanent in a way that meant I couldn’t work, I began looking for things I could do at home. Mostly I was looking for extremely cheap art projects. In that same time I wandered into the thrift store and noticed they kept a wall of puzzles and games, and one puzzle – a picture of a colorful makeup palette – caught my eye. I took it home. I wasn’t prepared for this endeavor at all and finished the puzzle on my carpeted floor. It went well. It seems I could still do a puzzle, and the bright colors were nice to look at as I put it together.

With my mom’s condition getting worse, I bought a few more puzzles that I thought might interest her and serve as a distraction. As far as I ever saw, she didn’t try to do them. Instead I sat on the living room floor and picked away at the puzzles off and on when I thought to do so, narrating difficulties and successes to keep her mind busy on something besides the new weird shit she was doing. I remember we had a puzzle on the table when I hired the final caregiver I personally hired, about a week before my mom’s brain decided walking was stupid. It was basically the last neutral thing before things went from bad to 24/7 terrible. After that I didn’t have it in me to sit in the living room any longer than I had to anymore, and all time not worried about her was spent doing the closest I could get to nothing in the absence of real sleep.

I tried puzzles again a few months after she, in short, moved out. It wasn’t going well. I didn’t have the patience, and my anxiety was bad so focus was minimal. Eventually I quit, boxed up the last puzzle I failed at, and donated it back to the thrift store like always.

Moving to a new place two years ago and feeling that sense of safety about my residence that I hadn’t had in a decade, I decided it was time to try a new puzzle. I got one I thought was pretty and tried working on it on my brand new floor. Despite my cosmic relief, the same month I was struggling emotionally with a guy telling me one thing but doing anything but, which concluded in me deciding I needed a break from his ilk. (Your chosen people shouldn’t make you feel lonely and anxious for weeks/months with no conclusion or attempt at giving a shit how you feel.) The all-around stress I felt from moving combined with that and landed at an inability to tolerate inconveniences like not understanding how I couldn’t figure out this tedious-ass puzzle. I had made some slow progress then stalled, got angry at it, decided I was barking up the wrong tree, and threw the puzzle back in the box. I decided I’d donate it back. Fuck stupid puzzles.

I ended up leaving behind or forgetting the donation box every time I went to the thrift store. Then one day I decided, you know what, I’m going to cut up that old dress I meant to donate and make it into a pillowcase. Hmm, there’s that puzzle again. Later I decided I was going to go through more old stuff, so one box became three or four. At that, I pulled the tedious but pretty puzzle out of the donation and put it back on a shelf.

Meanwhile, I bought other puzzles. I eventually did three. The first two I did in 2-3 sittings each, and it was a nice analog distraction from screens. They were both easier than I expected and fun to do. The third was a full price 1000 piece puzzle that ate up my floor for two weeks, but I made consistent progress and it was largely enjoyable. I liked the routine of spending a few minutes in the middle of the day picking at it.

I didn’t like when I sat too long and my back or legs started to hurt. I thought about buying a puzzle board or puzzle table. Which one made more sense? Maybe I would get a bigger desk or a kitchen table for versatility. Well, that requires taking a tape measure out into the world and somehow figuring out how to get whatever I find home, or buying something online. If I buy something online I probably don’t get to cheap out like in person and then I have to gamble with delivery issues. Do I want to risk having something deliver at a weird time or having to wait around all day? Maybe I wait. As in, maybe I wait to make a decision about this, if there’s one to be had.

The floor beckoned. I really liked the routine I’d created over this. There’s only so much video game or reading one can do. It was nice to do something physical with my hands and mind, no screen to be found beyond maybe a little TV that I wasn’t even looking at. Maybe I could do one more puzzle on the floor.

I’m saving a couple of puzzles for later in the year. Others I wasn’t sure about. And that left… the exceptionally tedious pretty one. Well. Hm. I’d had good luck so far. Let’s try again. I’d probably be better at it, all that stress from before gone and now having recent practice.

I put the puzzle box on the floor and started sorting out edge pieces. That’s about as far as I got.

I realize the issue now. The image isn’t intuitive. Colors don’t match from piece to piece. The image on the pieces is blurry, nondescript. The pieces themselves all feel dissimilar, like nothing belongs with anything else. This is a puzzle meant for someone who isn’t looking at the image whatsoever, who gets their kicks from one-color puzzles, where it’s all about sorting out shapes.

I got pissed off at it fast. I got up and walked away from it. I returned intending to box it up but instead put the edge pieces I hadn’t connected to anything yet into a plastic bag “for later”, uncertain what I’d actually do – continue or box it back up. I came back, emptied the bag, picked away with minimal success. Quickly I found myself staring at these still undone edge pieces that I feel like I spent an hour on already, and noped out. Fuck you. Back in the box. Getting donated for reals this time. Wish I’d done it already.

Maybe I spend some more time reading instead.