A Year of Blogging: January 29, 2011

Today is Puzzle Day. I don't mind doing puzzles, but it isn't one of my hobbies. I think because I already have too many hobbies, and try not to add to it! Every time I've gone to NY lately, Sydney wants to do a puzzle with me. It's always the same one, a Disney Princess puzzle she has at my mom's. She says 'Lets do a puzzle' and we start the puzzle, and then after a couple of minutes, she goes on to something else. By that point, I'm determined to finish the puzzle, so I stick it out. It's a children's puzzle, so it doesn't take long. My sister has always loved doing puzzles. The year that 3D puzzles came out, Mom bought her one for Christmas. It was Notre Dame Cathedral. My sister worked and worked on that thing. It frustrated my mom, it frustrated me, but my sister kept going. I think it stood 3 or 4 feet tall when it was done. It was neat, but not for me. One year, Laura made puzzle pictures for everyone. She did the puzzle, glued it, then matted and framed it. The one she made for me is a mountain scene, and goes perfectly in my bedroom. She put a lot of work into all of our gifts that Christmas! There is a running joke in our family about puzzles. If you have a puzzle, and my mom is around, you might hear us say 'hide the scissors'. Mom's sister, Aunt Arlene, told us that as a kid, Mom would get scissors and cut the puzzle pieces to fit. And this is not just a tall tale told by an older sibling. Mom has tried to do puzzles with us, and she quickly gets frustrated. I have even heard her say 'Oh, where are the scissors?'. So we usually don't include Mom when we are doing puzzles. Erich's Dad likes to do jigsaw puzzles, so for a couple of years we bought him a puzzle. One of the malls in Cincinnati has a nice puzzle store, so we would pick out a very elaborate puzzle for him. Since he was a German teacher, we thought it was really great if we found something German related. Then he complained to Erich that everyone always bought him puzzles for Christmas. (You have to know him, after 10 years, I'm still trying to figure him out). So we stopped buying him puzzles. I guess he likes them, but was tired of only receiving puzzles for Christmas. I do enjoy doing crosswords or word searches. Which are also puzzles. Word searches are great ways to kill time in airports or on the airplane, if you aren't sleeping. I also play many online games which are brain teasers or puzzles. I have read that keeping your brain active may help with the fibro fog, so I play these games as ways to stay sharp. At least, that's my story!