When I was growing up, every summer my family would come home to Nebraska for two weeks to see family.  One of the days we were back, would be spent getting a watermelon, and going to Guide Rock, to see my Great Grandma B.  She passed away when I was ten, so I don’t have tons of memories of her, but the ones I do have are precious.

Great Grandma B was a short and sweet lady.  She always had cookies in the cookie jar, a giant garden, and there was always a jigsaw puzzle in progress.  Even though I never worked on a puzzle with her, I was always in awe of them.  When she passed away, I was allowed to have a few of her puzzles, and that’s when my love affair with jigsaws began.

I drove my mom absolutely batty over the years because I constantly wanted to have a jigsaw going, but my incredibly short attention span meant that it would take me months to complete one.  As I got older, I fell off doing puzzles, but that didn’t mean I stopped loving them.  Then, last spring, I stumbled across a group on Facebook where people were sharing their completed jigsaws.  I wanted to share, so I joined and jumped back into puzzling.  In the last year, I’ve completed a pile of puzzles, and when registration for the 2019 Global Jigsaw Jubilee opened, I signed up.  I’d seen people’s completed puzzles from the 2018 Jubilee, and something competitive inside me had awoken.  I wanted to prove that I’m just as awesome a puzzler as all those others who’ve participated.

The event starts on 1/29, so I have five days left to prepare.  Here’s the puzzles I’m planning to work on:

I intend to start with the Ravensburger, simply because I think it will prove to be the easiest.

Putting together the little squares of images should prove *fingers crossed* relatively easy.

Next up will be the DC Comics puzzle:

Considering how much we love DC in this house, this puzzle is a must do.  (Points to you if you can name everyone in the image without help.  I can name at least half, but I know Tom could name them all if asked).

After that, I head into more challenging waters.  The Disney Kinkade puzzles:

These are two of my favorite Disney princess movies.  Most of my life Beauty & the Beast was my favorite, but it was dethroned when Tangled came along.  Tangled and Moana are currently tied at the top of my favorites list.

Finally, I’m going to tackle this monster:

3000 pieces of Star Trek magic.

Here’s the thing, I’ve never completed a puzzle bigger than 1000 pieces.  I’m not too concerned about the 1500 piece ones, but that 3000 piece one is definitely going to test my abilities.  Going in, I know that the Ravensburger and Aquarius puzzles will have the best fitting, best condition pieces.  The Disney puzzles are Ceaco brand, and if previous experience with Ceaco is any indicator, I’ll get a bit frustrated.  Their puzzles are beautiful, but pieces are usually not great.  Here’s hoping that this will be a fun experience!