Thoughts on puzzles

Puzzles are not everyone's favourite hobby, but I always find time to do a few a year.  The fact that trains are often featured in puzzles is a bonus.  I wouldn't call it killing two birds with one stone.  That's silly.  I would call it synergistic....but that's probably because I was an English major and I need to utilize that expensive (albeit subsidized by the government) vocabulary.

standard assembly...edges first

Puzzles are a pretty solitary hobby with me.  I have known others who treat it as a family activity, but that isn't the case with me.  Perhaps it's selfish.  Either way, the best thing about puzzles is that you can easily see your progress, and more often than not, you do reach completion--which is not always the case with my other hobbies.

If I am lucky, I can put it in a place where the cat won't disturb it and work on it from time to time.  I don't usually put in big chunks of time unless I get sucked in by fitting lots of pieces, or because I should go to bed...and I keep telling myself, "just one more piece."  In these cases, I seem to devote a lot more time to it.

I am a typical puzzle maker....I think.  I start by assembling the edges first.  That seems logical, but I wonder...is there someone out there who starts in the middle and works their way to the edges?  That would be pretty cool to see.

assembling the train is a priority

Since most of my puzzles feature trains, the train gets assembled first.  The worst thing is that I am usually left with sky, and lots of it.  This isn't bad if you're doing the puzzle under natural light, but under a light bulb differentiating light blue from lighter blue isn't so easy.  This latest puzzle was rather odd in that I got the sky done before the mountains.  No complaints, but it just isn't the way things have been going lately.

not just sky left...this time

I happy it is done, and I won't be doing another puzzle until September or later....It's funny how I think I can plan these things, when I know that's not true.  I'll do a puzzle when my fancy strikes me, not when I plan it.  I could have a hundred other projects before I see another puzzle.