Laugh About It

During a phone chat today Becky asked "what happened to Margie's advent puzzle last year?" 

It wouldn't be the first time my post wasn't clear. It's always abundantly clear in my head (ha ha)...but it sometimes doesn't translate well to the page. So I'm going to clarify what happened.

Margie worked her puzzles on a foam core board that she kept on her coffee table. She could pull it up to her lap...and work on them from one of her chairs. She kept her puzzle pieces in box covers like I do and it worked well for her in her small space.

Here she is just getting started on the first tiny advent puzzle. 

Margie had a couple boards...so sometimes had finished puzzles piled up waiting to show me. She loved when I put photos here on the blog blog....which I tried to do every time she finished one.

Here she just slid them onto her table...and just kept going. She hadn't done a lot of puzzles before she moved to Maine...but that all changed. Once she started...she never stopped.

Now back to the advent story.

But just before Christmas...or maybe even on Christmas morning last year....Margie accidently knocked the board on the floor...and dumped all the little Advent puzzles everywhere. She was devastated. All her hard work was just a pile on the floor.

When Paul and I arrived to join her for Christmas lunch she was pretty discouraged. We picked up as many of the pieces we could find trying to keep as many chunks together as we could.

And I remember searching on several of the next visits for more pieces because she didn't want anyone vacuuming until we did a thorough search. She knew I wanted to do the puzzle too and then pass it on to someone else. 

Eventually we put chunks of pieces in the individual envelopes giving the next person a place to start. I tried to get her to laugh about it...but I don't think she ever quite got there.

It seemed daunting....but like I said yesterday....I'm taking it on. I'm not waiting until December 1st....I'm just jumping in. The loose pieces are sorted in my boxes...and I'm going to work on one random envelope at a time. Because there are so many little puzzles...there are a ton of blue edge pieces that all look exactly the same. Oy!

The first envelope had a partial puzzle...then a few pieces in the envelope that didn't fit. Do they even belong to this puzzle?  I think so. But who knows!

The second envelope had a complete puzzle. Yay!

I think I'm going to smile all the way through this sentimental journey...and I fully expect that in the end there will be missing pieces. It will be a miracle if there aren't.

And in the end....I'm just going to laugh about it....and hope Margie will somehow be laughing with me.