Jiajing’s Puzzle

During Jiajing’s Thanksgiving visit she went shopping with Connie and came back with a 1000 piece puzzle. She left it here when she returned to school with the idea that she would work on it when she returned during Christmas break. We got the puzzle out and started it before she was to leave for a trip to Washington, D. C. just after Christmas. While she was gone I could not resist adding a piece here and there and before you knew it, it was done. I really enjoy putting puzzles together. I mention this puzzle because of a comment Jiajing made.

Since I have grown up making puzzles I never thought about cultures that didn’t have puzzles to work on. At Thanksgiving time, Connie got out a box containing ten puzzles of various sizes and difficulty. They varied is size from about 100 pieces up to 1000. The grandkids and Jiajing went to work on the smaller ones, but once they were done one of the 1000 piece puzzles was dumped on the table. Jiajing wondered why we enjoyed so much making puzzles and mentioned that in her culture they don’t have puzzles. I guess this is what prompted her to buy one as a souvenir.

I thought I would take a picture of Jiajing’s puzzle.

After finishing Jiajing’s puzzle, I pushed it to the end of the table and dumped another 1000 piece one on the table. As the rose bowl parade and ball games played during the day on New Years, I spent my time working on the puzzle. It is too bad we have allowed our lives to become so busy we don’t have more time to do things like this.