Category: fun

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Brunch & Craft

At the end of September, my church held an event called Brunch & Craft. It was open to anyone who wanted to come, and we were encouraged to bring a craft to do and, if possible, a dish to share. This is the second one of these we have had, and it was a lot of fun the first time.

My friend Suzanne and I decided to do puzzles during the crafting time. We did two puzzles, and our friend Brianne joined us for the first one before settling down to color. My friend Renee, who lives about 45 minutes away, came with me as well and she was doing some crochet.

I really enjoyed the event. I brought a sausage hashbrown casserole to share and had some other delicious treats that other people had brought as well. I brought four puzzles and let Suzanne and Brianne choose which ones we would do. For the first one, they immediately chose Cats in Quarantine, which is a 500-piece puzzle from Exploding Kittens. I have done it a couple of times already and love it.

The picture above shows it in progress, and here is the finished puzzle:

For the second puzzle, Suzanne chose Waterfall Camper, a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco. The artist is Stephanie Peterson Jones. I have a bunch of her puzzles and really like her artwork.

This was such a fun event. Usually I get drained being around a lot of people, but I was so focused on our little group and the activity of puzzling that I actually still had a lot of energy after it was done. Renee and I went out for a late lunch/early dinner and then ice cream and hung out for a bit at my place before she went home.

I hope we do it again!

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Puzzle Chess with Jenn

Last Friday night, our good friends Bill & Jenn came over and, while they were there, Jenn and I played two rounds of puzzle chess. We used two 100-piece puzzles I had on hand. It was a lot of fun! I did manage to win both rounds, but the first one was only by ten seconds!!

Here are our results. We started with 20 minutes on each of our clocks.

The first puzzle was Beautiful Wild Animals from a generic Amazon brand, MJPHDM. It was a surprisingly good quality. The pieces were sturdy and fairly thick, and it came with a nice, big poster.


The second puzzle was Cosmos, and it came from Ceaco. The quality was decent, but the pieces were thinner and there was no poster.

In case you are wondering how to play puzzle chess, here’s how it works. You pick a small puzzle (we used 100 pieces) and you build the border together and lay out all the other pieces. Then you start a chess clock, which you can get on your phone, and take turns putting one piece into the puzzle. Once you have placed your piece, you tap your clock to end your turn and start the other person’s time. Whoever has the most time left when the puzzle is done is the winner!

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Autism Mother to Mother Luncheon

For the past several months, I have been part of a committee planning a luncheon for mothers of kids with autism. I was in charge of registration, which included communicating with the moms who had signed up for the luncheon as well as getting everything we needed to hand out at registration together.

It was a lot of work and was stressful at times, but it was so worth it! The event took place last Saturday, and we had over 70 moms in attendance. We also provided childcare for about 20 kids. In addition to the lunch itself, there was a program that was simulcast from the main location in Chambersburg to our location in Harrisburg and one additional location in Lebanon.

One of the neat things about the luncheon is that we find different people to design each table and decorate it with china and a centerpiece and small favors for the moms at that table. We also collect gift baskets and other items to raffle off to the moms. The event was hosted by a local church, New Love in Christ, who provided so much support! The pastor’s wife even created some amazing balloon art for the fellowship hall and the sanctuary.

One of the tables
Several of the other tables
Registration Area
Gift Table
Sanctuary Balloon Art
Fellowship Hall Balloon Art

The speaker for the event was Kate Swenson, co-author with Carrie Cariello and Adrian Wood of Autism Out Loud: Life with a Child on the Spectrum, from Diagnosis to Young Adulthood (which we all got a copy of). She shared about her experiences raising an autistic child and focused a lot on the need to be part of a community instead of living in isolation. It was very encouraging, and I am happy to say that I did make a few new connections that day. I am so glad I decided to get involved with the planning of this incredible event.

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Weekend Recap

This was a fun weekend! On Saturday, I attended a Brunch & Craft women’s event at my church. Everyone was invited to come for brunch and bring any craft they wanted to work on while socializing with each other. I don’t really have any crafts I am working on right now, so my friend Suzanne and I decided to do puzzles together.

There was a good turnout at the event, and everyone was talking about how we would like to do it again. I brought four puzzles for us to choose from, all ones I had previously done. Our friend Brianne joined us for the first one, Mountain Camper from Ceaco. It was a 300-piece puzzle and went very quickly with the three of us working together.

After that, Brianne decided to do some coloring, and Suzanne and I did Paper Paradise from Galison, a 500-piece puzzle. One of the other women at the event who enjoys doing puzzles stopped over and helped for a little while. We finished just under the wire.

This morning I was a greeter at church. The pastor started a new series for Lent called Practicing the Way. It was inspired by the book of that name by John Mark Comer. The sermon was very good and we also had a surprise visit by our bishop. We gave out t-shirts to 5 newcomers today, which was exciting.

This afternoon we had a small birthday celebration for Michael, who turns 23 tomorrow. The party included Renee, Chris, Evan, and Hans. We had lunch followed by the cake Michael has requested – chocolate with chocolate frosting with chocolate chips in the frosting. He got some fun gifts including a metal 100-sided die and a Nintendo 64 t-shirt. After that, the boys played games on the Switch while us old folks napped and chatted on the couch.

I do wish I had one more day to the weekend to decompress a bit, but I am glad I was able to participate in both events. I will get a bit of down time tomorrow after work since Michael’s therapist is out of town and Michael won’t have an appointment like he usually does.

What did you do this weekend?

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Happy National Puzzle Day!

Happy National Puzzle Day to all my fellow puzzlers!

From the National Day Calendar website, here is the origin story of this day:

In 2002, Jodi Jill created National Puzzle Day as a way to share her enjoyment of puzzles. As a syndicated newspaper puzzle maker and professional quiz maker, Jodi Jill developed classroom lesson plans especially for the observance and the popularity has grown year after year.

I started puzzling in June 2021, after my therapist suggested I find a hobby in addition to my interest in reading. Here is the puzzle that started it all:

This was titled Rare and Beautiful, a 500-piece puzzle from Puzzle Crush. Since then, I have completed 172 unique puzzles and done a few a second time as well. I have connected with fellow puzzlers on Facebook, Instagram, and even Reddit.

National Puzzle Day is for any type of puzzle, not just jigsaw puzzles, so you could do a crossword, word search, Sudoku, or a brain teaser, to list a few examples. I am having a friend over tonight, and we will be doing a jigsaw puzzle together.

Do you enjoy any kind of puzzles?

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Christmas 2024

I had such a nice Christmas this year. My company was closed on the 24th and 25th, and I took the 23rd as a floating holiday, so with the weekend I had five days off. It took me a while to get my apartment decorated this year, but I finally did it and was able to enjoy my tree and other decorations for a couple of weeks leading up to the big day.

Michael was with me on Christmas Day this year, and we slept in until around 10am and then opened our stockings and gave each other presents. I decided that I wanted to have Michael be in charge of filling my stocking starting next year and when I told him that, he wanted help shopping for me this year to add to the couple of little things I had bought for myself. I thought that was very sweet.

For presents, Michael gave me two puzzles – one for Christmas and one for my birthday. He picked them from my Amazon wish list, so I definitely liked them!

In addition to his stocking stuffers, I got him a set of Pokemon books, a Lego set, and a new keyboard for his computer. I usually get him a video game, but he only had one on his list this year, and his dad got it for him. I did put gift cards for Nintendo and Steam in his stocking along with a bunch of different treats.

Peanut Butter got a small squirrel stuffed with catnip. I think he liked it!

After we opened presents, I made us French toast for breakfast and then got started on dinner, which was a turkey breast with assorted sides (different for each of us based on what we like). Later that day, I watched the Doctor Who Christmas special, so that was fun. All in all, it was a very good day!

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Brick Fest Live 2024

Last Friday, there was a knock at my door and my son answered it to find my friend Jessyca, who I have not seen in several months. I was overjoyed to see her and we had a nice chat to catch up on each other’s lives. She also brought me a Christmas gift, which was a custom puzzle that she had made for me. There was no picture of what the image would be, so it was a surprise as I put it together.

This puzzle is from a company called puzzleYOU and is one of their Smart Sorted puzzles. When you open the box, you see 40 individual little boxes, each with 25 pieces in them. This allows you to choose what level of difficulty you want for your puzzling experience. You can do one box at a time or mix as many as you want together. The box did not show the puzzle, but did have a hint for what the image would be.

I chose to do one box at a time since I didn’t know what the image was. It was so fun to do each little section and then put them together. I had a few times where it seemed like I was missing a piece, but eventually I thought to check the little boxes and found that some of them had a piece at the bottom that hadn’t come out when I emptied the box the first time. So in the end, I was not missing any pieces.

Here are some pictures of my progress at various points:

This was such a fun puzzle to do, and the quality was excellent. The pieces were a nice size and thick enough to pick up easily, and it was fairly easy to move sections around. I especially enjoyed it because it had been made especially for me by a dear friend and was a reminder of the great time we had going to the Brick Fest Live event earlier this year.

I would highly recommend this company if you are interested in making a custom puzzle, and the Smart Sorted option is great for someone who might not have a lot of puzzling experience (but I also loved it even though I have done a lot of puzzles)!

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Floral Reflections

Floral Reflections is a beautiful 500-piece puzzle from Ravensburger that I have had my eye on for quite a while. My friend Jessyca came over on Memorial Day to hang out and after lunch we decided to do this puzzle together.

We sorted by color but didn’t pull the edges out and then started working at different ends of the puzzle. It worked out well because there are six sections so we could each do three of them. I finished a little bit ahead of her, so I helped with her last section.

This is such a gorgeous image, and it was very enjoyable to put together. The Ravensburger quality is always good, and it was especially nice to be working on it with another person.

After we finished the puzzle, we talked for a while and then decided to watch a movie. We settled on Falling for Figaro, partly because she had seen and liked the main actress in another movie (Patti Cake$). We both enjoyed the movie, and I plan to watch the other movie whenever I start up my Apple TV subscription again (that will be once Foundation and Silo have new seasons available)!

While she was there, I got a delivery of another puzzle I had ordered off Amazon. It came in a brown paper envelope, and the puzzle box was so mangled that it had torn open on one corner. There were even loose pieces in the packaging! I immediately contacted Amazon to initiate a return!

I had such a nice, relaxing day with my friend. I am so glad that I have been able to meet some people at my new church that I really click with!

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The Lion Is Awake

The Lion is Awake is a 1000-piece puzzle from Genuine Fred, and the artist’s name is Souther Salazar. I picked it up at my local puzzle box because there weren’t many puzzles I really liked and this one just seemed so interesting and unique.

This was also the first puzzle I had done from the brand Genuine Fred. It turned out to be a really good puzzling experience. The quality was very good, and the image was perfectly suited for a puzzle, with lots of distinct colors and textures to work on .

I actually did this puzzle on Mother’s Day. Michael was with his dad, so I went to church and had lunch and then started working on this puzzle. He came home later in the afternoon and brought me a card, flowers, and chocolate. So sweet!

The day before I did this puzzle, I went to a puzzle competition that was being held nearby in Hershey, PA. I did not participate as it was my first time going to something like this and I wanted to scope it out first to see what it was like. The competition involved teams of 4 doing a 500-piece puzzle. This was a fundraiser for metastatic breast cancer research and was held at the antique automobile museum, and the puzzle had antique cars and trucks on it.

There were about two dozen teams participating in the event, which was great. The first three teams got done in 33 minutes, 45 minutes, and 54 minutes. I stayed for a little while after that, but left before the entire event was over. I was by myself because the friend that was planning to go with me had a family thing come up and couldn’t go.

Here are a couple of pics from the day:

If I get another opportunity to go to a puzzle competition like this, I think I would like to find a team and join in.

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Brick Fest

Recently I had the opportunity to attend Brick Fest, which is an event designed for Lego fans of all ages. I went with my friend Jessyca, and we had a great time!

There were a ton of builds to see, including some very large scale ones, and there were also many interactive areas. We did quite a few of them:

  • Meet N Greet with two of the stars from Lego Masters
  • Derby, where you build a car on a provided base and then it is raced against other cars down a short track
  • Coloring with Lego markers and Lego gel pens on coloring sheets they provided
  • Building a section of a mosaic based on a template you were given
  • Playing in a brick pit (Jessyca did this – I don’t have a picture)
  • Jessyca had a VIP ticket, so she got to do a custom build which was a little robot and get an event pin and sticker. She was able to get doubles of those to share with me.

The Meet N Greet was with Manny and Patrick from the show Lego Masters. I haven’t seen the show, but Jessyca is a huge fan and was really excited to meet Manny especially. She took a picture of me with them:

Here are some of the builds we saw:

Here is the car I built and the derby track:

Here’s my coloring page and the other swag I got:

And here is the mosaic tile I built along with a picture of the mosaic in progress:

There were other areas where you could build with different types of bricks, but we didn’t do all of them. We spent about 3 hours there, which we were happy with.

If you are interested in attending Brick Fest, check out their website for other locations and dates.