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Two Repeats for a Puzzle Challenge

The clues for weeks 2 and 3 of the puzzle challenge I am doing on Facebook were barnyard animals and musical instruments. I was able to redo puzzles from my shelves for both of them.

Farm Life is a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Olivia Gibbs. This one fit the clue for barnyard animals with its cows and chickens.

Koala House Party is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeBoo, and the artist is Uta Krogmann. This one is a house cross section with a music room containing several different instruments.

I enjoyed redoing both of these and am looking forward to the next prompt tomorrow!

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Sunset Mountains – My First Wooden Puzzle

Sunset Mountains is a gorgeous 250-piece puzzle from Wentworth Wooden Puzzles. This is my first wooden puzzle, but I have heard only good things about this brand, which is made in Britain. They also are quite a bit pricier than cardboard puzzles, which is one of the reasons I haven’t tried them out before now.

The opportunity to do this puzzle came about because I am a Patreon supporter of a puzzler I follow on YouTube. She decide to offer this as a traveling puzzle to her patrons, so I signed up for it. The puzzle was sent to me by the first person who got it, and I will be sending it to the next person on the list in a few days.

This puzzle was a joy from beginning to end. The pieces are laser-cut into intricate shapes with a few pieces being shaped like identifiable objects – those are called whimsy pieces.

Pile of pieces
First two pieces put together
Whimsy pieces

I decided not to start with the border because it was quite dark and I wanted to get more comfortable with how the pieces fit together. So I pulled out the brightest colors first and worked out from there. Once I got about 2/3 finished, I did the rest of the border and then filled in the darkest pieces.

Session 1
Session 2
Session 3

After I finished the puzzle, I took the whimsy pieces out so that my friend Renee could see them when she came over to my place the other day.

I would love to do more wooden puzzles, but I’m not sure they are in my budget. Either way, I’m really glad that I got to do this one!

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25 in 2025 Wrap Up

At the beginning of this year, there was a challenge floating around Bookstagram called the #25in2025 challenge. The idea was to identify 25 backlist books from your TBR that you wanted to read this year.

I came up with my list in mid-January, and I am excited to say that I have now read all of the books! (To be totally transparent, I did replace two of the books from the original list when they were hard to track down.)

There were some really good choices in this bunch, and I am so glad I did it. Here is the list of what I read as part of this challenge:

Fiction/Romance

  • Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
  • Ordinary Life: Stories by Elizabeth Berg
  • What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg
  • How to Get a (Love) Life by Rosie Blake
  • How to Stuff Up Christmas by Rosie Blake
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
  • The London Flat: Second Chances by Juliet Gauvin
  • Hope in a Jar by Beth Harbison
  • Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison
  • Secrets of a Shoe Addict by Beth Harbison
  • The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
  • The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
  • Rise & Shine, Benedict Stone by Phaedra Patrick
  • Lawyers and Lattes: Happily Ever After in Devon by Rebecca Paulinyi
  • Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin

Thrillers

  • Crime Scene by Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman
  • Billy Straight by Jonathan Kellerman
  • Twisted by Jonathan Kellerman

Nonfiction

  • The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky
  • Reading While Black by Esau McCaulley
  • Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark by Janet Kellogg Ray
  • The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby
  • How to Fight Racism by Jemar Tisby
  • God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines

Have you read any of these? Did any of them stand out to you?

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Village Toy Shop

Village Toy Shop is a 500-piece puzzle from Sure-Lox, and it is part of their Touch of Frost series. I got this one for free from the friend who recently moved away, and I was very happy to find that it had all of the pieces.

Don’t let the picture fool you, it was quite a bit darker than it looks and very difficult. I knew it was going to be a hard one when the sky and snow were the easy parts, lol! The building pieces were extremely dark and it was slow-going putting them in, but I did eventually get it finished.

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What I’m Reading – July 2025

What I’m Reading Now

The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland – Lost for Words #1 – I recently read the second book in this series and wanted to go back and read the first one. I am just starting it, but I have heard good things about it.

Yoga Pant Nation by Laurie Gelman – Class Mom #3 – I read the first two quite a while ago and am finally getting around to reading this one. It promises to be a fun read.

What I Recently Finished

Fiction

  • In the Woods by Tana French – Dublin Murder Squad #1
  • Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod – Austentatious #1
  • Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev – The Rajes #2
  • Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree – Legends & Lattes #0
  • The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

Middle Grade

  • Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
  • Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Nonfiction

  • God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships by Matthew Vines
  • How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice by Jemar Tisby

What I Added to my TBR

Fiction

  • A Month in Provence by Gillian Harvey
  • Other People’s Summers by Sarah Morgan
  • Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb – In Death #62
  • After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson – Kate Reddy #1
  • The Convenience Store by the Sea by Sonoko Machida
  • Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
  • My Beloved: A Mitford Novel by Jan Karon
  • The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley by Courtney Walsh
  • The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  • One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune

Nonfiction

  • The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe by Richard Rohr
  • A Black Theology of Liberation by James H. Cone

TBR Stats/Goal Updates

  • I currently have 158 books on my TBR. Of those, 12 are nonfiction and 146 are fiction.
  • I read 3 of the books from my 25 in 2025 list, which means I have finished all 25 books on that list!
  • I have read 68 books so far this year (my goal is 75).
  • I read 2 nonfiction books this month instead of my usual 1.
  • Here is some additional data from StoryGraph.

Feel free to add me as a friend on Goodreads or StoryGraph. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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Tall Sea Tale

Tall Sea Tale is a 300-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games, and the artist is Charles Wysocki. There is something about his artwork that just draws me in. A lot of them do have a muted color palette, like this one, which makes me happy it is 300 pieces and not a larger size.

This is one I got in the haul from the friend who was moving away and didn’t want to take her puzzles. It had a ton of dog hair in the box, which was a bit annoying, but the puzzle itself was in good shape and had all of the pieces. There were five extra pieces in the box, however, that were smaller and clearly from another puzzle. I think they might have been part of the puzzle I did a couple of weeks ago that was missing eight pieces. I can’t know for sure because I already got rid of that puzzle, but even if they did go with it, it would still have been missing three pieces. Most people don’t like missing pieces or will only tolerate one or two, so I wouldn’t have tried to swap it anyway.

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What I Read This Week – June 28th

This was a slower week for reading – I spent more time with my jigsaw puzzles than with my books. I did end up finishing two books, one fiction and one nonfiction.

Fiction

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree – Legends & Lattes #0

I loved this book! Viv is such a great main character, and I love how the supporting characters become like a family to her. This was a fantastic prequel to Legends & Lattes!

Nonfiction

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice by Jemar Tisby

I found this follow up book to The Color of Compromise to be both educational and challenging. I appreciated how Tisby expanded on the A.R.C. of Racial Justice that he had shared in the earlier book. A.R.C. stands for awareness, relationships, and commitment, and he explains what each of them means and why they are all needed. Highly recommended!

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Garden Goodness

Garden Goodness is a 1000-piece puzzle from Springbok. This puzzle had its pros and cons. The pieces were a nice thickness, but there were quite a few that weren’t completely cut apart and there was a ton of puzzle dust. There weren’t false fits, but sometimes I had to force the pieces together even when they were in the right spot.

I did enjoy this image. I like grid puzzles a lot; it is satisfying to complete each block of the puzzle. I also like putting together words, and there were a lot of different typestyles represented here. So while I wouldn’t say this is a really good brand, I did have a good time doing it.

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Some Flower Puzzles

I have done a bunch of puzzles over the last week, and several of them feature flowers, so I thought I would post them all together.

Wildflowers of North America is a 1000-piece puzzle from BBOLDIN, which is basically a generic Chinese brand you can find on Amazon. I knew this image might be a bit challenging for me, but I also knew that these brands print letters on the back of their puzzles so that you can sort the pieces into several sections to make it easier.

I enjoyed doing this one. It is so satisfying to do each section, and I especially like all the words at the top and bottom. This is very similar to a mushroom puzzle that I did a while ago.

Fantasy Gardens is a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Liselle Larsen. This was a quick, easy puzzle. I usually reserve the term puzzle snack for 200 pieces or less, but this went so fast that it felt like one. The image is well-designed for doing a puzzle.

City Garden Rainbow Retreat is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cross & Glory, who use AI to generate their art. I fell in love with this image the first time I saw it and was so happy to be able to get it.

I love the abstract nature of this image. Because it has somewhat of a rainbow pattern, I did sort by color up front. Usually, I just pull out the edges and flip the rest of the pieces over and put them in sorting trays, but it definitely helped to do more sorting for this one. This puzzle was on the more difficult side, but it was never overwhelming, and I felt like I made slow but continual progress.

I love that I have had so much time to puzzle the last couple of weeks. My stash of puzzles to do was getting pretty big, and it feels good to make a dent in it and do some of the puzzles I have been looking forward to.

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Love in the Wild

Love in the Wild is a 500-piece puzzle from Mudpuppy, and the artist is Katy Tanis. I did this with my friend Suzanne recently. We both really loved how cute it was and were happy to be able to finish it in one sitting! I tried to pick a favorite square, but they are all so adorable that I really can’t.

I really appreciate having a friend who enjoys doing puzzles. We are hoping to get together again soon with one other friend so that we can all puzzle together. I would love to find local puzzle events or even more puzzle swaps. I have thought about starting something but I’m not sure I would know how to go about it.