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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.

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Difficult Donuts

Difficult Donuts is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cozytime Puzzles. I got it second-hand from the puzzle box in my area.

It lived up to its name of difficult! It wasn’t impossible, it just took more time than other puzzles I have done. It took me several evenings to complete, but it was very satisfying to see it all come together. Also, the quality was good on both pieces and fit.

Are you a donut fan? I enjoy them but can’t have them very often since I became diabetic.

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Pete’s Gambling Hall

Pete’s Gambling Hall is a 1000-piece Buffalo Games puzzle featuring the artist Charles Wysocki. His images are plentiful in the puzzling world, but this is only the second puzzle of his that I have done.

I got this second-hand and was pleasantly surprised to find that all the pieces were there. It’s always a gamble (pun intended!) when you get a puzzle that has already been done before.

There were a number of false fits, and I had to move pieces around several times. Other than that, the quality was good. I appreciated that there wasn’t too much of the sky and mountains because those were the hardest parts to solve.

All in all, a very fun puzzle! I enjoy putting together buildings, so this had a nice variety for me.

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Ice Cream Dream (Repeat)

I have recently made a couple of new friends at the church I attend now, and both of them enjoy doing puzzles. My friend Jessyca came over to do a puzzle and enjoyed it so much she came back two more times so we could finish it together!

I let her choose the puzzle, and she picked Ice Cream Dream by Lego because she likes Legos. It’s a 1000-piece puzzle that I got as a birthday gift a couple of years ago, and I had done it in January of 2023.

We took the time to sort by color and did each ice cream tub as a mini puzzle before putting them together and filling in the border and in-between pieces. You can see our progress in the three sessions in the photos below.

I had such a good time puzzling with a friend. And this weekend, I’m going to Brick Fest with her to see the actual thing!

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Travel

Travel is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cavallini, which is a new-to-me brand. It comes in a cylinder and has a cloth drawstring bag to hold the pieces. There was also a nice poster.

I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle. I am very drawn to grid puzzles like this, and I also love putting together words in puzzles. It was easy to sort the pieces by color, and then I just worked on whatever caught my eye.

What destination on this puzzle would you most like to visit? My initial answer was London, but upon further reflection, I think Australia or New Zealand would be amazing!

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Disney Puzzles

I recently got this set of Disney puzzles from the puzzle box near my house. It has 5 puzzles in it, which don’t have names. The brand is Ceaco. I thought the images looked like fun to do.

I started with this 300-piece image of Mickey and Minnie with Pluto outside under an umbrella. It came together pretty quickly.

Next I did this 300-piece puzzle of Mickey and Minnie dancing in front of a nighttime skyline. I loved the background on this one.

Next up was this 500-piece image of them dining with Goofy as their waiter and Donald Duck as the chef. This one was still pretty easy to do.

This 500-piece of Mickey as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice was super tricky and took forever to complete. This was partly due to the large amount of dark pieces, but was actually made worse by the fact that the pieces were soft and even a little mushy and didn’t fit together well. I had to try and retry pieces to get them to fit, and even though it is technically complete, I am still not sure I got all the pieces in the right spots.

I finished up with this 750-piece puzzle of Mickey, Goofy, and Donald Duck on a bicycle. It was the most fun to do of all of them. It has a combination of very busy areas and sold color sections. These solid color sections were a lot easier than the sorcerer puzzle, though, because the pieces were in better shape and I could easily tell when a piece was in the right spot.

All in all, I enjoyed doing this set of puzzles. Plus, it was a great puzzle box value – five puzzles out for only one puzzle in!

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Paper Paradise

I love the idea of paper quilling and other paper crafts, and I actually was into making stamped cards for several years. So when I saw Paper Paradise at the bookstore, I had to get it.

This 500-piece Galison puzzle has a beautiful design with bold colors and intricate detail. I thoroughly enjoyed putting it together. The quality of the puzzle was excellent as well. The pieces had a nice feel and fit together well, and the image was clear and crisp. The artist is Yulia Brodskaya.

I highly recommend this puzzle! I would love to do more like it!

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What I’m Reading – March 2024

The Irish Cottage: Finding Elizabeth by Juliet Gauvin – A charming story about a woman who goes to a faraway place to grieve the loss of the woman who raised her and reevaluate her life choices.

She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky – I don’t have a daughter, but I have heard that this book can be good to help reframe some of my own past.

I am also still reading my Lenten devotional, Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope.

What I Recently Finished:

That’s What Love Is by Amy Rose – Got for free on stuff your Kindle day. It was not terrible, but not very good either. It ended quite abruptly, I thought.

Coming Home by Piper Reece – Another stuff your Kindle find. Cute story.

The Beauty of Perhaps by Eryn Marie – Another stuff your Kindle find. I actually liked this one quite a bit. I seem to enjoy stories where people go to faraway places to get away and find a new job or love interest.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan – I read this one because I had watched The Wheel of Time series on Amazon Prime and had never read the books. I will probably not read anymore of the series because this book was just so long and didn’t hold my interest very well. It’s also hard to keep track of everything that’s going on, which I also found true of the show.

No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister – This was a really good book illustrating how a book can affect different people at different times and in different situations. Very enjoyable.

The Lighthouse Cafe by Bebe Reed – Another stuff your Kindle acquisition. It was okay, a sweet story.

Pride, Prejudice, and Pledging by Sara Marks – This was a decent retelling of Pride and Prejudice. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t great.

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark? The Bible and Modern Science and the Trouble of Making it All Fit by Janet Kellogg Ray – Very interested in this topic

God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships by Matthew Vines – One I have wanted to read for a while

What Is Love? by Jen Comfort – This is my free Amazon First Reads for March.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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Catching Up – February 2024

My new decor.

A lot has happened the last few weeks, so I wanted to jot things down for myself to remember.

Michael started working his first job in mid-December, and he is currently working 12 hours per week. The job is at a laundry facility that supports the Fort Indiantown Gap. He is working with linens and towels. There have been a few challenges as he learns the job, but he is continuing to improve.

Also in mid-December, I started having swallowing issues again and went in early February to have an endoscopy with dilation. In the meantime, I also visited an allergist to discuss my problems eating eggs. Now that I have been diagnosed with diabetes, it would be helpful to be able to eat eggs. (I can eat them as an ingredient in baked goods, just not in their original form.) The allergist told me about a new medication, Dupixent, that treats EOE and said I might be a candidate for it. She is requesting my GI records to evaluate my case.

After my endoscopy, the GI doc said he did find increased eosinophils and prescribed a steroid called Budesonide. I can only get it in a capsule, however, and I am terrified to try to swallow it because I have gotten pills stuck before. It also can increase blood sugar, and I don’t have a way to check my sugar right now. My PCP said she could put me on a continuous glucose monitor if I needed it. I have decided to just wait until I meet with the allergist to discuss the Dupixent again before I choose whether to take the Budesonide. Another factor is that the GI doc didn’t answer my questions about the medication despite my sending multiple messages to his office, and the allergist is very thorough in explaining things.

In other news, I have been getting more involved at my new church. The women’s table group I was a part of last fall has started again, so I am enjoying that. I also attended my first Ash Wednesday service. It was quite moving, and I have joined a Lenten book study that the pastor is leading weekly over Zoom. We have just had one meeting so far, and there were eight of us including the pastor. I was very nervous to participate, but I did force myself to speak up one time during the session. I am hopeful that by preparing my thoughts ahead of time, I will be able to participate more during the rest of the sessions.

Another thing I am going to be doing at church is greeting one service a month. I met with the hospitality team leader and she showed me what was involved, and next Sunday will be my first time doing it. I am actually not nervous about interacting with people because it should be pretty straightforward. The only thing I am nervous about is whether the arthritis in my right hip will act up. It does bother me when I am standing during worship at church, but I think if I move around a bit while greeting, it will be okay.

In friend news, Renee had her third back surgery. The doctor replaced her remaining rod with two new curved rods and also put in something to help the vertebrae grow. I am seeing Kim weekly for lunch and a movie. Yesterday, she helped me hang the two puzzles in the picture above. I’m really happy with them.

I have also made two new friends at church – Suzanne and Jessyca. Suzanne and I have gotten together three times for dinner, and Jessyca is coming over tomorrow to do a puzzle. I have met some other people that I talk to at church as well. It feels good to be expanding my circle a bit!

I’ll wrap up here as that is quite a lot for one post!

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Edible Mushrooms

Edible Mushrooms is a 1000-piece puzzle that my son gave me for Christmas/birthday last year. It was one I had on my wish list, however, I had forgotten exactly what the image looked like and the box didn’t look fun or inspiring at all. I wanted to do a 1000-piece puzzle recently and decided to do this one and just get it over with.

I was surprised when I opened it and looked at the poster and saw that the image was actually much better than I had guessed based on the box design. It did have some solid-color pieces scattered around the puzzle, which I knew could take a bit more time to do. When I started sorting the pieces, I noticed that the back had letters printed on it. This is the first puzzle I have done that was separated by sections like that, so I decided to go ahead and sort by the letters on the back of the pieces. There were six different sections once I had sorted them:

The picture was so fun to put together. The fact that I was doing it in sections made it fly by, and the solid color pieces were no problem at all since I was only doing a few at a time. The puzzle pieces seemed to have a plastic coating with a white paper backing. They clicked together in a very satisfying way and held together quite well.

Here is the first section to give you an idea how big each one was:

My favorite part was the legend at the bottom – words are so fun to put together. I did really enjoy all of the mushrooms, too, though. It was just a great puzzle all around! I think the next time I do this puzzle I will mix all of the pieces together and just use the letters on the back if I get stuck at all.

I guess the lesson here is not to judge a book by its cover, or a puzzle by its box! I have actually put a couple more of this style puzzle on my wish list already.

Note: I have seen this item sold under a couple of different brand names on Amazon. The one I think my son bought for me was BBOLDIN.