Why I Oughta...

Back at the very beginning of COVID - when the world was grinding to a halt, I was $30 cash as a birthday present from Nat's Grampy.  I used that money to buy a tree - the Grampy Tree.  That tree was a London Planetree.  I stuck it in the backyard, along the northside of the fence, about 2/3rds of the way back.  It suffered some shock at the beginning, but figured itself out and got established.  Today, it is growing up an dout and putting on new foliage growth far beyond my reach. Below is a look at the tree as it stands today: It has plenty of room to keep growing and it sure looks like this planetree has put down enough roots to drink from when I sprinkle the adjacent beds.  

On Monday, I posted a photo of the new puzzle project (1000 piece wild bird puzzle) from Kodak and talked about how it was the fourth puzzle that I had taken on during Wintertime COVID.  This puzzle had been sitting on the table for a few days, so the progress shot here below isn't the result of two days.  It is more like seven days or so.  I started assembling the border and began to sort the color pieces into piles.  Here's where it stands now:  Like every puzzle project in our screened porch that came before this one, it always feels like it gets off to a slow start.  

 Ten or so days ago, I posted a photo of the completed Disney Parks pin trading puzzle (750 pieces) and mentioned that the next one up was a Kodak puzzle featuring some wild birds like the ones we see in our backyard.  Today, that bird puzzle is up.  I was given this as a Christmas gift from the Babe and we just got started on it.   This one has some birds we see all the time including the Northern Cardinal, the Blue Jay and the American Goldfinch and some less common ones like the Scarlet Tanager that I spotted up in Wisconsin and the Indigo Bunting that we saw at Waterfall Glen .  This is the fourth Winter puzzle project we've taken on.  And the second 1000 piece one - the first being a Harry Potter book cover 1000 piece puzzle that I worked on right around Christmas . 

 Just two days ago, I posted my latest progress photo of this 750 piece Disney Parks collectible pin jigsaw puzzle that I had - to that point - been working on for two weeks.  Today, I can say that I've completed my third Winter COVID puzzle.  See below for the full reveal: First was a 300 piece Christmas puzzle.   I didn't take any photos of it, unfortunately. Second was a 1000 piece Harry Potter book cover puzzle that I did over break. And third, is this Disney Parks pin puzzle.   This one is pretty disorienting.  It was hard to train my eyes to review the back of the box for the actual image because with so much going on, it was VERY natural for my eyes to just kind of wander around.   Up next is the Kodak one that you see at the top of the photo.  Yeah...Kodak.  Weird, right?  They went from cameras and film to, umm, puzzles?  Must be a licensing deal.  Well, that was a gift and is of backyard birds at a fe...

 A few weeks back, I posted a photo to mark the beginning of my second Winter Break COVID puzzle - this 750 piece puzzle featuring Disney pins that you can trade in/around the parks.  Well, I hit it hard out of the gate - while I was still had some time away from work.  But, then, reality hit and my days were filled with Microsoft Teams calls.  As with my previous COVID puzzles (a smaller, 300-piece Christmas one and a 1000-piece Harry Potter-themed one ) that I successfully completed, I set this Disney Pins puzzle up in the screened porch where there is a lot of light and plenty of company.  After starting strong, this puzzle seemed to just kind of sit idle.  Couple work stuff with the kids using my puzzle table to do their Christmas Lego sets and this one got shelved for a bit.   But, this past weekend, I picked up where I left off, reset a few of the pieces that had come up and got busy.  Here's where I ended the weekend:  Pretty cl...

 What happens when you do a couple of puzzles and your family notices?  And it is right before Christmas?  Well...that means you get MORE PUZZLES.  MOARPUZZLES.  This one, though, (as the kids say...) slaps .  <insert how do you do fellow kids meme> But...seriously....I am going to REALLY insert it here below. Why? Because, I read somewhere that if you start saying things that your kids have started to say, they'll start to think it is very UNCOOL.  So, I'm getting ahead of things with my kids and the phrase 'this one slaps'.   Well...back to the puzzle.  This scratches me right where I itch:  it is a Disney Parks pins puzzle.  Imagine laying down hundreds of Disney Parks pins and taking a photo of them.  That's EXACTLY what this 750 piece puzzle is.  See below for my photo of the box: You can find it on Amazon (non-affiliate link here, people), but go to your local toy store and ask them.  It is 18" tall....

We started this 1000 piece Harry Potter puzzle on December 13th .  And by "we", I really mean "me".  The kids helped a little bit - mostly because the oldest one was desperate to get access to the project table in the screened porch where I set up.  That's become our LEGO and puzzle table.  By December 18th, I had the border mostly done and the colors sorted .  And by December 22nd, it was starting to come into focus .  Today is the 30th of December, but, I finished this back on the 23rd. Just getting around to posting it - what with the Christmas hysteria around the house.  A couple of busy, full days sitting and focused on the puzzle got it done.  You can see the complete puzzle below:  Or, really...complete in the sense that I'm done with it.  But, there were two missing pieces.  This puzzle was on loan from our friends.  They said there was one missing piece.  And now, I think we caused it to have a second missing piec...