brain work

In addition to all of the other things we are celebrating in January-it is National Puzzle Month!  And National Jigsaw Puzzle Day is January 29th.  Are my hard earned tax dollars being paid to someone who sits in a cubicle and dreams all of these days up?

I am a long time jigsaw puzzle fan, and we just started a new one this week.  Occasionally I can even drag Charlie away from the video screen to help me.  I strategically place a few easy pieces so that he can enjoy success right away, and then he becomes hooked and hangs out with me for a bit.

Sitting at night after dinner, with the candles glowing and my glass of red wine beside me, I am content to work away.  Sometimes I sit way too long, and my legs fall asleep, but that's another story.

My Grandma Doris was a long time puzzle aficianado, until the blindness in one eye and her arthritis took their toll.  I used to love picking out a new puzzle to buy her for a gift.  I bet she misses it.  So I will continue to carry on the family tradition.


We did puzzles when I was growing up, my dad would pull out the big bread board from our cabinet, and set it up on the floor.  He had a very specific way of doing the puzzles, he liked to pull all of the pieces out, and organize them.  I prefer to pull out a few pieces and work on one section at a time.  Good thing we don't do them together anymore, or
we would have to adapt. Or fight a lot, like we did when we played Monopoly.


Puzzles are excellent brain work.  They develop your abilities to reason, analyze, sequence and deduce.  They help develop logical thought processes and problem solving skills, as well as increasing hand to eye coordination.  I just think they are fun.  But what a bonus that they work my brain, and hopefully keep me young!  (just wishful thinking on that part...)  And they are affordable entertainment, the ones I like run around $5 a pop.  Cheaper than buying a movie!

My favorite puzzles are the 1000 piece Charles Wysocki's, or Jane Wooster Scott.  They are very folk artish, remembrances of simpler times.  They aren't exceedingly difficult and are fun to do.  I scored a whole bagful at a church yard sale this summer, I think they were a quarter a piece, and like new.

And it's a good idea to take a break from that TV screen, every now and then.