Update! 1. My orchid is still alive. (Which reminds me I should feed it this week...) In a moment of idealistic zeal, I almost bought mums at the store this week, but as I neared the table I could hear their teeny high-pitched voices crying, "Please, don't kill us!" Thank you, mums, for the reality check. No mums were harmed in the making of this post.
2. We still have Sadie. She is unreasonably cute.
3. Remember the puzzle? I stayed up late a few nights last week working on it. Somewhere around midnight I realized - "Hey, I bet this would be easier with better light!", so I started dragging lamps from all corners of the house. YEAH, because lighting is my problem.
Here are some things overheard at the puzzle table this week:
"It looks like it should fit, but it doesn't. Like Pangea."
"This puzzle might be good for the spatial reasoning part of my brain, but it's reduced my vocabulary to mostly art terms and 4-letter words." ie: "No! It needs to be more chartreuse-y and with a (mental expletive) VERTICAL brush stroke!"
Kate: "I GOT ONE! Finding one piece tides me over for at least another half an hour of looking." Dan: "At this rate you'll be done in six months....If you work on it 40 hours a week." Kate: "Okay Captain DreamCrusher, you're excused from the table."
Dan: (ever the supportive husband) It's like 2,000 tiny victories! ...an hour later... Dan: It's like 2,000 tiny defeats.
Here's where we stand now:
I'm so proud that sometimes I walk into the dining room and just run my hands over the pieces and it feels magical. My progress was energizing me and spurring me on - that is until I realized that I'd completed all the cheery colors, and the next 3 years of my life will be spent matching depressing, insane Van Gogh blacks and browns and blues.
I no longer judge people who frame puzzles and hang them in their homes. I think this one will look nice in our yellow play room. Don't you?