stonepicnicking_okapi

I am having a bit of relapse. Maybe I got a bit too energetic yesterday when I was feeling good. Please send all the positive vibes for me tomorrow to make it through my special shift tomorrow. I have a new blouse and new shoes and stuff for my hair and EYELASHES! ha, ha, ha. I'm unstoppable!

I was worried my brain was scrambled today so I did a micro puzzle. It is 150 pieces and 4 x 6 inches total. I was able to do it in one sitting so I think my brain is safe.

Adjusting to the job, I am behind on...everything. I am still figuring out when to do things and how to engineer motivation to do things and how to prioritize and what things will have to be cut from to the to-do list permanently because there simply isn't as much free time as there was. So please bear with me (I am speaking to myself more than you because I have discovered over and over again that my friends are MUCH kinder to me than I ever am to myself).



Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.
Creative: Write a love poem to anyone or anything you like

In 2023 and 2024, I did Fannish 50 so I have a nice list of things I like. Mysteries & detective stories, ghost stories, poetry, audiobooks, puzzles, collage, BTS, miniatures, art, libraries, coffee, chocolate, Christmas & Halloween, okapis & sea turtles, the ocean, the moon, tea, bees & honey, tarot, fireworks, autumn, Snoopy.

I watched the latest Venom movie last night. Parts of it were very good. I am glad they left The Girl out of it this time. I was glad Mrs. Chen got a beautiful cameo. I can't say it 'got my heart pumping' but I enjoyed it.

I finished the jigsaw puzzle below yesterday [Around the World in 50 Plants, 1000 pieces, art by Lucille Clerc, a decent puzzle, well-fitting pieces], and there is ALWAYS a satisfaction at putting the last piece in. Is it better than sex? My ace-spectrum self says YES. I also like poetry and this is poem #26 from Jo Bell's book 52: write a poem a week. Start now. Keep going. The prompt was erotica. I write PLENTY of explicit fic and have written explicit poetry, too, but I combined it with the journal prompt of the Sunshine Revival.

jigsaw by okapi

they spill into the lid. like shelling peas
like wheat from chaff. or sheep from goat.
soft noise, soft rhythm, fingers flick with ease
and satisfaction. bedlam’s antidote.

define fine boundaries and orient
the scene. an orgy. orifice and limb
are rife. there’s wanting and there’s turgescent
as error and trial make order of whim

But there. And there. And there. No. Yes. the frame
takes shape. union by union. head to tail
and tail to head. with time, the eye can name
the subtleties of hue and pattern scale

reward is the breath held ‘til the last piece
has found its way home, then sigh of release

Ahh...this everyday posting is not working. Another double

Day 16: hinterland

Comm shout-out (for pretty photos): common_nature

Day 17: opsimath [one of my favorite words, a person who begins to learn or study only late in life]

DW user shout-out: prettygoodword (for more daily wordyness)

Happy Mother's Day! It's the last day of my celebratory week. Yesterday the boys' and the father gave me my gifts: 1. they washed the sliding glass door 2. they washed the shower stall and 3. they did LAUNDRY! I finished a circular jigsaw puzzle yesterday of artist Alma Thomas' Springtime. Alma Thomas is one of my heroes because she became a professional artist at the age of 69. This is 500 pieces from Pomegranate.



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16. What do you like to do that's considered touristy?

I love museums. I love museum gift shops :) I love postcards.

17. What is the most recent life lesson you've learned?

I'm not a 'Dear Diary' daily journaling kind of gal, and I probably need to accept that instead of feeling guilty I am not using my fancy planner to its full potential.

( Full list of 3Weeks4Dreamwith questions )

It's National Puzzle Day in the US!

Lots of puzzle lovers commented on their favorite kinds of puzzles in my Snowflake post.

My jigsaw offering is a map of Scotland. 1000 pieces by Birlinn



Brands of puzzles: Re-marks, Cavalli [often sold in cylinders], maps of the London Underground here, Michael Storrings [which I have done a lot of], and I like Charles Wysocki puzzles from Buffalo Games.

There are online jigsaw puzzles at https://thejigsawpuzzles.com/

So there are traditional crossword puzzles as well as online word games.

Waffle: https://wafflegame.net/daily
Wordle: https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html
Yeardle: https://histordle.com/yeardle/ [guessing the year]

Let's not forget number games like Sudoku. And yesterday I learned about variant Sudoku.

Here's a video of British champions doing The Miracle Sudoku: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKf9aUIxdb4

And this is called Rat Maze Sudoku: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dedVIa0-gSA&list=PLK-l8O0YikOmTo_9JS-8mhPe0ikw4IDms

And let's not forget about escape rooms and their home game equivalents:

I am actually tempted to try this EXIT game with the boys and their father (especially now that we have more time on our hands) https://store.thamesandkosmos.com/collections/exit-the-game

Online games such as Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection [link to Google Play store: here) which are little games (one is called Black Box - find the hidden balls in the box by bouncing laser beams off them.)

Jigsaw adjacent are penrose tiling sets. More:

A Penrose tiling is an example of an aperiodic tiling. Here, a tiling is a covering of the plane by non-overlapping polygons or other shapes, and a tiling is aperiodic if it does not contain arbitrarily large periodic regions or patches. However, despite their lack of translational symmetry, Penrose tilings may have both reflection symmetry and fivefold rotational symmetry. Penrose tilings are named after mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose, who investigated them in the 1970s. So like this:

Wishing all who celebrate it a very Merry Christmas!

I finished this puzzle a few minutes ago: Christmas Ornaments, Eurographics, 1000 pieces. Not that difficult until you got to the end and all you have this the little frames of the boxes.

This one was more satisfying to complete than the last one. 500 pieces, Pomegranate. Large pieces and orthodox shapes (meaning all variations on a rectangle, I have names for them. Man, H, Three prongs, Four prongs, etc.).

Autumn at Saruiwa, art by Kawase Hasui. A pretty autumnal Japanese scene.

This is another from the Murder Most Puzzling series of jigsaw puzzles. This is the second I've done in the series. The first was about a convention of clairvoyants, and I was able to spot the scammer in the crowd scene.

This one, however, is a room with furnishings and you have to discover the combination of a safe which contains a will. I confess that I (and the boys) were completely stumped.

500 pieces. If anyone fancies it, I am more than happy to send it along. I won't do it again. It comes in an attractive book-like box.

This was the puzzle I was doing when I stopped to do the Fourth of July one. It's by Cobble Hill, 1000 pieces. I was going to add it to my Fannish 50 Bees & Honey post but it didn't get finished in time. My next puzzle is a nice collection of sea shells.

Silly me! I forgot to post a photo of my Poirot puzzle which I completed over the holiday weekend. It has many (most?) clues/characters/symbols of Poirot stories. 1000 pieces.

Yesterday I finished this very difficult puzzle. Only 500 pieces but all the pieces were irregular shaped. Nevertheless, I thought it had an Easter feel to it. It's called The Worship of Trees, art by Peggy Collins from GoodWay.