Puzzle Share

From the first glimpse of its colors this puzzle asked to be worked. They were just so beautiful, those greens, blues, and purples asking to be blended into a form of flowering beauty. I didn't even notice the time flowing by as I worked it. The playlist was sending the beautiful voice of Barbara Streisand through the air to my ears with the sweet flowing melody of The Summer Knows. That only seemed to enhance the beauty of the flower the puzzle pieces were becoming. So I suggest you enjoy some wonderful song that sings to you of beauty as you work this one. Enjoy!

Puzzle Share and Bits of News

It's been a slow week. The highlight of it has been playing tons of Scrabble with Sandi. I think we broke our record number of games yesterday by playing 2 in the morning and 5 that evening for a grand total of 7 games. By the end of the last game we were so beat mentally that we had to stop. LOL I think we both wonder what our endurance level can be and maybe we are gearing up to find out. I think it would be interesting to have an all day Scrabble marathon. Not that I could sit still that long but with planned breaks it might be possible. That probably means I might find a Scrabble competition interesting. So I guess I'll add that to the future things to do wish list.

Lately I've been working on planning a liturgy. It's part of my verger training and I'm helping our Associate Rector plan the All Saints service. We both feel we need to put an action in the service that makes the remembering significant to all. We also want to focus on remembering and, in doing so, celebrate the lives, rather than focus on the death, of those who've been saints in our lives and in our faith community.

In study to prepare for this planning, Matt asked me to read a chapter or two in a couple of books. The Book of Sacramental Basics by Tad Guzie really struck me as meaningful. I like the way Guzie breaks things down, moves from one point to the next in clear stages, and has vivid explanations or examples to illustrate each of his points. The man was a gifted teacher. I only read one chapter in the book and am thinking I need to find a copy for my own library as it will surely give me more food for thought. The other book I read in was Beyond Smell & Bells by Mark Galli. It's good but I liked the Guzie book better.

In a week I start another scoring project at Pearson. It will last from 2 to 3 weeks and it will feel nice to be busy again. My friend Jenny will be scoring on it too. Yay, company for lunch! The weather is cooling off and the daytime temperatures are down into the 90's. Yesterday we had rain and there is hope for some more today and possibly tomorrow.

Today's puzzle was so beautiful that I just had to share it. I find it very delicate and I love the contrast of pale yellow against the blue of the lavender flowers. Enjoy!

Puzzle Share

Today's puzzle made me think of David's pictures over at Authorblog. I loved the color and the way the glass stems aligned up to make an interesting pattern. Hope you have fun with this one. Enjoy!

Puzzle Share

The puzzle I worked this morning, and forwarded to my folks, is rather lovely. I enjoyed working it and thought you might too. Don't want to sound like I'm bragging but so many of you share your times with me that I guess maybe you want to know mine. Please don't rate yourselves against me, I do this kind of puzzle daily and I'm not the fastest person at it. Someone out there did it in 1.27 minutes. It took me over twice that, 3.57. Hope you do as well or better. Hey, if you beat my time tell me! I'll celebrate with you. Enjoy!

Beautiful Image

When I saw this puzzle my first reaction was, "This is the type of morning I like to go walking in." And it is. I've been fortunate enough to see and even photograph beautiful scenes like this. It was long ago when I was in college during the '70s, but the first black and white photo I ever took was of just such a misty morning and the trees that circled the campus center. It was taken with an Argus that was a gift from my uncle. I loved that camera, it made me a better photographer than I am without it's semi automatic settings and through the lens light metering. Got me an A for the photography course too. :-) So here's the puzzle that I enjoyed this morning. Hope you enjoy it too.

Puzzle Share

JigZone had another really beautiful puzzle today, full of blues, greens, and a very pretty flutterby. It's been a while since I last shared a puzzle so here's today's for you to enjoy.

Puzzle Share

It's been a while since I last shared a puzzle with you. This one was so nice and the colors shimmered with the sunlight shining through the glass bottles that I couldn't resist. It looks like stained glass doesn't it? That's a fascinating art form and you'd be surprised at how easy it is to do. If you are a methodical, step by step sort of person you can learn to make things in stained glass. Start up costs are a bit high, around $300, but the joy of making a beautiful stained glass keepsake box for about a third of the price of one in a store more than makes up for that. Hope you enjoy the puzzle.

Fun Puzzle Share

Some jigsaw puzzles seem easier to work than others. Perhaps that's because getting clues from the broken up visual perspective can be easy or hard depending on how your particular visual logic structure works. This puzzle was just plain fun to do! Easy? You bet! Enjoy!

Quick Shares

This was today's Jig Zone puzzle. It's a pair of medieval shoes. If you go to renaissance fairs you can still get a pair of these hand made and fitted to your feet. A friend, who is a strong member of Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), went to the Houston, TX fair with me and ordered himself a pair. They aren't cheap and take a fairly long time to be delivered because they hand make them. I was impressed. Someday I want to own a set of these shoes. Of course I'd also like a set of San Antonio Shoes (SAS) custom made boots too. I think the factory still does this. They are pretty dear too, but you probably get them quicker than the medieval ones because they are a business with a factory to cut the leather and can use a sewing machine to do the stitching.

Just got off the phone with Mom. Their power came back on Friday afternoon. The cable is working too. Yay, things are getting back to normal. They had to throw out some food that had spoiled in the refrigerator. Interesting note on survival: Mom said that she was surprised the food in the veggie drawer was still good. Apparently the lettuce was still crisp and she had Dad go and get her some tomatoes (now on the approved list again, Yay!) and enjoyed her first salad in a while. They are still drinking the water they put aside before Dolly's arrival because the water is still threatened. Other than that they seem to be fine!

Mom and I talked about the houses I'd lived in as a child. We remembered gardens she had grown and I told her about Sandi's tomato crop. Mom used to have a nice vegetable garden back behind the garage before I was old enough to be in school. I didn't remember that one. Or not much...some vague visuals are returning. But I did remember spending time with Grandma and Granddaddy helping out in their garden. They had a really good one with lots of veggies in it. Grandmother even grew an asparagus plant or two which, if I recall correctly, are perennial and take about 2 years before you can harvest a crop from them. That's certainly faster than the 5 years it takes for an avocado tree to mature. Gee...it's amazing the things you learn and remember from growing up in an agricultural area with two agricultural study farms in the area sponsored by two different universities (Texas A&I and Texas A&M).

Mom also suggested that in writing my resume I might be able to use my blog writing experience as part of my skills repertoire. I don't think of that as "work experience" but I guess some folk might. So I'm asking anyone who reads this blog: Do you think it would be okay to include blogging in your list of experiences or skills? And if so how? I know professional journalists often blog for their company. Is this an up and coming skill or just a hoped for one?

Oh, and one more notable thing I discovered. While talking to Mom about books and the public library I checked out hers. They have a nice website and when I searched their catalog for a book I was going to suggest to Mom not only did I get the book's catalog page but a Discover Tag Cloud with tags for related topics that might be interesting to the reader. What a cool use of technology for a library and a great way to encourage broader reading!

Peace! Hope! & Joy! Wishes for a good week!

Puzzle Share

The rain has stopped both here in San Antonio and in the Rio Grande Valley. Things are looking up. If the rain brought your garden much needed moisture then perhaps your yard might look something like this soon.



Enjoy!

A Puzzle Challenge & Happy 4th of July (anticipation)!

Because my good friend Sandi likes roses I thought I'd share this pretty puzzle of a rose with two buds. Because she gently teased me on my last puzzle share about the difficulty of solving one at 48 classic pieces, I've changed the cut. Friday is the 4th of July and our national Independence Day so I chose an appropriate theme for the choice of cut. As it turned out the puzzle was in the shape of the US, an added bonus. Everyone needs a good challenge from time to time so I'm setting you one. Work the puzzle and tell me your time. Mine was 12:20. That's not very fast, but 5th graders would beat me in geography. If you feel really daring change the cut and number of pieces to what ever looks fun, work it again, and then come brag about your puzzling skill. Better yet, go to JigZone and find a puzzle you love, work it in any format you desire, post it to your blog and then come tell me. I'll come work it too. After all, summer is for fun and puzzles are for sharing!



This challenge is open to anyone, but I want to specifically tag a few friends: JS, Murat11, Sandi, San, and Alt. And remember folks, if you've an elderly parent or family member who introduced these to you as a kid, they make great mental acuity exercises. So send them along to that family member as an ecard. Mom & Dad get one everyday. An added bonus is this daily ecard has turned out to be a nice way of keeping in closer touch with Mom. I pop little snippets of news about my life in every one.

Happy 4th of July! I hope everyone has a great celebration!

Puzzle Share

Just got finished working this puzzle. When I saw it I knew right away I'd want to share it. This reminds me of some of David's photos. Whoever took it saw something, got up close, and made it interesting. Enjoy!

Bright Colors, Beauty, and Activity Help

It's been days since I posted anything. Sorry about that! I've been in a blue funk! Yeah, that picture above of "Misty Coastline and Sea Stacks" by Corbis/Punchstock pretty much fit my mood. Life can get sad and scary you know? I don't want to sound sorry for myself, but I'm going to be going through an emotional adjustment for a while; and it isn't something I want to do, but part of the reason is something I'm glad to see happening.

My life is still in flux from the not finishing student teaching. That will have to be handled at sometime and soon. I keep meaning to get back to work on redirecting my life but right now I am involved in a job that has me sitting all day scoring tests for Pearson and at the end of the day I'm just exhausted. So I still have the dreaded but exciting job search to kick off and complete.

To add to that, my best friend, JS, the one God put into my life, is going to Vermont to become a priest. And while I love that she has gotten a great job to move her and her family up there (becoming a priest can be a long process), and has a huge house to move into, I'm also gonna really miss sitting next to her at breakfasts on Sunday and taking notes together in Sunday School. Or dropping by for something or other to visit with her, and her wife and kids. I'm gonna have to find someone else to hang out with which will mean I'll probably be bouncing from acquaintance to acquaintance for a bit. I guess right now that's a good thing because I can get really insular when I've found a comfortable niche. But like I said, I'm really excited for her and we've promised to stay in touch even though she will be way up north. So it isn't all bad. I'm not losing a friend, I'm just seeing her off.

On the positive and active side, I'm planning on becoming a Verger for my church. If you want to know what a Verger is go here. I won't be alone in this. There are four other people who want to be vergers and they are all men. Yep, I'm to be the sole woman verger at my church. There will be a course of study to follow and a test to take. I'll be mentored by the present verger, Ted, and Robert, our priest. I'm hoping this will move me further into my church community and get me more involved. I'm already a Lay Eucharistic Minister(LEM) and on Altar Guild, so that will help with my new responsibilities.

A short bit about LEM duty. On Wednesday, I was supposed to help with the Healing Eucharist by supporting out priest as he lays hands on, anoints, and prays over those who attend the service asking for healing for themselves or others. Well, Robert had gone out of town and no one who was ordained showed up to take his place. Neither did our seminarian, Lisa who worked with me last time to do the service when Robert was unavailable. So there I was, in my robes, with three people in attendance. I had to do some kind of service all on my own. Eek! By church rules, I'm not allowed to officiate at Eucharist so we didn't do the communion. I am allowed to do Morning and Evening Prayer Rites. So, that is what I did, combining part of Evening Prayer Rite II with the prayers for healing from the regular healing service. And once I got started it went ok. The scriptures to be read that evening seemed to fall in line with the requests of the people, a sign I took to mean God was in attendance, and everyone was familiar with the service so we were able to do what was needed and tend to all there after a fashion. That was my first time doing a Prayer Service with people in attendance. I was scared at the start but when I was done I felt good about how it went. Now I know that I can handle it and will be ready should it ever happen again.

Ok, so that's activity. On the inactivity side, I've got a 3 day weekend and am resting up. Yes, I could have been scoring and making overtime. But my project has ended, I'm scheduled for another one on Monday, and I felt that I needed the time off to recoup my energy and try to take care of myself for a few days. So that's what I'm doing and why I'm blogging now.

It isn't that I haven't been thinking about blogging. I have been. I've just been too exhausted and blue to think of anything to say. However, I do have a couple of bright pictures to share. They are both Jigzone jigsaw puzzles. One I worked about 5 days ago and the other one I did this morning. So I'm going to embed them here.



This first one just attracted me so strongly. I love it's strong bright colors and maybe I'm crazy but the light seems to glow through the petals of this lovely Icelandic Poppy. So that was the earlier one I wanted to share.



Here's the other one. It's full of flowers and that Butterfly just looks ready to take off doesn't it? I love bright colors. I also love butterflies and all things winged. That winged group includes angels, fairies, dragons, kites, and anything else you can put into the sky. Hmmm...if I believed that I had past lives I'd almost think I might have been a sky creature in one of them.

Please enjoy the puzzles. I get them daily and now use them to share daily bits of news with my mom to whom I send an email of that day's puzzle so that she and I can share them long distance. Cheers!

Happy President's Day!

This painting of George Washington is part of every American child's public school education. I can remember being in elementary school when I first saw it. It's image of this famous man is the one most familiar to me after the painting of him crossing the Delaware River. For some reason an odd fact sticks in my head about his face. You'll notice he isn't smiling. Some thoughtful teacher supplied a story about that. What we were told was that he had new dentures, they were wooden in those days. The dentures didn't fit very well, so he was hurting. I can't testify to the validity of that, but I've no idea why a teacher would tell us a fib unless she wanted us to have an interesting story. Anyway, I like the picture for that reason and those memories. The puzzle was fun to work. Enjoy!

Puzzle Share

Mom and I both like jigsaw puzzles. Since I subscribe to Jigzone, I often send her puzzle postcards of the day's puzzle. It's a nice way to share with Mom and also send a brief message.

This wasn't the puzzle of the day. That one was rather confusing to me and I didn't really like the picture even though I did solve it. I sent it to Mom but wanted something nicer to send so I went looking for a different one and this one is what I found. There's something about it that is peaceful and yet mysterious so that it pulls you in. Hope you like it.