I started puzzling when I was a young kid in the late 1970’s. We didn’t have YouTube and Playstations and all the distractions kids (and adults) have today. I remember doing puzzles, playing cards and board games with my family, and that’s if we weren’t outside riding bikes and skateboards, roller skating, and playing hopscotch. There were a few puzzles that I remember doing with my sisters by Springbok. They were called Puzzle Pastimes. The two we had were Saltine Crackers and Red Licorice and they were really fun and challenging for a kid! I had a lot of cute little Disney puzzles, mostly with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and I would put them together while listening to Disney soundtracks on my record player! And I had 2 puzzles, probably 100 pieces each, with basset hounds. No surprise, since I still buy every puzzle with a basset hound on it today and have two basset hounds named Maggie and Eeyore! I remember I had a really pretty puzzle with a waterwheel on it. I can’t remember the brand at all and I have searched for it online but haven’t found it yet, but I put that puzzle together so many times! I did it on the brown side, the picture side, border first, border last, probably a couple hundred times easy! I didn’t have very many puzzles when I was young, and that one was my favorite.

When I was around 12 or so, I started babysitting and earning my own money but I don’t really remember buying puzzles with my babysitting money, but what I do remember is when I turned 16, I got a job working at Wendy’s and there was a Hallmark store really close by. So, when I got paid, I would walk over to the Hallmark store and they had such cool Springbok puzzles, some of which I still have today! Some of my first ones I bought back in the late 80s were Crayola Freeway, Pixel Perfect (pictured above), Fierce Beauty and quite a few more! It was in 1988 that I bought my first Buffalo Games puzzle and it was a double-sided puzzle! I was so intrigued by that puzzle when I first saw it, and that love and intrigue for challenging puzzles has never left me! That first Buffalo Games puzzle I bought is called Leprechaun’s Luck, part of the double-sided World’s Most Difficult Puzzles series. I have done quite a few of these double-sided puzzles over the years. I will do a blog post on my strategy for these puzzles later on!

As you can tell, I have had the puzzle bug for many, many years! One thing, I think, that kept my love for puzzles going when I was young was a local news piece featuring a man who actually wall-papered the interior of his home in jigsaw puzzles. I was blown away! Most of the rooms in his house were covered in puzzles and I thought it looked so, so cool! 10-year-old me was so wowed by this news piece, I never forgot it! I mean, we didn’t have social media back then and it took me years to realize that other people were addicted to puzzles just like me! I really thought I was the only puzzle crazed person, but I am so happy to know, I am not alone with my full on puzzle enthusiasm! Happy Puzzling!