Everyday I’m Puzzling [White Mountain Puzzles]

Thanks to the library now lending out jigsaw puzzles, we’ve had a steady source of puzzles to assemble for free. Over the past nine months or so, we/I’ve put together a puzzle approximately every one to two weeks, with subject matter ranging from cats and books to marbles to pastoral scenes. Today I’ll highlight a few puzzles from White Mountain Puzzles.

White Mountain Puzzles was founded in 1978, and are still making puzzles today. They’re located in New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. Their website claims that their 24” by 30” 1000-piece puzzles are the largest in the industry. White Mountain Puzzles is perhaps best known for their collage-style puzzles, where they pick a theme like Broadway musicals or Christmas stamps, and make a collage out of related images. However, they do also have plenty of landscapes and Americana (general stores, drive-in theaters, etc.), based both on artwork and photographs. They offer hundreds of different puzzles; I found somewhere around 300-400 1000-piece puzzles listed on their website, though not all of them are always in stock.

Their puzzles are fun to solve and the collage puzzles in particular get put together pretty quickly because the individual images are easy to differentiate. The pieces fit together tightly, especially when new, so the entire puzzle can be picked up after assembly, and there are no false fits. The puzzles are random cut, and, though more cardboard-y than Ravensburger or Cobble Hill, overall high quality.

With that, here’s the first puzzle, titled “I Love Massachusetts,” and featuring such icons as Dunkin Donuts, Hoodsie cups, and Spock (Leonard Nimoy). This puzzle was designed/constructed by Charlie Girard, who does a lot of White Mountain’s collage puzzles based on photos/logos.

I Love Massachusetts

Next we have “Old Candy Store,” a candy store filled with jars of candy and excited patrons illustrated by Steve Crisp. This may be the only White Mountain puzzle I’ve done that isn’t a collage or map. It still came together pretty quickly, and had plenty of colors and interesting parts to put together.

Old Candy Store

“The New Millennium” is part of a series of puzzles based on different decades that are done by artist James Mellett. This series highlights important events and people, TV shows, athletic accomplishments, and foods and products associated with each decade. Along with the 1990s puzzle (The Nineties) that I also own, these two puzzles cover most of my childhood.

The New Millennium

Finally, we did “I Love America,” another Charlie Girard creation, which includes national icons like the Liberty Bell, NASA, hockey, and Play-Doh. My final verdict on White Mountain Puzzles: not the most difficult, but fun to assemble. Would recommend.

I Love America

Top Ten _____ [books, general fiction]

Over the past 18 years or so, I’ve read somewhere around 800 books. Just for fun, I thought I’d look at some of my favorites, starting with fiction, and see if anything interesting emerged. In this batch of books, I’ve excluded science fiction/fantasy and YA/children’s, which I plan to go through separately. I’m not a huge fan of romance/thrillers/mysteries, so aspects of those genres don’t feature heavily in the list below. Books are listed in reverse alphabetical order by author’s last name.

Our Town, Thornton Wilder – A play about everyday life in a small New England town at the beginning of the 20th century. Its intentional simplicity and sparseness emphasizes the message, and in many ways is the message.

The Color Purple, Alice Walker – An epistolary tale told by Celie, an African American woman living in the south in the 1900s, about the struggles and abuse she faces. At times violent and explicit, it’s nevertheless a powerful story.

Cannery Row, John Steinbeck – On a street lined with sardine canneries, characters go about their lives in Monterey, California during the Great Depression. I chose Cannery Row over something like The Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men for being slightly less depressing than Steinbeck’s typical work.

The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger – A coming of age story filled with angst and alienation in which nothing much happens. Holden is, objectively, kind of annoying, but with reason, and there’s a particular mood that Salinger effectively captures.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee – Set in Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of Scout Finch growing up with her brother Jem while her father Atticus defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.

Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan – When Rachel Chu travels to Singapore with her boyfriend Nick Young, she doesn’t expect to meet a bunch of crazy rich Asians. (Are they crazy rich? Or crazy and rich? Probably both.) It’s a ridiculous and completely fun read.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad), Gabriel García Márquez – Magical realism at its finest; the book follows seven generations of the Buendía family in the town of Macondo, and explores the ideas of fate and inevitability.

City of Tranquil Light, Bo Caldwell – Based on the author’s grandparents’ experiences as missionaries living in China during the first half of the 20th century. The writing treats the characters and setting with care, resulting in a lovely read.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen – Poor Mr. Bennet has five daughters to marry off in early 19th century England. Despite many misunderstandings and preconceived assumptions, will any of the Bennet women find love? Absurd at times, with memorable characters.

If you’re counting, that’s nine books for a top ten list. I couldn’t decide on a tenth, so here are some honorable mentions: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain), Dracula (Bram Stoker), The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) (arguably the first science fiction novel), Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë).

The list is pretty balanced in terms of gender – four female authors and five male authors. The oldest book is Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813; the newest is Crazy Rich Asians, published 200 years later in 2013. Most of the rest of the books cluster around the mid-1900s. There’s one book (One Hundred Years of Solitude) not originally published in English. One Hundred Years of Solitude is also the longest book by page court, per Goodreads, and Cannery Row and Our Town tie for the shortest (though by word court I would guess Our Town is shorter because it’s a play). And lastly, like only players with last names beginning with B scoring for the Revolution, five¹ of the nine books have titles that start with C.

¹Six if you use the original Spanish title for One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Marching On

31 sentence fragments (and three photos) about things that happened during the 31 days of March:

Wednesday, March 1: Started the graphic novel Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Rift, chipped ice off the back deck, and did laundry.

Thursday, March 2: Grocery day.

Friday, March 3: Tried monk fruit-sweetened oatmeal for breakfast (not bad).

Saturday, March 4: Shoveled the driveway for (likely) the last time of the season.

Sunday, March 5: Finished the birthday prinsesstarta that was baked the previous week (recipe from The Great British Baking Show: The Big Book of Amazing Cakes) and Wednesday.

Monday, March 6: Reviewed some photos, read some emails, and cored and de-eyed a pineapple.

Tuesday, March 7: Continued making my way through A Clash of Kings and started The Chair.

Crocus

Wednesday, March 8: Rewatched the Great British Bake Off season 9 final, the one with the outdoor open fire technical bake.

Thursday, March 9: Sent in some job applications.

Friday, March 10: Made a trip to the library and worked on a jigsaw puzzle.

Saturday, March 11: Spent the day at home with the puzzle and a book about a time-travelling café.

Sunday, March 12: Listened to the New England Revolution implode on the west coast and lose to LAFC 0-4 at midnight via radio call like it’s 2005.

Monday, March 13: Finished another graphic novel, Almost American Girl, about a Korean girl who moves to America in the 90s knowing very little English and eventually finds her place thanks to comics.

Tuesday, March 14: In honor of Pi Day, baked a cranberry apple galette.

Rubik's Cube jigsaw puzzle

Wednesday, March 15: Ate cranberry apple galette.

Thursday, March 16: First crocus in our sad flowerbed.

Friday, March 17: Put together a Rubik’s Cube jigsaw puzzle that was a gift from a Cornell friend for possibly the first time.

Saturday, March 18: Baked a Nutella/chocolate-filled babka, started another jigsaw puzzle, and heard the Revolution beat Nashville off Gustavo Bou’s first goal of the season while folding laundry.

Sunday, March 19: Dim sum lunch courtesy of (mostly) Trader Joe’s.

Monday, March 20: Watched Galaxy Quest (still haven’t met a parody movie I don’t like).

Tuesday, March 21: Started two kinds of tomato seeds – cherry and yellow pear.

Nutella/chocolate babka

Wednesday, March 22: Finally finished A Clash of Kings.

Thursday, March 23: Baked a batch of chocolate chip pecan banana muffins and talked to a friend from grad school.

Friday, March 24: Picked up The Soulmate Equation at the library to see if it was better than The Love Hypothesis (it was).

Saturday, March 25: Got to watch the Revolution beat DC United thanks to Carles Gil’s first touch after coming on as a substitute being an assist to Bou.

Sunday, March 26: Curry for lunch outdoors at the park.

Monday, March 27: Made research presentation slides the day before the presentation (so business as usual around here).

Tuesday, March 28: Went for an on-site interview.

Wednesday, March 29: Tomato seedlings made their appearance.

Thursday, March 30: Had blueberry frosted wheat for breakfast and bread with butter, arugula, and chorizo for lunch.

Friday, March 31: Mostly successfully made sushi and mostly relearned to knit.