In this post, I will share some strategies I use when puzzling to make the experience more pleasurable. To be clear, I do not puzzle for speed, I puzzle for zen: to relax, breathe, and get lost in the sensory experience, combined with a good story via an audiobook. Thus these tips are not necessarily going to speed up puzzle assembly, but will keep things organized for smooth progress through the puzzle.
Simple small puzzle to do, and a rather pleasant landscape. The obvious starting points would be the river with the rocks, the sky and its border with the hills, the red leaf bush in the bottom right corner and another one by the waterfall. The grassy area can be done next, along with the white patch of the hill and the yellow fields. The trees alongside the river have variety in colouring, and since the puzzle is so small present little challenge after the rest has been assembled.
Title: The functions of the orgasms: The highways to transcendence
Author: Michel Odent
Source: Veddma library
ISBN: 978-1-905177-18-9
Available online
In this book, the French obstetrician Michel Odent discusses the importance of the “cocktails of love hormones” present during sex, birth, and breastfeeding and the effects of “scientification of love”: interference with those hormones created by birth interventions, anesthesiology, and pharmacology. …
Not a simple puzzle to do due to similar colour patterns across the leaves, but very pleasant visually for its bright colours. The difficulty is mitigated by the smaller size of the puzzle. A possible way to approach it would be to assemble the regions with stems first, as they are the most distinct, as well as the brighter areas of the leaves and the distinct leaf boundaries where possible: the centre leaf and the upper right corner are the easiest. From there the veins in the leaves help in assembling each one, with a few remaining pieces to fill in the gaps
Title: Beyond the Sling – A real-life guide to raising confident, loving children the attachment parenting way
Author: Mayim Bialik
Source: Veddma library
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1800-6
Available online
This book outlines main tenets of attachment parenting and presents the reader with practical examples from the author’s personal experiences, as well as that of her friends. The author has a …
Put aside emotion and frustration for a time, and analyze events and conversations to isolate things you can learn, so you can expand your horizons and create more positive experiences in the future.
I have used this puzzle as an example for my “How to do a jigsaw puzzle” post, so you can see the steps I used to assemble it there. Overall a very pleasant puzzle, beautiful curves and deep colours. Not very trivial, but not extremely difficult either.
Shape your surroundings by controlling sound levels, lighting, temperature, and other environmental factors, to help you be more productive, to reduce stress, and to motivate yourself.
A beautiful simple puzzle with the colourful bands of the peacock feather. I have started with the purple, red, and black eye of the feather, and continued with the green outline, filling in the yellows and oranges after. The direction of the feather strands makes for a good guide in placing the pieces. From that point on, the surrounding pieces easily fall into place. A pleasure to do, this puzzle would be an easy one for beginners.
Take a minute each night, when you are drifting to sleep, to think of all you have accomplished throughout the day, no matter the scale. Think also of all the things that made this day worth living.
To be honest, I did not expect this puzzle to be that interesting: from the box it looked like the too-bold lines of a too-bright building with too few detailed areas to make it interesting. It has, however, pleasantly surprised me. I’ve enjoyed following the diagonal and horizontal guide lines of the structure and the small details that revealed themselves during assembly.
Having a series of smaller tasks to do makes your project less daunting and allows you to complete something when only a short period of time is available. This gives a quick boost of satisfaction from the accomplishment which serves as encouragement to do another task.
What better way to get in touch with someone than by a handmade greeting card? Many a friend of mine has appreciated these cards with their vibrant colours and beautiful flowers or nature scenes. The bright white paper, the original photographs, the hand-drawn vignettes on the back in colours complementary to the photos, and the intricate border framing the picture – all make these cards a pleasure to receive. They are perfect for sending notes, invitations, get well wishes, congratulations, or just to brighten someone’s day. If you would like to make some on your own, read on.
The coming of spring has brought to me the memories of Easter at my grandmother’s place in Russia: sunlight streaming through the lace curtains, smell of baking wafting from the kitchen, a plate with a large paska covered in snow-white icing towering over a ring of brightly-coloured eggs surrounding it, and a promise of a long lazy weekend full of family and delicious food. And this year for the first time I have decided to bring some of those memories to life.
Place prepared items for your projects in strategically irritating places, triggering your desire to get rid of those items. You will realize it will take about as much effort to complete the project as to relocate the items or to keep tripping over them.
After being confined for a week in a children’s hospital isolation room, I came home with a raging desire to create something – anything! It seems, I cannot sit on my hands even for a week without designing something new. The baby needed quite a bit of sleep to recover in the couple of days that followed which gave me a chance to work on the new Blessingway bead collection.
To facilitate switching among different types of activities, prepare all the materials, equipment, and information required for several projects. That way, when you have a few minutes, you can start working on one of your projects, instead of procrastinating or attempting to gather up everything you would need, just to find yourself having run out of time.
When you do the same type of activity for hours on end, you will find yourself less mentally sharp, more tired, and often more frustrated. A key to accomplishing many things is to switch to different types of activities throughout the day.
There is a wonderful book by Gerald Durrell called “My Family and Other Animals”, in which he describes life in Corfu – a Greek island to which his mother and three siblings have moved when he was 10. As a child, he explores the island gathering various animals (he has been an enthusiastic budding zoologist at that age), against the backdrop of the slow-paced life of the adults on the island. The olive trees, the sea, the tranquility of sunny afternoons, and the overall calm of the Mediterranean is what I remember vividly from the book. And this puzzle by Sung Kim carries that same quiet feeling of a light breeze on a vine-shaded terrace, on a lazy sunny afternoon somewhere in the Mediterranean.
First thing in the morning, before the shower, or any time during the day, a two-minute dry body brushing session can give you energy, wake you up, and activate your senses.
