Puzzle: Coliseum, Rome, Italy


Size: 750 pieces
Dimensions: 59.69cm x 39.37cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox, Wonders of the World series
Location: The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium, Italian: Anfiteatro Flavio or Colosseo), is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. It is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and Roman engineering.

Occupying a site just …

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Puzzle: The Sleepy Shopkeeper by Mike Wilks


Size: 550+ pieces
Dimensions: 46cm x 61cm
Producer: Great American Puzzle Factory
Author: Mike Wilks (b. 1947, London) is an artist, illustrator and author of nine books including the global bestseller The Ultimate Alphabet (Pavilion Books, 1987). [Wiki]
Note: Puzzle within a puzzle – find over 1000 things that begin with the letter “S”. “Who would think that here in the nooks and crannies of the sleepy shopkeeper’s …

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Puzzle: A Court Reception

Puzzle without any missing pieces:


Size: 650+ pieces, 3 pieces missing, 3 pieces damaged. Update: Sincere thank you to Cliff from Albany, NY who sent me the missing 3 pieces. His puzzle was missing 5 different pieces, and so between the two of us we could put together a complete one.
Dimensions: 48.26cm …

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Puzzle: Grand Teton


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48.26cm x 35.56cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox, National Parks series
Location: Grand Teton National Park is a United States National Park located in northwestern Wyoming, south of Yellowstone National Park. The park is named after the Grand Teton, which, at 4,197 m, is the tallest mountain in the Teton Range.

The origin of the name “Teton” is not definitive. One possible origin is that it was the name given …

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Puzzle: North Cascades

North Cascades National Park is a U.S. National Park located in the state of Washington. The park is the largest of the three National Park Service units that comprise the North Cascades National Park Service Complex. Several national wilderness areas and British Columbia parkland adjoin the National Park. The park features rugged mountain peaks.

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Puzzle: Victorian Splendor


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: cm x cm
Producer: Springbok
Poem: If I could select any house in the world
or the dwelling that I would call home,
how quickly I’d pick a Victorian manse,
a house with a high stained-glass dome!

I’d surely want turrets and towers, all rounded
and stretching straight up to the sky,
and right on the top of the tallest of all
my …

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Puzzle: After the Shower by Kevin Daniel


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 45.72cm x 60.96cm
Producer: Karmin International
Artist: Kevin Daniel
About the Artist: When Kevin Daniel began dabbling in paints and completing portraits as a young man in the early 1960s, he had no thought that he was nurturing the beginnings of a profession that would last a lifetime. As he studied the Renaissance masters’ paintings and portraits from books and museums, his thoughts were only on how much …

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Breastfeeding

Early on in my pregnancy, when my doula asked me whether I was planning to breastfeed, I was baffled by this question. Being raised in Russia, I did not understand what was being asked. I am having a baby, the baby needs to be nourished, that’s what the breasts are for, hence – yes, of course I would be breastfeeding.

After reading more literature regarding postpartum, I realized that in North America formula is for some reason considered a viable alternative to breastfeeding (and not just an emergency measure), and breast- versus formula-feeding is a hot political topic. Leaving out …

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Alcohol and breastfeeding

The issue of alcohol consumption while breastfeeding is one of the most debatable ones and it is hard to find reliable information on it. However, I was able to dig out the following:

There is a rough calculator of the length of time that alcohol will be present in breast milk, depending on the number of drinks and the mother’s body weight. As a general guideline, it takes as long for alcohol to clear the milk as it does for the blood alcohol level to subside. Alcohol taken with food takes longer to clear out of the system. …

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Tongue-tie and breastfeeding

The first issue I had to face was that my baby was born with a tongue-tie. This is a (often genetic) condition where the frenulum (the little piece of skin attaching the tongue to the bottom of the mouth) is too short and does not allow the baby to fully stick the tongue out. In severe cases, the tongue looks upside-down-heart-shaped and can prevent the person from being able to perform motions many of us take for granted, such as licking an ice-cream cone. In moderate and severe cases, the tongue-tie can interfere with breastfeeding by impeding the latch, and …

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Puzzle: Basler Stadtplan von Matthäus Merian, Historisches Museum Basel


Translation: City Map of Basel by Matthäus Merian, 1615-17
Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 49cm x 36cm
Producer: Historical Museum Basel
Story: “Since it was executed by Matthäus Merian in 1615 and presented to Basel’s City Council, the large map of the city of Basel, a handcolored pen-and-ink drawing now housed in the Historical Museum, has always been greatly admired. Its correct reproduction of numerous details that have since disappeared make the map an incomparable …

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First month baby care – lessons learned

He turned the stiff pages in horrified fascination. They opened into another world, a world of quite stupefying problems… It was amazing, he decided after reading a few pages, that a swamp dragon ever survived to see a second sunrise. Even walking across a room must be reckoned a biological triumph… They lived on a chemical knife-edge the whole time. One misplaced hiccup and they were geography… Omnivores or not, what they must really live on was their nerves, flapping apologetically through the world in mortal fear of their own digestive system. [Terry Pratchett, “Guards! Guards!”]

Below are a few …

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