Confessions of a Junkie

Hello. My name is Rachel and I am a picture puzzle junkie. It’s hard to say when my addiction started. I remember that the house I grew up in often had a picture puzzle being worked on the dinning room table (we ate in the kitchen). We’d dinker with it while chatting on the phone, or on a Sunday afternoon. I don’t remember that I was particularly drawn to the puzzles, but we all participated.

I didn’t work on picture puzzles anymore after I left home. I reckon it was for all the same reasons anyone stops doing picture puzzles, you either just don’t think to do it, or you don’t have space.

I bought my daughter her first puzzle when she was 3. She had been enjoying the puzzles so much at school that we picked up a couple 24-piece Winnie the Pooh puzzles for her birthday or something. She really enjoyed them and was good at it! This innocent past time for my 3-year-old inspired my girlfriend, Shari, to put out a puzzle in her home one year at Thanksgiving. What a great idea! Several of us picked away at it during the Thanksgiving party, then again during the football parties and finally finished it at the New Years Eve party (Shari is the Queen of Entertaining, be it 2 guests or 20, this girl can throw a party).

After we finished the first puzzle on New Year’s Eve, we cracked open another…then another…and another. I used to hang out at her house on Thursday nights. Shari and I would share a few cocktails and chat about our week as we hovered over a picture puzzle. Our children would entertain each other until late. I’m embarrassed to admit that my 4-year-old would come down stairs rubbing her eyes asking, “Momma…when are we going home?” “In a few minutes” I’d reply until Shari’s daughter would say, “Mom…it’s 11:00.”

I should have recognized the addiction the first time this happened.

Santa brought my husband a 1000 piece picture puzzle for Christmas this year. I had Christmas week off and he has this week off, so we thought it would be nice to have a puzzle in progress. My daughter’s diet for three days consisted of marshmallows, Cheetos, and Rice Krispies. She never even changed her clothes or brushed her hair, never mind taking a bath. My husband and I spent our waking moments bent over the table, our eyes bloodshot and brittle, our backs screaming for mercy, but we finished it! I snapped a picture of it before we crumpled it back into the box and spread out a new puzzle.

I was up at the crack of dawn on New Years Day, huddled over a steaming cup of coffee…and the picture puzzle. Now I sit at my desk after having been gone for 11 days and all I can think is, “I bet that bastard finished it!”

As for new year’s resolutions… I’m still developing my carefully laid-out plan of action. It has to be serious enough that I actually do it, but because I’m a mom, it has to also be flexible enough so as not to negatively impact the rest of my family. Frankly, I have no idea how I’m going to pull it off. I’m still working on it.