The Missing Piece!

I finished my puzzle and I'm missing a piece. Arghhhhh! I was missing two but Larry found one on the floor. I looked under the table too, but couldn't find the other one. What good is a puzzle with a missing piece when you want to glue it together and frame it?

What? Use puzzles for home decorating? Yup. And you know what? I hope to do enough puzzles to give each of my grandkids one (currently 23) when they're decorating their own places some day. Here are several that currently embellish my decor. ( We're furnished in mixed traditional and early yard sale. Works for me!)

Chickadees in the dining room near a window with a bird feeder.

This was only 350 pieces, but really different doing it in the round.

Mock headboard in the adults guest bedroom with some of the birds 

who come to the feeders. (You won't see a Baltimore Oriole

 or Cedar Waxwing at a feeder though.)

A trio of beautiful wolves in the granddaughters' dorm. 

I may use that one day as a conversation starter about dating

Happily, while I was doing this post, my sweet husband was under the table doing another puzzle search. the piece was upside down and blending in with the rug. He announced that "Now I can say I helped with the puzzle,"  as he added the last piece. Ah, he always comes to my rescue! What a sweetheart. Thanks, Honey!

Thought for the Day: On Jigsaw Puzzles as a Metaphor for Life

I'm currently working on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle called Spring Meadow. It's not a landscape scene, more like a collage with all kinds of images from a meadow: one corner with daffodils, hearts flowers, ferns, tiny birds, a bee -- all in a glorious hodge-podge! It's been lots of fun to work on.

But I'm also reading Dietrich von Hildebrand's book, Transformation in Christ, and I'm in the chapter on recollection and contemplation. So I've been trying to practice being recollected as I go about my daily activities. I pray while I'm folding wash. "Lord bless the little visitors who slept on these sheets during the holidays and the little feet that forgot these socks under the bed....Bless this dinner I'm cooking and the guests who will share it with us."

You get the idea.

Anyway, while I was working on the puzzle after Mass, visiting a local nursing homes, and having breakfast this morning I thought about how much life is like a puzzle. You don't see everything all at once. Each of the bits is like the small and big events of our lives.