Build a puzzle with 500 pieces or more.

“Normally, I finish a 500 piece puzzle in less than a week, just by casually working on it in my spare time. However, after two weeks of dedicated effort, I had completed less than 10% of the Starry Night photomosaic. I was recovering from foot surgery, so I had plenty of time on my hands, but I couldn’t seem to make progress. In a one-hour puzzling session I might only connect five pieces. None of my usual strategies worked for this puzzle, and I was at a loss about what to do. For the first time in my puzzling career, I felt like giving up.”

“When a new puzzle arrives, Wendy is always delighted at the prospect, though often, once we start, she worries that we won’t be able to finish: the prospect of “putting it together” seems daunting rather than inviting. We follow a ritual, opening the plastic bag containing the pieces, dumping them on the folding card-table that has become our puzzle-place, and beginning to sort; Wendy presides over this process, and I help out. [...] There are moments in every puzzle, even in the modest 500-piece affairs, where you feel stuck. You’ve looked everywhere for a stubbornly missing piece, and you can’t find it. But then you remind yourself that the piece you are seeking must be here on the table somewhere. In that faith we proceed, and we rejoice when it is rewarded.”