How many puzzles?

In the retail end of the shop there was quite a stack of puzzles. Big 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles. Boxes and boxes,  teetering stacks of boxes of puzzles. I took a count before i started sorting them and counted 120 boxes. I filled a big box with the puzzles that had been noted to be incomplete. then as I was looking I noted that there were 2 or three years of puzzles where Dad had come to the shop and put the last completed puzzle on a stack, and they were dated and sometimes had little note like "difficult" or "nice puzzle" so that a stack was the evidence of how he had spent months of his life.

He was averaging one puzzle a month or so. I found myself wondering what was i doing during those months. I found a lot of them dated 1998, which was when Tom and I were working a lot and Maxine was small.


One puzzle in particular looked familiar and i realized that he was doing it when I had come for a visit when Maxine was about a year and a half old and we came down for my Parent's 50th wedding anniversary. I kept that one, the one that said "nice puzzle" and a few more that struck my fancy, one that was from the 60's and one of a bunch of russian eggs.  Im thinking at some point i may do them and think about my dad.

Im looking forward to coming here full time to take care of my Mom. I think Tom is too. I am struck at how time feels different here than in Austin. Not slower exactly, just less busy... maybe I will find i have time to do puzzles...