Puzzle Addict

I’m a Puzzle Addict!

My sweet husband Shawn heads off to work between three and five in the morning depending on the what day of the week it is. I have been waking up a lot with him and staying up. i don't know what it is about the early morning hours that get the blood pumping but it feels great...most of the time.

If I’m not writing, catching up with friends, sorting through the endless amount of picture files I have on the computer, or working on organizing the house you can find me leaned over a thousand piece puzzle until my eyes pop.

My mother and I enjoy killing time working on puzzles and my little brother finds it amusing to give us seven days to complete it. Mind you we can do them a lot faster than seven days, but if I’m feeling bored it’s the perfect thing to do. Pour me a cup of tea and I’m set.

We try to work on colorful puzzles (like the one to my left which is the latest one at 1500 pieces). I myself really love sea life. It's not the easiest to work on because of the blend of blues and blacks, but I love it.

We work on any number of sizes from the simple 100 piece to the 1000 piece ones and recently we completed a 1500 piece one. I want to go bigger but that will have to wait. Mom has six knew puzzles awaiting our attention and I can't wait to start them.

What is it about puzzles I love?

The thing about a puzzle--or at least how I go in about it--is once you connect the first two pieces you're hooked. I have to finish it. I need to get to the end I tell myself and next thing I know I'm walking pass it to do something when I start to see the puzzle come together on the table. I know what the picture looks like, but I want to form it. I want to finish the whole thing then and there! I can't help but love that feeling you get after putting in the next piece. And then the next one. And so on! It's exhilarating.

Though, there are some puzzles like the one to my left here where the colors blend so well that at one point we sat in utter terror and frustration wanting nothing more but to tear what little we had done to pieces and hide the box. But we slowly pushed on for countless hours and many nights trying to find every piece. It’s worth it. Once you get it together. That last piece goes into place there is a rush of joy and accomplishment that burst within my chest. Something which had been slowly building the entire time we have been working on it and finally it came be released. It is this feeling that makes me consider starting another puzzle. The need of satisfaction and knowing that we had triumphed and all are hard work was a success.

And thus I am a Puzzle Addict and I will be such for many years. I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

B. Franklin

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Genealogy

When I married my husband I found out that he had an Uncle that was working on Genealogy, and low and behold I too had a great uncle working on Genealogy. So needless to say I started my journey looking into the family history.

I have stumbled around with Census, dug through many resource books, talked to family members, and even received a few genealogy books. There is so much to learn.

The family has almost tracked several people on my mom’s side to England. To me, that is amazing, though on my dad’s said it is a mystery. My father’s mother’s parents are from where I’ve grown up and are easy to find, but his father isn’t from Louisiana and there was so much bad blood no one really knows anything about it.

To also make is harder, one of my great grandparents I was trying to look into was from a Indiana Cherokee reservation, or so I’m told, and I haven’t been able to find any mention of even her family name. It really makes you want to pull your hair after hours of searching and finding nothing.

Now, my mother’s side of the family is littered with oddities such as, my great, great, Grandmother, Alice Cooper married her third husband Evander Skinner shortly after he spilt from his first wife, Lulu Cooper, who was the second cousin to Alice Cooper. I wonder what happened there.

I also stumbled across that Alice Cooper gave birth to Etta Cooper in 1916, the same year she passed away due to what everyone assumes to be an infection acquired from the birth of Etta. Now Etta is my Great Grandmother who was raised by a foster family.

I can only image Etta Cooper not surviving and not having all her children. I wouldn’t be here today if that had occurred. It is amazing what happened in the past that leads to our futures.

Even though the future is in front of us, by tomorrow it is the past, and I am grateful for all that has occurs today, yesterday, ten years ago, when I was born, and so on back.

B. Franklin. read on works on smashwords.com.