Ridge Winery and spring flowers, spring 2019

Ridge Winery March 2019

Wine tasting is almost a sport in Silicon Valley.  I am in over my head but luckily Green-Eyed Girl knows what's what and takes me out to nice places like Ridge.  All photo credits to her as well.

Old vines

Yes, Ridge Winery is on the ridge of a hill.  

Old olive trees

Old vines and trees together

They have a fantastic picnic spot.

The wine tasting was excellent - nice cheese pairings.  The company was fun.  There was a Frenchman wearing the classic blue and white striped shirt, a couple from wine country up north, and a whole gaggle from Stanford looking very young and uncertain but interested.

Indeed we took home some of the wine :)

These are spring flowers from our day in the Presidio.  Too pretty to leave off the blog.

Cherry tree in blossom

Perfectly framed shot!

Sistine Chapel puzzle Jan-March 2019

Sistine Chapel puzzle, 2,000/13,200 pieces

Decades ago I received a 12,000 piece puzzle of the Sistine Chapel.  It was extremely satisfying to finish!  Took a full year and took over the living room.

When I found this companion puzzle 5 years ago I knew I had to have it.

Since I budget a whole year to finishing something this size I have to start soon after Thanksgiving.  2019 is the year of this puzzle!

Each bag is 1/6 of the puzzle and is only a single area of the whole.  So really you are doing 6 puzzles of ~2000 pieces each.  It's still pretty tough. (cat feet for scale)

A package of reconstitutable glue and a glue spreader (little spatula for glue!  so cute!).  

I started with the hardest 1/6 section - the one with the most blue.  It begins with color sorting.

The greens and browns were pretty easy to put together.

Flesh color was pretty easy.

The border between blue and other colors was pretty easy.

Dark blue was not too bad.

Blue gray and the dark gray crack was not too bad.

Ugg.  Now all that is left is light blue.  A lot of light blue.

I sort by shape and painstakingly work through the options, slowly closing in the open areas. 

I use the coins to mark spots that I am working on because if you take out a piece you have to know where it goes back!

Closed off the top left area!

Powered through from the above picture to the finished one below in one solid Saturday.

Done! (Well, 1/6 done anyway)  Stay tuned for future sections.

Whimsy puzzles

Whimsy puzzles

I am loving this new trend of small, wooden, laser cut puzzles featuring whimsy pieces - recognizable shapes like animals or faces.  Between my friends we got quite a few for Christmas.  Most were from Artifact Puzzles.  They specialize in artisanal wooden puzzles made in USA.

I found them harder than expected.  

Only a few have the traditional flat edge pieces.  The funky shapes are used in many of the pieces so it is not obvious which ones fit together.

So many little feet!

Curves and odd bump outs.

The bonus is that it is difficult to put the wrong pieces together.

First sort by color.

The pieces are _almost_ standard, but not quite.

This one does have a flat edge!

Color was not helpful here!

The pictures does not help with the funky edge at all.

Weird hexagons

I do love the final edge.

The shapes definitely fit the puzzles.

Will totally redo these puzzles!