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On Tuesday I met with my lovely Listening Circle -- six women who actively listen to one another --without giving suggestions or advice. One shared that she just finished a wooden puzzle that left her feeling empowered.

I liked the notion so much that I ordered one for our coffee table -- an experiment.

It will be interesting to see who in our home works on the puzzle and how long it takes us to complete it.

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How completely clever! We, Beth and I, bought two such thick wooden puzzles last Christmas. One for us and the second for a couple our age. As luck would have it we got to assemble both puzzles. After assembling our own, exchanging puzzles just made perfect sense.

One funny part, instructions for our first creation consisted of just a picture. Reversed and upside down. 🤭

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Hmmmm… I’ve never heard of a jigsaw puzzle with instructions other than a picture. 🤔

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They be the “instructions.” 😁 Which is why I found the reversal and inversion of the image so joyful. I reversed the reversal by imaging the paper version in a mirror. Then, once printed, I could position it however I wanted. The pieces came in a clear, plastic box. No labels.

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Using the mirror… smart! :)

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Wow! AWESOME-looking turtle! Very cool!

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I think so, too! And the puzzle shapes are funky!

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Resolute Turtle: Those which swim off into the vast waters of an ocean and manage to return to the same place where they hatched.

I believe you captured well, in today’s post, some key points of Ammer’s TED Talk. I’m certain I heard Tal quietly mumbling about what goes best with “Resolute” puzzling. “Oh bother. We put away the sprinkles yesterday and failed to make the cookies,” she exclaimed, with a little help from Winnie The Pooh.

Not a Resolute cookie baker...

“How about a banana,” called Cal. “With peanut butter, too,” Nia chimed in.

“Beat you to the peanut butter,” Tal called to her gal pal Muses.

Note from fan: There’s a second trough, progressing from the beach into the Gulf waters. Much wider and usually a lot deeper. Over my head. It is reported by avid snorkelers that some of the hatchling turtles just stay there and wait for the returning stragglers. “Why risk the larger turtles, the sharks and barracudas, and the squadrons of gulls and occasional ospreys just to paddle our flippers until they’re worn to a nub!”

Survivors.

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I like your description of a resolute turtle. The muses and I took a by-the-dictionary interpretation: purposeful, determined, and unwavering

Turtle= slow and steady

Pondering your final paragraph(s).

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I was wearing The Joker’s hat. 🙃 The cookie reference was just showing I remember bits and pieces from your LoveLetters. The baby turtle hatchling tale was just that. Anthropomorphizing them. In comments on working The Steps from the AA Big Book, this statement appears: “We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not.” So I just pictured these wee beasties marching toward the pounding surf.

“Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.” William Shakespeare, from “Julius Caesar”

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Huh! The muses are writing about ambition tomorrow! They’ve been pulling on the chords all day!

Synchronicity!

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We seem to experience synchronicity from time to time. 😉

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