I had a panoramic puzzle from the library recently that I liked, but it was nothing like the ones I remember my mom having (canyons and desert scenes that had a bunch of same-y pieces that drove me bonkers). If not for the fact that I do my puzzles in the floor, I'm not sure I'd have had a table that would have fit it, even though it was relatively small. I had a 2000 piece puzzle that I KNOW I wouldn't have had enough table space for, it was enormous. Really glad we don't have carpet anymore or I'd be out of luck on places for puzzling. I like Springbok pretty well, and Ceaco is pretty good. The cheapy Encore puzzles I usually avoid, and RoseArt. I really like White Mountain puzzles when I can get my hands on them, and I had one from Sure Lox recently that was nice, the pieces fit together really well. Oh, I remember that too! And when choosing to pay for Hulu actually made it ad-free. Now you can hardly get through ten, fifteen minutes of anything without being bombarded by advertisements, sad...

I'll probably watch the same Christmas movies I always do; Terry Pratchett's The Hogfather, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I am a creature of habit.

I feel your pain! Keeping track of everything I've watched is just about impossible. The list is so long. Toonami was amazing~! It was how I got into weird French animated series; Code Lyoko, Totally Spies. Curiously enough, I don't think I watched Digimon on Disney! So I guess I must have been watching it while it was rerun after being licensed to someone else to air? I didn't watch a lot of Disney after they stopped running the 101 Dalmatians animated series, their time slots always seemed to clash with other things I wanted to watch.

That's a big puzzle, wow. I don't know the size of the one I had, but I don't feel like it was as big as 12" by 36". I had originally planned to have a card table for my puzzles; it's how my mom and I used to put them together. After all the trouble I had to go through to keep my cats from the puzzle when I used our little dining table, though, I decided it was easier to use the floor since that's where half the pieces would end up anyway. Now I cover the two halves of the box and pieces with a blanket and my cats think it's a perfect cat bed and don't bother the pieces underneath. White Mountain I've only ever really seen in specialty game shops, places that sell mostly board games and tabletop RPGs, they're pretty rare to come by in my experience. Encore used to be everywhere, they were like the premier cheap puzzle brand, but I haven't seen them in stores in forever, only in secondhand shops occasionally, so maybe they don't do much puzzle business anymore? A quick search on the web seems to indicate they're part of RoseArt, so I guess RoseArt just stopped putting out puzzles under that line... Weird. Oh, wow, the one surelox I did didn't have that problem at all! Maybe the one I had was part of a high end line or something? Or else I'm misremembering the brand, which is entirely possible. I hate it when the pieces aren't cut all the way through, there's no GOOD way to fix that, but I can't stand to leave them stuck together. It's either tear the backs of the pieces trying to work them apart, or use something small and sharp trying to finish the cut yourself and still risking damaging the pieces. There's no winning!

Oh, that sounds like my beau trying to find all of Food Wars in a single place! Which is impossible because, for whatever reason, they decide to break up the seasons and license out the airing rights to multiple companies. Super annoying! I can only guess Precure got the same treatment. I really don't understand why they split things up like that, it's not going to make me more likely to sub to an extra service, it's just going to make me cancel the service I already have and buy a physical copy I get to keep and watch, no added fees past the original purchase price, forever.

Aww, that's a bummer about the phone card! Buying the wrong thing always feels kinda like someone throwing sand in my food to me. It'd be real nice if companies would make it easier to differentiate things like that so you always buy what you actually want to get.

Oh, yeah, I suppose year of manufacture could make a difference! The one I did seemed quite new, and it wasn't missing any pieces, so I don't think it had been through many hands at the puzzle swap yet.

I've not actually seen any of precure, but I know there's a LOT to the series. I've seen some of the characters around the web, though, and the art is really cute!

Oh, I can confirm on the Sprinbok puzzles, one hundred percent! My mom had some that she got when she was in high school and they were some of my favorite puzzles, and I got lucky enough last year to find an old one at the library that I loved (had it not been missing several pieces, I'd have kept it instead of swapping it again), but I don't like the newer ones quite as much. They still make good puzzles, of course, but there's just something lacking next to the older ones. I am a bit biased on that, though, I just really love older puzzles, there's a certain feel to them that none of the newer ones have.

If you end up with one of the vintage puzzles, you'll probably know it, haha~ They have a certain smell (similar to old books), and if the pieces have a weird teal/blue backing, the puzzle is probably from the 1980s or earlier, since most companies don't bother with that sort of thing anymore. I'm the same way when I'm purchasing puzzles from thrift stores and the like! If I'm spending money on it, I want to get all of the pieces I'm paying for, so it's factory sealed or nothing. I'm not as picky with the puzzle swap since I'm not paying for those puzzles, though, and am more than happy to pick up the older looking puzzles there, even though they're almost always missing pieces. I go out of my way to snag newer puzzles from manufacturers I know and love, too.

Oh! You didn't have to do that, but I'm incredibly grateful! It'll probably be a while yet before I get around to sending out Lumi gifts myself, but don't be too surprised if you find something from me under your tree! And I'm quite happy to chat with you, it's really nice to have someone to talk hobbies and everything else with. It's just me, my beau, and my cats here, so I definitely get it. While there's plenty I can talk with my beau about, there are also a lot of things where I'm just talking AT him because he's just not into baking, or puzzles, or all the crafts I like to do. And as much as I adore my cats and consider them family, they are just not great conversationalists, haha~

Can do! I've been checking your Insta occasionally to see some of the projects you've been up to. I also take note of some of the puzzles you've done that look interesting in the event I ever find them somewhere; really nice to see what the pieces look like, since that tends to be the most important part to me. (I'd offer up a social media link in return, but Subeta is as close as I get to that kind of thing... You can hit me up on here whenever, though!)

40% off, what a find! Sale items are the best items, honestly. (The only craft materials better than discounted materials are free ones, but that's such a rare thing, haha.) Bit of a shame they gave you such a hassle to get that discount, but I'm glad they managed to get it settled in the end.

I have one corner of my fish done so far. I've been choosing my current puzzle over working on it the past few days, though; I'm so close to finishing this puzzle, and I really want to finish it before I go back to the library! ...But all of the remaining pieces to put together are solid black, which is making progress incredibly slow.

I'm not great with reed instruments (I can manage a simple tune on a bass clarinet, but that's about the extent of my experience), but... Piano? 👀 I'm not particularly skillful, but I love playing the piano! Outside of the typical classical stuff, I mostly play video game and anime songs, plus Disney and some 60s hits ("Eleanor Rigby" is a particular favorite). I also play a bit of bass guitar, mostly rock for that. Do you have any particular preferences to play on piano or other instruments?

Your feline filming helper is adorable! And yay for a sale kit!

Oof, worming pets is always kind of a hassle, though I suppose since he was abandoned, it's not entirely surprising he had worms. At least it is generally easier to trick a dog into taking a dewormer than a cat! Hope your pup is one of the easy sorts that'll take it so long as you stick it in cheese or something, and not like some of the troublemakers I've had that would eat whatever food we hid the pill in and then spit the pill out.

I don't see any reason craft tape shouldn't work. Tape is still tape, after all. I figure even basic masking tape would do the job, so long as you could find some of a suitable width. I think the only thing you'd really have to worry about with other tapes is how well they might bond with the glue around the edges, since it could make the tape hard to peel off if you ended up wanting or needing to remove it. But if you want to, say, use it as a sort of frame, then you won't want to peel it off, anyway, so it wouldn't really matter, then!

I want to say that seems like an overreaction on their part, but thinking about it from a business standpoint, I suppose they could argue she was causing them undue financial loss with that video. Which doesn't really make the situation any better, and still seems pretty gross on their part, but since I'm a proponent of businesses being able to choose not to serve any particular customer for any reason, I don't feel like I can really argue against it too much. Don't think I'll ever order from them, though! Their kits were pretty pricey anyway, so I don't feel like it's much of a loss to me.

My fish kit is like a picture of an actual fish! I think it's a bass, though I'm not one hundred percent on that; I've never been the fisher of my family, that's more the area of expertise for my uncle and his kids. (Which is where this will be getting shipped once I have it and the hat my mom asked for done.)