the puzzle

For Christmas...

Tricia and Cherylyn gave us a puzzle from a company that makes the puzzle from your picture. They gave the company the picture of our house that was loaded on the November 30th blog.

The puzzle was huge...756 pieces. It took us a few days to put it together and we were all delighted with the result. After the holiday, Doug and I decided to buy an inexpensive poster frame and hang it on the third floor.

We went to Big Lots. We found a poster frame for 20 bucks. We came home and mid-project...Doug broke the glass.

(This may or may not be the appropriate time to mention that while doing a similar project at Tricia's house, Doug broke the glass on 3 John Deere pictures.)

He decided to call the local glass company to see how much it would cost JUST to buy the glass...20 bucks.
Since the glass company is further from our house than Big Lots, we went back to Big Lots and found another poster frame for 20 bucks. We came home and mid-project...Doug broke the glass.

If you are keeping track, we have now spent 40 dollars on our inexpensive frame and we still have no frame. Doug was frustrated and decided to leave the project until after his trip to California.

While Doug was in California, I went to Big Lots and purchased

THE LAST poster frame in the store for 20 bucks.

The past week, I have been busy cleaning and organizing the storage rooms on the third floor. I noticed a group of pictures that we have stored and one of them looks approximately poster size.

Which brings me to today. I told Doug about the aforementioned group of pictures with the aforementioned possibility. After bumping his head several times in the storage area, he comes upon the picture possiblity and momentarily thinks that there is NO WAY that it will work. I have sent him in there with a tape measure which soon validates my hypothesis.

We retrieve the "Spruce Goose" from storage and begin the disassembly.

SUCCESS!
I wish that were the end of this story, but it isn't, because, of course, I STILL have to go back to Big Lots to return the unbroken picture frame and recoup my 20 bucks.

So...to sum up our experience...we now have two frames sans glass, sans pictures that will get stored in the third floor closet until we can bear to throw away the forty dollars that they cost us. In the meantime, we will HOPE that they come in for something useful and we can feel better about the whole experience.