Every time I hear mention of a jigsaw puzzle my mind races back to days spent with my grandmother. This was mostly on weekends when my parents were having a night out on the town or something like that.

Me and some cousins would spend the weekend with grandmother and when we would come inside from playing outdoors, our grandmother would give us books to read and jigsaw puzzles to put together. She did not care to see us watching a lot of television, so she would keep us preoccupied with other things.

Jigsaw puzzles were always at the top of her list because she enjoyed working them herself. One weekend when we were there, it rained the whole first day. Me and three of my cousins sat and put together a 250 piece jigsaw puzzle. Grandmother helped, of course. That was a big achievement for us all since it was the first time we had actually completed one. This particular one had cats on it. My grandmother was also an animal lover.

To this day I prefer working jigsaw puzzles with pictures of animals and my greatest challenge is being able to complete a puzzle, even if there are not very many pieces.