Sorting. Puzzles. Solutions.

🧩
Growing up, my mom always had a puzzle out. She still does.

Coronavirus = staying at home for weeks.
Like many of you, my kitchen table now has a puzzle going.

How do you tackle a puzzle?
Probably by sorting.
And sorting and sorting.
I sorted the outside pieces and created a frame to work in.
Then I sorted all of the pieces with words on them. The signs and flags.
Put those together.
Next the people pieces. Then the bicycle and carriage wheels. Then the road and the grass.
They all got put in place.

Buildings. Balloons. Chimneys.
Done.
Now I’m at the trees. Where every piece looks like every other piece. Try one. Try the next one. Narrow it down. Learn to recognize what I’m actually looking for. See clues better as more pieces begin to fit.

I left the trees for tomorrow.
I need fresh eyes for those. A fresh mind to be patient with the look-alike pieces. I’ll try them tomorrow.

Coleman kind of freaked out the first day of school at home.🙇🏻‍♂️
It seemed so big! So unknown! So long until he could play a video game online with his friends!😩
Facing the beginning often does that to us. We feel a little freaked out. Overwhelmed.

So, we took a minute to breathe.
To try and calm down.
To make a little plan.
And he did it.
Then the next day he didn’t freak out. Or any day since. He figured it out. He’s experienced. He’s doing it just fine.

Life is weird right now.
But we puzzle it out.
We sort the information.
We learn to recognize the needed pieces better.
We put things into place little by little.
And we see solutions that seemed impossible at first.

Look at us! Our world is doing this. Our country is doing this. Our neighborhood is doing this. We’re totally doing this!✊🏻💙