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Item description
A photograph of a blue notebook, 3 white papers with black text, and 2 photographs on a white marble countertop. The blue notebook and one of the photographs are leaning against the white wall behind the counter, while the papers and the other photograph are laying flat. The blue notebook is labeled “Puzzles In The Time of Covid”, and is decorated along the left edge with floral patterns. The papers read, “Puzzles In The Time of Covid” and then numerically list 65 puzzle names, along with dates of completion. The photograph against the wall is a picture of a completed puzzle. The puzzle shows a 1920s city scene of bright lights, old fashioned cars, and people in 20s era fashion. The other photograph that lays flat is a picture of another completed puzzle. This puzzle shows a white truck in a forest, with a trailer full of bouquets of multicolored flowers.
Image 1970

Puzzles in the Time of COVID 1

Annie S. Rivers

These are 9 examples from the ~70 photographed puzzles that I have done and collected in my chronologically ordered notebook: Puzzles in the Time of COVID. I included one picture of the full album. This was my version of a COVID diary.
I had always enjoyed doing puzzles but now it felt like a wonderful challenge and great time-consumer in this shutdown time of Covid. The sense of accomplishment is strongly felt when you finish a puzzle--and this is something that was important to me, to feel that I had accomplished something during this time.

Early on, I began documenting our puzzle completions. In a group text to all our family, I would share a photo of the completed puzzle. I realized that I wanted to have a physical reminder of my work so I began printing out the photo I had taken in a letter-size format and collected them all in a loose-leaf notebook. Fortunately my smart phone recorded the date I took my photos so I was able to list the titles of the puzzles and the date completed. Sometimes I would time myself to see how quickly I could sort, do the borders, and complete the puzzle. But I realized that the speed wasn't as important as the sharing, and my husband and I shared our time doing the puzzles.