It's a Puzzling World Out There...

You know what I like about puzzles? They force you to think. I'm not generally one for thinking, but at least puzzles are fun. A lot of people give up on puzzles when they can't get the first piece. That's probably because they haven't started out with easy ones, and then moved up.
I've been doing puzzles since I was a baby. I did those little ones where you take four pieces and put them in the right place. Now I'm doing 1000 piece ones. This one looks to be a 350 piece, but I'm not sure. I haven't really checked.
See, my family has a puzzle tradition. It's not really a tradition, but there are two specific rules we have to follow in order to say that we have actually done the puzzle: first, we CANNOT, I repeat, CANNOT look at the box cover. I've seen a lot of people do that. It is CHEATING! What's the fun of a puzzle if you already know what it looks like? Isn't it all together more fun to find out what the picture is yourself? Oh, and then there's the fact that everyone who looks at the box ends up using it as a guideline. You know why the box is there? It's so you know what puzzle you're getting when you buy it at the store.
Second, you must assemble the edge first. I know this sounds crazy, but trust me, it makes everything a whole lot easier. I see a few people starting out by just shoving pieces together, and, sure, it works, but you don't really know what goes where. In the above picture, the outside is assembled, and the green is in place because the edge had some green in it.
I remember when I was in second grade, I was doing an easy puzzle with my friends in class, and they broke both of those rules, so obviously, being the insecure kid that I was, I got mad at them and refused to do it. I don't think they understood why I was so mad.
The summer before that, when I was 7, I went to the Outer Banks with my dad's side of the family. It was a reunion. At our house, we set up this lighthouse puzzle, and whenever anyone came in to visit, they'd put in a couple pieces. This ended up in the whole 1000 piece puzzle being put together in less than a week.
So if you're up for a challenge, try putting a puzzle together. If you want to get good, start putting together small puzzles and then move onto big ones. My grandma bought me a 3D puzzle on eBay, and I'll get it sometime this week. Those are really hard, and I never finished the last one she gave me.