puzzled

we started a puzzle last night!  that fits the theme of "making things", right?  i'm trying to watch less tv these days and thought getting a puzzle might be a fun activity to do rather than catch up on real housewives.  (no, i don't usually watch real housewives.  if i did, i would know which geographic area the most current real housewives is on now.  but sometimes i like to pretend i watch it so i feel included in conversations about it.  so yes, i am aware that last comment was me pretending like i usually watch a terrible show, but am trying hard to stop...)

on our way home from carmel yesterday, we stopped at a toy story and bought the "best" puzzle available which happened to be the Renoir painting, On the Grand Canal, Venice.  "best" in quotes because there were a few cutsy cat puzzles that could also fall under the "best" category depending on your taste...

this puzzle is impossible.  not only are all the puzzle pieces basically the same color, the shapes are confusing!  it's not even entirely clear whether or not a piece is an edge piece or not.  damn those puzzle designers who were laughing their asses off at us as they designed this puzzle!  (wait a minute, Puzzle Designer?  is that a job??  that sounds amazing!  aw man, now i REALLY hate those people, not just for making this puzzle difficult, but for having a cooler job than me.  - although not very difficult to have a job cooler than person-who-works-in-the-finance-dept-of-an-insurance-company)

here's what we have so far after an hour and fifteen minutes of work.  please note that the top edge is not completed yet.  we're not even sure we've found all the edge pieces that make up that edge even though we've gone through all the pieces more than once...

i will be throwing a celebration party if we ever get finished with this...