 All right, so this video is going to be a little different. I didn't set up my chair the way I usually do in front of my puzzles because I know that if I went through that whole process to film this I probably changed my mind. This is just like on the spot right now. So a little backstory. I have been procrastinating on working on a particular puzzle for a second time. And quite honestly it's because I'm terrified of it. But since then I kept telling myself that I was going to complete it one more time. You know what? I'm talking a lot of garbage here. Let me just get straight to the point because I'm already procrastinating. But the puzzle that I am actually talking about here and if you've guys been following me for quite some time then you probably know which one I'm talking about. This puzzle is called Ghoulish Delight and it is from Disney Park's Signature Puzzles and it's the Haunted Mansion's 50th anniversary puzzle. It is 1,000 pieces and it is 27 by 13.65 inches when it's completed. And the artist is Darren Wilson. Now I actually worked on this last October. This was my Halloween video. And as you may know, after taking an eternity trying to complete it, instead of saving it like a smart person, I destroyed it. And to this day it still haunts me. And as punishment, I told myself that I would have to work on it again and do the smart thing and save it. We've done the unboxing. We've gone through the pieces. So we're not gonna go through all that this time because this video is gonna be about my journey to completing this beast for the second time. But I'm curious how much of this will come back to me when I start piecing it together. But you know what guys? Here I am again procrastinating talking garbage. Let's put on the big girl pants and let's get this started. Oh, I can't believe I'm doing this again. All right. Let's finally open this up. What am I doing? We're just gonna get right into sorting because I still have a little bit of daylight right now. And I do remember working in the natural light was much easier when I was last working on this. So I may only have an hour of some sun. So let's let's just stop talking garbage and get started. All right. So far this is driving me a little nuts. I'm kind of hoping that as I go through these pieces, I kind of get a little bit of like I guess you can call it muscle memory. Does that make sense? Probably not after a year, right? But I don't know. I'm being hopeful or unrealistic. I don't know. One of those two things. But anyway, let's continue. And just a heads up, guys. The lighting throughout this video is going to kind of be all over the place. All right. Step one is done. How do I feel about it so far? Not at all good. But I managed to beat the beat the sun and get all the pieces, you know, how to look through them kind of, I guess you maybe I sorted it. I don't know. I don't know actually what I put in these trays here, because to be honest, I forgot how they pretty much all look the same. It's so hard to figure out what the details are in these pieces. You know what? Let me let me just show you. Of course, finding the edge pieces were the easiest. But I mean, just look at these. Where do I even start with this? Let's move on. So, yeah, first tray edges. Next tray, who knows? This is just completely dark. They have some different kind of tones to them in some some of the pieces, but mostly just very dark pieces. And depending on the kind of lighting you have, you might be able to see what's going on in these pieces. I think that does not belong there. Actually, you know, it doesn't matter. Next tray, we have I think these are more dark pieces that kind of have a little bit more distinct differences within the pieces. It's not just like a full. Well, no, that does look dark. I don't know. I think I put some in here that have kind of like little smoke from from the candles. Those are really, really hard to figure out. But between these two trays here is what I did was I kind of set aside pieces that were either solid black or just solid color, or ones that kind of have like these little differentiation within the tones. They're still pretty dark. You really can't make out anything between these two trays. And to be honest, you can't make out anything on any other trays. With this tray, I put outside pieces that I believed had anything to do with objects. So we have the clock, the candles, the harp, more candles. And I think I even did flames in there as well. And maybe some pieces with the smoke. Who knows? Next tray, I set aside any pieces that were more of the bluey green tones. So, for example, we have Leota. We have the hitchhiking ghost, I believe, in that tray. This tray, I believe I set aside here pieces that had anything to do with letters, words, these kind of intricate designs. I think I even put like pieces that had like the banner and these two bits in there. This tray, I set aside any pieces that had brownish tones to them. So it's going to be anything, at least I think, that has to do with this creature here, this gargoyle. I'm pretty sure I mixed in some brown pieces from the clock as well, and probably some from around this area here here. But yeah, that's that's what I try to do in this tray. And this one, I have no idea. This is just pieces that I kind of gave up on and didn't feel like loading up the other trays. Yeah, this is kind of like my give up tray. I just I just threw pieces in here because, you know, I got a little frustrated. But that's OK. At least we kind of have everything kind of separated, not in just one big pile, which would be extremely overwhelming for an image like this. I'm hoping for the best here. In terms of what to start with, I don't know. I think I'm just going to pull a random tray and see what I can put together within those pieces and then go from there. But what I do need to figure out first is how I'm going to go about putting this puzzle together, because it's a vertical image and my table is horizontal and it doesn't tilt the way I need it to. It only tilts one way, but I do have a phone board. So, yeah, I'm probably going to pull that out and see how that's going to fit on this table. I don't know how I'm going to secure it to the table because the last thing I really want is for this to slide off the table. And then I have to start over again, which would probably make me rage quit. But I'm determined. I should have started this days ago, so I'm already very behind on this. But my goal is to get this done before Halloween. Let's continue. Now, for some reason, my phone board had warped at some point, but it actually kind of helped it sit inside the groove of my puzzle table pretty well. But of course, not having any sort of clip on it was just asking for trouble. But at some point, I did end up using the clamp that holds my camera. So that definitely made it much more secure and lessen the risk of any accidents. You know, sometimes you just got to get creative and use what you have around you at the moment. But anyways, once I figured that out, my approach was different this time. I started putting together the clock and then figured probably the next best thing would be to put together the words and any other details that were under the banner. Then Leota's ball. And quite honestly, I felt like I had a great start compared to when I first tried to complete this puzzle. Maybe it was the way I started or just how I approached this in the first stages. I kind of feel like I completed these sections way quicker. I was quite impressed with myself. All right, so I just got back from work and I just started working on it with the little time that I have left before I have to head back out. And surprisingly, I got a lot of pieces popped in. I'm feeling pretty hopeful right now. I don't know. I opened the window, got some good light today. So we'll see. I don't have much time left before I have to head back out again. But progress is progress, even if it's little bits. Oh, geez, that's a lot of pieces on the table. Now, I know this looks like a disaster on the table, but, you know, I try to keep it as neat and as organized as possible. And it's funny because I always get mad at myself when I put pieces everywhere, like surrounding the actual puzzle itself. And as much as I hate when I do that, I still keep doing it. I don't know why. Anyways, I'm sure as you're looking at all these pieces, you can see the struggle. I mean, there's really no telling the difference in any of these pieces. Look, I got those two there to put together. That's a candlelight, so that at least I know that. So, you know, he's almost done here. We just got to finish his hands. The clock is nearly finished. The hitchhiking ghosts, I only have two of them set up so far. And the other one, he's somewhere here. We have an eye, two eyes, actually. I'm kind of just switching up which sections I'm working on. If I get stuck with a certain area, I try to move on to something else because you spend hours and hours on the same area and you're just wasting time. So just move on. At least that's what I keep trying to remind myself. But anyways, let's see how much we get done today. And just as I had expected, as soon as I got more of the main areas done, it quickly grew into an even bigger nightmare. I wasn't really looking forward to the rest of this puzzle because this was when the real challenge began. Well, it is late now. I am extremely exhausted. My head hurts. I'm kind of feeling under the weather as well. My back hurts. My neck hurts. This puzzle is destroying me. I haven't really been on the computer very much. I haven't really done anything else around the house because I'm just so hyper focused on trying to get this done. It's it's once again, it's become an obsession. Lighting started to become an even bigger issue here because you couldn't make out anything in these pieces. I ended up using the light on my puzzle scoop so much that the battery started dying towards the end. But it sure did come in handy. This is seriously kicking my butt. My back is killing me. My neck hurts. Probably going to run out of hair soon. But I'm going to keep going because I can't give up on it. I spent too many hours so far on it that if I quit now, it'd just be insane. It'd be all a waste of time. I've never been the type of person to kind of give up on a puzzle no matter how hard it is or how unenjoyable it is because I kind of feel like I've spent so much time on it already that I just I might as well finish it just to say that I accomplished something within all those hours. But are you guys like that? Let me know down below. What do you do when you get to a puzzle where you just you just can't take it anymore? Do you crumble it up? Do you put it away? Do you throw it out the window? Actually, don't do that. This was definitely a real test of my patience. But I must say it really did test my puzzling skills and really made me think about different ways and methods to go about finally completing this beast. So I figured one of the best things I could do was to sort them by shape, but grouping them with similar color tones. With all the pieces I have left here, like, I don't know why I can't seem to just get these in place. There's just so many areas that I feel like shouldn't be a problem. I'm losing my mind. What doesn't help is that this puzzle really only has three distinct shapes, but different variations of the same shapes. This is really, really consuming me. I haven't really done much else aside from a few chores this morning. And I got right to working on this after lunch. I don't know how much longer this puzzle is going to take me. It's it's really like it's eating all my time. And I have to finish it. I it's hard for me to work on anything else when, you know, I have something like this on my mind that I have to finish and have to get the video going at some point. I I don't know. But anyways, I need to stop wasting time and focus on this and try to get this done. OK, let's continue. Eventually, I figured why not just put the edges together and see how far I get with that. And quite surprisingly, I feel like I finished that way quicker than my first time completing this puzzle. So that was quite motivating. But anyways, in regards to the overall quality of Disney branded puzzles, if you've worked on them before, then you know that they don't actually have the greatest hold to them. So trying to complete little sections on different areas of the table and then moving them was an issue, of course, even when I was trying to use my puzzle scoop, that that wasn't easy to do because they just crumble to very crumbly puzzle. And I'll leave a couple of links down below to other Disney branded puzzles that I've done before. So you can hear what I have to say about the quality on them in more detail. All right. So it's the next day. I just got back home from work and whilst I was at work, I got a text message with some some bad news. Long story short, my puzzle table had to be moved and it had a bit of an accident. I know it could have been a lot worse, but at the same time, it's a little frustrating considering how long it is now taking me to pop in a single piece because it's really gotten really difficult now. So all the pieces that I had lined up at the end of last night are all scattered up now. They're they're not in order anymore. And from what I heard about 10 pieces came out of the puzzle. Now, some of them were put back, but I don't know which ones from these scattered pieces here actually were on the puzzle originally and fall out and what was, you know, already set here, organized. But all I can do now is reorganize these pieces back down on the bottom here. Try to piece back what was there and, you know, obviously continue piecing on. But I'm hoping that, you know, I will get some sunlight because it's been going back and forth between clouds and sun. And right now, the lighting sucks in here. So hopefully that'll take a turn for the better. But anyways, enough being frustrated. Let's just continue on and see how much we get done today. So I think I've pretty much gotten all the pieces that I believe popped off during the accident in place. Oh, geez, I just realized I have another tray of the same dark black brown pieces. Anyways, I kind of reorganized this a little bit again as best I could. What's also really frustrating is that there are some pieces here that kind of have little distinct details to them. But I still can't seem to figure out where the heck they go. It's super frustrating. But I'm trying here. We really don't have a lot more to go. This is nearly done. There's really just a couple of handful of pieces here. Like this is this is everything. Oh, and then those few there too. But anyways, yeah, this is this is like a slow torture. But anyways, let's move on. Then a big fire lit in me, and I was like, this can't go on for another day. All right, we're pretty much at the final stretch here. I had breakfast for dinner. I'm having a cup of coffee right now. I feel like we're going to do this finally. We got the whole bottom half done. We just have these two areas here to finish. Let's see if I can finish this before the sun is completely gone, because I mean, this is this is this is it. That's all I have. Oh, my God, this is too exciting. All right, we're down to the wire now. When it gets to this point in puzzling where you have like barely a handful of pieces, I feel like that's the most like suspenseful, most nerve wrecking part of the whole experience, because you just got to hope that you got all the pieces that you need to finish this. But we're going to do this, guys. So we still are doing good with some light outside. This this is practically over. Let's finish it. This monstrosity took me, if my math is right, 23 hours and 33 minutes to complete in a span of nine days. Oh, my goodness, it's a miracle. I can't believe I did it. It was so painful. But how does this completion time compare to my very first attempt exactly one year ago? And if you saw my first video on the Haunted Mansion puzzle, then you might remember that I didn't actually give a completion time because I just didn't bother doing the math, but I did this time. And if my math is correct, that nightmare lasted 25 hours and 10 minutes. And that was within a span of 11 days. It's interesting because I genuinely felt that it took me way less time. I didn't think the time difference would only be about two and a bit hours. But you know what? That's OK. It doesn't matter. It wasn't like I was racing. The whole point of this was to put a period at the end of this chapter. This was all about me finally putting it together one more time and saving it and it's never coming apart again. And you're probably wondering, you know, because considering the hold or lack thereof, does does it stand up to the pickup challenge? And I have to tell you, I didn't bother checking because there was no way that I was going to risk any kind of puzzle tragedy with this puzzle. Literally, as soon as I put that last piece down, I went right into gluing it. I wasn't taking any chances here. I wasted no time and I think I nearly finished the bottle of glue that I had because, you know, I just wanted to make sure that it was super secure. And how did it turn out in the end? Well, you tell me, this is a fantastic image. It dried up very evenly. It looks fantastic and I cannot wait to hang it up on my wall. But another thought that I had was I'm trying to figure out what do I do with the box? I don't really know if these are considered like collector's pieces or what. But let me know down below. What do you guys tend to do with your puzzle boxes? If you if you glue your puzzles and display them, do you keep them? Do you throw them out? Do you sell them on eBay? And I don't know. I got to think about this one. Now, when it comes to trying to figure out what you should do, if you come across a puzzle that's kind of giving you a headache and is, you know, not not fun, the only thing I can really recommend to you is just just do what's best for you. And I know that's probably really not helpful, but I'm the kind of person that if I come across a puzzle that is a true nightmare, but I love the image, I'm going to do whatever I can to try to finish it. Don't stick with one method. Change it up. Move on to another pile or a tray of if you sorted it, maybe work on putting colors together, try organizing by shape. You really want to try to do everything you can before you finally throw in the towel. But, you know, if you if you want to throw in the towel, you know, you do you, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, do what makes you happy. But I do encourage you to throw yourself a challenge every now and then because you never know. You might really enjoy it. I'm not saying that I enjoyed this one particularly, but considering that I have kind of like a connection to this image, I love this image. I love the haunted mansion. You know, to me, that was enough motivation for me to give it my all. I don't know. It kind of makes me feel like I do actually have some, some good puzzling skills that probably not. But you know, I'm just happy that this is over and done with. Whether it's 10,000 pieces or the colors are dark, whatever challenge it throws at you, don't be afraid to go after it. And if it takes you nine days like this took me or if it takes you 90 days, it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, it's all for fun. And to be honest, you know, you do learn something from every puzzle that you put together, whether it be a method or, you know, something you realize you're really good at, you never know. So don't be afraid to give it a shot. But anyways, guys, if you're looking for a place to share your own horrific puzzling experiences with other puzzlers, I do have a puzzling community that you can join. And I'm going to leave a link down below if you're interested. And if you want to see me put together any other terrible, horrific puzzles or, you know, mostly good ones, I prefer good ones. But if you want to see that, be sure you're subscribed. But anyways, guys, I'm going to move on to a more fun, colorful puzzle. So I hope you're all doing well. Thank you all for watching and I will see you in the next one.