Winter Mazes | Parking Chair, Snow Shoveling, & Groundhog Day – Plus a bonus Valentine’s Day Maze!


I feel like it’s been a while since I posted a maze. Here’s 3, with black and white and color options for each. I have posted them on social media, but they’ll probably be slightly better quality here. Who hasn’t felt this winter to their core? Snow removal struggles and anger at poor Punxsutawney Phil have been all over social media.

I post this as I contemplate selling mazes on Etsy. Think there’s a market? I see other artists selling small *.pdf packs of printable mazes, coloring pages, or other hand-drawn puzzles or activity pages. A lot of the stuff you can find free online via Pinterest, or places like here on my blog or r/mazes. Are there people looking for paid downloads? They would of course probably be exclusive or only elsewhere available in my books. It’s certainly way more about art & expression than money, but it is cool to see my mazes on stuff, even if I’m my own biggest customer.

Oh, can’t forget a small bonus maze first since it’s Valentine’s Day!

❤️🥰💖💗💓💘💝

The Pittsburgh Parking Chair Maze.

You have to respect the chair. You can get an official one, or up your game and put out a walker, a table or even a statue of Jesus. Don’t park there if you didn’t shovel! Luckily now we don’t have to worry as much about it, but we lived in Dormont for years where no one really owned the spot in front of their place. The anger is real when someone ganks your spot after you labored for sometimes hours to clear it.

🌨️🪑🌨️🚗🌨️

The Snow-Shoveling Maze.

A lot of people are over it. We got hot with an amount of snow in our area what we haven’t seen since 2010, and it stayed cold for quite some time. Removal was difficult unless you kept up with it through the storm… and even then some folks had their sidewalks piled upon by the snow-plow trucks. Here you can do some scrawling instead of shoveling. This might work as a coloring page too? You can work back from the dead ends and the solution will be left.

❄️🪏❄️🚪❄️

The Groundhog Day Maze.

Who doesn’t love Punxsutawney Phil? I guess a lot of people when he predicts 6 more weeks of winter. We can’t balk at tradition now, can we? If you get stuck in this maze, you might feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

There once was a groundhog from Punxy.
Instead of consorting with skunks, he
Sat with turkeys to gobble
On that famous knob hill
While all the bystanders got drunk, see?

❄️🌸🪻⛄

So there you have a winter maze drop. As always, if you take the time to complete one, please share it & tag me on social media. If you dig these free mazes, I have lots more. I urge you to also maybe buy a book or a T-shirt or hoodie. Also, let me know what you think about selling *.pdf downloads on Etsy. Is it worth it?

Christmas maze merch!


If you’re taking advantage of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, or Cyber Monday sales… take the time to consider some of my Christmas themed maze T-shirts from Tee Public or Red Bubble!

You can customize the color of the shirt, choose from many styles, and get the same designs on all kinds of merchandise like coffee mugs, stickers, and pillows.

Christmas Mazes 2022 ❄️🎅🎄🎁⛄✍️


I did some drawing, scanning with the HP app on the phone, and coloring with paint.NET this year. Please, if you print & solve or them on your phone, PC, or tablet… share the solution! You can share it here in the comments, or tag me on Instagram, Twitter, or whatever social media is popular nowadays. I generally try to grab @AiXeLsyD13 on all of them.

I have them in color, & in black & white.

Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Have an Easy Fast for Yom Kippur, Happy Yule, Happy Solstice, Merry Yuletide, Ramadan Mubarak, Blessed Kwanzaa, Cathartic Festivus, or whatever holiday you celebrate!

Enjoy one of my Christmas Playlists to get you in the mood while you’re trying to solve these mazes, or share yours with me! Check out my other mazes if you’re ready for more! You can work on these while dinner is cooking, or tonight while youre trying to get to sleep & waiting for Santa!

I’ll be making my Decadent Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes tomorrow, but the White Trash ‘Taters would be just as good. Ham with gravy, green bean casserole, & brussels sprouts are also on the menu!

What’s it like to be a parent? (a.k.a. The Great Christmas Tree Shenanigans of 2019) 🎄


If you want to know what it’s like to be a parent, let me give you some insight.

Tonight we were putting up the Christmas tree. It is old & the top 3rd didn’t all completely light up last year. I did sort of attempt to fix the problem to no avail. Again this year with a replacement bulb to no avail.

Because the kids were excited, we continued to decorate. About 95% done, I remarked aloud (my mistake?) that we should get a new tree. So, everyone got out of their PJ’s into regular clothes and we ended up going to Home Depot. Excitement was off the charts.

At Home Depot, there were a bunch of great trees for all kinds of price ranges. All four of us finally settled on a tree that we liked. (It’s really cool… pre-lit, and can be all white or different colors!)

Looking for the tree on the shelf, of course they didn’t have one. Neither did any of the other local stores. We bought the floor model for a slight discount but the caveat was that there was no box.

The kids managed to bounce around the store with Christmas Spirit like Will Ferrell in Elf while sort of processing that this was the only tree if we wanted that tree.

Us purchasing the tree from the floor was apparently the most exciting thing we have ever done and we (well, half of us) danced to the checkout with 3 shopping carts in tow… the useless race car one because we can never not get it, and two regular orange carts, one with 2/3 of a tree and one with the remaining 1/3 & stand.

I had wanted to get a rubbermaid tote for it, but the ants in our pants had grown great in their numbers and were humming the chorus to “Ode to Joy.” We checked out and came home with the plan that we could continue the tree decoration process tomorrow.

So of course, once in the house, we promptly assembled & started to decorate the new tree while un-decorating the old tree. Oh the excitement was uncontainable!

Being that garbage collection was pushed back a day due to Thanksgiving, I wanted to put the old tree on the curb.

I told the kids to say goodbye to the old tree and Ian looked like I just told him we were going to skin and eat Butterscotch (our cat) after roasting her over an open flame. Once the crocodile tear rolled down his cheek, it set Molly into big sister sympathy tears mode.

We had talked before about getting a second tree for the dining room because it looks nice in that window from outside.

Guess who is going to try harder to fix that Christmas tree because he is a sucker for recently overjoyed and now crying children?

I’m glad they’re sensitive and sentimental, but wow.

Caption This! Butterscotch in the Christmas Tree. 🐱🎄


My wife got a great shot of our cat Butterscotch in the Christmas tree.  I know some amusing people.  Let’s have a caption contest in the comments!

Butterscotch in the Christmas Tree

Caption this in the comments!

I got some funny ones too, but Bethany‘s shot takes the cake:

 

Aviary Photos


Bethany & I went to the National Aviary on Sunday, & I had the opportunity to photograph some really beautiful colorful birds.  We also walked through the park afterward, and found a squirrel who apparently had aspirations of a career in modeling.

You can check out all the photos at Photobucket as a grid or slide show, or you can see them all here: