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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Rainbows In My Living Room

Rainbows In My Living Room

by | 72 Comments

This post is in: ,

On Thursday, I got three texts within the span of a few hours:

“Thanks to you, there are rainbows in my living room.”

“Celebrating 3 springs of blooms from my dear friend’s housewarming gift, and I think of you whenever I look at them.”

“Your wind chimes are keeping us company, what a joyous sound.”

Since I don’t do twitter and instagram, I have to ask…  Is this a thing?  Like Throwback Thursday?  Or am I just blessed with thoughtful friends who all happened to do essentially the same thing, on the same day, in the same timeframe?

*****

Totally unrelated, I am toying with giving Sheltering in Place gifts this year instead of Christmas gifts. Would that be dumb?  I first got the idea after someone here mentioned a company that makes actual (not virtual) jigsaw puzzles out of your photos, which I thought might be a fun gift.

Open thread.

P.S. My windflowers are blooming!

Rainbows In My Living Room

Please ignore the dead leaves.  I am a terrible photographer – when I look, all I see are beautiful flowers, and then all this other stuff shows up in my photos.

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I think you just have wonderful friends. The world would be a better place if we told other people more often of the good they’ve done us. Nobody every hears enough that they did a good job.

  4. 4.

    japa21

    Didn’t even notice the dead leaves until I read your statement and looked for them.  Yet isn’t that what Spring is all about. The resurgence of new life springing from the old.  Fitting photo. Thank you.

  6. 6.

    MattF

    These ‘color space’ jigsaw puzzles are rather special, IMO. I’ve done the 1000 piece puzzle- the 5000 piece puzzle is ridiculous, and too big, and not available at this time… but I’ll probably end up doing one of the others.

  7. 7.

    Avalune

    Same as Japa – I was focused on the pretty blooms until you pointed out the other things!

    That’s very sweet about your friends.

  8. 8.

    opiejeanne

    That’s a very nice photo. Pretty flowers.

    What dead leaves? Not going to go looking for them. :-)

  10. 10.

    kindness

    Indoor gifts for winter are easier than spring/summer.  Hot chocolate fixins, Baileys, pumpkin spice muffin mix.  Big list.  Most of the things go in your mouth though.  Hardly diet gifts.

  12. 12.

    Haroldo

    My vote is for:

    Or am I just blessed with thoughtful friends who all happened to do essentially the same thing, on the same day, in the same timeframe?

  13. 13.

    MattF

    @WaterGirl: The dark shades were challenging… ten different shades of dark blue… But doable if you work at it. The pieces fit together only one way, after all.

  14. 14.

    Redshift

    I’ve been intrigued lately by the difference what you see and what shows up in a photo of the same thing. Attention and focus is so important. We were watching the full moon rise on Friday, and it was huge and impressive. I took a picture, and had to zoom in to even notice it.

    I know the horizon moon illusion tends to disappear in photos, but beyond that, we think we’re seeing a wide view like a camera, but the brain is really seeing the center of our field of vision and fooling us into thinking we’re seeing the rest in as much detail.

    I’ve always wanted a camera (or post-processing software) that would reproduce something closer to what I really see.

  15. 15.

    Kattails

    Dead leaves? What? Where? One and a half don’t count. The flowers are lovely tones.
    It’s still windy and chilly up heya, have been getting light snow showers this week; my daffs still haven’t shown a single bloom. Poor babies, they’d love some bone meal this year, and some dividing. The garden centers have a few plants so I got 3 packs of various lettuce, Haven’t checked my sorrel but it was coming along nicely under a row cover a few days ago. For those who haven’t tried it, it’s a very hardy perennial that pops up first thing and has a lemony flavor, good melted down in some heavy cream and used to top salmon. Should be enough chives for omelets as well.

  16. 16.

    mali muso

    My sourdough starter has successfully leavened bread!  And I’ve dropped off starter discards from it (no contact delivery) to three different households within my friend circle.  It’s a nice feeling. :)

    On the other hand, my baking hobby is not well aligned with my goal to exit the end of quarantine still fitting into my pre-Q clothes.  welp

  22. 22.

    HinTN

    @WaterGirl: Ours are fading, as are the dogwoods. Azaleas are full on, as are the fruiting cherries. Also had a first time bloom on the American Hawthorn and that was spectacular.

  23. 23.

    dmsilev

    @mali muso: Sourdough starter discards are like zucchini; eventually, you run out of friends and neighbors to foist it on. Makes a good base for a pancake or waffle batter, so that’s an option.

  26. 26.

    pat

    Since we built this house in 2005 we have spent every April in Austria.  This year we came home a month early, and I have to say, spring is a lot more interesting in Austria.  Here nothing is blooming (western WI).  In Austria everything is blooming. Sigh.

  27. 27.

    opiejeanne

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: How are you doing? I worried about you when you mentioned the wine cart making the rounds, and then even more when you mentioned the ambulances.

    I probably shouldn’t worry, though. I know you’re smart and not going to do anything risky.

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @HinTN: Wow!  thanks for sending the photo.  Stunning!

    Rainbows In My Living Room 2

    My azaleas haven’t started yet, and my cherry tree is just starting to get tiny green buds, definitely no flowers yet.

    edit: I had to replace the original stunning photo with this one – lower resolution – because the first one made the page load too slowly.  hope you got to see it when it was the real thing!

  31. 31.

    mali muso

    @dmsilev: yes, I can see how that could quickly become the case.  I have so far made pancakes, waffles, muffins and biscuits with the discard. Sadly my toddler is not a fan of the sour flavor profile in the waffles but the baked products got approval.

  32. 32.

    Kattails

    @WaterGirl: Is that Pulmonaria (lungwort)?  I have similar but with spotted leaves, which reminds me I need to get the dead leaves off them too. I suck at fall cleaning! I see a fence in the background, but of course– ducks–do they get their own section or can they roam all around?

    Wonder if the lawn mower’s going to start without actually dislocating my shoulder from pulling; it does chew up/mulch the old leaves pretty well. I’ve got about a half acre yard that’s just woods with most of the trees cut down, the stumps mostly rotted out and whatever was willing coming up. Kept a few large oaks, whose leaves do not rot, like ever. There are patches where some hardy ground covers are hanging on, the lungwort, sweet woodruff, wild ginger. Some beds, well-dug many years ago but needing reworking. Can’t wait to get out there for real, Imma give myself tomorrow to go out and dub around.

  33. 33.

    mali muso

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: yeah, it’s been a source of distraction for all of us, since I think everyone I’ve shared with are also newbies to the sourdough thing. I do a fair bit of baking in normal times and have a large package of yeast in the fridge which I’ve also offered to share. Flour too as I bit the bullet and got a 25lb bag from Costco.

  37. 37.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Totally unrelated, I am toying with giving Sheltering in Place gifts this year instead of Christmas gifts.

    We expect we’ll still be huddling inside when our 40th anniversary rolls around at the end of May, so probably the gifts and cards to each other will have to be improvised from sticks and acorns. Not quite the party we had talked about throwing.

    Not complaining. We are very, very, fortunate and doing fine. And we like each other. Also we have enough room to get out of each other’s hair for hours every day. Those two things are not unrelated.

  38. 38.

    BC in Illinois

    “Something Good Open Thread“?  I’ve got something good.

    My Aunt Ruth — the last of her generation that we still have, a woman alert, witty, and wonderful —  will turn 100 years old in May. We were planning for a multi-generation get-together with her in Ohio. Obviously not going to happen. Even her daughter can barely get into the nursing home to see her. We are certainly postponed, and concerned about how we will ever see her.

    Then on Thursday came the news that she fell and broke her hip. Terrible news for someone of her age, especially now. Hospital is bad enough. Surgery? At her age? At this time? They can’t even let her daughter in to see her. But wonder of wonders, the medical panel looked at the break, looked at the health of a 99.9-year-old woman, and went ahead with surgery on Friday.

    It was apparently a small-ish incision, a couple of screws, pain meds, and they are ready for physical therapy today, with the plan to return her to her nursing home / assisted living on Monday.

    At her age, there are no long-term plans, but this was an unexpected blessing. For me, the “end” of this phase of virus quarantine, will be when some of us (in small numbers) will be able to drive to Akron to visit Aunt Ruth. She is still alert, able to discuss what is going on, and later this week she should have a fistfull of hand-drawn “get well” cards from her g’g’nieces and nephews.

    Something Good.

  39. 39.

    delk

    For some reason or the other the people who live across the street from me have a ten foot inflatable Stay-Puft man on their porch.

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    @delk: Someone in a nearby subdivision has a ~ 10-feet tall inflatable T-Rex in their yard, holding a giant decorated egg in its tiny claws.

    People are weird.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  42. 42.

    opiejeanne

    @HinTN: Yes, it is very green. It looks a lot like the area south of Mt Rainier in Washington.

    After living most of my life in Southern California I am still stunned by how beautiful and green so many other places are. There, our foothills were green until the end of February, and were very pretty for about a month. Usually by March all of the new grass and brush was drying out and dying, well on the way to becoming fuel for the terrible fires that used to only come in the fall.

  44. 44.

    Kattails

    @WaterGirl: Duh. I knew that (TaMara=ducks). Brain just went sideways for a minute sry. It seems like a nicely-made fence–the problem with an open yard like mine that just feeds off into woodland is that you don’t have anything to give structure, unless you do stonework. 3′ of soil in one place and 6″ on top of ledge a foot over. But yours gives a patterned shade as well. Just so nice to see, thanks for the post.  Here’s Pulmonaria officinalis.

  45. 45.

    opiejeanne

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Our 50th anniversary was on December 27th, and the kids were going to be busy doing other things. They couldn’t even do Christmas Eve with us on the 24th, we had to have our Christmas Eve party on the 21st. We didn’t make a big deal of it, the weather was not nice in December so we had a quiet party with just the two of us.

    Anyway, we decided to push the party to May or June when we’d have nice weather. Ha! Gang aft agley indeed.

  46. 46.

    dmsilev

    @mali muso: One thing which helps is that starters keep for a long time between feedings if they live in the refrigerator. Unless you’re baking bread every day or two, keep the starter cold and feed it once every couple of weeks or so. When you’re ready to bake, take it out a couple of days prior and give it a day or two of room temperature daily feedings to bring the activity back up. Cuts way down on the quantity of discard.
    You can also keep the amount of stored starter small, like fifty or so grams, so it only takes a small amount of flour per feeding. Since most feeding regimes have maybe five or ten times as much flour and water as old starter, you can scale up to what’s needed for a recipe in just a feeding or two. Just make sure that when you do that final feeding, you have enough for whatever recipes you’re making plus the fifty extra grams to go back into the tub or whatever.

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    @Kattails: I love my fence.  It’s enough that there is a sense of privacy but it doesn’t block the view or the sun, and it makes a nice backdrop for flowers.

    Interesting – spotted leaves, and the flowers are smaller.

  49. 49.

    Kattails

    @WaterGirl: Looking again, both the bluebells and lungwort are members of the borage family. Windflowers not hardy here, sadly.

    Also, I had packed up some yeast for Aleta several days ago, as per her request. Sent email to Anne Laurie to please exchange our email addresses so I cd. get Aleta’s snail mail info. It may be that my own email went astray? Should I try A.L. again? Don’t know who’s the Keeper of the Mundane World Names. Thanks!

  50. 50.

    opiejeanne

    @WaterGirl: I noticed that both are in the borage family.

    We have grown borage on purpose just once, and it returns every year regardless of whether we want it or not. We leave it in place as a gift to the bees.

  52. 52.

    Haroldo

    @pat:

    And it looks like you might get a ton of snow tonight, depending on where you live in western WI.  My condolences.

  57. 57.

    debbie

    @MattF:

    A highschool friend has early onset dementia and does a lot of puzzles like this one. When they’re completed, she posts them on FB. I like puzzles, but doubt I could ever finish them.

  58. 58.

    mali muso

    @dmsilev: thanks, yeah I’m finally ready to pop the starter in the fridge for the duration. It took about ten days to get it from zero to bread. Will plan to feed once a week and keep it chilled otherwise.

    and now for my guilty pleasure show, Nailed It! Just what I need.

  59. 59.

    beth

    @WaterGirl: I did one of those photo puzzles for my new son in law since I had no idea what to get him for Christmas but I knew he did like  jigsaw puzzles. I used a lovely photo from their honeymoon – it was the biggest hit that year. Everybody wanted one. I used Ravensburger Puzzles – the puzzle comes in a nice tin with the photo on it and you can add a title. I would think little kids would like a puzzle with their face on it too.

    https://www.ravensburger.us/products/photo-puzzles/index.html

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    Any ETA on individual dedicated Thing To Pass the Time threads? Realizing there’s other stuff of more import going on in everyone’s lives, categories were solicited 3 weeks ago now, on March 20.

  63. 63.

    Haroldo

    @WaterGirl:

    True.  Tho’ today I was remembering the massive storm that hit WI (the whole midwest, really) in April,1973.  I wouldn’t wish that on the hardiest of windflowers.

  65. 65.

    WaterGirl

    @Haroldo: I have a sad windflower story.  I planted my first windflower bulbs in the fall of 2018.  That spring, I broke my ankle, and I could only look at them through the window from inside the house, but a friend took pictures for me.

    The following spring, 2019, I could not wait for the windflowers, so I could see them up close.  My windflowers were just coming up – only one had flowered so far.

    At the time, my next door neighbor mowed for me, and he was away on a bike trip, so his friend showed up to mow.  He fucking weed whacked the whole area, including the one that was already blooming.  I was heartbroken and livid all at the same time.

    I got more windflower bulbs last fall and put them in the back yard this time, and those are the ones in the picture.  The ones in front didn’t even have any green left at all after he whacked them, so they didn’t come back this year, but at least I had the ones in the back.

    The windflowers are so happy, I just adore them.

  66. 66.

    beth

    @WaterGirl: Don’t mind at all. Sorry they’re not taking orders – maybe later in the year for the holidays. I remember being pleased with how quickly the order came.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @Haroldo: Yeah, it’s heartbreaking when a freeze comes at the wrong time.  Magnolia tree blooms only make it around here about every one in five years, but of course when they do, it’s a stunning display.

  69. 69.

    Haroldo

    @WaterGirl:

    My wife is the master gardener.  I merely admire and try to keep out of the way.  One time, however, I inadvertently weed wacked just a teeny-weeny bit of a dogwood.  It was enough to doom the thing, tho’.  The weed wacker and I are now under heavy supervision.

  70. 70.

    WaterGirl

    @Haroldo:  Dogwoods are not forgiving.  I hope your wife is more forgiving than dogwoods.

    The weed whacker and I are now under heavy supervision.

    As well you should be!

    In my twenties, before the gardening bug hit me, I mowed the lawn in our rental house.  My roommate was SO VERY MAD AT ME for my (unknowingly) having mowed over the asparagus bed. I knew how mad he was, but I didn’t truly understand why until later.  Moral of the story: we all screw up sometimes.

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