What if…the color in our homes was structural?

I am intrigued by the structural color of birds-of-paradise and peacock feathers. The colors are made by patterns of material instead of pigment. Link the basic research into structural colors to self-assembling nano-particles (here is an article of some recent work in that area)…and the future could hold ‘programmable’ color for our homes. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to change the color of a room - or maybe just one wall - during different times of the day? What if the surface also collected or radiated heat (depending on whether the area needed to be heated or cooled)? 

Or what about technology that puts more display glass on our walls with color and/or images appearing just as they do today on computer displays. The technology is probably already developed to do that - although the price is still too high. What about the power it would take to have all the walls of a house being glass displays? Corning Glass has several videos with this vision of the future.

Either scenario points to a world where our the color and surface of the walls of homes will become much more dynamic than they are today!

Brookside Gardens Outdoors - February 2013

Much of Brookside Gardens is still in winter mode when I was there earlier this week - lots of browns, mulch washed onto the walkways from the last rains. It was a sunny day and large sycamore was at its winter best against the blue sky; it’s easy to identify these trees in winter with their white trunks. The snowdrops were up but most of the other bulbs were just peeking through the soil.

The small trees that were the highlight of my walk were the witch hazels which were blooming. There were at least three different flower colors - two of which are shown below.

Household Tools - Office

I took a look around my office this morning and realized that many of the tools have to do with paper - staplers, binder clips, scissors, letter opener. Having those tools around has not changed in decades. But my use of them has declined considerably over the past 10 years because I am using less paper - keeping things electronically rather than printing them. 

• My grocery lists are done with the OurGroceries app. I check things off on my Kindle as I shop.
• I decided to not print things I write for proofreading or backup. Those activities can be done electronically - with no paper involved at all.
• More of what I read is online to begin with so I have links on a ‘favorites’ list (usually associated with my web browser) rather than pages torn from a magazine to file away.
  

I do still sometimes jot down something on a post-it note. I’ve noticed that my office paper recycle bag is mostly small pieces of colored paper these days rather than the 8.5x11 inches that used to spew out of the printer pretty frequently. Do I need these paper related tools….and others like rulers and highlighters? I do use them occasionally but I am approaching a time when I might decide to freecycle them all!

Matriarch Beauty

Between the age of 20 years old and becoming a matriarch, some pretty significant changes take place. At 20 we probably all wanted to look a little older so that we would be taken seriously in our work and relationships. We wanted to be more than our teenaged selves. Now, as matriarchs, we want to look our age or younger. More importantly - we want to look and feel healthy. We want to have the stamina and energy to do what we want during the matriarch years of lives.

Does our perception of beauty in ourselves change over the years? Most of us become more self-confident. We grow into the best we will be. It is not denial to think that we are still beautiful; we likely do not look the same as we did at 20 since the beauty we have now is the story of our life shining from our eyes and from the patterns life has etched on our faces. What are the things that make you beautiful? 

• Your eyebrows arching over mischievous eyes?
• The expression on your face when you are listening to a grandchild?
• The laugh you share with your elderly parent?
• Daring to wear a bright scarf swirled around you on a cool day?
• The wave of your hair over dangly earrings? 

In our culture - the prevalent message is that the aging body is ‘not as beautiful’ as the 20 year old body. Realize that it is a matter of perspective and, as a matriarch, you have your own view that is likely at odds with the mass media on this and a many other issues. 

There may even be items on your ‘things that make you beautiful’ list that actually do look better now than they did when you were 20. For example - my fingernails at 20 were brittle and split easily (perhaps from the combination of fingernail polish and its removal). Now I let them grow naturally, shape them with an emery board as they grow, and buff them occasionally to give them a natural shine. They look better than they did when I was 20 years old! And I still wear rings I wore at 20 too!

Here’s to celebrating the beauty in ourselves at every age!

Arizona Senna and Solanum

My daughter sent me senna and solanum pictures. I am appreciating that technology makes it so easy to increase the vicarious experience. I’ve been hearing about these plants since last summer when my son-in-law obtained them for his study of native pollinators and the pictures have taken the experience to a new level!

They have been moving the plants into their apartment during the frosty nights in Tucson this winter. This is quite an undertaking since there are over 20 pots of senna (yellow) and solanum (purple); the pots must fill in almost all the available floor space in their living room. Fortunately it has only been a few nights. And the plants have survived and thrived - blooming continuously.

Enjoy the senna and solanum flowers in the slide show below….little bits of weedy color when seen along the roadsides….cheery in macro photographs.

senna_covessii

senna_covessii2

senna_covessii3

solanum_tridynanum_female2

solanum_tridynanum_male

solanum_tridynanum_male3

Aloe Blooming

The aloe plant I purchased for my daughter when she went off to college (and returned to me when it got too big for her apartment) has been repotted several times in its 5 years with us - and now it is blooming again. The first time it bloomed was in mid-summer when it was out on the deck. After it finished blooming, many small aloes came up around it. We bought a larger pot and separated some of the small ones from the parent as we moved it to the larger pot. The next time it bloomed was almost a year ago in May when it was still indoors. It was quite a challenge to move it outdoors with its tall spindly bloom while the painters were working! Now it is blooming in February - while it is trapped indoors (the picture to the left was taken 1/24 and the one to the right was taken on 2/9). The dried remains of the stall and bloom from last year are still standing too.

The blooms are mostly green but this time of year I appreciate any color other than brown. I am celebrating that I have something blooming before the hyacinths and crocus this year!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 09, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Google Street View Now Covers Grand Canyon Hiking Trails - take a virtual hike in the Grand Canyon

Voyager into Stardust - short video

How Much Do Americans Pay for Fruits and Vegetables? - from National Geographic

HMS Beagle Voyage - visualization for the UK’s Natural History Museum

Frogcicle - a video of a frozen frog thawing…and hopping away!

Color from Structure - structural colors of peacock feathers, butterfly wings, fish and squid outer cells, hibiscus flowers…color producing nanostructures

Little House Books' Mary Ingalls Probably Did Not Go Blind from Scarlet Fever, Study Says - not that scarlet fever was not prevalent during the time…but it does not cause the symptoms (and blindness) described

Tulip fields - patchwork of color from the Netherlands

Coal Cooling Towers Come Crashing Down - 2 videos: one slow motion, the other with cartoonish faces on the towers

BugGuide - a site about insects of the US and Canada hosted by Iowa State University Entomology

Organized Paper Butterfly Installations Evoke Energy - beauty created with small papers

Matriarch - Changes in the Last 100 Years

There are many more matriarch women alive and healthy today than there were 100 years ago. How are we different from those matriarchs of 1913? 

• Many more of us have worked outside the home and farm for most of our adult lives….careers that were separate from family life although we were challenged to ‘balance’ work and life. In 1913, the dominate roles that women played were home based.
• When our children were young we often paid for child care or carefully planned our work for when they were in school rather than always being close to home. We may be more likely to provide day care for our grandchild than we did for our children. That may be something we have in common with the women in 1913 that survived until their matriarch years - that desire for a deep involvement with our grandchildren.
• Now we have our own money and property. In 1913, there were legal barriers to both. Women were dependent on their male relatives for just about everything. We have our own credit history and retirement plans now with both the responsibility and independence that comes with them.
• Women could not vote in 1913 in the US. Now the cohort of women matriarchs is vocal in many issues of the day. As women come to the phase of their lives where the frenzy children at home and career stress wanes, current issues get increased focus. Matriarchs vote at polling places and with purchases/contributions.
• Matriarchs are mobile now. Technology and legal/financial changes have made it easier for us to stay in touch with our family even if they are not living nearby. However, many of us would prefer living near our family just as the matriarchs of 1913 preferred.
• We spend less time with food than the matriarchs in 1913 did. We purchase most of our food rather than grow it. Technology development has given us refrigerators and microwaves. And we are much less formal at meal times. There is a common goal with the women in 1913 though: we want to eat good, well prepared food that helps us stay healthy.
• Another area where a lot has changed since 1913 is in reproductive health. One of the reasons there are so many more matriarchs today is the improvements in pre-natal and child birth care….and the advent of birth control. Women no longer have children until they die. We do have new worries for our sons and daughters about hormone mimicking pollutants impacts reproduction - which may guide us to look harder at how the way we live impacts the planet. 

A lot has changed for matriarchs in the past 100 years but a lot has stayed the same as well. We are women that have lived long enough to have a personal, well-developed philosophy of life. I apply mine by noticing something worth celebrating every day.

Household Tools - Kitchen (Part 2)

Yesterday I posted about knives and wooden spoons being the most frequently used tools in my kitchen. The whisk, potato peeler and can opener are not used every day - but frequently enough.

I find that I use the whisk when I previously used an egg beater or electric mixer or a fork. It does a better job of combining milk with eggs for scrambling or omelets. And it is a lot less mess and faster that an egg beater or electric mixer for creaming sugar, eggs, and butter for cookies or mixing the pancake ingredients. It’s appealing in its simplicity. The one I use most frequently is an inexpensive one that has lasted for years.

The same can be said of the potato peeler. It is over 30 years old. I don’t use it as frequently as I once did since we no longer are making homemade French fries every week (French fries are infrequent components of our meals now). The most frequent use is to peel sweet potatoes before I cut wedges to roast sprinkled with cinnamon.

The can opener is used much less frequently than when it was originally purchased. We don’t eat as many canned goods as we used to and some of the few that we still buy have flip tops. I still have the can opener in the drawer; its sharpness will last for years and years at the rate it gets used.

Household Tools - Kitchen (Part 1)

I have collected a large number of tools for cooking over the years. Some of them I use infrequently while there are a few that I use every day. Knives and wooden spoons are at the top of the list.

The knives that work best for me are those that are all one piece (i.e. the knife and handle are all one piece of metal). I’ve had too many wooden knife handles split over the years and recently I had a plastic handle crack. There are still some knives in the drawer with wooden and plastic handles - and I still have a butcher block knife set on the counter - but I will continue to put them in the dishwasher when I use them and not replace them when they break.

Wooden spoons last for a very long time. Some I am using are over 20 years old and have weathered the almost daily scrubbing in the dishwasher. I use them virtually every time I cook - on the stove top or in a mixing bowl. For a long time they were in a drawer, but now I have them in a tall tin next to the stove where I can grab one quickly when I cook.

What are your top kitchen tools?

Thinking of Hyacinths

I noticed that the hyacinths are already peeking through the leaves caught in the flower beds and I am anticipating that they will start blooming before winter is gone just as they did last year when this picture was taken on February 11th. The hyacinths are sturdy, waxy flowers that can withstand the cold and snow. The pale colors - pink, and purple and white - on a spire coming up from green leaves that circle around to frame the flower from the brown of winter still dominate for a little longer. They, along with crocus, are the first flowers in my garden.

I like them for being early but even more for their smell.

The smell of hyacinths wafting in the breeze is the fragrance I associate the most with early spring. It is so rich and overpowering that I have previously refrained from buying a pot of hyacinths to put on the kitchen table. Maybe I’ll take the risk this year. If the wonderful smell gets too strong being contained in one room I’ll simply move it around the house.

Around our (Maryland) Yard in February 2013

There was a dusting of snow of fell after dark - that made the yard look cold and brittle on the morning I walked around to take the pictures for this post. The tumbled cairn of rocks and shells was almost covered. The neighbors’ blue spruce and pines still held tufts of snow as did the dried flowers of the hydrangea and onion. The old logs of the abandoned wood pile at the edge of the forest were buried under leaves and snow. I left muddy footprints in the pristine snow that had filled the dip in the yard that drains away the melt and rain water.

tumbled cairn

blue spruce

pine

hydrangea

onion

abandoned wood pile

Tree Trunks

Winter hikes in deciduous forests are sparse in so many ways - full of browns and grays, stark tree branches without the softening of fluttering leaves, sometimes very quiet with even the birds and squirrels hunkered in their nests. I tend to look more closely at thinks that I may not notice during other times of the year. Thinks like the trunks of the trees themselves.

How many trees can you identify just by their trunks? These three are probably some of the easiest.

American Beech

River Birch 

Sycamore

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 2, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Masterful Textured Oil Paintings of Ships at Sea - from Polish Artist Justyna Kopania

Health and Environment: A Closer Look at Plastics - trying to balance risks and rewards

The Whirlpool Galaxy

Morning Glory Muffins - nutrition rich - to start the day

Population Density in the US from 1790-2000 - from Stanford University’s Spatial History Project.

Simon Beck Snow Art - this post is almost a year old…but I only found it recently

Test for Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals Gets Global Seal of Approval - both the international Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the US Government ….good that they are agreed on how to test for the chemicals

Silhouettes and Moonrise in Real Time - video of a moon rise from a New Zealand mountain top

Archaic Native Americans Built Massive Louisiana Mound in Less Than 90 Days - At Poverty Point…the largest mound was built between rains; the hunter gatherers must have been a lot more organized - and in larger numbers - that previously thought

Romantic Textured Paintings of Couples Walking Together - just in time for Valentine’s Day

Gluten Lite Diet

One of the ideas I’ve been applying to my diet this year is to reduce gluten. My goal is not to be ‘gluten free’ but to dramatically reduce the amount of gluten by  

• Almost eliminating packaged wheat bread and crackers
• When I bake - replacing half or more of the wheat flour with teff or buckwheat. This does not always work but the more highly flavored the recipe is, the more likely I will still enjoy it. Pumpkin or spice muffins and pancakes are my favorites.
• Replacing pasta with grains that do not include grain - like brown rice or quinoa or amaranth
• Replacing packaged breakfast cereals with oatmeal or quinoa or a mixed grain that does not include wheat.
  

I tried some gluten free pasta (it was made with corn instead of wheat). The flavor was fine but I decided that the other grains had more nutritional value and served the same role in my meal as the pasta. And it appealed to me to migrate to the less processed grains.

The results have been reasonably good so far. I’ve been staying on course toward my goal to take off some weight. An added benefit seems to be improved digestion of other foods that previously caused me some issues (beans and broccoli/cauliflower); it could be purely circumstantial but I am enjoying those foods more than I have in years.

January 2013 Doodles

It was wonderful to be come home in early January after being away for almost 6 weeks. I found myself relaxing and enjoying the time indoors while the weather was cold - celebrating being at home. Doodles were a part of the return home too. I found myself drawn to old-fashioned pencils and colorful pens….and the flowers and clouds motifs were included in every doodle in January. I’ll have to pick something different for February.

Enjoy the January 2013 doodles below! Doodle posts for previous months are here.

Glass as Art

I’ve posed about glass as art before - Corning Museum of Glass, Chihuly at the Dallas Arboretum (here and here), Karen LaMonte’s Reclining Dress made of glass. Today’s post is a series of macro shots of glass paper weights and a vase. Enjoy!

Chocolate and Pineapple (at Brookside)

I check the banana palms every time I visit the Brookside Gardens conservatories; they usually have bananas in various stages of development. This past visit two other plans from warmer climes were bearing fruit as well:

Pineapple. I had seen pictures of the plant but had not actually seen one before. The fruit was well along in its development.

Cacao (chocolate!). I had seen a tree with the pods in another conservatory but finding one at Brookside almost hidden in the other tropical foliage was a pleasant surprise. The change in color that comes as the pods ripen was clearly visible.

Both plants are so different looking than plants that are native to Maryland. What a delight on a winter’s day to feel the warmth and be surrounded by tropical plants in the Brookside Gardens conservatory!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - January 2013

Back in August 2012, I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are some ‘little celebrations’ I’ve noted this month:

Reorganized kitchen. I helped a family member re-organize their kitchen and was surprised at how easy it was to streamline their everyday cooking. Now maybe I should reorganize my own kitchen and celebrate again!

Home again. After being away for more than a month - I celebrated being at home for more than a week after returning.

Brookside Gardens. Always one of my favorite places but this time the conservatory was the celebration….flowers and lush greenery in winter.

A cold day indoors and indulging in all those introvert favorites - reading a good book, watching birds from the window, sipping hot tea laced with chocolate.

A sliver moon above the sunrise. Starting the day with a scene of beauty is such a joy.

An uncrowded grocery store. I go early to get my shopping down before a lot of other people are about. It easier to relax and read labels to buy exactly what I intend.

A sunny day. It seemed like January was going to stay cloudy, dim and cold…and then there came a sunny day. I sat in a sunny window and celebrated the brightness.

Snow. I like seasons. Snow is my favorite aspect of winter and I celebrate the beauty of it before the plows come…before the deer track up the yard.

Cream of tomato soup. Even when trying to take of some weight, good food is something to celebrate. Homemade soup is one of my favorites on a cold day.

The first day of a class feels special - so full of potential...exciting to be starting something new.

Previous ‘little celebration’ posts can be found here.

The Magic of a Little Snow

We got a little over an inch of snow one of the days last week….and it made our yard a magical place:

The tracks of an animal (probably a cat) close to our front door; it didn’t stop to look in window.

The cedar holding a handful of snow - perfectly balanced until breeze should come along. 

The dried hydrangea looking almost like a cotton boll. 

The snowball held by pine needles.

And the deformed branches of the tulip poplar outlined by snow on every near horizontal branch.