Like everyone else sheltering in place, I miss the great outdoors. I do enjoy my gloriously flowering neighborhood during my twice-a-day dogwalks, but I miss the greater great outdoors. I miss Golden Gate Park. I miss Filoli. I miss Muir Woods.

To my great surprise, my naturelust has been satisfied somewhat with online jigsaw puzzles.

I only found out about these puzzles since sheltering in place began, and in the past six weeks I’ve been transported to the superbly colorful venues of Corfu, Copenhagen, and Connecticut. I’ve visited the wilds of Turkey, Tanzania, and Texas. I’ve time travelled into London’s Regent Street, been awestruck by the marvels of the Roman Coliseum, and even re-visited Disneyland, my childhood happy place.

While the jigsaw images are very satisfying and completing them makes me feel like I’ve achieved something special, what I really enjoy is being immersed in the colors, textures, and shapes of the puzzle. Colors make me happy (especially now), and some of these puzzles absolutely explode with happy color.

So here’s the really fun news for you, o lovers of historical fiction (or not): you can make and share your own online jigsaw puzzle!

I followed the instructions at jigsawexplorer, but I’ve seen similar instructions at other puzzle sites. (FYI, the trickiest part is locating a crisp .jpg. I wanted to make a puzzle of some of my early 20th century New Orleans postcards, but the print resolution was too fuzzy.)

My puzzle is made from an 1887 advertisement for the Louisiana State Lottery, retrieved from Wikipedia.

I hope you enjoy puzzle solving and puzzle making. I’d love to see links to your new puzzles!

*With apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson, who wrote in 1842, “In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”