Helen Mathey-Horn's Blog, page 35

Seems like it says it all

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” ~John F. Kennedy

An Urban Forest

There isn’t a particular thing to say today, but I wanted to share some pictures.  Our front door has four glass lights (panes) on each side separated by glass shelves and it is the best place to display things I like to look at everyday…like every time I open the door.  Tulsa refers to itself as ‘An Urban Forest’ which is great most of the time (ice storms excepted).  And in the fall the colors are stunning.  Walking the dog even if only around one block always produces wonderful opportunities to find gorgeous leaves and I can’t help myself and why should I?  It doesn’t hurt anyone,  the leaves are not missed and most of them end up cleaned up by yard teams and never really looked at closely.

So if I see a particularly colorful or unique or just pleasing leaf I pick it up and add it to the collection.  They all start pretty flat, but curl as they dry and lose some of their jewel like colors.  Still, I like the growing arrangement next to my front door.  At some point they are just too dry and crumbly and the season is past and they will all end up back in the garden to breakdown the rest of the way, but for now they are cheap and colorful seasonal decorations.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  We’ll spend ours with cousins.  I’m providing homemade bread and scones on request.  Nice to know people like what you bake.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Some weeks you find yourself ‘booked’ back to back with evening events.  I’ve found I like hibernating after the dog takes her evening walk, but this week was one of those that we were out after dark two nights in a row.  What would ‘drag’ me out?  Harry Potter of course!

The Tulsa Symphony performed the musical score as the movie “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” played.  The film is shown minus the music.  We saw the first one (of the Harry Potter series) last year.  That time we were seated on the main floor close enough we could watch the conductor’s ‘score’, a computer screen with the music scrolling past on the bottom with the movie scene the music was timed to just above it.  From where we were seated last night in the mezzanine it wasn’t obvious how the conductor knew where to be, but it was just as wonderful.  (I did explain the mechanics of it to someone seated near us – as I said you really couldn’t see how the conductor did it from our angle and distance.)  This picture is before the performance as the orchestra warmed up so the screen is not the movie nor is it a picture of the actual orchestra underneath the screen (just visual filler).

The Tulsa Symphony never missed a beat…at least from my perspective.  I think only for the first few opening measures and perhaps at the very end are you even aware that the music is live.  Aren’t we all used to sitting in a movie theatre expecting the score as part of the show with no errors?  If you get to see a show done this way, it is really something.  It is a true test of a group’s ability to ‘keep up’ as it were.  It’s not like the conductor can adjust the tempo to the orchestra’s skill.

I have to make sure to get the tickets for Harry Potter 3 when they go on sale.  Yes, we’ll do them all, so it looks like our Novembers will be booked for the next six years. 

Art and Supper

Another wonderful evening, November 16, of artwork and dinner at The Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The exhibit was of the German born, American artist Bierstadt from the mid 1800’s as he recorded the American West, lots of bison, “Albert Bierstadt Witness to a Changing West”.  Some of the works belong to The Gilcrease who own a large and varied collection of American Western art.  To add perspective to his work they  showed George Catlin paintings that would pre-date Bierstadt and William Jacob Hays who started exhibiting slightly after Bierstadt.  The emphasis was on the affect of western migration on the bison of the Great Plains and therefore native American culture.  Decimation of the native Americans and the bison was a terrible loss, fortunately both were stopped before being totally irreversible.

Dinner was paired with wines from Ancien Wines a California winery with worries of their own with the current wildfires.

We ended up at a table of eight from varied background and interests and had such delightful conversations to go with our dinner.

If you live in Tulsa, or are visiting before February 10, 2019, I encourage you to stop in at the Gilcrease and enjoy the Bierstadt exhibit.  And have lunch at the museum restaurant.  They are both worth the time.   And the rest of museum isn’t ‘shabby’ either.*

* The Gilcrease is one of two world class museums in Tulsa, so that was tongue-in-cheek.

 

Shadows

As the Silnik’s daughter you would think Maru would be able to have her heart’s desire. That desire is to learn to sail. She is of sailor blood and the sea calls her, but her father, The Silnik, has forbidden all women from learning the craft because of the pirate slavers. Maru convinces her Uncle Traru to teach her, but they will have to do so out of view of Grantoli. A month of practice and her uncle declares her a sailor, but on the way home they run into trouble. Now Maru must pretend to be someone else, Minnow, from an unimportant family, and hope that she has not thrown away her former life for that of slavery. But Mahew, The Shark, her new owner is a different kind of trouble and she finds she just might like it.

This is another in the series I’ve written about the fictional place, Tienna’s World.  This story takes place along the southern shores among the sailors and pirates.  It’s a dangerous enough place for a man say nothing about what can happen to women as Maru is about to find out.

Clicking on the links above should take you to Amazon.

Thanks!

I guess this fits part of NaNoWriMo?  (National Novel Writing Month.)  Well, sort of, more like National Novel Publishing Month.

It’s beginning to look like Christmas…oh wait

We woke up to snow this morning, which is just now beginning to quit (1:30pm).

My husband and I both commented that it felt like Christmas should be next week, but oh wait, we haven’t even had Thanksgiving yet.

The snow came down in big fluffy clumps, almost straight down, no blowing.  Which is very often the way you see it in Japan.  And as in Japan it is melting almost as soon as it lands.  The temperatures are right around freezing but if it moves on and we get clear skies it will be very cold tonight.  (My prediction.)

Growing up in Northern Illinois, snow by Halloween wasn’t unheard of, not necessarily welcomed, but not unheard of.  Here in Oklahoma it seems too early, but what do I know?  Oklahoma doesn’t get much snow to begin with and we are all happier having this snow fall rather than an ice storm which is a much more frequent event and more damaging. 

So I’ll post some pictures.

  

 

The first and last pictures were taken last week.  The middle three this morning.

With a warm gas fire place in the living room and a gas/wood one in the den and some firewood on the front porch, we’re good to go.  Maybe a nap…something about ‘a long winter’s nap’?

 

Creativity, creativity, I’m just loaded with that.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group topic of the month is…(Drum roll please)

How has your creativity evolved since you began writing?

I think my writing discipline has become more, well, disciplined.  I’m still easily distracted…oh look what’s on facebook…um yes, as I was saying.

At one point I found it very easy to carve a time of the day for writing.  It was the only time of the day that I could call my own.  I was teaching, so school time and the hours immediately after were out.  I had a small son, so after the afterschool hours and supper and aftersupper activity time, and bathtime and reading before bed time were also out.  Which left the hours after 8pm and when ever I went to bed, which could be mid-night if I was really into what I was writing.

But this doesn’t address the question.  What about creativity.  I feel the more you write the more creative you become.  So as I spent more evenings writing, I was dreaming up more ideas to incorporate in the writing or try.  First person narrative, I’m talking about you.  Or what if there was a world populated with SOME people who are telepathic, not everyone, but some and they kind of naturally rise to positions of power?   And after you’ve read enough romances, you think you can write one, and if one, why not another?

I guess this is all to say that, as I write more, I have expanded my creativity by being willing to try writing different genres and points of view.

 

While We’re Talking About Writing NaNoWriMo

November is the month to write that great book you’ve always had in your mind.  Well thanks to my dil, I have several books ‘out’ in the world.  And a few of them are part of a world I created after the first one was written.  I’m one of those writers who has to fill in the world in her head.  What came before?  What will come after this story?  How did these people get to this place?  What other interesting times and people in their history are asking to be written?

So with that in mind let me make a ‘timeline’ for Tienna’s World.  

Tienna’s World Books

The Origin Stories

1 – Arrival – Written – Not Published

2 – Intermezzo – Needs work

3 – Departure – (not written yet)

Dawning – Done – Not Published

Shadows – Soon to be Published

Redemption 1 – (need to finish part 2)

Redemption 2 – (In progress)

The Gift – soon to be Published

Dream Warrior – Published

Dream Weaver – (Definitely not finished.  This one just gives me fits.)

Dream Warrior 2 (maybe done?)

Dream Witch (not finished, needs editing)

Dream Quest (not finished needs a complete rewrite with my husband’s input)

Uptimers – Published

Day Off – Just an idea

Bait – Published

So as you can see there are plenty of ideas for me to write.  And it will take me more than this November to finish.

The books highlighted above are or soon will be available at Amazon.

      

And then there are romance novels…

I’ve linked the published books (Printed titles and Pictures) to Amazon incase you are interested in purchasing a copy.  Also there are reviews.  If you decide to buy a book and read it I would gratefully appreciate your comments on Amazon’s review page for the book you read.

Thank you.

Wovember Challenge Warmth

When we are talking about wool (Sheep’s) you can’t get a better fiber for warmth.  Most people are familiar that if they want to be warm in wintery months wool is the way to go, but it turns out the opposite is also true.  If it is very warm outside  a loose garment of fine wool is actually ‘cooling’.  Wool fibers will wick moisture away from the skin and help with evaporative cooling.  Who would have thought?  Wool is really a wonder fiber.  Even wet it will keep you warmer than any other.

So if you can afford to do it, buy wool for warmth in winter and very fine loose wools for coolness in summer.

#Wovember2018Challenge

Like many things, I’m a day late.

Wovember started several years ago as a response to non-sheep yarns being called Wool, in England/Great Britain.  Each year they have had a series of articles each day during November discussing real wool and how is it raised (on sheep), harvested (no animals are killed so get over that), processed (minimal is best) and turned into garments (knit or woven).  This year they are doing something different.  Still informative but spreading out to ask people to write about their experiences with a Wovember 2018 Challenge.

Today’s topic is ‘wool count’ –

Now that could be a description of the finest of the wool fibers, the smaller the number the finer the fiber the softer it feels next to your skin.  Numbers under 25 are best, just saying.

Or that could be the number of twists in a strand of yarn, here the higher the number the more twist and for somethings the tougher it will stand up to abuse, such as in socks.

Or it could be the number of skeins/balls/fleeces of wool you own – ahem.  I have reached Sable – Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.  I reached it many years ago.  I first admitted it as I bought more yarn/fiber from a friend who owns a wool shop.  I told her I had enough to use as insulation of my house if I so needed.  She did not see a problem with that.   And that, Dear Reader, is what is known as enabling.

So I’ll try to keep up with the Wovember writing prompts (this is also the month to write a whole novel National Novel Writing Month)

So pick your poison, fiber or words, November is the month for you.   Clicking on the book should take you to Amazon.