about creativity

As a small child, I spent a lot of time by myself. My parents were busy working and my sisters were in school, so I was allowed to be alone a lot. I think that was actually good, preparing me for my life as a widow these days.
I just heard that children who spend a lot of time alone, tend to become more creative. I am pretty sure that is what happened to me. Now it is serving me well.
Also, I have a new goal for the rest of 2010. I want to read at least 7 books, one each about a different continent. These are to be travel book.
I got the idea from "Book Lust To Go" by Nancy Pearl. This is a lovely book, about travel books. I am excited.
I also have a idea, that is only an idea, not a carry out thing.
I can develop a game called ? whatever. It will have a board and game pieces about relationships both good and failed. It will have the pitfalls of relationships and when they need to end or renew. Anyway, it should be a great seller.
I must think of a name.

OK this is a continuation of the post I started a few minutes ago.
words from sacred Heart. parlotoria-visiting center or room in a prison. Quotidian-daily. espalierir-pruning trained like trees in Holland. Verisimilitude-truth like

Writing about my travels

Well, the current sucky economy has put my traveling on a temporary hold. I do, however plan to continue as soon as it is possilbe.
In the meantime, I want to write, and I guess save for prosterity my stories about my travels.
Things I want to write about are India, Italy, Bath, England, Ireland, Bangkock and Boston.
Also, I need to up date what I have reading.
Right now, I am reading Sacred Hearts my Sarah Dunani. It is about the practice in the 16th century of family "marrying" their daughters to convents by giving the convent a dowery and sending the girls away for the rest of their lives. Sad story.
This is a list of words I have learned from reading this book.
polyphony 2 or more independent music voices
intarsia-workworking inlay from Italy. I actually have some of that from Sorinto.

Yeah, a good movie was seen by Carol: "Amelia" with Hillary Swank and Richard Geer. I think the first part of it was a little slow moving, but it really turned interesting and ended AOK.
And the new Meryl Streep movie with Steve Martin and Alec (?) looks good.

OK so I haven't written on this blog for a month so here goes. I am planning on going to Thailand and will be up dating this blog, so you can check in with this when I am gone and then you can see what I am up to, which will probably be not too much. Carol

Good news, movie fans. Looks like several new movies coming out this fall will actually be watchable. Meryl Streep and Steve Martin have one coming out, as well as a Nicholas Cage end of the world deal. Those looked OK. Sandra Bullock had one about adopting a homeless boy that might be OK. Also, Jud Law is in a new movie as Watson in "Sherlock" and Hillary Swank will play Amelia Earhart. Looking forward to seeing these.

Yeah! I went to the movies this afternoon. I saw "The Informer" with Matt Damon. Great movie. It is based on a true story of a guy who "blows the whistle" on food giant ADM, who was guilty of price fixing. But in the mean time, the individuals involved were not without fault.
But the best part of the movie, besides it being funny, was the character development of the may character, Mark Whiteker, played by Matt Damon.
Recommended for sure.

I just finished ANOTHER really good book. It is "Await Your Reply" by Dan Chaon. It is about identity theft, and while that is the plot, it is really about people. As usual, I like a book with good character development. Boy, does this one have that, plus a "keep you guessing until the last page" plot. It is actually three inter woven stories.

And the other interesting thing to me was the setting. The base is western Nebraska, where I used to live. It was a bit of memory lane to talk about some of those old places.

Other than that, it is turned into a new season, fall. And it seems to be happening overnight.

I just finished reading a really good book by E.L. Doctorow. "Homer and Langley" It is about two brother, one who was gassed in the trenches in WWI and one who is blind. It tells about their lives with the background of the 20th century.
I like the place were they tell about banks buying out other banks. They say the banks become new banks and never improve.

I feel like this is new years eve. I have been thinking about all the things that have happened in the last year. I became a grand mother to two teenagers and a baby.
I traveled to Boston. I am going to Thailand.
I get to help do day care for my little Evelyn.
I have my health including my eyesight and my hearing.
I have friends and family who love me.
I have old friends and new friends.
I have plenty of money for my needs and some for my wants.
Somethings have made me sad. The worst was seeing a dog being given away at a garage sale because the owners were losing their house.
Last week, I tried to help the dog catcher catch a dog who was scared and running around because the owner had dumped her out.

So these are the things are not so good. I have closed three banks in the last year: my insurance agent has retired: my car dealership has closed and three people I know have lost jobs there.

I was almost struck by lightening and my plants got hailed on. I had to go to the dentist and I hated it. My car needs some work on it and my doctor is no longer seeing patients.

I think my good list is so much better and LONGER than the changes list.

Besides, except for the lightening and hail, all these things are changes for me and we had a minister who always said, "change is a chance for growth" even though I hated it when he said that.

This last year, since last July, 08 has been a time of change for me.

I have become a grandmother of a baby and last May 08 became a grandmother of two teenagers. )

I just finished reading a powerful book, The Snakehead, by Patrick Raddon Keefe.
It is specifically about the smuggling of human beings into the US for profit from China and generally about smuggling people all over the world.
It is very upsetting to me to think how some people exploit others, but it also helps me understand Grandpa Lew and some of his attitudes that I didn't understand before.
But since it is upsetting I don't want to write about it right now. I need to digest it a little.

I want to add from the Roadshow: the picture of the men with swords was a scene from Kabuki theater.

antiques roadshow

Wow, what fun. My sister and I went to the Antiques Roadshow in Denver. We didn't make it on TV, but had a good time and did get to see some of the celebs. I took two pictures that Jon and I had bought when we went to Japan. I bought the pics in the Gion district of Kyoto. The appraiser told me the picture of the samurai warrior was definitely from the 19th century and was of the utagawa school. She said it was probably once a part of a set of three. She said it was worth about $75. It does have some mildew damage. She was not familiar with the artist. On each picture, the artist's name is in the letters with a red circle's. The other picture is from about 1910 and she was familiar with the artist. It is worth about $110.Both pictures are original woodcuts. She said the framing was really good.
I also took a poster that I bought in a poster shop in Prague. The appraiser asked me if I was Cheque and that he was. He wanted to know what I paid for the poster ($3) and said that was good as it was a copy. He was familiar with the work and said the original would be worth about $300 and the copy I had about $25.

I was writing about a book I am reading "Paul Newman, a life." I wrote that I was writing about Paul Newman, but I wasn't. I was only writing about the book I am reading.
chimera: a fire breathing female monster with a head of a lion, body of a goat and tail of a serpent.
segued: proceed.
anomalous: irregular'

Now I am starting to read a book about Paul Newman. He has been a favorite actor of since I was in high school. So far I have learned he was really old, even by my standards and he was a WWII veteran. Also, he was Jewish and many members of his family are as successful as he was. I'll write more when I read more. It is pretty easy reading. So far, I haven't run across any words I don't know, which isn't good. I want a book to have at least a few new words for me.

I had better finish my "book report" on The Mulberry Empire by Philip Hensher before I forget the whole things.

The historical facts of the book are that from 1838-42 the British were involved in a war (the first Afghan war) against Afghanistan, or maybe it would be more accurate to say IN Afghanistan. OK. The British were established in India and they wanted an alley to the west. So they decided to take over Afghanistan. Well, they supported a has been ruler and tried to put him back on the throne and over throw the ruling ruler. It all gets rather complicated.
Now for the fiction part in the book. The author put real characters and fictional ones in the story. Then he fictionalized lots of things the real characters did and apologized for all that at the end of the book.
Now it sounds complicated (482 pages) and it is, but by reading the book, you get an idea of the situation.
I think the Brits didn't understand the Afghans and somehow thought they could just walk in and tell them how to do things. Well, that didn't work.
I like Philip Hensher books. I have now read two of the four he has written. The other two are not in my library, but I am trying to track them down.
Hensher does a wonderful job of making his people seem so real, with real FEELINGS and real work to do and REAL lives.
I see in his picture in the back of the book, that he looks quit young, 30s maybe. I am glad because I hope he writes a bunch more of these really good books and I also hope the I can talk my library into buying them.
I wonder if anyone else reads these books.

costermonger: a person who sells or hawks fruits or vegetables from a barrow

I am reading "The Mulberry Empire" by Philip Hensher. Overall, it is about British colonization in the early to mid 19th century.
vocab: taranass: Russian carriage, pulled by horses. In summer it has four wheels and in winter the wheels are removed so that it is a slay.

Ok, I am trying to learn to add pictures to my posts, so here is a sample of my iris from this spring.