RDC Says “Hello” to Oklahoma LIVE

On Monday of this week, two members of our contributor team for the Red Dirt Chronicles (RDC) spent some time with the KSBI TV crew introducing the RDC to Oklahoma. Dallas Caldwell, our Faith contributor, and I spent about 5-7 minutes with Lyn Hester on “Oklahoma LIVE,” a daily live show that highlights events and points of interest around the state.

This is a photo of us in the lobby after finishing our segment.  Our hostess was very gracious and asked us back, “any time.”  KSBI employs a kind, engaging and welcoming crew and I appreciated the opportunity to get the exposure for all the good work our authors create.

Feel free to check out our segment by watching this video clip of our discussion.

I suppose if there was a lesson I learned today, it was this – don’t be scared of TV…it’s okay.  And, it may be helpful to promote your work.  Take care. And, if you get a chance to make a local TV appearance, please let us know about it.  We always love to know what our readers are doing, and would love to share your work with others as well.

***

 [kelly]

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On the Horizon: Should It Stay or Should It Go?

Tax reform is taking Oklahoma by storm and personal income tax is at the center of it all. Governor Mary Fallin detailed her plan to reduce, and eventually phase out, personal income tax in her recent State of the State address. While many agree tax reform needs to be on the table, not everyone is convinced reducing our state income tax is the way to go.

In this week’s video blog, University of Central Oklahoma’s, Mickey Hepner, says why we may want to think twice before reducing our income tax.
Rob McClendon

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How Shall I Love Thee? By Standing On My Desk.

Have you ever had the privilege of watching “The Dead Poet’s Society?”  Of course, for someone who loves writing, literature, teaching and academia – well, let’s just say it’s a movie I can appreciate.  However, “The Dead Poet’s Society” has themes that numerous people can appreciate for an infinite number of reasons.  In a way, it’s a teaching movie. A movie to inspire you…and to bring you to tears.

I was thinking about a scene last night because I was thinking about Love.  It will take a bit of thought to put this whole thing together, so I hope you are able to watch this clip before we move on:

Even if you have never seen this particular movie, you can tell a great deal of the context by the information in this particular scene.  There was some kind of disturbance that resulted in the teacher being removed, the students are terribly torn about the situation, and it appears that they’ll be returning to status quo school process once again.

As perhaps the most tender, or the most committed student takes the first stand toward loyalty to their former teacher,we are afforded – due to good acting and high quality cinematography – a glimpse into his soul.  His struggle was colossal.  He was visibly shaken at what he was about to do, but he did it anyway.  His hands pressed down on the top of his desk, his body rose and his legs took him to the top of his desk to pledge allegiance to his teacher.

Then, moved by his heroic gesture, others followed.  Every student reacted differently, but the decision was not light for any of them.

They declared their love and allegiance for their teacher by literally taking a stand, and quite possibly risk getting expelled from school. Continue reading How Shall I Love Thee? By Standing On My Desk.

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Dark Secrets: A Very Chocolate Tasting of Fifteen High Cacao Delights

It was 8:15 pm and my husband, who rises at 4:00 a.m. every morning, had already gone to bed.  I was almost home from work when my phone rang.

“Uh, hello?” a voice said on the other end.  Translation: “Mom, I’m here in your kitchen ready to taste chocolate.  Where are YOU?”

“I’m pulling in the drive, kiddo…be right there.”  We had a date.  8:15 to 9:00 pm that evening, she (20 years old), my neighbor (35 years old) and I (48 years old) were going to have a Dark Chocolate throw-down.  We were looking for the perfect bar of dark chocolate to recommend to our readers for a Valentine’s Day post.  Rylee was in the kitchen staring at me mischievously when I walked in the door.

“Let’s get started!” she grinned.

Chocolate does that to some people, doesn’t it?  It has some sort of built in beacon that pings a signal in the center of your brain beckoning over and over, “Here I am.  Taste me! Here I am. Taste me!”  Rylee and I were appreciators of a good dark chocolate but tonight was going to be special.  I had spent the past few days stopping by Forward Foods, Whole Foods Market and Homeland to pick up a wide assortment of high-level cacao chocolates and we were going to taste them that night.  Every single one of them.

Missy arrived right after I, and we began to set up our experiment.  We carefully shaved off small bits of every bar, put them on a single saucer, lined up glasses of water and put on some hot water for tea.

As we tore open the bars while prepping, I thought back to my first memories of dark chocolate.  My grandpa Frank used to purchase bulk bags of Hershey’s miniature candy bars and he knew I liked the “Specials.”  I remember watching him open bags, digging around and picking out the two or three that were in every bag.  It seemed those bags had the greatest percentage of Mr. Goodbars and Hershey’s Krisps, then Hershey’s Milk Chocolate, THEN the Specials.  I felt like a princess because he was finding the treasure and handing it over before he ever picked one for himself.

Years later, I still have about one square of dark chocolate every morning or night and I love it dearly.  I love breathing in the chocolaty aroma before putting it in my mouth.  I love the way it melts and begins to turn to liquid, and I love to barely chew the last little bit so that my teeth get in on part of the action as well.

I think eating chocolate must be slightly spiritual.  After all, it IS a vegetable, no?  And it’s actually good for you.  It can lower your blood pressure and in small quantities do good things for your body.   Evidently, others think about it as spiritual as well.  There is almost as much information about tasting chocolate as there is about tasting wine.  And, just like wine…there are many ways to classify the various aspects of dark chocolate.

One of my favorite moments in reading up on dark chocolate was learning to pronounce the word “cacao.”  I always thought it was “kuh-kay-oh.”  Nope.  It’s “kuh-kow.”  I’m such a Trekkie that the word reminds me of the Queen of the Vulcan’s, T’Pau (tuh-pow). Okay…back to the chocolate. Continue reading Dark Secrets: A Very Chocolate Tasting of Fifteen High Cacao Delights

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Silent Sunday 2/12/12: Birdnest in the Barn

Yesterday I was walking through the house I grew up in with my daughter.  She was recording memories I have of the various rooms within our home, and taking photos based upon that perspective.  Her completed project will include the same process with my brother, my mother and my father.

As we were walking through the barn, I was telling her a story about the electric fence barrier across the barn entrance.  We laughed, turned to head back to the house and saw this image shown in the photo above.  A small birds nest had been built in bottle racks used to hold the bottles when feeding baby calves.  A tiny feather on the nest fluttered in the wind as the racks gently swayed back and forth.  We had an exchange about the coolness of the image, she took this photo, and we went on our way.

Sweet “*Silent Sunday,” everyone.  Have a wonderful day.

Peace,

[kelly]

*”Silent Sunday” is the term the contributors to the RDC use to describe our disengagement with social media on Sundays.  We don’t post Facebook messages or information, send tweets over our Twitter account, or deploy blog posts.  This one was constructed Saturday night, and scheduled to be released early Sunday morning.   Take care.

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