Soulful Books of 2011

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I actually thought about something “devotional” and / or inspirational for the New Year. But I was not devoted and / or inspired to write it.

So, I give you books! Books make great companions. What a great way to hang out with make believe people, or past presidents for that matter. I ran into a few people I didn’t like being around, but overall, books were my 2011 passion.  Each book brought a particular passage of Scripture to my soul and I share the verses herein. For readers looking for a gripping and intense story, https://fandom.my-passion.com/obey-or-bleed/ offers a thrilling experience that keeps you hooked.

Soma overnight fed ex no prescription Three Novels (or close to) that Touched My Soul

3. The Brothers K by David James Duncan

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else,

for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself,

because you who pass judgment do the same things. Romans 2:1  

 Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this…Romans 14:13

This is a huge novel about family, and families can be complex; it’s a book is about life, all of it. I found the magic of The Brothers K in watching six children of Hugh and Laura Chance grow, and I fell in love with the family, not because I could relate to them, but because Duncan made me care about them.  Parts of the story made me smile and parts were agonizing.  Papa Hugh Chance, a ‘coulda-been’ baseball all-star and his devout Adventist wife, Laura raise six kids that couldn’t be more different. More than once I found myself becoming extremely emotional as I fought alongside members of the Chance family trying to resolve conflict. It was life, existential and moving. I found myself empathizing with each character especially when they were at odds with one another.

This story struck me as authentic, no kooky plot twists or author’s indulgent inventions.   We see the four Chance boys grow up before our very eyes, watch as their characters age and become…  it’s a life experience and death experience — and we see the birth of hopes and dreams, and we see death, or worse.  This book is a big`ole juicy steak. Cut it up and savor each bite. This is not “book-lite” — This is book weighs in at nearly 700 pages. Who has time for that? I’m thankful that I made the time and highly recommend The Brothers K. (I’ll throw in a PG rating because I did  find that many novels ought to have some kind of classification — e.g. I read Water for Elephants and enjoyed the book, but um…R!)

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Red Gold Contest Super Bowl Spread: “Quarterback Wraps!”




Here’s an idea that takes your normal Caprese salad and turns it inside out.  A perfect twist for a Super Bowl Sunday spread.  And, it’s almost as easy as it is delicious.  We should know.  Our neighbors came to sample the final product and all I have left is  plate full of emptiness. Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients:

2 cans Red Gold Diced tomatoes

2 packages of fresh mozzarella bite sized “pearls” (or one pound cut into small pieces)

A head of Bib (Butter) Lettuce

A bunch of basil (about 30 leaves or so)

And a completed recipe of special dressing (includes garlic, fresh Parmesan, brown mustard, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and pepper)

Build your filling and wrap spread:

The first thing you’ll need to do is make the dressing. All you need is: 1 c. olive oil, 1/2 c. balsamic vinegar, 1 T. grated Parmesan cheese, 1/2 T. Dijon mustard, 1 tsp. sea salt, ground black pepper, and 3 smaller or two larger cloves of garlic – peeled and cut up a bit.  Put all these ingredients into the blender and blend until the dressing is emulsified and the color of light mud.  Yup – you’re gonna eat something that looks like mud.  The mustard and cheese help the emulsification process and help hold this together so it doesn’t separate. See this link for photos capturing the dressing making process.

Next, you’ll layer.  First, the fresh mozzarella. Put a fine dusting of ground black pepper on the cheese.  Then drain the tomatoes well (save the juice!), and cover the cheese.  Next, put the dressing in a baggie, cut a very small hole in one corner and use this like a pastry bag to drizzle the dressing evenly over the top of the tomatoes.  Finally, cover the top with finely sliced fresh basil, garnish…and you’re done!  Here are a few photos of the process…

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On the Horizon: On the Grid




It’s something that nearly everyone takes for granted in this country. Clean drinking water has been the norm since I was alive, but due to failing infrastructure it may be at risk. Scott Huler, author of “On the Grid” takes us on an incredible journey through the pipe lines and drainage systems of this vast land.

In the week’s video blog, we see just how deep our water problem may really be as we travel through drainage systems and waterways throughout Oklahoma.

~Courtenay Dehoff

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OKC Thunder v. Dallas Mavericks = Drop. Dead. Gorgeous. Basketball.




Photo by Nate Billings of the Daily Oklahoman

OKC’s Russell Westbrook was all over the bad decision making tonight.  He also had about four beautiful redeeming moments, but it was hardly enough to erase the small question mark in the back of fans heads about whether he should even be starting. Those who would like to like to bet on sports games or play various online casino slots may use this joker123 motobola platform.

Dallas’ Jason Kidd never gives up, is always consistent and was a thorn in the side of the Thunder all night long.  He didn’t loose his cool once. Not even a tiny bit.

Dirk Nowitzki, however, lost his cool all night long – his acting job continued as he plead for any foul favor he could get from the officials.  He pushed too far, however, in the third quarter by telling an official that a call against him was F*ing B*Sh*t, and paid for that with a technical.  The reaction from the crown was primal as they booed him and took pleasure in watching the “T-hammer” come down. He’s Dallas’ crown jewel, but I just don’t like his style.

James Hardin came through with tricky, slicky lay-ups that brought the crowd to their feet on four different occasions. OKC fans yelled “Fear the Beard” as he ran down the court with a grin on his face.

The game was give and take, get ahead then fall behind, up and down the court for 48 solid minutes of team-on-team full body play.  But in the end, a beautiful and timeless moment in basketball sealed the win for the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The score was 102-101 in Dallas’ favor and the game was about to end.There was only 1.4 seconds left on the clock and people were putting on their coats to leave.  The Fans who headed for the exits will rue their decision for a long, long time.  When they thought the Oklahoma City Thunder had lost the game – they were wrong.

Kevin Durant “told Thabo [Sefolosha] to give [him] the ball.”  Durant, who now has more 30-point games than any player since the 2008-2009 season,  got the in-bounds pass, turned to his left, and planted a beautiful 3-point jump shot that drained the bucket in perfect fashion.

Yes, the crowd went wild. Yes, everybody danced. And that, my friends, was some drop. Dead. Gorgeous. Basketball.

I’m completely worn out – – and I love it!

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Not-So-Newlyweds: Resolutions Together




I don’t think there’s anything magical about turning the calendar to January 1 that makes us all run to our bathroom mirrors to post lists of resolutions. Instead, I think those ideas for positive change are born of actually having time away from our regular schedules to remember who we are and who we want to be. In our individual lives and in our relationships, these vacation days at Christmas have almost a healing power, allowing us space to restore the parts of ourselves we give up during the rest of the year. This is will be the fifth New Year’s Resolution season Luke and I have experienced together, and there are some things I’ve learned about setting goals as a married person. It has been interesting to see the way that New Year’s resolutions are different as married people than they were when we were single. It seems that any change either of us make affects the both of us, and the relationship can provide the support we need to make positive changes.

 

Marriage has been a great place for positive peer pressure. In 2010, we decided that we would run in the OKC Memorial Half Marathon. That spring, we treadmilled our way through snow days, pounded the pavement on injured knees, and spent hours going in circles at whatever running trails we could find to keep things interesting. I guarantee I would have given up if I hadn’t had Luke beside me in the process. For one thing, I didn’t want to be beaten…to spend the whole next year watching him get into his car with the “13.1” bumper sticker and knowing I didn’t have one? No way! Besides, how would I have felt if he’d given up and left me to train alone?

 

The big goal for 2011 was to stop drinking pop (or “soda” or “Coke” or whatever you call it). I’ve sure been tempted by that Dr. Pepper that looked sooooooo good in someone else’s glass, but when one of us is weak, the other is strong, and amazingly enough, we have managed to succeed at avoiding the lovely mix of carbonation and syrup all year. However, there have been some goals we’ve set together that we haven’t met. For example, every January, we decide we should eat better, so we start counting calories and measuring portions, but somehow it never fails that we have an off week early in the year and relapse on all the stuff we were trying to avoid. We’ve had to realize that we can’t blame each other (“Well, if you hadn’t suggested pizza for dinner, we would still be on track.), but instead, we have to take responsibility together and avoid giving up on goals for a healthy lifestyle.

 

At the same time, I have to remember that my individual resolutions affect Luke. If I decided that I wanted to run a marathon in 2012, I would have to consider how much time that would take and what the effect would be on our time together in the evenings and on weekends. Right now, I don’t want to make that tradeoff because we seem to have little time together. Plus, my poor knee hasn’t totally overcome that last half marathon, and have you seen the weather, and it’s so dark in the evenings, and, and, and…ok, maybe I just don’t want to do it this year.

 

I think it’s important to think about what I’m like to live with and how my habits affect Luke. For example, when I had roommates in college, I didn’t even think about leaving my junk all over the living room for them to wade through. Somehow, though, I seem to find that acceptable with my lifelong roommate. He keeps his “area” in the living room spotless, but look to my side, and you’ll see my sewing box with a half-finished project, notebooks in which I jot everything from grocery lists to blog ideas, and depending on the day, probably my camera and computer and a few pieces of mail I haven’t look at yet. He never comments, but I know he can’t enjoy looking at my pileup when he is clearly interested in cleanliness.

 

On that note, I appreciate that he doesn’t make goals for me. If he recommended that I organize my project space, he might not get the positive results he expected from that conversation. I think we’ve both realized that while our stubbornness together is a very positive thing, we are not going to change each other. We have to wait until the other realizes a change is needed. Sometimes, that takes a lot of prayer, patience, and forbearance, but in the end, we have to trust each other to be constantly trying to become the best version of ourselves—both for ourselves and for each other.

 

One interesting aspect of marriage is the possibility of making goals for the marriage itself. I heard one time about a couple who had an annual business meeting to discuss their marriage. They talked about the status of the “merger” and what “assets” and “deficits” were present so that they could make improvements. I told Luke about this, and he just shook his head, but what a great concept—to be focused enough on the marriage as an important part of our lives that we would actually take a Saturday to talk about what is going well and what needs to be improved! Hopefully, we don’t need an annual business meeting for this to take place, and we can be in tune with each other enough to know when it’s time to talk about an issue. I have to remind myself not to just keep making plans of action for marriage improvement but to also highlight the strengths and to make sure Luke knows I think he’s had something to do with the good things being good things.

 

Making goals and then watching them succeed together is one of the ways our relationship has grown in these past few years, and it is always fun to discuss the plans we have for the upcoming year. Making a conscious decision to live every moment and to always improve what we have is what makes life an adventure. I think the main idea is to remember that no matter what our goals are this year, our marriage is our goal all the time. If my personal goals can positively affect that long-term goal, then they are worth working toward. If not, they may not be as helpful as I think they are.

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