Monthly Archives: May 2016

Book Review: The Girl From Summer Hill

The Girl from Summer Hill (Summer Hill, #1)The Girl from Summer Hill by Jude Deveraux
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. No, I LOVED it. Such a great story and I loved the way it ended. The book is a modern day take on Pride and Prejudice. I haven’t read Pride and Prejudice (I know I need to rectify that) but I’m not sure if it would have made me love the story any more.

At first I thought it was going to be a standard love story where Casey and Tate would be together and then split up over and over again. I probably would’ve been okay with that because I really loved the characters in this book. But that isn’t how it went. When the character of Devlin turned out to be such a bad guy throwing unexpected twists into plot, I was surprised and excited. It gave the book so much more depth.

Casey is a cook and she is planning to take care of the food needs for the play that’s being produced in Summer Hill for the summer. While standing in one day, she unknowingly gets her own part in the play. Tate came to Summer Hill to try and revisit his mother’s early life. Casey and Tate start out on the wrong foot but over the course of the story, they fall in love.

This is a wonderful book. I loved it so much I didn’t want it to end. Seeing the Book 1 in the title makes me happy because I can’t wait to read more about the folks from Summer Hill.

View all my reviews

Keeping Athletes Safe in Sports

announce - NOWINSKI

I was excited to learn last week that Chris Nowinski was coming to Oklahoma to speak about the concussion crisis. Chris is the founder of  the Concussion Legacy Foundation and, while I’ve interacted with him on twitter, I hadn’t ever met him in real life. I was also interested to learn what he had to share.

Nowinski-press conference - OKATCFirst there was a press conference. Our current pending concussion legislation in Oklahoma was discussed. Chris said it was a good bill. That it took the best of already exciting bills and added some other, innovative ideas. It is expected to be signed by Governor Fallin this week.

concussion-crisis

Then it was time for his presentation Solving the Concussion Crisis: Keeping Athletes Safe in Sports. Chris talked about how concussions are an invisible injury that one can play through. They don’t cause pain, like a broken limb, and the symptoms are difficult to diagnose. Nearly one in four concussions are caused by head to ground impact. 

Many times, the athletes don’t want to report their symptoms because they don’t want to appear weak or let their team down. In a survey, when concussions were called a “ding” more athletes reported having experienced one. 

concussion_reporting

About the problem, Nowinski said not a whole lot can be done about the problem if we keep hitting people in the head so much. 

Chris_Nowinski

From his presentation, it was easy to see that education and more understand are key to at least moving in the right direction in the concussion crisis. It was an honor to meet Chris Nowinski.

 

Book Review: Lilac Girls

Lilac GirlsLilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Without a doubt, this is the best book I’ve read this year. I was so caught up in the story and did not realize, until I read the Acknowledgements, that this is based on real people and real events from World War II. Real. Brave. Women.

The book follows three women. One, a New York socialite, Carolyn. The second, a Polish teen, Kasia. And third, a German Nazi doctor, Huerta.

The stories of the three women are initially woven separately but I knew that they would eventually come together which they did. Kasia was sent to Ravensbruk concentration camp wtih her sister, Zuzanna, her mother, and a friend. Kasia and her sister become part of a group eventually referred to as Rabbits because they had heinous operations done on their legs which caused them to hop rather than walk.

Herta, the Nazi doctor, is the one that operated on them. Carolyn, the socialite, works with the French to try and keep children clothed, families together, during the war. Eventually, she arranges for the Rabbits to come to America to be operated on to become whole. She also finds out that Herta, who’d gone to jail for her war crimes, had been released after serving only 5 years of her sentence. She wants to see her medical license revoked permanently and arranges what Kascia needs to get her to the town in Northern Germany where Herta is a practicing family medicine doctor.

The is a gripping story of real events that happened during World War II. The characters are wonderful and I loved getting to know them. Herta was a villain and was written about well.

I can’t recommend this book enough. I loved it!

View all my reviews

Attitude

Yesterday, I woke up with this in my head.

IMG_7708

I thought, “where in the heck did that come from?”. Usually, I wake up with bad 70s songs in my head wondering the same thing. But this made me stop and think.

The first thing I did was search google to see who’s quote it was. It wasn’t there so I guess it’s my quote given to me by my sleeping brain. I couldn’t get it out of my head. David and I talked about it while we were walking. 

I’m fully of the belief that your attitude determines how you go through life. I choose to be positive because negative is just too hard. So if you choose to be positive, you belong to the group of people who are happy, getting things done, and having a great life. If you choose to be negative, your life stinks and it’s hard. It’s really a pretty easy choice.

So, anyway, I hope that in the future I’ll wake up with more of these great ideas instead of “I love, little baby ducks, old pickup trucks, slow moving trains, and rain“. 😉

Safe Kids Day

It was SO much fun to participate in Safe Kids Day with Safe Kids Tulsa

kasp_tulsa_1

I was in Tent 5.

tent5

Because of my focus on keeping kids safe from concussion in youth sports, I got to man the Youth Sports Safety game.

kasp_tulsa_2

Before we started tossing bean bags, though, I talked to all the kids about proper safety equipment, hydration, and warming up before playing.

sk day 2016 pics 014

The kids were fun, smart, and interactive. They all were excited to tell me about the sports that they play. Of course they all loved the bean bag tossing. 

sk day 2016 pics 008

I love it when I’m part of making a learning experience fun! 😀

 

My Story, My Why

On Sunday, the Oklahoma City Listen To Your Mother Show finally came to fruition. After submitting my story, auditioning, being accepted, rehearsing with my fellow cast members, the day had finally arrived. banner The show took place at the Will Rogers Theater

View More: http://sheradeehurstphotography.pass.us/ltym2016

The amazing 2016 cast met once again for the show.

View More: http://sheradeehurstphotography.pass.us/ltym2016

We watched as the theater filled up.

View More: http://sheradeehurstphotography.pass.us/ltym2016

Finally, it was time to take the stage. 

View More: http://sheradeehurstphotography.pass.us/ltym2016

I listened to the stories of my fellow cast members. Stories that did things to my heart that made me love this group of people like no other.  

table

 And then it was my turn. My story was called A Question of Guilt. It was my story about how I felt after reading the book Concussion and how it relates to the fact that my son had at least five concussions while playing football from ages 8 until 20. The story that has given me the mission to tell every single person I can that it’s not “just” a concussion and that helmets do not prevent concussions. Every. Single. Person. Everywhere. Anywhere.

View More: http://sheradeehurstphotography.pass.us/ltym2016

After the show was over, I went down to meet a friend of mine from twitter. We’ve been tweeting for years (I can’t even remember how long!) and I was so excited to finally meet her in real life. 

nita

And then the most amazing thing happened! People that I didn’t know started coming up to me and thanking me for sharing my story. One young mother, with tears in her eyes, told me that she had been worried about letting her little boy play football and that my story was confirmation for her. This, my friends, was the cherry on top of an already awesome experience!

View More: http://sheradeehurstphotography.pass.us/ltym2016

I love that I got a chance to be a part of the 2016 Oklahoma City cast. I love that I got to share my story. And maybe, just maybe, my story will save another mom the guilt that I felt when I realized that a helmet did not protect my son’s precious brain. That is my goal. One mom at a time. Until I’ve told everyone.

View More: http://sheradeehurstphotography.pass.us/ltym2016

Many thanks to the producers Mari Farthing, Carolyn Bechtold, and Jennifer Smith for choosing me as a member of the cast. Thanks to my castmates for being completely incredible people (whom I love) and having the courage to share your stories. Thanks to Lyndzee Story for helping me with my hair and makeup. Thanks to Sheradee Hurst for the fabulous photos. And, finally, thanks to my incredible husband for always being by my side to love and support me. 

If you have a story to tell, I can’t encourage you enough to seek out your local Listen To Your Mother Show and apply! It will change your life. 🙂