Kent Krazies

by Nicole Kent

Still Learning From The Ultimate Gift

Yes, I am still learning from our book club’s selection from several months ago, and I have been meaning to write a blog article concerning my deep feelings about a certain chapter, involving the “Gift of Gratitude.” I have learned so much from this chapter and have started applying my own “golden list” every evening or sometimes in the morning when I am too \tired to contemplate my blessings for the day. At first, when I was considering this new plan of action, I was concerned about being able to decide upon original ideas for blessings everyday, but it is actually pretty simple to come up with new blessings for each day and usually I go over the ten limit requisite. Reading the Ultimate Gift by Jim Stovall was absolutely life changing and inspirational in more ways than one, but the greatest lesson of this book came when it introduced the “The Golden list” to me. It has helped me to appreciate all the wonderful people surrounding me, who help me through my daily struggles. I am so very blessed, and this has helped me to realize how much God actually does for me with each passing day. I will be forever indepted to him for his continuous blessings! :-)

Time out for women - Spring 2008

I will be back tracking in the next few articles, so please bear with me. In April, my sisters, my mother, and I went to a special women’s conference in Fresno, CA with our good friend, Christine Minor. This weekend was filled with inspirational speakers and powerful music. I was tickled to meet one of my favorite LDS authors, Mary Ellen Edmunds, who wrote Peculiar in a Good Way. This book was a moving gem, and its message changed my life in so many ways. I started writing letters to people who have impacted my life for the better. I continued to improve my life by memorizing church hymns. I also had the opportunity to chat with a good friend of mine from BYU, Mindy Glendhill who sang a wonderfully touching song about Emma Hale Smith entitled "How Much Can One Heart Take" she performed this song with a male group of performers singing about Joseph: A Nashville Tribute to the Prophet of other pioneers who helped organize the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints. It was a wonderful evening of music the following day's meetings involved different speakers like Emily Watts, Deen Hughes, and Michael Wilcox. These speakers where extremely amusing and engaging. They made their messages apply to everyone's life, and the audience appreciated there openness and charisma. In between the speakers, there were special musical numbers to be enjoyed. Kenneth Cope's voice is enchanting, and he became one of the highlights of the musical performances. There was a group Mercy River of female singers, and they were quite soothing! It was a great conference filled with inspiring music and speakers. Like Mary Ellen Edmunds' book, attending this conference was life changing, motivating me with different tools to bolster positive thoughts.

Ann Coulter: Fountain of Wisdom

Over the years my father has read Ann Coulter’s controversial articles to me, which has created a great interest in political debate. My father researches the questionable topics Ann Coulter discusses in her articles, and forwards these researched articles to me. This has caused me to want to read other works by Ann Coulter, which I have found to be incredibly enlightening. How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter became my first Ann Coulter experience. I loved her writing style which exhibited both humor and sarcasm. She is quite cynical, which reminds me of someone very dear to me! This book was a compilation of her many articles, and I remember reading many of them with my father’s help. My next Coulter experience was with Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. I was expecting another compilation of articles, but was surprised to read a detailed well researched analysis of the Joe Mac Carthy period. This led me to my own research projects involving the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss, and the Venona papers. My third Ann Coulter masterpiece was experienced with Godless: The Church of Liberalism, which details the many positions taken by the liberals that go against all my moral beliefs. These positions were an awakening to me. The chapters concerning Oprah Winfrey’s position on AIDS, abortion on demand, evolution, adult stem cell research, eugenics, the Vietnamization of our foreign policy, the gay and lesbian movement, Cindy Sheehan, and celebrity obsession have caused me great consternation for the morality of our culture and nation. Reading these books has been mind boggling! I was furious after reading the details about adult stem cell research verses the phony embryonic research. I cannot believe how deceitful and disgraceful these Hollywood Celebrities have become. It is the last days when good will be called evil, and evil good. I recommend this book to everyone who has an open mind and a brain! =)

Have You Been Bitten?

Reading books about vampires is not my typical genre of preference. Yet, when my sister,

Kelly, recommended the Twilight series, I decided to give it a fighting chance. After reading the first chapter, I was hooked! Like Bella, I too have fallen in love with Edward Collin. I was impatient to read the second book, New Moon and was in fever pitch to read the third book, Eclipse. These Stephanie Meyer novels have it all: romance, suspense, and above all, emotional drama are evident in every word written by Stephanie Meyer. Kelly has developed her own book club, and we have been reading the three Twilight books. The much anticipated Twilight Party was held February 26th in the Kent family living room. Nine ladies were in attendance, including the master of ceremony, Kelly, who organized the activities for the meeting. Kelly had a power point presentation prepared on the television screen, complete with a Stephanie Meyer news interview, quotes from Stephanie Meyer's website, and other interesting questions to spark creative discussions. There were delicious apples nicely arranged on a platter. These attractive apples could be dipped in caramel and a sweet cream cheese dip. There was also chocolate covered strawberries, which were a huge hit! To tell the truth, I did not enjoy the chocolate strawberries, but that is just me. I thought the caramel apples were heavenly! The best part of the meeting lay in the conversations exhibited by the various ladies, including Tami Harbuck and Angela Thompson. Everyone howled as Tami Harbuck told us how her husband was interested in reading the book, but only AFTER she mentioned the book was about vampires! J Angela Thompson entertained us with her many interpretations about the book. Kelly did an excellent job with keeping the ladies conversations on track. Once again, Kelly has made a splendid recommendation, and I cannot wait for the fourth book, Breaking Dawn to be released in August!

The Magnificent Minors

Last week Kelly, Jenny, and our parents traveled to London. The Minor family became our saving grace during this time of trial. Christine Minor was incredibly tender and patient as she dealt with two disabled young adults. Brian Minor made us roar with laughter as he showed off his sarcastic, cynical, and dry sense of humor which is similar to my father’s humor. Their children, Daniel and Julia, were incredibly patient and loving as they cared for Elle. Elle followed Daniel everywhere like his shadow, and Daniel pushed Elle in her car around the house. Jenny has a new rival! :-) The Tuckers were in our house every evening, and they were life savers. There were other friends who displayed their amazing support. We have our own little family to help us when our real family is across the world. These are people who would do anything for us, and we feel incredibly blessed to have so many “guardian angels” like the Minors and the Tuckers! :-)

Food Glorious Food

On December 13th, the Relief Society held their annual Christmas Party, and the Kent girls were fortunately healthy enough to attend. Hors d’oeuvres and cookies were provided to satisfy my growling belly. Salami on crackers, spinach quiches, ham wraps, and my favorite, jalapeno poppers, were served. I had never splurged on the latter, and I loved them! Where have you been all my life? The poppers are these scrumptious fried jalapeno peppers and cheese in deep fried batter. They are heavenly! All of this wonderful food did not even adversely affect my sugar level! J The ladies in the Relief Society had supplied sugarless cookies as well as normal cookies, but I was so stuffed after all of these mouth-watering appetizers that I could not eat another bite! The Relief Society program involved a service project where the ladies made stockings with cookies to be delivered to the nursing home in Mt. Mesa. I personally know the patients in the nursing home, and they appreciate any visitors. The way into their hearts is through their bellies. They love cookies and candy! We enjoyed this night of socializing with all of our fellow Relief Society members.

Caroling Collins

This year’s Thanksgiving celebration was extremely entertaining because of our company. We enjoyed three days of fun-filled memories to be recalled whenever needed. The Collins made the entire weekend quite enjoyable as we analyzed several movies, sang songs together while Kirstina accompanied us on the piano, and our endless chatter filled the Kent home. Michael, Kirstina’s husband, has directed a couple of movies, so he was proudly exhibiting his work. One of his latest creations was scored by Kirstina, which made the movie all the more enjoyable and riveting for someone who cannot Wicked appreciate the visual aspects to this short flick. The Last Dance was very sentimental as this strings made their appearance in the score. The emotions became heightened as these touching sounds were produced, creating a little engaging, thought- provoking flick. The best part of the Thanksgiving Holiday was our musical extravaganza where Kirstina played songs from Wicked, a great musical. Kelly was amazed that she could play by ear and knew what chords to play to get the right sounds. She explained that she had learned how to do this in college with her many music classes. She is an amazing composer and has written many of her own songs, including one she wrote for her husband. She sang this song at their wedding reception! She is incredibly talented, and so is her husband. They sang a duet from Moulin Rouge. They are an amazing couple with so many hidden talents

It needs a different plot.

Every first Wednesday of the month, a group of ladies meet at the Kent home for our book club meetings. For the month of November, we discussed THE LIGHTS OF MAHONRI MORIANCUMER by Phyllis Gunderson, LDS fiction. It was an unusual book, filled with archeological digs set in diverse and interesting places. The consensus from our group became clear as the discussion progressed with Nicole Kent’s comments about “the sheer boredom” she felt while listening to this book. When questioned how she would have made the book better, her simple reply was, “A different plot!” Which produced laughter from the room because of a different plot would have made the book slightly more entertaining. This book was similar to a science fiction type of novel, and the group agreed that they were not expecting this type of genre. There were a few members of the group that enjoyed the intellectual diction used throughout the book to paint pictures of mystery and suspense. Yes, there were times when we could not stop reading this book, but these occasions were very sparse.