Living on Tulsa Time

We have been living in Tulsa for almost 6 months now (crazy!) and I am finally starting to feel like this is home. And for someone who has lived in Norman her entire life, that's a big step. We are part of a church and community group that we love, we have regular games of spades with the in-laws (I know, we're nerds) and we are starting to find new places to hang out and socialize in Tulsa. Daisy even made a whole new group of friends on our first trip to the dog park today. It was a proud dog mom moment!

As most of you know from my Facebook post, I also landed my first big girl job this past week! On March 18, I'll be rejoining the OU family as the Associate Director of Recruitment for NE Oklahoma. I'll be teaming up with the awesome people from Prospective Student Services and bringing the OU experience to all the high school kids in my area. Talk about a fun job! It combines the marketing aspect of my degree with talking about my favorite university. What could be better?!

The other great thing about this job is that Seth and I will now be able to buy a house this year! If you've gone through Dave Ramsey's course, you know renting is a drain on your income that you can never get back (although it is necessary sometimes). Thankfully we will soon be able to plug that drain and finally have a place to call our own.

Like any overeager, first-time home buyers, we have been prowling the Internet listings of homes for sale in the Tulsa area. At this stage in the process, house hunting is pure fun. We ooh and aah over all the new floors and kitchen cabinets and imagine what it would be like to live in the $3MM mansion we found on Craigslist. Soon enough we will have to start the not-so-fun part of loan approval, inspections and all the things we are currently pretending don't exist. But until then, it's happy hunting and happy times for these Tulsans!

Things I Don't Buy: Laundry Soap

You've probably seen all the pins about homemade laundry soap on Pinterest. Genius. Talk about saving money. The problem? All the recipes I tried were for liquid laundry soap, which involves boiling, mixing and cooling. Altogether, a good forty-five minute process at least. Ain't nobody got time for that.

So I started on a mission to find a homemade laundry soap recipe without all the hassle. I found this one on Pinterest, and with a slight modification, it was perfect.  

Here are just a few of the pros about this recipe:

It's powder instead of liquid, so it goes A LOT further.

The whole process of making it took about 15 minutes.

There is no measuring, boiling, etc.

It can easily be made into an all-natural laundry soap just by using some type of organic bar soap.

It is CHEAP to make (perfect for poor newlyweds!)

Ingredients: 

• 1 large box (4.75lbs) of Borax - $3.38
• 1 large box (4lbs) of Baking Soda - $2.24
• 1 large box (3lbs 7oz) Arm & Hammer Washing Soda - $3.24
• 3 bars of your favorite soap
• a big container for your detergent (there's another picture of the one I used at the end!)

Instructions:

1. Add all the ingredients except the soap to a large container and mix well. 
2. Grate the soap and then add it into the mixture.* 

*This is where I changed the recipe up a little. If you have ever grated soap, it is a terrible process that takes forever and usually results in more missing skin on my hands than grated soap in the bucket. So, I decided to try a little experiment. 

First, I chopped up the soap into small(ish) pieces with a kitchen knife (don't worry, soap is surprisingly easy to chop up). 

Then I stuck it in my Black & Decker Handy Chopper and let it do the grating for me! Talk about a life and time saver. 

Once the soap is chopped up into fine pieces, add it to your mixture and you're done! I used Zest soap, which made the mixture (and my clothes after washing them in it) smell AMAZING. 

It only takes about 4 Tablespoons (1/4 cup) per load, so the batch of detergent last a LONG time. Not to mention it was so much cheaper than store-bought detergent! 

Here is the finished product as well as my sweet Daisy peeking in the backdoor. 

She hates anything that doesn't involve her getting all the attention :) 

Choosing to Love

It doesn't take much effort to think of a topic that causes political and social division. In today's world, they seem to be a dime a dozen (I thought of 5 off the top of my head while writing that sentence). As our country begins to bring about change on these issues, people scramble to affirm their beliefs and blast those who oppose them with hateful comments, campaigns and publicity. I've seen friendships ruined and people deeply hurt because people can't let go of their hatred for the other side of an issue long enough to remember that there are people behind that issue. People like them who have feelings and fears just the same. 

So why the random political topic all of the sudden? No, I'm not becoming a political opinion blogger or trying to get people to take sides on an issue. In fact, quite the contrary. This blog is centered around an article I read in the Huffington Post today. 

If you don't want to read the entire article (it is a bit long), I'll give a quick recap. First off, it's written by Shane Windmeyer, founder of Campus Pride and "lifelong gay rights activist." For anyone acquainted with the fissure between the gay community and Chick-fil-A, the title of the article is shocking to say the least: "Dan and Me: My Coming Out as a Friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A." In a nutshell, Shane tells his story of how he became friends with Dan how they each display a level of humanity and love that has thus far been absent from the "gays vs Chick-fil-A war." Yes, Dan believes in a biblical view of marriage. Yes, Shane believes in marriage equality. But they both also believe in something more important: showing love to others.

It was never new news that Chick-fil-A supported the traditional, biblical view of marriage. But it has recently spawned a terrible battle between Chick-fil-A supporters and gay rights supporters. I have heard people accuse Dan Cathy of being a "filthy bigot" and worse. And on contrary, I have heard Christians call gay rights activist "faggots" and enemies of the American family. At the start of the article, Shane shares his initial feelings towards Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A:

"I have spent quite some time being angry at and deeply distrustful of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A. If he had his way, my husband of 18 years and I would never be legally married...Dan is the problem, and Chick-fil-A is the enemy, right?... I had the background and history on him, so I thought, and had my own preconceived notions about who he was. I knew this character. No way did he know me. That was my view... I had researched Chick-fil-A's nearly $5 million in funding, given since 2003, to anti-LGBT groups. And the whole nation was aware that Dan was 'guilty as charged' in his support of a 'biblical definition' of marriage. What more was there to know?"

Shane goes on to explain his unlikely friendship with Dan Cathy that started with a simple phone call and turned into in-person meetings with Dan and other representatives of Chick-fil-A. While Shane had never heard their side of the story, they had never heard his either:

"It is not often that people with deeply held and completely opposing viewpoints actually risk sitting down and listening to one another. We see this failure to listen and learn in our government, in our communities and in our own families. Dan Cathy and I would, together, try to do better than each of us had experienced before."

This part of the story really touched me. Here they were, the leader of a national campaign against Chick-fil-A and the founder of the company taking time to learn about the lives and views of the other. As it turns out, Dan Cathy had never had this kind of open discussion with an LGBT member before and was unaware that the financial decisions of the company were spawning instances of hatred among college students across the country. What they both came to realize was that Chick-fil-A was being used by both sides of the political debate and "the repercussion of this was a deep division and polarization that was fueling feelings of hate on all sides."

The point that stands out to me most in the story is not one about the issue itself. Rather it is Shane's description of how Dan expressed his faith and beliefs. Shane says this:

 "I gained an appreciation for his devout belief in Jesus Christ and his commitment to being a follower of Christ more than a Christian."

The difference in the two at first seems obsolete. But when you think about it, it is the most important difference there could be. As a Christian, you may be for or against certain issues. And if that's what is  most important, then hatred and anger towards the opposition is inevitable in the name of standing for what's right. But being a follower of Christ is so far beyond that. It doesn't discount what is right by any means, but rather, it reminds us that Jesus himself spent time with thieves and prostitutes and treated them as human beings and showed them love. He didn't act out in hatred and anger, although he had more of a right to than any of us. So many times we forget the faces behind issues that we have opinions on. And I am as guilty of this as anyone. But we should never forget that of all the commands given to us in Scripture, the most important is to love God and love our neighbor. This doesn't mean we should change or apologize for our beliefs, just as Dan didn't in his interactions with Shane. But it does mean that we should treat people with opposing views with love and respect. If we forget this, we have truly forgotten the heart of Christianity.