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kirbygates · 3 years

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My Favorite Reads of 2020

Picking my favorite reads from this past year is about equally as hard as picking out my favorite flavor chips. Spoiler alert, I usually like them all. I normally choose a book to read because it interest me and I am also a pretty easy critic. I like most books I’ve chosen to read. With that being said I read 41 book in 2020 and my average rating I gave them was a 4.3 so I did enjoy most of them. Looking back, I chose seven that were my favorite.

My favorite book of the year was by far...

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World by John Mark Comer.

Buy your copy here! https://amzn.to/3cAL3kK

“Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life.” I think we all wonder from time to time Who am I becoming? Or What did I even do today, this week, or dare I say it year? This book to me was very thought provoking and convicting and required me to look at my day to day life and see what was really consuming my time. It pushed me into thoughts of actual Sabbath and what that means and allowed me to start applying that to my weekly normalcy. I highly recommend this to anyone. It is an easy read ( my husband loved it so much he read it in one day) and it is laid out beautifully.

The rest are in NO particular order of most favorite to least favorite I just scrolled through my list until I found them.

Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts by Jennie Allen

Buy your copy here! https://amzn.to/3cuegxJ

To me this was the first time in a spiritual development book that I have read (although I have read quite a few I have not even begun to scratch the surface to what is out there) where doubt, fear, and hopelessness were so raw and real. In other books similar to this I’ve read, those experiences were described in a very shallow jump right over way. Jennie seems to open the curtains and lay it all out for everyone to see. Even the deepest darkest parts you would never want to admit to anyone. I would also recommend this book to anyone. It is a beautiful story from despair to hope filled with help and guidance to apply to your own life along the way.

The Folk of the Air Series by Holly Black was my favorite series I read in 2020. This series has three books; The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King, and The Queen of Nothing.

Buy your copy here! https://amzn.to/3pGaV2w

These are classified as a YA fantasy series and follow a human who lives in a Faerie land. This is an enemies to lovers back to enemies to who knows what roller coaster of a series. It has twist and turns that are unexpected and keep you guessing when you think you know what’s going to happen. The world Black builds in this series is both magical and terrifying at the same time. I love this series and recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy stories.

Raising Passionate Jesus Followers: The Power of Intentional Parenting by Phil and Diane Comer

Buy your copy here! https://amzn.to/3tbFkYB

The tag line for this book is “Hope and practical help for parents whose greatest longing is to shepherd their children into a vibrant faith in God” and that is just what this book is. It is by far the best parenting book that I’ve read. I will re-read it at least once a year for sure. They give practical and biblical parenting tips, advice, and strategies based on different developmental stages of your children. (Hence the going back and reading over and over). I read this book last February or March before I read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and John Mark’s name sounded so familiar and I couldn’t quite figure out why well Phil and Diana are his parents so there’s that. Two of my favorite reads came from the same family and I didn’t even know until after I finished both. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a strong influence into a child’s upbringing.

Again but Better by Christine Riccio

Buy your copy here! https://amzn.to/2NWPtIN

I had no knowledge of anything about this book before I started reading it. My husband purchased it for me and it was honestly sitting on my bookshelf for several months before I picked it up. It turns out a pretty popular Booktube creator wrote this and it has quite the mixed reviews probably mostly because of opinions of the author herself and not really the actual book. I thought it was a really fun story of a lost love that had unexpected twists on its journey to possibly finding again. It has elements of relationships, friendships, traveling abroad, and even a little bit of time travel.

If you got this far, Thank you! I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on my favorite reads of 2020. I hope you are encouraged to find a book that interest you and start reading. Come find me on goodreads to see what I’m reading this year.

#best of #reading #spiritual development #intentional parenting #fantasy books #cute reads #read everyday

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andrewuttaro · 5 years

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New Look Sabres: GM 72 - STL - Alex’s Pot(s) of Gold

I got held up in South Buffalo as one does on St. Patrick’s Day, so I came into the last home game I had tickets to this season after a period had already been played. At first I wasn’t too worried about that, after all there aren’t any fully-realized reasons to really feel the need to rush out to see the Sabres right now if you know what I mean. But as I heard the first period unfold on the radio I got that refreshing sense of missing something when it comes to the Sabres for the first time in what felt like forever. There were moments of that against the Canes but not since February, maybe earlier. I felt the need to see the outcome of this game. In spite of holding a 3-1 lead at one point in this game it was one where you just feel the worst about their chances to actually win. It’s a holiday though and a buzzed crowd at any sporting event tends to be more fun than the relative morgue the Key Bank Center has been in recent seasons. Turns out this was not a game you’d rather be drunk for. This game ended the 7-game slide and perhaps setup the Sabres for an interesting final ten games for a couple reasons, but we’ll get to that in a bit. For a moment let’s just appreciate beating Ryan O’Reilly and the Blues on his return to Buffalo. Visualize that miss in the shootout to seal the Sabres victory. Breathe in… Ahh... breathe out. Now that we’ve gotten that out of our system maybe we should ask why. I ask this having fully joined in on the booing when it happened: Why are we booing Ryan O’Reilly? He said he was surprised by the trade, he didn’t want to be traded. If there was a video tribute I missed it. Perhaps he wasn’t as good as we needed him to be here. He was awful in the defensive zone as a Sabre (evidently he still is) but if you think that’s bad this year you should think back to how bad last year’s team played in their own zone. I’ll just assume we aren’t booing him because of “losing his love for the game” but I suspect that may have been the final straw for some folks. Other people miss him and criticize the trade every week. I don’t know, it’s a holiday and I’m just going to let the past be past right now. That is made a lot easier by getting a win to talk about.

The first period was another fast one. That speed had boded well for the Sabres as of late. The Sabres outshot the Blues in the first 10-9 and it was one of those periods you wonder where the opposition’s shot total came from because you can’t remember them even having many chances. I guess that also might just be the St. Patrick’s Day effect. Right after I said guys like him were expendable this offseason, Johan Larsson gets one of his traditional hard-working goals. Zach Bogosian got him the puck from the other side of the ice, and he fired short side beating Jake Allen and at least one Blues defender. Rick Jenneret’s call “top shelf where momma hides the cookies” on this goal gave me life. Pat Maroon scored the Blues first goal about three minutes later after going around behind the net. If there is just one thing to criticize about this Buffalo defense it is the seeming inability to guard guys going behind the net. The other guys will do that, and Buffalo looks like a child who just saw a magic trick. The Sabres had the luck of the Irish though and this game was not done being fun. In fact, for pure fun’s sake the Evan Rodrigues goal is worth its weight in gold. E-Rod gets the puck from Alex Nylander (more on him later) and does something you see in basketball games to Colton Parayko. To call it a deke is a little cheap, E-Rod leaned the opposite way of Parayko defending him and looked like he was on one knee when he actually took the shot. Even more than Tage Thompson, Evan Rodrigues is the guy who made this team out of camp that was worth it the whole season trough. Carrying a 2-1 lead into the second, this game was far from over.

The middle frame was the best of times and it was the worst of times. The Blues actually did a good job of keeping the puck in the zone when they had their chances but not only was Carter Hutton on his game, but the passing was crisp for the forward corps. The play of the game started when Rasmus Dahlin got the puck in the defensive zone and wired it up to Alexander Nylander who, according to teammates, has increased his confidence each game. Nylander drove the puck into the zone and fed a great pass to Conor Sheary who tapped in one of the prettier goals we’ll see this season. 3-1 Sabres with 12:14 left in the second. If that was art than the play that led to the next Blues goal was… a different kind of art. It was the worst of times as Rasmus Ristolainen breaks his stick on the powerplay, turns over the puck, and allows the Blues’ David Perron to score a goal on one of those ugly, ugly kinds of breakaways. It was like slow motion live and in person as he saw he was on the wrong side of the ice not easily able to get a replacement stick. Is it a month of Sabres hockey if Ristolainen doesn’t break his stick and give up a goal? It was so bizarre, we got to see the best of the Sabres and the worst of the Sabres within five minutes. Brayden Schenn got the Blues goal to even it up in the third and before we go into the OT and shootout that decided the game I just want to add my voice to the Alexander Nylander choir. He got assists on that art of a goal for Sheary as well as E-Rod’s first period tally, but he also got at least two really good scoring chances of his own that reminded me of his best games in Rochester. In reality he probably goes back down to Rochester at the end of the season because they’ve got a Calder Cup to win but if Nylander isn’t on this team from square one next season than somebody is doing something wrong. Well we all say we quit on Nylander to early I’ll point out I forgave him on this very blog at the end of Training Camp so thank you very much! No, I get it he wasn’t great in Rochester or his past Buffalo call ups until recently. His appearances now have been gradually better each game and I look forward to him being a top six/middle six staple for the Sabres next season. Confidence found.

Before diving right into the end of this game its worth noting Sheary had a great night. On top of that goal he just knocked on the door non-stop. Also, a little St. Patrick’s Day dilly dilly to Phil Housley for scratching Vladimir Sobotka this game and using his coaches’ challenge on the Perron equalizer. It didn’t turn over the goal, but it did set up a rousing final few minutes of regulation that saw hit after hit after hit. The game got chippy in a good way and the crowd responded with cheering and a standing ovation twice right into the final horn sounding. I’m not normally the guy to root for hitting but it got the St. Patty’s day crowd really into this. It was like they were avenging the no call and a half dozen other no calls throughout the game. Overtime was madness. Both teams almost scored goals where they were already past the goalie, but none went through. Bogo got a great shot in OT and Sam Reinhart very nearly put it in within the last two seconds of the five-minute period. This was the first shootout I’ve seen live and I’m not going to lie, even in person it feels like a shit way to end a hockey game. I digress, there was a lot more swearing I could have done at this game but a small child no older than 6 sat next to me, and sandwiched between her and my mild-manored wife I decided to censor myself quite a bit at this game. Two rounds of the shootout: goal, goal, miss, save. The final round of the shootout saw Sam Reinhart score a bouncer and the home crowd got uproarious for just before old pal Ryan O’Reilly got on the ice to try and keep the Blues in it. He missed the net after the hailstorm of boos and looked heavenward in frustration. It was almost a poetic finish as the former Sabre missed the decisive goal against the former Blue in net. With that the Sabres won their first game in eight and we prepare for Wednesday with a fresh slate.

This was easily the most fun game to watch this month and perhaps last month as well, it was nice to do that full recap again. It’s an encouraging win to clean that slate for a final ten games that hopefully can be a fun send off to a season that was fun, even dreamy at one point. Our boys in Blue and Gold are officially mathematically eliminated from playoff contention but on Wednesday they welcome the Toronto Maple Leafs into Key Bank Center who are very not mathematically eliminated. The Leafs are more likely to make the playoffs than we ever were right now so this isn’t a game you can actually play spoilers in, but they have not looked great in the past 5-10 games and they’re getting down on themselves for what will almost certainly be another first-round matchup with Boston. They just lost in ugly fashion to last place Ottawa after throngs of Leafs fans all hiked out to the Canadian Capital for that game so how fun would it be to make their gasoline investment worthless again midweek? If you were one of us frustrated at seeing a ton of passion from the Sabres in this game after letting the season slip away over the last five weeks than what will make you feel better more than a win over the Leafs? Like, comment and share this blog around. I think that corner I was talking about turning last game I may have finally turned. I think I’ll be able to enjoy these last games and I hope you can find it in your heart to as well. Let’s Go Buffalo!

Thanks for reading.

P.S. My wife kept hearing “Ball Sack” in the radio highlights wondering why they’d say that. Turns out she was hearing Tyler Bozak.

#buffalo sabres #hockey #blog #nhl

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