Articles

Mar 31 2012

Sooooo I’m a Clutz… Whew! I feel better getting that off my chest!

Author: Kerry

…Inspired by a recent urgent care visit tonight… I bring to you yet another window into my life… From the view of an ER….

The First time I can remember having any kind of emergency service (I was actually looked over by a police and paramedic, didn’t actually go in anywhere) was when I was 10 (ish?? Maybe?)… I had been trying to catch my escape German Sheppard … I was in a grouping of Oaks at the park at the end of my street and had caught up to him (okay really… He had stopped running in order to chase and corner a cat up one of the oaks) … A man walked into the oak, and started yelling at me (I remember thinking the things he was yelling didn’t make sense, but I can’t remember what he yelled… in my adult life, I have come to assume he was either a schizophrenic, or on some kind of hallucinogen) He chased me (For him to chase, I assume I started to run?) and pushed me down, gave me a pretty solid kick and let me go… I drug the huge dog home crying hysterically the whole way, and my parents called the police… after being looked over I went for a ride in the police car to where it had happened so I could show them…

…11 years old… Standing on a wall (retaining wall type of thing) in the neighbor’s yard and jumping onto the trampoline strategically placed below… I had done this so many times… This time after the initial bounce on the canvas, the second impact was the grass which I threw my arms out to catch myself or break the fall… Dislocated my elbow, tearing all the ligaments around it… this turned into (over the next 7 years) nineteen casts, two surgeries, screws and pins and artificial ligaments…

 12 Years old… Camping in the spruces.. in a tent with some sort of family (I don’t remember who) when golf ball size hail began to fall… Making a break for something more sheltering than a tent being pelted by the hail, I slipped tearing a huge gash in my shin..

… 13 Years old… Skiing with some church group… Hit a mogul … Torn knee ligaments… Toboggan ride down the mountain, knee brace for sports the rest of my life (never actually wore it)

… 15 Years old… Swallowed an entire bottle of diet pills (maybe it was vivarin actually? I don’t remember)… Stomach pumped

… 16 Years old … Car accident (driving this time… I’ve ridden in several others)…

…17 Years old … Swallowed an entire bottle of anti-depressant (Oh man, those weren’t helping huh – I never hurt myself again after this… It was a miracle I was alive… and I was ready to be grateful for it)

…  These are all melted together in the 18 years I was married, funny how age doesn’t mean as much when you’re an adult Broken Toes (Both feet … Thanks a heap for stomping them.. They broke continually after this, because they never quite set right)… Broken foot (Stress fracture… this is why I think I’m allergic to exercise)…. Broken fingers (Wild wind storm blew door shut on hand… oh and once in a fight with a desk… the desk won)… Cracked ribs…Fractured foot (Yes the other one even… )

 Rolled the car down an embankment once…

Spent 7 months in the hospital for miracle small child

… Hysterectomy, Gall bladder surgery, Scar tissue removal from gall bladder surgery… Dates with mr. frosty before the hysterectomy

… I was hit by a car and mugged at the same time (HA! That’s an awesome story)… fell down a man-hole (OH I really did… I couldn’t make this shit up!)

… Iron deficient anemia… Ulcer (Ha ha! Ya think?)

38 years old … Rolled ankle …Just a sprain… a painful sprain (I have a pretty high pain tolerance after all this)… This time  an amazing roll (I have learned how to roll not fall)… Chasing two beautiful little girls across a wide open lawn on a warm spring evening… Priceless… I am so grateful… and super sore… I wouldn’t change any of it and risk not being on that lawn.. Not being the person who chased those girls on the beautiful evening surrounded by the people I love.

Mar 30 2012

12 Famous Quotes in History… That should’ve been Smiffbib

Author: Kerry
  1. I don’t know, I don’t care, and it doesn’t make any difference!
    Albert Einstein
  2. I don’t mind, i don’t care, i don’t give a damn!
    Lyz Mike Shamsul
  3. I don’t care who don’t like me, at least I stay real.
    Pelle
  4. You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
    Winston Churchill
  5. If you have anything bad to say to me, Say it to someone else cause I don’t care, I quite like myself!
    Rachel-erika Henderson
  6. I don’t care about three years ago,… I don’t care about two years ago. I don’t care about last year. The only thing I care about is this week.”
    Tom Brady
  7. I don’t care about my character here on earth.I don’t care about what other people think or say about me, all I care about is my standing before the Lord.
    Brigham Young
  8. Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
    John F. Kennedy
  9. I don’t care how many yards you give up — if they don’t score, they don’t win. Plain and simple. I don’t care what they do.
    Champ Bailey
  10. If a man does not keep pace with his companions perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears however measured and far away.
    Henry David Thoreau
  11. Live your own life, for you will die your own death.
    Latin Proverb
  12. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
    Eleanor Roosevelt

Mar 29 2012

So Called … “Pink Slime”… Smiffbib!

Author: Kerry

Did you freak out when you read it?? I mean … We don’t frequent fast food joints often anyways… trying to achieve a goal of 75% organic in our diet … But when they announced the schools were using it?? I instructed the smalls to only eat salads at school… because let’s be honest… I will never be the mom that packs home lunches… I consider mixing organic granola… and greek yogurt for breakfast and serving it up home cooking… I begged the small child to not let his father take him to McDonald’s on his weekends with him… and if they had to eat that way… and let’s be honest.. they do… to only eat Wendy’s …. I work with this amazing woman named Gale… Who not only provides my body with caffeine in every type of way ingestible… but is fascinating to listen too… and she shared with me this letter to the editor she wrote our local tribune in response to their scathing report on it… and well… stop F*ing panicking… Pink Slime? Smiffbib!

From  Gale S Rudolph, PhD, C.N.S.

Letter to the Editor

Aren’t we elitist?

With more than seven billion on the planet, I applaud the food scientists who have developed methods to use all of the slaughtered animal.  Aren’t we to be “stewards of the planet” using all of our resources wisely?  I understand that 1 ½ million more cattle have to be raised to make up the deficit in mechanically separated meat (MSM) that will be discarded.

I’ve used MSM to make chili, chicken/apple sausages and more high-quality protein products.  Everyone can’t have sirloin steak.

Beehive Machinery right here in Utah developed the process and it is valued around the globe.  Yes, we strive to improve this creative technology and the meat safety.  But we cannot afford to dismiss it.  Clearly label the MSM and let consumers vote with their wallets.

Now… That being said… It still doesn’t sound good… I agree… I don’t want to eat it… But then she put it to me this way… Apple Sauce… We eat organic apple sauce at my house… Do you think that apple sauce only contains the white sweet portion of the apple? and it was lovingly hand cut from the core? or was it ran through a machine.. they cores it, and never claims to have gotten out every seed… and every little speck of skin… No… that would be too expensive… I wouldn’t be able to afford to keep smallest child in her drinkable apple sauce packages which she will drink as many as I let her a day… and it is so good for her… It is Mechanically separated… and it doesn’t have any added sugar… and it’s not something else textured and colored and sugared to look like apple sauce…  Okay.. So I am past the first issue…

….The second issue is this…. product is treated with ammonium hydroxide as an antibacterial and then frozen into 60 lb. blocks. I question the value of this treatment as the product is only sold frozen and it was used for the first 10 years without the treatment. In the last few years, Cargill Inc. has begun producing a similar product called Finely Trimmed Beef (FTB) and uses citric acid as an antibacterial. At the ground beef processing plant, the LFTB is ground directly from the frozen state and mixed at no more than a 15% level with other lean and fat beef trimmings before final grinding. USDA ruled the LFTB product did not have to be labeled separately since the original raw material it came from is beef. … Gross right? … However …

…If this product is not used anymore, the meat industry will be obliged to grow or import about 1.5 million more cattle each year according to Meatingplace.com My feeling is that USDA will eventually change the labeling rules to make it plain to the consumer which ground beef has LFTB and which does not. If that happens, I think a fair amount of grocery store consumers will choose the cheaper product with LFTB  because it works well in burgers or recipes and is safe. However, I do not believe the major QSR chains (McDonald’s,  BK, etc.) will ever use it again due to the current furor. Wendy’s has never used it because their burgers are from fresh meat only and LFTB is always frozen… Like school lunches…

So there you go … It is what it is… Take it or leave it… but at least know what it is… Smiffbib …

Mooooooooo!!

Mar 27 2012

I’m not a number!

Author: Kerry

…. Soooo something interesting is going on in this brain of mine… I work in social media… for the greatest company in the world… and we started judging our online strategies and partners based on how many followers they had… and how many views something had… and spending money based on that… but then we got a negative mention on a blog.. .and sure enough… she had 60,000 followers… panic ensued…. I took a closer look… 60,000 followers… and no comments on her blog… 60,000 followers and I had never heard of her… So I began to do some research… I found companies that sell followers for an extremely low price… shell accounts essentially… and wondered how easy it was… In the sense of full disclosure I tweeted what I was doing and tested it out… Yep! sure enough… New followers… I went through the painstaking process of deleting them so that I wasnt misrepresenting myself… but then something weird happened… I got more followers… I can only assume that this is because I suddenly showed up on the recommendation list to a bunch of other shell account followers because I certainly didn’t ask for them… at one point… I’m thinking I pissed someone off by testing this theory… So I woke up to another 1000 followers this morning… and a coupon code tweeted to me if I want more… Ooohhh Proactive advertising of fake people… I stayed awake last night thinking about this… Tweeted openly about it… because I can’t tell who is fake or real anymore… and Decided something…. I am not a number… My influence is not decided by my followers… My opinion isn’t less important… and my ideas are certainly not less genius… So… before you judge me.. By my many followers (I think about 1150 of them are real LOL) …. In fact…. Reach > Following … and one has nothing to do with the other…. Next I will research the buying of Klout points… Dont tell me who the experts are… or suggest that I am not one!

Mar 26 2012

… Dearest Smalls…

Author: Kerry

… I struggle now, more than ever… I want to give you the world, but I want you to know what it means to seek out your own place… I want to teach you the importance of loving yourself while making sure you learn how to put others before you and the value of that; of recognizing more than yourself…. I want to be your compass, and yet, more than ever, it is you that are mine… “What would I want them to do?” “What would I want them to know?” “What if that were my child; how would I want someone to fight for them?” So how does this work, you ask? … I see your insecurities, and they gnaw at me…. I see your strengths and they inspire me…. The three inches that you’ve grown, the three shoe sizes that you’ve gained, The three weeks inbetween seeing you –in just a year?… I cannot keep up with you and for that I am ever so eternally grateful and sad….  And that makes not one bit of sense to me, either….  There is no stopping this thing called time; perhaps these are the longest years….  I cannot be your friend all the time, but I can be your friend…. I cannot grasp you to my chest… I cannot shelter you from this world… I cannot follow you to be certain that you’ve donned your hat and zipped your coat and protected your lips with the chapstick that I seem to buy you daily…  I will never rock you again in the old creaky chair; never fall asleep again with you on my chest; But can still make you believe that I am magic….  Santa is gone to most of you, the Tooth Fairy is gone, the Easter Bunny is gone; on some days, I know, even God is gone…. I can’t make you believe…. I can’t explain well enough….  And I must be alright with that…. And I will tell you that even now, that is hard, despite knowing it is how it must be… There is no love beyond this love…. There is no breath that I take without you on my mind…. There is no thought not marked by your presence…. There is no beauty that does not remind me of you….

Mar 22 2012

… It Starts with us

Author: Kerry

You… yeah you… sitting there not thinking you can do anything… or wondering how you can make a difference… or feeling alone.. or setting goals for yourself.. or trying to find a way to cling to your humanity in what seems a very unhumane world… There is a lot you can do… But not a lot more simple that this… I do this… I do this every week… It is how I get through the week… It is how I rise above everything else and stay positive… Trust me.

 … It Starts with Us