November 3, 2014

All snarkiness aside, today I'm grateful for the 80 years my mother as spent on this earth. This year her only wish was to have all her living daughters attend General  Conference. Well I don't know about the people that live outside Zion, but getting 6 tickets to the same conference in the mission field is pretty tough. Our stake came through though, and we were extremely grateful. Here's to a few more years (ok a lot) and may she learn to stay of stools, pick up her feet, and stop dozing quite so much in her chair and, wondering she isn't tired at night.

80 Years
Raising 5 girls
Running a family ranch and farm
Active in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneer
Voted. Favorite Herbergers Customer of the month
Voracious Reader Award
Former stake Primary President
Former Relief Society President
Damn fine businesswoman

Here's to more years! I love you

November 2, 2014

Oh the gratitude continues, today I'm grateful for yeast. Yes, while not great when causing an infection, the rest of the time this amazing gas producing bacteria is responsible for so many delectable edibles (and I've never even had beer). Who doesn't grab a couple dinner rolls? Love the smell of fresh baked bread? Loves deep dish pizza? All brought to you by that ever loving flatulating bactria.

November Gratitude Posts

Oh yeah, its' that time for the  annual event, my November Gratitude posts, perhaps not your normal posts about family and church, but deserving of acknowledgment none the same.

OCTOBER IS OVER!!!!!! I am extremely grateful that the month o' spooky, terror and fear is over. Glad that the month of celebrating the supernatural evils in the world are over, Glad that for no discernable reason the children in our society, which already demand more than their share of time than at any other decade of history, require yet another full month AND CANDY!!!!

My joy on November 1st is remarkable, I just hope fall lasts long enough to still enjoy it.

Damn Throat!

It has been 11 years...ELEVEN YEARS people!!! About six or eight weeks ago, I had a little hay fever going on, no big deal, but there was a lot of coughing involved. Curious, but maybe it was just a little reaction. Sadly the coughing continued past the hay fever, so it was off to my old otolaryngologist Dr. Trowbridge. Fortunately, it had been long enough that he didn't actually remember me (or because I have lost 120# since those old days). But when we started going over my history it all came back to him.

So he did one of my most favorite things... shoved a camera up my nose and then said those famous words "well, you have something I haven't really seen before" (if I had a dollar for every time he has said that I would have like $30). It seems that I had a ribbon of scar tissue straight across the middle of my trachea, just below my vocal cords, kind of like a bow sting. So a surgery date was quickly scheduled and it was today.

A little nervous (OK a lot), so I took the day off and headed in for a 7:45 procedure. I had forgotten just how cold OR rooms can be. Although, I was pleasantly surprised that the new IV drug of choice for after surgery is now dilaudid, rather than that nasty old morphine. Overall things went well, I was about 50% blocked, but the proof is in the recurring scar tissue.

Food Storage & A Barren Pig

If I learned anything growing up it was that dry cows went to the sales yard and barren wives were to be replaced (just kidding, well kind of). I’m not sure if it was Wilbur’s fault, Lola’s, or even mine, but there are no piglets to be found at the old Dederick house. So it is with a little bit of a heavy heart that I have decided to send Lola to the butcher shop. Every thing must fill the measure of its creation, and apparently Lola’s is to fill my freezer and provide a Christmas ham for 2014.. But before we cart her off, I remembered that I have quite a bit of expired food storage down in the scary basement, so… It seems the perfect solution, I’m sure if she knew she would go on a hunger strike.

ATTENTION ALL FAMILY MEMBERS!!!

This announcement is let everyone in my extended family know that due to my lack of interest or enthusiasm, I will no longer be actively involved in the planning, executing or maybe even attending the RE Whiting Reunions. I have previously thrown myself into these reunions to the point that reunions are actually cursed at my house, only to realize that I don’t like most of my cousins and that they in return are not all that fond of me. It’s ok, chance made us cousins but that doesn’t mean we have to like each other. I’m not really sure why I have attempted to kill myself in the last decade or so, with plays, activities, cookbooks or other endeavors. Last year my sisters and mother accepted responsibility for the reunion for 2015, and at first I was ok with planning yet another reunion, until I realized that I just didn’t want to. No one should take offense, to every thing there is a season right? I remember when my Dad decided to stop going to the big EM Whiting Reunion, it is just time. I would however, be amenable to going to work on the DP Whiting Reunion!!

Little Boys...

I was born into a family of girls, to a woman who only had sisters, and each of my sisters and I were allotted exactly one boy each, so my exposure to little boys was pretty limited until I started doing Cub Scouts 100 years ago. Perhaps my sisters and I were only given one each to prepare us for the onslaught of little boys that seem to be perpetuating the next generation, the number of boys in my family seem to be growing exponentially. This week I got an extra dose because Nancy and I went down to St. George to see the Andrus boys, and try to watch a couple of their football games (two of the three games got rained out). Then the day after I got back I had scouts with three rowdy little boys from our ward, anyway, I’m not sure if I should be offended or complimented because the cub scout boys now feel comfortable passing gas in front of me. I don’t know if this is because they have no manners or if they have now accepted me as one of their own.