Cell Phone Surgery and Making Decisions By Your Dentist In American Fork, UT

This week I added another title to my name. Aside from mom and American Fork, UT dentist,  I am now a Cell Phone Surgeon.  Of course, this has a story behind it!

Our foreign exchange student, Bobby, has been without a cell phone all year.  He has an iPod that is almost glued to his hand, but no phone.  Then he got a girlfriend.  All of a sudden, having a phone was nearly national security level importance!

So good…then so bad

He is really techy, so he researched and researched which phone was best.  He ordered it online, waited, nearly without breathing until it arrived, then immersed himself in all that was wonderful about it.  His life was so much better…for two days.

While at school, it slipped out of his pocket and fell against the edge of his desk.  He frantically picked it up and was relieved to see no broken screen.  But it was blinking on and off.  When it fell, the power button hit the edge of the desk and it dented in, causing it to go on and off non-stop.

Now what??

He was completely devastated. He had only had it for 2 days and it was an expensive phone!  So he called to find out about fixing it.  Because it was an obscure brand (remember he had to have the best…) none of the local repair places would touch this phone.  He would have to send it back to the manufacturer to repair.

How about a warranty?   He didn’t have a cell phone provider yet, so no warranty there.  The only warranty was through the manufacturer, and they said because it was an accident it wasn’t covered.  So now he had an inoperable phone that no one could repair.  It was worth over $400 yesterday and worth nothing today.  He was beside himself with worry.  How would he tell his parents?  Would they buy him another?  Would anyone be able to repair it?

Broken until we find a better way

With nothing to lose, my husband started trying to fiddle with it with needle nosed pliers from the garage.  Well, they are a little large for a power button on a cell phone.  I looked at it and said I just might be able to do something to make it work.  So Bobby and I headed down to the dental office.

I used a fine bladed scalpel and scraped away a little metal all around the button so it would pop back up.  Then I used two crown-seating instruments to push both sides of the button at the same time, bending the sides down and the dented middle up.  It worked. Miracle!

So he happily skipped out of the office, texting his girlfriend and feeling like all was right in the world again.

Lessons from life

Lessons learned – there is value in taking time to breathe before jumping to conclusions  in a situation, and there is value in a new set of eyes.

I am not one to talk about giving yourself time before making a decision.  If I decided today I wanted a new car, I would not stop looking until I had one.  Preferably today.  So this was a valuable lesson for me too!

I decided to learn a little about making better decisions and share with you.  So here it is…5 things that will help you make better decisions and be more effective at home, at work and in the world:

1. Get comfortable saying “I don’t know.” In a lot of situations, that is the honest answer!  We often think we have to have all the answers, so we “fake it till we make it.”  That’s the wrong approach.  Slow down, talk to others, do some research, give the question time to settle.  No one has all the answers, and admitting so makes you much more effective.

2. Ask questions. This is ironic – the best decision makers ask questions rather than having the answers.  I’ve been taught that the person asking the questions is in control.  Continue asking until you know the answer.  Often the right question can be the difference between a good decision and a great one.

3. Look for other options. In our hurry to make a decision, we often forget the answer doesn’t have to be yes or no.  It might be maybe, or something different or how about this.  The more options you explore, the better your result in the end.

4. Trust your gut. Don’t do it if your gut says no.  This is a hard one to follow. I was pressured into a decision recently that I knew was not right.  Sure enough, a short few days later it became glaringly obvious it was the wrong decision.  Sometimes a decision is hard – that’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about sick to your stomach, this really doesn’t feel right situations.  Continue asking questions until you feel good about your decision.

5. Get other’s opinions. This is like that set of new eyes.  If you ask for ideas and opinions, you don’t have to take them, but even the asking shows two things: that you trust the person you are asking, and that you are humble enough to realize you may not know best.  Even that one question — what do you think? — slows down the process and leads to a better decision.

So SLOW DOWN in your decision making process.  Don’t jump to the $400 trash the broken cell phone conclusion.  There may be something simple and obvious to someone other than you that is the best decision.

Have fun making decisions this week and if you break your phone, you know where to find me!

Love Your American Fork Dentist,

Dr. Michelle Jorgensen

The Security In A Garden

The Security In A Garden From Your Favorite Dentist In American Fork, Utah

There is nothing that makes me much happier than my garden in the spring.  Everything is coming to life – tiny seeds are sprouting, trees are blooming, bulbs I planted last fall are flourishing.  How can you feel anything but wonder when seeing the miracle of spring?
I also feel a sort of security when I see things growing.  I picture all the delicious meals that will feed my family.  That security is something that is worth digging in the dirt for.  I have a thought provoking question for you – from former US Secretary of Agriculture and LDS Church President Ezra Taft Benson.
“Have you ever paused to realize what would happen to your community or nation if transportation were paralyzed or if we had a war or depression? How would you and your neighbors obtain food? How long would the corner grocery store or supermarket sustain the needs of the community? “  – Ezra Taft Benson
It is estimated that stores would be emptied in two days after any type of serious emergency situation.  What type of emergency are we talking about??  Anything that disrupts the transportation system.  You see, the food in stores no longer comes from the farm down the road.  It comes from all over the world.  If it can’t get to you, there is no more food available.

Emergencies around the corner

This could be an earthquake that makes roads impassable or a severe storm that shuts down power.  This could be a family emergency if you lose your job for a few months or have a reduction in income for a time.  In any type of emergency situation, the stress level is so high.  Wouldn’t it be nice not to worry about food too?
So even if you don’t have a garden now, here are some essentials to have stored so you can be prepared to feed your family if the need ever arises:

Store some basic essentials for gardening so you are prepared to produce food for your family.
Non-Hybrid seeds (hybrid seeds are sterile)
Sprouting Seeds (for food in 3 days)
Fast-growing seeds (for food in 20 days)
Soil and a container (store bags of compost)
A small hand tool for gardening – Japanese Hori Hori knife is my favorite! (found on Amazon or other retailers)
Gardening and leather gloves

Things to Prepare NOW for gardening in an Emergency:

•    Emergency seeds – Need to purchase and practice using seeds.
•     Quick to grow seeds – What can be planted that will grow quickly enough to provide nutritious fresh edibles for a family, no matter what time of year it is or what the growing conditions are?  Sprouts!  Alfalfa seed, red clover seed, mung beans and radish seed.
•      A space to grow a garden, even on a small scale- a 5 gallon bucket or Rubbermaid tote and some planting soil will grow something.
•     A source of water – without access to fresh water, all of the preparations will do you no good.

Time line in an emergency

Starting on the day the power fails or the emergency occurs, let’s look at a timeline of what is possible, things to have in preparation and how everything can tie together to feed yourself in the short and medium term.

1.       Emergency
2.       First day – Start sprouts in a jar.  Will sprout in 4-6 days.  Soak overnight then rinse and drain.  Let sit in sunny window.  Rinse and drain 1-2 times per day.
3.       Day 3-7 – start more sprouts every other day.  Start fast growing seeds outdoors (see list below)
4.       First week- should be able to eat out of your refrigerator and freezer. The refrigerator will keep things cool for 2 – 3 days.  The freezer will become your fridge in 3 – 4 days as things thaw out but stay cool.  Try to conserve canned or dried goods for later.

Fast-growing crops to plant asap:

Asian or Mustard greens – 21 days for baby, 45 days mature
Beets – 35 days for beet tops, 50 days mature
Broccoli Raab/Rapini or De Cicco – 40 – 45 days for first harvest, can repeat harvest
Carrots – 50 – 70 days depending on weather
Kale – 30 days for baby kale, 60 days mature
Lettuces – if seeds are started inside, lettuce can be ready in 30 days from transplanting.
Radishes – Some radishes are 25 – 35 days
Spinach – 30 days to baby, 45 days mature. Works best in cooler weather.
Swiss chard – 30 days baby, 55 days mature
Being able to use the fresh garden produce to supplement the dried, canned, freeze-dried and otherwise prepared foods will make meals much more interesting and tasty.

What type of seeds should I buy for my Emergency Supply?

Non-Hybrid and Heirloom seeds allow you to collect and use the seeds for future planting.  Hybrid Seeds are sterile and CANNOT be collected and reliably used for future planting.
Try not to buy seeds off the racks in most stores. They are usually hybrids, along with higher prices for the quantity. Sources for heirloom seeds:  Baker Seed Company, Johnny’s Select Seeds, Territorial Seed Company, Many more

Advantages of Growing Emergency Garden Foods NOW:

•    Good economical choice for the long term.
•    Your grown products ARE AVAILABLE in a crisis or food shortage emergency.
•    Cost per meal with “your garden food” is less than the average grocery store meal.
•    Don’t have to drive to purchase the food.
•    Food can be grown totally organic.

Soil Preparation NOW and in an emergency:

What you want is full-flavored, nutrient-rich produce. That isn’t going to happen if your soil is depleted.
Not only that, but your plants will grow more slowly, giving the weeds a head start. Weeds further deplete the soil of nutrients and moisture, and also shade the plants you are trying to grow. Because of that, you will reap much smaller quantities of food. So the first thing you will want to do is build up your soil as much as you can.
Manure – This is probably the best thing to add to your garden. As a general rule, chicken manure is very “hot”, meaning very high in nitrogen. Spread it thinly. Horse and cow manure isn’t so strong, and doesn’t have as much chance of damaging the plants. Goat, moose, llama and other manures are also fine to use. It is best, though, not to use it while still “fresh”.
Leaves –Instead of bagging them and putting them out for the trash, use this valuable resource on your garden. Spread them out in the fall and leave them on top until spring. They will decompose over winter and be ready to feed your plants in the spring.
Grass clippings – These are great. The more plant material added to the garden, the better. It’s best to either compost them or put them on in the fall and let them sit over winter, especially if they are layered with manure.
Compost –Compost is basically pre-decomposed plant material, ready for garden use. This comes from your own compost pile, into which you have been tossing kitchen scraps, grass clippings, manure, garden waste, and other such materials. Let it sit and “cook”.   One of the important things to remember in a compost pile is that the smaller the pieces, the faster the compost will be ready.
Kitchen scraps – Don’t throw away those vegetable peelings! Keep an ice cream bucket with a lid, or some other container, and save those scraps. Pretty much any fruit and vegetable matter is great. Some people put it all in the compost pile. Others just dig a trench somewhere and bury it.
Some things to avoid putting on the garden include meat scraps and bones (attracts mice), weeds (you don’t want more weed seeds there) and non-biodegradable items.
There are so many things that can be added to the garden soil to add nutrients and encourage strong growth. Start now to put all you can in there so that your plants grow vigorous and healthy. If they are healthier, then your family will be healthier too!
Go out and get your hands dirty – your family will thank you for it later!

Love,
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen

One Year Supply of Food Storage for Less Than $200!

Yesterday my boys and I made Scotch Broth.  Now before you get any ideas, it has nothing to do with a dark, smoky room and a manly drink that has been fermented in oak barrels.  It actually has nothing to do with a liquid at all.  So why it is called Scotch Broth?  I don’t have the slightest idea!  But I can explain…

If you read my posts on a regular basis, you know I like to do things myself and have things prepared for my family.  There’s a lot of talk lately of fault lines and rumblings in the earth.  In fact, scientists have said an earthquake is “imminent” along the Wasatch Fault.  What is imminent – within the next 50 years is their definition.  Well, if it’s 50 years from now, I hope my house falls down and ends it for me.  If it’s tomorrow, I want to have a few things ready in case.

Eating after an Earthquake

I saw this information originally written as “One Year Supply of Food Storage for Under $300!”  Yes, you read that right – but I did it for even less.  I think I may have found one of the best kept secrets around for pumping up your food storage REAL FAST and REAL CHEAP.  And if I can have this available in storage, I can easily share it with others.  Don’t worry – I’ll tell you how this works.

What is it??

Scotch Broth is a combination of grains and legumes (read rice and beans).   It provides a balanced and nutritious meal on the cheap!  People all over the world have been subsisting on the  “perfect protein” combination of beans and rice for hundreds of years.  Maybe they figured something out. “This particular combination is said to provide a balance of ALL of the appropriate amino acids required for a person.”  In layman’s terms that means yes, you could eat this and only this for quite a while and have what you need.

This is also really easy to “change” in countless ways. By adding meats or vegetables or dried vegetables to the mix you could totally change it up. It wouldn’t have to be the same ol’ thing day after day.

What do I buy?

So I loaded up the kids and headed to Winco (which actually is quite an entertaining store all on it’s own).  We filled our cart with 25 bags of beans and rice and slowly pushed it to the front to check out – those bags are heavy!  Here’s what we got (if the recipe calls for 20 or 15 lbs, I actually got 25 lb bags because it was cheaper per pound than the smaller amounts, and if it was 10 pounds, I did get the smaller bags).

Scotch Broth

• 75 pounds of White Rice
• 20 pounds of Barley
• 20 pounds of Kidney or Small Red Beans
• 20 pounds of Lentils
• 15 pounds Black Beans
• 10 pounds of Split Peas
• 10 pounds of Chick Peas (Garbanzos)
• 30 pounds (total) of powdered Bouillon: chicken, beef  (I got 15 containers of bullion cubes)  (watch out for bullion with MSG – could only find one brand without it)
• 5 5 gallon buckets and lids

The total for all of this was $195.  That includes the buckets.  And I have some left over for other uses.

What Do I Do With It?

You don’t want to mix it all together, because when you cook it, the rice and barley cook faster than the beans and it makes it mushy.  So here’s what I did:

1. Fill 10 GALLON size ziplock bags with rice.  Fill them as full as you can get.  This is about 7 pounds per bag.
2. Fill 10 PINT size ziplock bags with barley, again as full as you can.  This is about 2 pounds per bag.
3. Mix the beans in a bin.  I did it in batches big enough for one 5 gallon bucket which is:

                4 lbs Kidney beans

                4 lbs Lentils

                3 lbs Black beans

                2 lbs Split peas

                2 lbs Chick peas

(I found a bowl that fit about 4 pounds in it – used my bathroom scale to figure it out.  Then I just used a bowl full or half full for this so I didn’t have to weigh every time.)

4. Mix the beans and put them in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket.
5. Add two bags of rice on top, standing upright. (DON’T dump the bags in – one of my boys almost did this.  Keep the grain in the bags and put the bags in.) Then squeeze two bags of barley into the spaces at the ends of the bags of rice.
6. Put the bullion packages along the top.
7. Add a copy of the cooking instructions (found below) and close the lid tight.
8. Repeat step 3-7 four more times.  (I decided to do it this way so I would get the right amount in each bucket rather than trying to mix it all together and try to divide it out evenly)

How do I cook it?

• 1 cup bean mix
• 6-7 quarts water
• Little bit of oil (this prevents boiling over)
• Bouillon to taste
• Any fresh veggies and or meats that you have

Combine together and bring to boil, then simmer for 1.5 hours.  Then add:

3/4 cup rice

⅓ cup barley

Cook for additional 20-30 min.

This will be enough for 8 people for 1 day or 4 people for 2 days**.  You would get sick of it, but these five buckets could feed a family of four for a year.

**On the second day you’ll need to add some more water (it thickens in the fridge overnight) and another tablespoon of stock. Make sure to boil for at least 10 minutes the second day to kill off any potential bacteria, – especially if you are not storing in fridge, but just in a root cellar or somewhere cool in the event of no electricity in summer.

Giving it away

Of course this is intended as an excellent source of food for your long term food storage. It’s also  a good way to have something easy and filling to give to someone who doesn’t have food for their family.

If you are short on time or money, this is easily made one bucket at a time.  Use these amounts when you’re at the grocery store.  Should cost around $37 for a bucket’s worth.

• 15 lbs rice
• 4 lb barley
• 4 lbs Kidney beans
• 4 lbs Lentils
• 3 lbs Black beans
• 2 lbs Split peas
• 2 lbs Chick peas
• 3 tubs bullion cubes
• 1 5 gallon bucket and lid

So I hope you take the time to do a little Scotch Brothing sometime soon.  And let me know what you think about it!  Beans and Rice never tasted so good!

Love,

Dr. Michelle Jorgensen