Why my boys make life hard....(in a good way!)

Do you think Tommy likes dessert? What can I say, Alice and I are teaching him the most important things first (that at mealtime, the best thing usually comes last). Kids learn best by example, right? Maybe we should consider cutting back on the sweets! Anyways, Tommy and Jonas are precious boys. While it's hard not working at a job (I've been looking for full-time employment for 3 months, I'm only working 10 hours a week now), it is a privilege and joy beyond joy to have so much time with them. They actually make it hard to find a job because I just get so caught up in doing things with them and taking care of them. At the same time, it fuels my motivation to always be trying to improve my resume (isn't there only so many ways to spin your skills and experience? I've discovered them all). I want to get working full-time to provide better for them. I can't necessarily say that they deserve more, because what they are receiving in terms of time, love, and attention from both of us is astounding, but they deserve more in terms of a father who is a full-time provider and building financial security as opposed to someone who just manages to make it by each month. It will be hard to not have as much time with my boys every day as I do now. While going to work full-time will feel good in terms of providing, in 20 years I will look back with greater fondness for the time spent at home, not in the office. I guess there's a fine balance to be struck here, and while I'm certainly way out of balance right now in terms of my professional life, for the time being it's not such a bad balance because at least the side being favored is family and not profession!

Question Answered...

I'm a Jeopardy nut, and as such I often think in the form of a question. So when I saw this picture, the first thought that immediately popped into my head was, of course, a question: "What are two of my absolutely, positively most favorite things in the whole world?"

Happy Thanksgiving!

We truly have much to be grateful for. I've been pretty down the last few weeks due to my slow job search and the elections, but it's good to remember that life is ALWAYS filled with reasons to be happy and grateful. I know that I'll find a job eventually, and Obama's presidency will only be 4 years, and that's a good place to start.

Of course the greatest blessings are first and foremost the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Without that, then I wouldn't appreciate or value ANYTHING else as much as I do. Without that, even my family wouldn't be quite as special because I wouldn't exist within the reality of our being an ETERNAL family. My family is a close second, however. My beautiful wife who loves me and my boys is the best thing. I love Alice! She makes me feel such a deep love for everything good. Our boys are also so wonderful. I experience a joy and happiness I never knew existed when I simply sit back and look at them. Seeing their smiles, hearing their laughs, deepens my joy to a degree I have never before known in my life.

Beyond my own immediate family, I am grateful for my own (and Alice's) parents, siblings, and aunts, uncles, and cousins who I love just as much. Families are awesome, and even though I don't see my extended family NEARLY as much as I would like to, I feel just as committed and willing to help any of them out as I would my own immediate family.

This is a great country we live in. The freedoms it affords are truly worth fighting for. We should be proud to be set apart from the rest of the world, because our Lord Himself made that distinction thousands of years ago. His words, His prophecy, weren't limited to that time only. They were words for any group of people who would inhabit the land. The United States of America is truly a city set on a hill. Just as being Latter-day Saints makes us peculiar, different, and at times even a target, being an American is a unique privilege that sets us apart from the world, of course in a non-boastful or wrongly prideful way. Because this nation is great, there are hundreds of thousands who currently serve in our Armed Forces and millions more who have served. . . .and among that number, countless known and unknown who have sacrificed their lives. They have taken all that they have, were, and ever hoped to be, and laid it upon the altar of sacrifice in defense of freedoms and liberties which are truly worth living for because they are also worth dying for.

There is so much more to be grateful for. Throughout history, there have been people that deserve our adulation. There have been events which clearly show the hand of God divinely manifest in the lives of His children on the Earth. The fact that He cares enough about us to make it known through often small, minute, yet spiritually intimate experiences is cause enough to celebrate for an entire day reveling in gratitude for His divine goodness. Not only through our past, but in our present is much to be grateful for. Another great blessing is friendship. I consider my family my friends, and my friends are like family. Alice and I have been blessed with great friends both as individuals before we met and friends we have come to know since our marriage.

We are surrounded by so many things that give us cause to be grateful. Unfortunately, in today's world, it is harder than ever to see them. It seems that solitude is extinct. With cell phones, iPods, computers, and a myriad of other gizmos and gadgets, we can be constantly inundated with noise, distraction, and ever connected to the world. It's no coincidence that Satan is trying to destroy the very thing we need to draw close to the Spirit, hear the Holy Ghost, and receive inspiration, that is peace, silence, and time to ourselves where we are free to ponder and pray without fear of receiving a text message or phone call. Conveniences are not evil, but too much of anything is. I am grateful for the experiences in my life that have helped me learn to find frequent opportunites to turn off the cell phone, get away from computers and work, and do something as simple (and in the world's view probably boring) as sitting in quiet solitude left with nothing but my thoughts.

Although I could go on, for those who have stuck with me this far in reading all this I'll give you a break now. Life is awesome and worth living. One last thought I have to share, and that is a reminder to be mindful of those less fortunate than us. There are many today without the means to provide a warm meal or even a warm shelter for themselves and their loved ones. Let's remember them, sincerely and deeply, in our prayers and actions. I pray for the Lord's love to warm the hearts of those who are underprivileged and struggling. Regardless of how much anyone has in comparison to others, with the Lord's love smiling upon us and warming our hearts we truly have everything worth anything.

Update....thoughts (economic).....go Cougars!

Sorry it's been a couple of weeks since the last posting. I didn't want every posting to be political and the last few weeks most of my thoughts have revolved around politics. Not much new has happened for us. I'm still looking for a full-time job and have some applications out and in the meantime Alice and I are enjoying our time together and with the kids.

One quick semi-political thought, it's on the economy. When would you last say the economy was as bad as it is now? With the political campaigning of the last few months, especially from Obama, the economic condition was made out to be the worst since the Depression. Several claims have been made that Obama will inherit the worst economy since FDR was elected. A great effort to try to immediately link Obama to a good (not great) president of history (not to mention their recent efforts comparing him to Lincoln...that gave me a good laugh). Anyways, in our lifetimes a President has inherited an economy in much worse shape than this one. Guesses? Ronald Reagan inherited the Carter economy which had much higher unemployment, inflation, not to mention interest rates more than double what they are now. Mortgage rates in the late 70s skyrocketed to the low and middle teens. And what solved those problems? Reagonomics. Unfortunately, I don't think Obama will learn from that historical lesson. Especially since when during the early primaries he actually complimented Reagan, the Democrats jumped down his throat for it and he quickly "clarified" what he actually meant to say. Government IS the problem, not the solution to the problem (a sentiment 60% of Americans in the last election agree with according to exit polls across the nation). Enough of that.

In other news, the state of Utah is abuzz with excitement for the annual Holy War. This year has pretty high stakes, although it doesn't feel any different for me. Every year feels the same, and I get pretty maxed out on my hype for this game regardless of the stakes. I mean, it's BYU vs. Utah, can anything really make me want to beat them even more? I don't care if there are championships or millions of dollars in BCS bowl games on the line. Take all that away and I'll still want BYU to beat Utah just as much as I always do. The greatest reward in the game isn't a championship or money, but simple bragging rights, plain and simple. It's superiority and dominance over the Pukes up north. Nothing else really matters...at least for me.

Consider this when voting...

For anyone out there who is actually considering voting for Barack Hussein Obama whom the media has already anointed as the next king of our country, consider the following words from a prophet:
Howard W. Hunter taught said the following: "What is the real cause of this trend toward the welfare state, toward more socialism? In the last analysis, in my judgment, it is personal unrighteousness. When people do not use their freedoms responsibly and righteously, they will gradually lose their freedoms. . . . If man will not recognize the inequalities around him and voluntarily, through the gospel plan, come to the aid of his brother, he will find that through "a democratic process" he will be forced to come to the aid of his brother. The government will take from the "haves" and give to the "have nots." Both have lost their freedom. Those who "have," lost their freedom to give voluntarily of their own free will and in the way they desire. Those who "have not," lost their freedom because they did not earn what they received. They got "something for nothing," and they will neither appreciate the gift nor the giver of the gift.
Under this climate, people gradually become blind to what has happened and to the vital freedoms which they have lost." (The Teachings of Howard W. Hunter, p. 169; Bookcraft 1997).

Consider also that Barack Hussein Obama was even a member of the "New Party" in the 1990s, a party established by the Democratic Socialists of America. Of course, Obama vehemently denies this (blatantly lying. . . .what a strong moral fiber must make up the core of his character). This we know because their internet pages from the time clarify Senator Obama's membership while in Illinois, but the pages were later deleted. Fortunately, the membership pages had been archived by the non-profit Internet Archive Organization (for more on this, see http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/10/021724.php).

That's all for now. Just that is enough to get my blood boiling, yet there's so much more. I spent most of yesterday pouring through my Teachings of the Living Prophets book set, contianing the teachings of all Latter-day Prophets, and I read what they all had to say not only on socialism, but especially on welfare and the drastic differences between church welfare and government welfare. Some pretty pointed and direct warnings, that if heeded by all God-fearing Americans would clearly prevent the election of Barack Obama, who is apparently more inspired by Karl Marx than our own Founding Fathers. Anyways, get out and vote! At least if Obama wins, then when the country starts going to pot over the next four years you can at least have a conscience clear of any guilt for having brought on the calamity, but can actually say that you did your part in preventing the catastrophe.

The FairTax....Simpler, Fairer, Richer

As promised, here's my entry on the FairTax. Honestly, after reading and researching about this, I don't see how ANY rational person could be against this. It replaces 60,000 pages of IRS rules and regulations with a 133 page tax reform bill (currently before Congress) that will abolish the unconstitutional IRS and income taxes and replace them with a simple consumption tax (NOT a flat tax or VAT tax as in Europe). In short, rather than piling over forms or paying somebody else to figure out our taxes for us each year, we would NEVER have another IRS worksheet to fill out...let alone simply paying somebody else to figure out something so complicated that we can't do it on our own (BTW, did you know in a sample of 25 professional tax preparation agents, all 25 were given the SAME data and produced 25 different results?). A consumption tax works by collecting a 23% tax when new goods and services are purchased (cars, houses, etc., everything is only taxed once). And NO, this is NOT a 23% tax increase as MOST politicians against this will try to tell you...it is a blatant lie or an honest admission of complete incompetence to understand simple principles. Research shows that prices currently contain a 23% EMBEDDED tax rate that we are paying in order to cover the cost of taxes for the manufacturer, shipper, seller, etc. of certain goods. We are, in essence, adding our money to the bottom line of several companies so that they can pay their taxes. The 23% rate for the FairTax is designed to off set this, so if you spend $100 for an iPod before the FairTax you will NOT be spending $123 after, you will still spend $100, maybe less. Oh, and since this is a consumption tax, guess what else that means? You keep every penny you earn, nothing is ever taken out of your paycheck. You're only taxed on what you buy--YOU are in the driver's seat about how to spend ALL your money. And since taxes are collected on purchased goods, EVERYONE that buys anything will be paying taxes. In other words, all those illegal immigrants, tax evaders, and even black market runners will ALL be paying taxes. They have to buy groceries and that new Mercedes, don't they? Even tourists will be helping us out! And the lower class will not suffer, as democrats will cry (this will actually help them FAR more than any good-intentioned democrat). Most obviously, they'll be getting MORE money. They won't be sharing their paycheck with Uncle Sam. Additionally, the government will issue prebates to ensure that nobody has to pay the consumption tax on on life's basic necessities (figured using annual poverty level data and calculations on how much sales tax a household would be paying on basic necessities). And think about how our economy will take off when all the money (some $11 trillion) in overseas Swiss and Cayman Island accounts can be brought back home because the IRS and all their wonderful taxes and regulations will no longer be driving money away from the country they're designed to help. Anyways, I must stop--I could go on much longer because I'm quite passionate about this opportunity to participate in a great tax reform that will HUGELY help out our ailing country. I don't expect this to pass soon, but with enough support from us regular citizens I think it will be a reality in time. Check out www.fairtax.org for more info or just email me! BTW, check out "The FairTax Book" by Neal Boortz (several examples here come from that book). I have some copies if you want to borrow them. Let's do this!

Introducing...Jonas Paul Jensen!

The name game is over and the name that has emerged victorious is the only one that we had not thought of prior to going to the hospital. We were somewhat caught off guard since Alice was scheduled for a c-section next Monday and even that was a week early, so we thought we had more time on the name. Well, he came early and has been Moby ever since. Ironically, the whole Moby joke is what got us thinking of Jonas because, in keeping with the whale theme, we had some friends mention "how about Jonah?" We actually liked it, and then when considering Jonas it just seemed right. After researching the name and discovering it's meaning is similar to Jonah (dove; gift from god) it also means the doer of God's will and accomplishing. We really liked that and Jonas officially made our list of several names. After narrowing it down to two similar names (not Jonah and Jonas), we sat on it and ended up feeling like Jonas should be it. It really felt like it was right for him and not so much just to please us, the parents. We both really liked the other name, and it was hard to let go of, but only because WE liked it and WE wanted it whereas we feel naming a child should be about doing what is right for them. Of course we know very little about new children, so we prayed a lot that the Lord would help us out because He, of course, knows all about that child--what he will accomplish in life, what talents he brought with him, his personality traits--and so we look at the naming of children as more discernment than choice, trying to discern what name the Lord feels is most appropriate for him rather than simply choose what sounds best. That said, however, it will still at least be a name the parents like because, well, if you don't like it then it won't make the initial list in the first place! So grab some names you like and then begin discerning! Anyways, what was the other name we wanted, you may be wondering. I'll tell you, but only over a steak dinner as payment for that information. I'll give you a hint, we could use the same nicknames with both (J.J. and Joey) which is why it was easy to switch from the first to Jonas. And as for the middle name, Paul, that is Alice's dad and likewise her brother's name and we've known pretty much for a long time that Paul would be the middle name.