Results Show - Jensen Truths Revealed!

Results Show - Jensen Truths Revealed...this kinda sounds like a lame reality show title. Hopefully this post will be better than that. I thought I'd be worthwhile to reveal the answers to my "two truths and a lie" poll. I'll also introduce the new poll..."things you're sick of." It's a bit cynical, but I feel it's timely.

On with the results. Nice nice job distinguishing the lies! I've listed the % of voters how thought each item was a lie.

Jer -

• Grinds wheat, bakes bread (7%). My mom, Ann, taught me the old-skool ways of Mormon home arts. I was a serious 4-H kid. Now, making bread is a special daddy/daughter thing. Yet, I must admit I'm bummed about the sky-high wheat prices.

• Soiled shorts selling donuts (11%). Yes, I sold for Tasty Donuts as in my early teens. I don't think further explanation of this incident is becoming of this blog.

• Loves NASCAR (66%). No way. Are you kidding me? However, I'm tolerant of NASCAR fans...one of my credos is "whatever floats your boat."

Carmen -

• Out marathoned by Elvis (18%). I witnessed Carmen's 3rd marathon in which a guy in a full Elvis suit dominated most of the runners. Carmen finished strong after she puked at mile 24. She rocks.

• Missionary in Utah twice (14%). She served in as a guide at Temple Square in SLC. In the off-season the guides get assigned to another mission anywhere in the US. Carmen's 2nd call: Ogden. Humbling eh?

• Loves Haggis (55%). No. She really hasn't been fortunate enough to feast on ground-up sheep innards mixed w/ oatmeal and then stuffed into a sheep stomach. I have had the pleasure and it's quite yummy.

Aja -

• Smells like Meatloaf (66%). She neither smells like the food, nor the singer guy (you know, "I would do anything for love, but I won't do that")

• On track to be 6ft tall (3%). Yes, at 2yrs and 3mos studies suggest that if you double a girl's height it is how tall they'll be +/- 2 inches. Aja was 36inches. Right now, she's almost tall enough to dunk a basketball.

• Scottish Highland Dancer (13%). She's taking lessons, so I guess that qualifies her.

Anna-

• Loves Prunes (59%). Not. Although she is quite an eater, evidenced by her super-cute 3yr old belly.

• Luvs Earth, Wind and Fire (3%). Yes, she regularly breaks out into a tune from our favorite wizards of funk. I'm doing my best to expose the girls to good tunes...like the girl on this link.

• Wears 3+ outfits daily (3%). Yes, this question was easy. I think most lil' girlies throughout the ages have loved dress-up.

Liv -

• Sorta named after LL Cool J (18%). Her full name is Liv Loree Jensen (LLJ). Loree is Carmen's maternal grandma.

• Super cute from day 1 (0%). Seriously, she has been. I don't use the phrase "super-cute" flippantly.

• Short for Olivia (74%). Nope. People always ask this though. However, we do regularly call her "Livee".

For the next month, I'm allowing you the opportunity to vent in my "things you're sick of" poll.

Vermin Insergency

No, they are not back. For now, it looks like I killed the vermin off. Hooray for death and carnage! After the WMDs, I was fully expecting them to regroup in some sort of insurgent coalition. Either they are dead, or planning to unleash some serious havoc when I least expect it.

I'm still a little creeped out by the whole affair. But I have to admit, I really like to light things with fuzes. I also like to operate heavy machinery and watch volcanoes smolder. Occasionally, I ask myself why I picked such a boring profession as banking. There are rarely big explosions in banking.

Vermin WMDs

We have a burrowing vermin problem. On Saturday morning we discovered a pile of displaced dirt on our flagstone walkway. This morning there were FIVE piles! Carmen and I aren’t exactly sure if it’s a gopher or a mole, but here is NO WAY a tiny rodent is going to mess with our walkway. We worked too hard on it to see it get messed up.

So in honor (or dishonor) of the 5^th anniversary of the occupation of Iraq, I broke the Sabbath and headed down to Lowes for some vermin Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Much to my delight there are many WMDs to choose from....ranging from bio-degradable to purely toxic.

The old guy at Lowes who helped me knows a lot about killing vermin. Based on the 10 minute tutorial and history of vermin WMDs that he offered, he takes great delight in killing off the little suckers.

I ended up buying a couple WMDs. The dynamite looking things (according to the package they’re illegal in many states) actually come with a fuse. You light ‘em and cram them down the hole to gas ‘em out. The Lowes guy told me to have a shovel nearby just in case I need to whack-a-mole. Seriously.

Well, we lit and shoved 2 of the dynamite WMDs this morning before church. I drew a picture of me doing this on Aja’s etch-a-sketch during Sacrament meeting. It’s man vs. beast. I’ll have to wait ‘till tomorrow morning to see if I won.

"Work's So Fun"

"Work's So Fun." Aja said this unsolicited a couple years ago while we were washing the car. We actually captured it on video and plan to pull it out when she is a lethargic teen to remind her of her deep-seeded zeal for hard labor.

I was a lethargic teen. As I've grown older I've really come to enjoy hard physical labor. Since we moved in into this new house in September of 2006, a huge chunk of my spare time has been spent laboring. Actually, the house repairs have been hard physically and creatively. The architect who built and lived in this place for the first 6 years had an affinity for odd sized, difficult to replace fixtures.

This past week, we were finally able to replace/fix some items we're really excited about.

1. The cabinet hardware. The old stuff was an impossible to find, custom size. We were able to replace it with a standard 3.75 inch pull that has a large base that covers the old and new hole. The end result looks like we have new cabinets. I'm glad we spent only $250 for new hardware vs. 10 grand+ to replace everything.
2. Raised garden beds on our upstairs deck. We're getting hooked-up for Armageddon. Our latest preparedness endeavor is a decent sized garden up on our deck outside the master bedroom. Wake up and eat a carrot. Yum. Here are some pictures of our labor. The girls were making "birthday cakes" with their wood blocks and nails...naturally.















3. A meandering path. We are going lawn-less in the front yard. We smothered the lawn in mulch last fall. Yesterday we carved out this path. We used the flagstone (leftover from last summer's walk way project) and added some river-rocks to finish it off. Next we are going to plant an assortment of decorative grasses, dahlias, and colorful bulbs.
One last thing. What's up with this crazy-early day-daylight savings? I'm gonna be getting up at the equivalent of 4AM for Seminary now. Lame.

Swing Out Sisters

Much of my life still revolves around music...and my little girlies of course. This week we have all been giddy about Swing Out Sister's new release Beautiful Mess. You may remember this band from the 80's for their hit Breakout. Since then they have perfected their jazz-oriented-pop sound and have built a big following in Japan (I know that sounds funny, but it's true).

Anyway, Aja and Anna have been taking turns this week listening on the iPod around the house. They like to "groove" as they say.














Here's the video for one of the new tunes, Something Everyday. It's positive, catchy, pop...I love it.