American Thinker: "Romney's Church"

An interesting article describing what the media might say about our church during the final months of the election:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/obama_campaigns_hole_card_romneys_church.html

Supreme Court FAIL

I just phoned my two senators and my U.S. Congressman to tell them to repeal ObamaCare.

Kay Hagan  336-333-5311 or 877-852-9462
David Price  919-859-5999 or 202-225-1784
(Those two are Democrats, so I was basically wasting my time telling them to repeal it.)

Richard Burr  202-224-3154
(He's a Republican, so he will be on my side.)

"Time to Blossom" banner

 This is my sister, Carla Jorgensen (left) and her business partner Debbie Forrest, during their big Young Women's conference in Arizona.  Their business is called "Time to Blossom", and they put on retreats for young women 11-16.  It is a completely fabulous and high quality event, that the girls all love.

Someone volunteered to make this banner for them.  What a beautiful banner!  I love the three-dimensional flowers!

New background!

My daughter-in-law Janette helped me change my background!  Hurray for the technologically advanced younger generation!

(My other daughter-in-law Rachel helped me make my original blog and helped me put the original background on there.  So I give a BIG thanks to her, also, for even getting me started blogging in January 2009.)

I loved my hot pink polka dots, but the borders were too wide, which made it impossible to put wide photos on there.  Now I hope to put much bigger pictures on from now on.

Happy birthday Bryce

Bryce in 1996

You're a lot older now, but you are the same righteous, kind, valiant young man you have been all of your life.  Best wishes on your new job in Pittsburg!

Understanding Derivatives

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later. Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans). Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit. By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively. A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral. At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities then are bundled and traded on international securities markets. Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses. One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi. Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs. Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community. The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the various BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers. Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from their cronies in government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar. Now do you understand?

Cupcake train

My niece Jade made this for her son's birthday party.

Sofa Pillows to die for

I saw these sofa pillows at a resort hotel in Arizona.  They were gorgeous!

I tried to figure out how they were made.

I think the bias strips of silk would need to be ironed folded in thirds first, then sewn down the middle, to make the ruffley edges stand up like this.

My niece's daybed

I went to stay at my sister's house in Arizona a couple of weeks ago, and just loved this daybed.  My niece picked out all the fabrics, and they hired someone to make it for her.  SO CUTE!

For All the World to See

I wrote all over Wayne's car windows this morning before church, and surprised him for Father's Day.  He IS the world's best dad!  


He IS our hero!  


He IS Number One!


And I wanted all the world to know it.


(I found the Window Crayons at A.C. Moore.)

Evil traditions taught to children

An article about a kindergarten in Gaza, teaching the children to become suicide bombers.  The children put on a little show for their parents:

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2063

The show included a series of skits depicting Israeli soldiers as evil torturers of innocent Palestinians. A number of the children were in a cage, representing an Israeli prison, with their hands cuffed behind their backs. Others were dressed in makeshift IDF uniforms.... — carrying various kinds of weapons. ..... Meanwhile, the children recited anti-Israel slogans and expressed their desire to become martyrs......
One child announced: “When I grow up, I want to blow myself up among the Zionists and kill them in a suicide bombing on a bus." How happy that must have made his parents and the principal.

When I see things like this, I lose hope that the Palestinians and the Israelis will ever work out their differences.  It seems impossible.

And isn't it funny (not in a ha-ha way) how similar this is to the Lamanites, who were always taught from birth to hate the Nephites.  History repeats itself.

Family stack

Here's an old picture from 1992 I thought you would enjoy.
Bottom to top:  Wayne, Adam, Isaac, Seth, Bryce.  Tara standing.

Thomas's birthday and other Historic occasions

Today Thomas is 4 years old!

Also, here are some other recent happenings:

Zac graduated from early morning seminary!  (This is a picture of the graduating seniors in our stake.)

Also, Zac graduated from high school!

Today is Bryce's last day at BYU!  He is done with his bachelor's degree, and he and Marianne will soon be moving to Pittsburgh for his new job.

And there are only 6 weeks left until Tiffany has to defend her doctorate (that might not be the exact phrase, but I know she has to pass everything off that day.)

These are delicious!

 Someone told me to buy Junior Mints and store them in the freezer.  WOW!  They are so good!  They taste just like miniature ice cream bars, only minty.

And Rachel bought these from Aldi's, and I really really liked them.  I never shop at Aldi's, but I'm going to have to go there just to get them.

Zipper flower brooches

I saw a flower made out of a zipper in a lady's hair, but didn't take a picture of it.  When I got home, I couldn't remember what it looked like, so I experimented and made two different ones.

The spiral one is easier to make.  Both are sewed a little, and hot glued a little.

The spiral flower used up one side of a white 18" zipper.

The one with petals used up a little more than one 18" zipper.

Both together didn't quite use up 2 zippers.

Decoupaged birdhouses

I saw these birdhouses in a fabric store in Sarasota, Florida.  The owner said they had purchased the plain wooden birdhouses in a craft store for very little money, and then cut their designer fabric to fit and used Mod Podge to decoupage the fabric down.  SO CUTE!

Messenger Bag with decoration

I really loved this messenger bag.  An artist had purchased these bags, decorated them, and then sold them.  I think it would be fun to make one with a photo of my family on it, instead of just an anonymous old photo like this one has on it.