The ballot! The ballot!

Hey guys,

I got my mail-in ballot in the mail today! Woohoo!

C'mon now, no one celebrates alone! Celebrate with me ;)

Have you received your mail-in ballot yet? If yes, I hope you have voted already! God bless America. :)

xoxo,

Leah

Pardon the interruption

"And it is beautiful and tragic

Different verse but same old song

Sometimes the only thing you learn is

That life keeps moving on

"At this pace

We're gonna get somewhere

If it's good or bad, if it's slow or fast

Life keeps moving on

And yes, life keeps moving on" 

-Ben Rector

Ever have those times/moments where you're ultra-focused on something great - a project, your homework (for once), something really good and fulfilling and/or satisfying, and while you're in the "zone" and doing your thing, something that you LEAST EXPECT that could happen, happens? 

(Source: https://capitalcitybaseball.wikispaces.com/file/view/curve-ball.jpg/223564570/417x219/curve-ball.jpg)

Curveball indeed! I encountered a few experiences that I NEVER saw coming, and it threw me off my "game". Inconvenience! How cruel and rude that life doesn't respect the fact that I am running for city council! And these "events" that happened, why couldn't they have happened after this was all done? Why couldn't this happen at a more convenient time? 

All the while during these experiences in the back of my mind, I kept thinking to myself, how am I going to do this? How am I going to make this work? 

(Source: http://www.mynewsgirl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/help.jpg)

I realized that I had two choices: embrace what is, gratefully and willingly let these experiences take their course, see them through and then move on, or ignore it altogether and keep working on my campaign. I opted for the former. This experience reminded me that I am a wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend and neighbor first, and a political candidate last. Serving in office would be a great experience and honor, but when all is said and done, when all this hoopla and fanfare of campaigning for office and possibly even getting to serve in office is over and done with, take off all the political "makeup", the friends and supporters, the opportunities to make it big in the city, and I will still be Leah Hansen, wife, mother, daughter, sister, neighbor and friend. Robert Frost, here's to taking that other road. #priorities

xoxo,

Leah

Very important information on voting in municipal elections this year!

Hey guys,

If you are interested in voting in municipal elections this year in Saratoga, there are some things I would like you to know:

Aaand if the video was too long to watch (I'm trying to keep them to 2-3 mins. max, FYI), Saratoga Springs, along with several other cities here in Utah County will be doing ballots by mail; you will not need to go to a polling location to vote; the ballots will come to YOU, if you are an active voter.

An active voter is one who has voted at least once in the past four years. If you haven't voted in the past 4 years, if you would like to vote, you can do it one of 3 ways:

• Register online to vote: Go to vote.utah.gov 

and if you'll notice on the top right-hand side of the page, there is a "Register to Vote" tab. Click on it, and register to vote;  you will need your driver's license (a current one, please, one that has your current address on it), and if you'll just fill out the information that they need from you, it should take a couple of minutes, then you're set! 

• Register by mail:

Under the same website, you can click on the "Utah Voter Registration Form" link, and it should take you to a page that you can print out, fill out your information by hand, and mail it to the Utah County Clerk's office. The address is:

Utah County Clerk Office

100 E. Center, Room 3100

Provo, UT 84606

and if you would like to contact them with further questions, their information is:

Clerk: Bryan Thompson

bryant@utahcounty.gov

Phone: 801-851-8128

Fax: 801-851-8122

• And lastly, you can register in person to vote. Just head on over to the County Clerk's office (address listed above) and register to vote! Simple, right? 

Additional information that may be important to know:

Primary Election Day for Municipal Elections: August 15, 2017, aaaaaand:

- deadline for registering online to vote is July 31, 2017

- clerk's office will begin mailing out ballots on July 25, 2017

- don't worry if you register online (or in person) to vote on July 31, 2017 when ballots are already being mailed out; you should still be able to get one before the Primary Election Day, which is August 15, 2017.

- last day to register to vote by mail is July 17, 2017

If you have any questions for me, please don't hesitate to let me know!

xoxo,

Leah

Utah

Make it rain!

Well, I'm just made of money, aren't I?

via GIPHY

*rolling my eyes*

Actually, I can see why it would be important for us to report our campaign finances, particularly when people are donating to them. It would be helpful for donors to know how their money is being spent, and also so that they can see that it is not being squandered. 

As I mentioned before, however, I have decided to fund my own campaign, because I haven't wanted to be beholden to anyone; call me strange, but to me, it feels like I'd be taking a loan from people, and I don't want to do that to others. As I mentioned in a previous video, "my choice, my responsibility". 

So, here's to making it rain...I now have $100 in my account. Woohoo! I'm rich, I'm rich! ;)

Pretty much. 

xoxo,

Leah

Happy 4th of July!

There is so much that is going through my mind at this time about this holiday. When I think of the Star-Spangled Banner's last line, "O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave", more often than not, I imagine we think of the soldiers, those brave people who are fighting wars for our country. Yet as I reflect on the events that happened during the Founders' time, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave; George Washington, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, James Madison, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass were brave. In modern times, Mother Teresa was brave. Gandhi was brave. Martin Luther King was brave. Aung San Suu Kyi is brave. Are we brave?

One of my favorite mentors and modern founders in America today is Oliver Demille. He wrote a great article about public virtue. The stories that are in that link (<---back there, the public virtue link, yeah, click on it) about the people who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor were brave, and I cry every time I read these stories. I want to be like them. I hope you will take a moment to read it. It is so so so so good! I am so grateful for the Founders of this great country who paid the price to BE people of virtue in their own lives, who set the example for me that I gotta know what I know, and there is no faking around it. I can't claim to be a freedom-loving person if I am not respecting the freedom of my husband and children and neighbors. I can't be good in office if I'm not a good person in my own life. I can't commit to people if I can't keep commitments to myself. I gotta be good FIRST!

Let us be brave, wise, good and FREE in our own lives first. I so promise it will help us to be better everywhere else. To thine own self be true... #truerwords

Carry on.

xoxo,

Leah

WIN! At all costs! #yeahnah

It is seriously incredible to me how much mail I have gotten from companies that would LOVE to "help" me "win" my campaign with their political yard signs (I need those), postcards (do I need those?), flyers (hmmm), buttons, badges, banners, robocalls, campaign management websites, and I imagine there are a LOT of other products, methods and doodads that I could purchase that would help me WIN! Cause winning matters!

This is what it feels like to me:

Finish HIM! Finish them! WIN, WIN, WIN, for goodness' sake, and you'll be a WINNER! 

Great. #letfreedomring #smh

This is not a game about winning, this is an election, where we the people get to vote to maintain our FREEDOM. Popularity and Freedom are not the same thing. Freedom ought to be what we are voting for; we human beings are not perfect people; we make mistakes and we err as well, but the principles of Freedom, those things remain, regardless of who is in office. I want to help make the principles of Freedom popular again.

xoxo,

Leah

I attended City Council meeting last night...

It was good. I've always learned something new when I have attended City Council meetings. We have some great people in City Council.

Interestingly enough, when I attended this time with an eye for what it'd be like if I  were on the City Council, I saw how I would do things differently. I also saw that no matter what, there are consequences for all the choices we make. I saw how regardless of what a leader does, there is no pleasing everyone. Reminded me that government is there to protect rights, liberty and property and pursuit of happiness, not to make people happy. How, then, does happiness come about, with respect to government? Does government have an involvement in that? If so, what? Thoughts?

xoxo,

Leah

Reality checks and lessons I still need to learn...

Painful lessons are so hard to swallow, but I am learning to be grateful for the things they teach me.

I really believe that loving our neighbors as ourselves IS a principle of freedom. If we all learned to do this better, perhaps there'd be less need for gov't intervention.

xoxo,

Leah

Soooo, here's what happened last Wednesday...

Hey people,

Just wanted to give yous a heads up on what happened when I went to file to run for City Council.

I'll let you know what happened at the candidate orientation!

xoxo,

Leah

Whaaaat?!

Hey everyone,

Leslie Knope I am NOT, but I AM running for City Council!

I apparently DID go there, so here's to the journey. I'll be documenting my journey during this election process here on the blog - the lessons I learn (and I have already learned so many!), and my experiences along the way. Join me, won't you? :)

Leah xoxo