Welcome to Holland - Emily Perl Kingsley
"It's like this...when you're goiing to have a child, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip--to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans.  The Colosseum.  The Michelangelo David.  The gondolas in Venice.  You may learn some handy phrases in Italian.  Its' all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.  You pack your bags and off you go.  Several hours later, the plane lands.  The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say.  "What do you mean Holland?  I signed up for Italy!  I'm supposed to be in Italy.  All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan.  You've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important this is...they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine, and disease.  It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guidebooks.  And you must learn a whole new language.  And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place.  But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and begin to notice that Holland has windmills.  Holland has tulips.  Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there.  And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that 's where I was supposed to go.  That's what I had planned."
But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland."

I make plans and they never work!  Ask my mom!  She will tell you that when I say "I had a plan" it is usually followed by "and it failed me!"  I was never supposed to be where I am right now.  I was supposed to be married with 2 kids and maybe one one the way.  We would live somewhere where the sun shined all of the time and my house was full of light.  I was supposed to be somewhere else.  I go on facebook and everyone else seems to be where I was supposed to be: Italy.  But I am in Holland.  I have been here for a while looking at those people who went to Italy.  It's time I start enjoying Holland and seeing what is has to offer me.  As far as I can see, this is where I am supposed to be.  I am supposed to meet these people and do whatever I am meant to do here.  Not in Italy, but Holland.  So, wake up Holland!  Because Marti is coming to visit!

My Manifesto: Who Am I You Ask...

I believe...
In feeling the warmth of the sunshine on my face
In laughing with my family at the dinner table until my sides hurt
That true friends are ones that, after you havn't seen them in a long time, you can pick right back up as if you had never been away
That history is not about memorizing facts, but learning stories that can change your life
That theatre is a window into another world
In calling someone up just to say HI!
In smiling as often as I can to whom I can, even if I don't receive one back
In being creative...and letting that creativity take you wherever it wants to
That some rootbeer and two scoops of ice cream make for a great late night snack
That blowing bubbles just makes you smile...You can't help it
That music raises me above the clouds
In everyday heroes
In loving with all of your might and heart
That with a little bit of pixie dust and some imagination you really can fly
That there is only One who knows me better than me
In inching closer and closer to someone until you bump into them
In picturing everything, especially if that is how your brain works
In friends who stick by you no matter what happens or what you do
In life changing events, mind boggling ideas, joy in simple things
That you should never hold a sneeze in because it hurts
That all people matter no matter how small
In music that is created from the soul, that changes people, that creates stories
In the grandeur of God
In giving a voice to the voiceless
That we can accomplish more than we think just by waking up in the morning
In staying a kid forever

In more to come...

Who We Are

"In life we do things. Some we wish we had never done. Some we wish we could replay a million times in our heads. But they all makes us who we are. And in the end they shape every detail about us. If we were to reverse any of them we wouldn't be the person we are. So just live. Make mistakes. Have wonderful memories. But never ever second guess who you are, where you have been, and most importantly where it is you're going." Have you ever thought about going back in time and making a different decision at a certain point in your life? How that one thing would not be present in your life anymore or things would be slightly different? Have you actually thought it all of the way through? If I have learned anything from studying history no matter how much we would like to change something from the past, we cannot just change that one thing. Everything has a cause and affect. That is just the way it is. We are who we are right now because of all of the small or big things that happened in the past. If I had married that one guy way back when I would never have come to Utah, studied theater or history, met all of the amazing people that I have met, made the contacts that I have in theater, experienced all of the spiritual experiences that I experienced, gotten to know a part of my family like I do now...I would have missed all of that. Granted I know that I would not know about all of that, just like I do not know how my life would be now if I had married that guy! Your life is what it is now. All you have experienced and all of the people you have met have happened because of where you are right now! We are who we are because of our past. I do not know if I would give up the things that matter most to me now to change one mistake that I made in the past. What about you?