Mom and me on my wedding day last fall.

You know what's cool?

Moms.

Why?

Because my mom has so much faith in me and my successes, and my life in general.

Today my mom told me the following story:

"I just remembered a dream I had about you the other day. I went to see you and Justin said you were meditating so I went up to your room and you were in the middle of your bedroom floor in the meditation pose. You were so calm and serene, I remember standing at the door and watching for a minute thinking 'she will be okay'. It was only just a flash, but it left me with the best feeling about you."

Things have been a little rough for the past little while. Justin and I have both had our fair share of trials individually and together. It's kind of brought me down, and also I haven't felt healthy in months. I'm trying my hardest to not let everything get me down but sometimes life really gets to us, and I do what I've always done, I call my mom. She always makes me feel better, and reminds me things aren't as bad as they feel, and even if they are, they won't always be this way.  Her little story today did the same thing, it filled me with hope and a positive feeling. I really hope she doesn't mind my sharing of her story. I thought it was so great, I had to share it with all of you!

Moral of this story: Good moms always know what to say. I have one of those. Hoping for the best is better than dwelling on the awful.

I've been thinking a lot about passions these days. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean passions in the noun sense of the word. As in, Jeremy has a passion for drawing cartoons. That kind of passion. (I don't know Jeremy, so we'll leave him out of the rest of this post.)

Justin seems to love so many things, and pursue them. He's a very passion-driven person and it's one of the reasons I love him. He is always pursuing some hobby or goal that he wants to. One time when we were dating he asked me directly, "What are you passionate about?"

Friends, this is my most dreaded question. Why?

Because I have no passions.... dun Dun DUN!

I know right? It's awful. I've been sitting here thinking and thinking and thinking. There is not one thing I could spend the rest of my life doing and just know it was where I belonged and I would never change my mind. There is not one thing that tractor beams me into it. That night after we talked about that, I went home and cried. For a few reasons actually... first and foremost, I felt like I was an extremely boring person, which led me to think I must be unattractive because of that, and then I wondered if I was destined to live life unfulfilled?

Ever since then, I've kind of struggled. SO MUCH in this world fascinates me. There are so many topics and hobbies, and skills to learn about and master. How does anyone just choose one and stay there? But, I have racked my brain for months wondering if I am boring because I don't have a passion, or if I just am lazy? Why don't I have one of those things that I've always known I would do? The more I think about it, the more it really sinks in that I must have something wrong with me because I don't have an easy to define, obvious passion... or maybe I just don't have one at all. It has really caused me to have concerns about who I am and what I'm doing here.

I painted this last weekend.

Then, just the other night, I opened up to Justin about this, and he said he'd always known since he was a kid what he wanted to do. This stressed me out even more. I have NEVER KNOWN. He asked me what I said I wanted to be when I was a kid. And you know what? I can't even remember. I just remember thinking, "Whatever I am when I'm grown up, I hope I'm good at it, and successful." What kind of a kid doesn't want to be a pirate or astronaut or president of the United States? Well... me, I guess.

I text messaged my mom today to find out if maybe I just couldn't remember the thing that I said as a kid that I always wanted to be... her response didn't surprise me at all.

"Well, you used to say you wanted to be a ballerina, or a tv reporter, or a writer. You never really stuck at one thing for too long, and kind of moved ideas around the whole time."

There you have it, friends. I was right! This explains why I had 5 majors in college , and even when I was about to graduate with my Bachelor's degree, I thought, "What if I studied this instead?!"

The point is, I've been looking at it all wrong, you guys. I do have a passion. I am passionate about learning! THAT is my passion. I soak information in. I'm always telling Justin, "Hey did you know [insert random fun and interesting fact I learned today]? I just can't help it. It drives him nuts.

I want to do all of these things:
Write a novel
Write a children's book
Work more on my 3 blogs
Learn to paint, if for no one else but me
Sew a massive patchwork quilt out of old clothes
Make more stuffed animals, since I'm a pro
Finish my Etsy stuff
Run a half marathon
Run a few more 5k's (before the halfsies)
Learn to sing better
Write a song on the piano
Learn to reupholster and restore furniture
Become a master chef (again if only for my family and me)
Impact the world for good
Travel the world with my family
Grow a garden that feeds my family
Learn another language fluently

The list goes on and on...

The moral of this story is this: not everybody is a tractor beamer. Some of us really love everything, and you can fascinate me with pretty much anything. I'm just here for the experiences.

What are your passions?

This morning I finished reading a book that somehow I made it out of high school without reading (my high school was in a really small town). On New Year's Day this year, Justin and I went to the place where we first met, the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Orem, Utah. We each bought ourselves a book to read, and the one I selected was The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank. I am a sucker for WWII stories. I think it's the humanity in them, they were treated as cattle and vermin, yet they were so very human. I will never understand hatred for an entire race of people, or class, or creed.

This book sucked me right in as they all do. She really impressed me with her writings, my journals at her age were all "Oh man, that boy is so cute, I've never liked anyone this much." (SO ANNOYING TO READ THROUGH). But hers have such eloquence, and such maturity of thought. I grew to love her and even though I knew how it ended, I kept desperately wanting and hoping it would end differently. She was such a beautiful person, who lived and breathed who she was. She was wise beyond her years, which I think  happened due to the nature of their situation. To hide out and remain indoors for years would be so difficult. I'm amazed more of her journal didn't dwell on how hard it was. She was still just a teenager during it all, feeling love for the boy whose family was hiding with them; trying to find out who she really was and where she fit in this world. There were several entries that reflected the magnitude of the situation they were in, and what it must've been liked. If she'd been allowed to survive, I think she would've made an even bigger imprint on the world than she has with her death. She was just one of those personalities.

After her journal entries end, and the Afterword starts, my heart just sank this morning. When it talks about the informer for the Gestapo giving up the Frank family, and what happened to them, I started to cry. I have grown to love her through reading her diary. She was so tough through all of it, and was so close to being free. She died in a prison camp less than 2 months before her freedom would've been given to her. At the time she thought all she had in life was gone because she was separated from her father. The rest of her family had already died. The only survivor was her father Otto.

I'm so angry that Nazi's ever existed. Not just because of this book, but because it happened. It boggles my mind, and makes my heart hurt every time I read a story from a survivor or victim of the Holocaust, or think of how it all happened.

How could someone cause so many people to hate and torture others? I know so many of them were scared to not follow Hitler because their fate would be Auschwitz, but I'd like to think that I'd have accepted my fate. At least I'd never have anyone's blood but my own on my hands. I don't think I could live with myself if I had been one of the people responsible for a family's death. I'd rather be in the camp dying with them.

I still can't stop thinking about her, Anne, because she was such a beautiful person, as I'm sure all of the people that lost their lives or were taken to the camps, or hiding, were. In the Afterword, it mentions that their "Secret Annexe" has been preserved so that people can visit and see where the Franks, and their friends stayed for those 2 years before the Gestapo took them. I am putting on my bucket list right now a trip to Amsterdam to see this place. Sure, it will probably be a humbling, hallowing moment in an otherwise fun vacation, but she deserves it. They all deserve to have people fly across the world and pay our respects to what they went through. I am going to make that happen. I need to.

Hatred is a powerful scary emotion. I once dated someone who said he respected Hitler for trying to cleanse the world. If anyone wants his address to punch him in the face, I'd be happy to give it to you. Just say the word. He used to tell me I was so naive to believe that all people are inherently good, and some just get trampled on by life and make awful choices. I am not the one that is naive. It takes courage to love people and to see the good in them, and I choose to follow that path. I promise right now that I will never teach my children to hate, they can learn that on their own if they so choose, but it will not be from me.

I know when I get to heaven, after this life, I'm going to look for Anne Frank. I want to tell her how much I admire her strength.

Have any of you read this book before? What did you think? What are your thoughts on what I wrote?

Hey guys, it's me again. You know what's fun? Well, lots of things, but one thing in particular is that my husband today called me "a hard 10". He told me I'm the whole package. I think I shall carry this sweet little compliment around with me for days, maybe even weeks! Who am I kidding, it's a phenomenal compliment! If he were in an olympic competition for complimenting people, I'd give him the world record!

I'm definitely a words of affirmation type of person, and compliments like this really hang with me. Isn't that awesome? I'd say I'm the luckiest girl on the planet.

What a babe. I'm a lucky girl.

After Justin and I got married we moved to an area in Utah County that I thought would be nice because it's a 2 minute drive from work. It's been amazing on gas, but awful on friendship. (Weird segway right?) I figured I would get into our new ward at our LDS church and make friends with the younger newlywed girls because there's a fair amount of them. It has been the complete polar opposite. This is weird for me, because aside from the drama of junior high, I've rarely had trouble meeting and befriending other girls. I've been spoiled most of my life in this regard, because in this particular ward I am finding myself more and more perplexed at the lack of cordiality and a welcoming environment.

Perfect example: Our neighbors moved in shortly after we did, and both seem to be about Justin's and my age with one little boy. One day I was out getting the mail, and she was on the lawn with him playing. I went up and introduced myself, and said, "You must be our new neighbor. Hi, I'm Lana, I live right next door to you." She acted as if I was a kidnapper, or a leper. Her exact reaction was this, "Ok, hi. Come on buddy let's go inside." She then picked her kid up and walked inside. Justin introduced himself to her husband at one time and he basically just acted like Justin wasn't talking.

Another time I introduced myself to a girl in one of the meetings and talking to her was like pulling teeth even though we had common ground. Her father in law, used to be a church authority in a singles ward of mine in college, and had been to our ward that day. I asked her simple things like, "How long have you lived in this area? How's having him for a father in law?" Simple get to know you questions that usually open people up for any type of friendship. All I got were "a little bit" and "good" for answers. Finally I could tell talking to her would be just impossible. Situations like this have happened quite a few other times in this ward or with our neighbors, with the exception of one couple that seem like normal, nice humans. I really like those normal, nice humans. Why can't there be more of them around here?

I find it hard to believe that people in general just don't want any friends... but right here where I live right now, there is a huge cluster of people that don't want any friends.

The last time we were all photographed together. It was over a year ago. Sad.

It really makes me miss my girlfriends that are all scattered in other states even more than I already did!

They are so welcoming to everyone and always have a "more the merrier" attitude. I have been spoiled with these girls. It's hard for me to accept that these people in my area now don't want to have friends. It's really strange and baffles me. I'm not that type of person. I always think the more friends, the merrier! I can't wait until we move out of this ward.

Have you guys ever experienced this or am I really just a leper!?