So, today started out like this....
*Alarm rings* SNOOZE......

*Alarm rings ten minutes later* SNOOZE............................ 

*Alarm rings ten MORE minutes later* I SAID SNOOZE DANGIT!!!!

So I finally wake up and realize today is the first day I would've been allowed to see Mr. Awesome had I been able to make his graduation. I may or may not have cried... no big deal. So... I suck it up, and get out of bed to lazily get ready. And by lazily I mean I got out of bed at 8:15am and had to leave for work by 8:45am, you do the math on whether I showered or not... (Ewww sick did she admit that? *Gasp!*)

So after a few hours of diligent work I notice I have several messages on my phone. One is a Facebook notification from one of the ladies I'm friends with that has a son in Mr. Awesome's Air Force group. She had something for me, that I was going to love.  So I sent her my email address, and when it finally arrived it was a video message from youknowwho!!!!! Ahhhh I loved it.

I couldn't be more grateful for her thinking of me when it was her big day to see her son graduate. I had told the ladies/moms/girlfriends/wives in the group I wouldn't be there because I was going to be at one of my best girlfriend's wedding so they made a point to let Mr. Awesome know how awesome I think he is today! They also took some pictures for me too! They are such amazing people. I'm so grateful for what they did today! Tomorrow is going to be a big day for him again too. I guess they have 2 days of graduation ceremonies. Go big or go home I guess!

So here he is, looking mighty fine if you ask me! He may kill me for posting pics of him on here but I don't care. I'm proud of him today and I want everyone to know!!!! Major thanks to a special Air Force girlfriend for taking this awesome photo of him today...

Communication seems to be the topic of today, whether it's been challenges in friends' relationships that they vented to me about, misunderstandings between a coworker and I in a meeting (that proved to frustrate both of us), successful communication with an out of town boss, and the topic of my religion class tonight, it's been ever present today.

After nearly crying at my desk after work today because I felt so overwhelmed (note: perpetual chaos with no end in sight does not a happy Lana make), and because I can't see the one person I'm dying to see this week due to the worst possible conflict I've ever heard of in my 26.9 years of life and haven't seen him in 60 days -- yes I'm over-dramatizing, but not about the 60 days -- I went to my religion class. We talked about communication in relationships and the conflicts that can arise. I started to feel overly exhausted, which leads to me feeling uber-emotional, so I bailed with a half hour left in the class.

I came home, fell on my bed, opened my laptop, logged into Facebook and found something that literally got me to laugh so hard tears came out. I'm so grateful for small gifts of healing. As cheesy as that sounds, I've had a hell of a day, and I needed to laugh. Whoever coined the phrase, "Laughter is the best medicine" was spot on.

Please enjoy this amazing little display of communication. I have no idea what they're talking about, but I'm going to imagine that baby on the right is wondering where his sock is, and his buddy on the left is making up a wild story of where it could've gone. Please note the extremely successful communication they have. They are very patient and always wait until the other is finished. If only we adults could communicate so well.

Day 30: Post a picture of someone you miss.

Miss him.

I'm afraid I'll marry this man.

I am afraid that no matter how much I get to know someone that this is something I'll never be able to completely prevent myself.

But I also know, that THIS is something I can never completely control. So... I'll just forget about this fear as much as possible, and I'll marry someone that has the ability and the knowledge of how to commit.

YAY!

I'm just going to post several videos on here of songs I can't get enough of lately.

LOVE THIS... so much fun to listen to, and I love Sara as you know, but Weezer is also often a good choice for your ears.



Makes me wanna rock out in my car. I've always loved angry girl music.



Teaching myself to play this one... first fast song really that I can play almost perfect.



Teaching myself to master this one. Her timing is a little hard to mimic.

I wish I could change this from happening to women. I wish that all girls could realize who they really are, and how amazing they really are. I wish that the media didn't affect us the way it does, and cause our brains to warp into the most horrifically skewed perspectives of what is important and what is real.

I wish I knew how to even begin to combat this problem, and prevent it from happening to younger girls when they get older. If I could find that answer, this would be my life's work.

Day 23: Post a picture of your favorite book.

All my friends are dead.

This book is hilarious. It has roughly 5 words on a page, but cracks me up everytime I read it. It also reads like a children's book... (hint, that means MOSTLY PICTURES).

Please read it. If you want you can come to my house and I'll let you read my copy.

Day 22 - A picture of something you wish you were better at.

So today I need to post a picture of something I wish I were better at. I wish I were better at remembering details about people. You know that friend that we all have that you tell something to and you don't talk to them for a week, and when you finally run into them again, they ask you about how everything is going with all that stuff you talked to them about? We all love this person right?

Well... that person isn't me. And it's not because I don't care about your life, or you, or anything regarding you. It is completely because I suck at remembering the small things. I will remember something horrible that is going on in your life, but I also forget to ask about it when I see most people that I know. I've realized this probably makes some of my friends feel like I don't care about them. BUT I DO! I LOOOOOOVE YOU.

I'm a sharer so when I need to talk, or want to update people on things I just go and talk to someone. But I understand not everyone is like this, so I want to be different.

So... I'm going to try to remember the small details. Please be patient with me. This isn't something easy to do. Please also forgive me if it takes the rest of my life! :)

Day 21: A picture of something I wish I could forget.

The only thing I could come up with for this topic are spiders. And, I never forget them. If I see one, it has to be dead before I can focus on anything else. I have dreams about them. In fact I was having an awesome dream about hanging out with my boyfriend who is currently at basic training, and we were having so much fun talking and catching up, and all the sudden a spider landed on my head in my dream, and I woke up in a panic thinking that I must've dreamed that because it happened in real life. (You know how you'll hear a sound in your dream and then realize it's your alarm?) So then I turned the lamp on and checked my entire bed for evidence of the horrid creature's existence... and I found nothing. But then I couldn't go back to sleep for an hour for fear that it was hiding and would crawl on to my face in my sleep, lay eggs, and then they'd consume my entire body once they hatched. (Yeah, I know, a bit irrational!)

All my life I've had spider nightmares. They range anywhere from getting trapped in a small room at the mall and having the life sucked out of me by a giant black widow (like the one in Lord of the Rings), or waking up to my house in black and white, and having the whole house filled with webs, and then when I walk upstairs the Christmas tree is COVERED in crawling spiders... that one happened when I was a kid. Scary huh?

I wanted to post a picture of spiders, but when I searched google images, I got itchy and started to feel super grossed out and jumpy, so I refuse to desecrate this blog with the scary spider photos that are all over the internet. Just know I hate them so much that it is for sure full-fledged arachnophobia.

Thankfully my boyfriend understands this, and shortly before he left for basic, we were sitting on my bed talking, and all the sudden he goes, "Hey just keep your eyes over toward your closet ok?" And then quickly did something to my blinds. Afterward he told me there was a huge daddy long leg crawling down them toward where I'd been sitting, and apparently he knows how irrational my fear is, and knows that it's better to just kill it and then tell me it was there (like a hero!), than to let me see it and freak out.

You would think growing up in my parents' house would've made me fearless to them because my house is about 100 years old, and I lived in the basement. If you left a tshirt on the floor you for sure would have an immortal, unkillable, million-mile-an-hour running spider there when you went to clean up. OR they'd drop from the ceiling. That's the worst. When they are above your head you never know WHAT they're going to do. These things were brown, and hairy, and they WOULD. NOT. DIE!

Also for some insane reason when I was in first grade, my teacher brought a tarantula in a jar. Her husband had caught it in their yard and thought one of the kids would like to take it home. For some dumb reason, I WANTED IT. It was big and black and hairy, and couldn't even fit in the bottom of a jar, it's legs went up the side. So we put it in an empty fish tank with rocks, and put it in my room. To this day I am not sure why I ever wanted that, I can only ever remember being so afraid of spiders that I swear I've had several small heart attacks in my life already. I know for sure now that if there were to be an aquarium with a tarantula in it in my room, I would never sleep. I'd have to roll over and check every 2 minutes to make sure it was there, and I'd have to make sure EVERYDAY that the aquarium was escape proof. It would be pointless for me to ever have one now for my sanity.

I need to end this post. I'm getting itchy all over.  SO... spiders are what I wish I could forget, but unfortunately, they're everywhere.

But they are NOT on this blog post! YAAAAAAAAAY!

Day 20: A picture of somewhere I'd love to travel.

Well it used to always be Italy and since I have been there now, (even though I fully intend on going back in the spring or fall one of these years), I have a few other places I'd also love to checkout.

Greek Isles

Amsterdam, Holland

Thailand

Thailand beach

They all seem amazing, guess I'll have to save up money and do them all!

Here is the newest music video from my favorito artistito...

Sunday summer bike rides. The best invention since God created the Earth. I can't wait for these to happen again soon. My $80 Walmart beach cruiser is lonely in the garage. I am so excited to practice my skidding stops by pedaling backwards. Only a couple more months before the weather is PERFECT!

Everything that involves this girl's music and image. If you don't understand why, go here... read my INTERVENTION post.