and her small heart grew three sizes that year...

this past year, i feel like i have learned how to love things so hard. let me explain:

i never really bought into the idea of love and all of its trappings. the thought of a guy somewhere in the world holding half of my heart really made me want to vomit (the visual!). i always scratched my head at the stories where a homely girl meets a vampire and falls in love with him and becomes this sparkling goddess vampire slayer (...twilight...). why did i need a man to make me glitter in the sunlight? turn up the destiny's child, will ya?

i already felt complete. unquestionably single, but complete.

my roommate in college and one of the three people i feel comfortable using the term best friend with, avery, is your token cool friend. you know what i mean? we had a sort of hunter-gatherer relationship where she would hunt and gather all prospective friends...and i would sit in our room watching netflix with my retainer in. it was a truly beautiful thing. she validates the fact that, because you are friends with her, you are partially cool. you have to be! 

"sorry ma'am, but you are not allowed to be at this party for the world's most elite, i'm going to have to ask you to..."

"...but i'm friends with avery miyahara!"

"oh! in that case! come on in, person dressed like a colonial lady! welcome to the world's most elite party! have a mini corndog?"

you following? i swear, if sweet mary and joseph and just told those pricks of innkeepers that they knew avery miyahara, the entire christmas story would have gone a lot differently. they would have been put up at the finest establishment! is this irreverent? this is irreverent. onwards!

avery and i performed magic in our tiny dorm room at 1121 chipman. those two semesters together, my cool-avery silently helped me to whittle away all the dumb stuff that had burdened my soul all through high school. suddenly, all my insecurities just seemed kind of, well, stupid. thick thighs? pffft. a permanent food baby? pfffft. more-than-occasional upper lip hair? pff...actually, no. that one still sucks. 

in sum, i became complete. 

and then i met jeff.

oh, jeff. 

this past year together has helped solidify the fact that yes, i was still a complete person without him and am still that same complete person with him. meeting him didn't make my skin glitter or freeze my blood or anything major. he didn't come bearing half of my heart (the visual! gross!) or suddenly make me realize that i was a ten-cow woman. t-rust me, i already knew that (joking!). 

but he did make me love things harder. it was like on the grinch where his heart grows three times bigger; i loved things more. three times more, in fact! fountain drinks, television shows, even my idaho and family, things i already loved, i loved more. 

...and, unfortunately for you all subjected to my selfies or occasional brag-fest, this i loved myself more, too. jeff took all the things i already loved about myself and shouted them back at me lovingly. you do have the best taste in apples, brooke! you are suspiciously attractive when you sweat, brooke! (i glisten guys, i really do!) you do find the best drive-through salads, brooke! 

it's like jeff has blown up my heart so big that it could burst; case-in-point: i commented on a friend's instagram the other day that 'my heart was warm' after looking at her pictures. what? when did i become affectionate? (answer: still not; let's not hug, ya?)(kidding!)

i love that boy. more than i love myself, i promise. and i love that 2013 is like this big plot of land with fresh snow that i can't wait to defile. 

...and i'm back!

and i'm back! in provo and on the internet! here's the thing about blogging at home: it's awkward. when three out of the whopping four people who read your blog are under the same roof with you, every thing i was attempting to write seemed a little...bland.

here's an example: on christmas day, my family piled into multiple cars and made the windy drive down the lewiston grade and up to ihop. i sat braless (...true...) and wolfed down five huckleberry pancakes while the waiter serenaded us with her 'i don't want to be working right now' huffs and puffs timed perfectly to jingle bells (...lie...).

now, as fun and silly as that story was, it is mostly true. i did sit braless in ihop (and blended in quite well; ihop on christmas day in lewiston, idaho is almost as depressing as the gym on a late friday night)(...i would know this because i've been to the gym on a late friday night and pumped out a few half-hearted miles on the elliptical with all the other dejected and dateless) but the waiter did not time her huffs and puffs to jingle bells. and i didn't eat huckleberry pancakes, for that matter. and my family would know that when they read it because they were there. you see? i would have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in my posts...and how fun is that?

in other news, merry christmas! we spent ours in idaho where jeff was sort of baptized by fire into the whole white christmas thing. and the whole christmas-at-the-mosman's thing, too. food coma, unwavering traditions, and...food coma pt. II. my sister mckenzie uses the term tradition l o o s e l y. every move we make on christmas day is automatically deemed a tradition that will be carried on into the eternities. like eating pancakes, taking a nap, and getting the mail. it's really quite the event and i'm so happy jeff was subjected to it. christmas with a bearded companion is like, one hundred times better.

...and now i collapse into a pile of unfolded clothes and a growling stomach because our fridge is hopelessly and gloriously empty (...lie; but whose going to call me out on this one? blogging under a different roof gives me far less fact-checking anxiety ;). can i just say thirteen more times that the drive from moscow to provo is killer? twelve. whole. hours.

and to all, a good night.

p.s. i'm going to say this tomorrow but i am real, real excited about 2013! i have some great things to share (that does not involve anything near or around my uterus, you crazies)!

our little christmas card...

can we talk about how there are only two weeks till christmas? two weeks! that's like, two thursdays! or the time it took me to burn through all seven seasons of how i met your mother...but that's besides the point. dreams of days without any obligations and  homecooked meals is really what is getting me through this l o n g week of finals...which i am truthfully not too terribly stressed out for? is that so bad?

anyways, in the midst of it all, my cousin ryne + i (and jeff! isn't his scruff the best? it's the best) made a little virtual christmas card of sorts. it only seems appropriate to post it two weeks early, right?

p.s. if anyone wants a video like this done, we are doing them on the cheap! they are such a fun little thing to have, right? and please love that it says featuring simply brooke as much as i do? i feel like a famous rapper or something! ha.

and a happy birthday to me!

three minutes into my twentieth year i waxed a bit too much off my eyebrow and cursed into the mirror. my eyebrows are one of my prized possession, you know. we have been through a lot together, me and them; they've been too thick and then too thin and then way too thin that one time i plucked my eyebrows while talking on the phone and one time my left one up and fell off when i crashed my bike and cracked my head open. but finally,  finally they were perfect. up until three minutes into my twentieth year, that is. 

but hey, i'm kind of growing to like it? sort of? and i feel like it all might be one grand metaphor for my life. sometimes i make quick decisions that make me go "oh #*$#!" and then i later i'm like "hey! i kind of like this eyebrow that is half missing and makes me look like i am always suspicious of something!" 

...on second thought, i think it was just a really bad wax job. 

and did i mention i'm twenty now? it was really quite convenient, my mom, grandma + paige were in town during my birthday weekend and spoiled me sufficiently. like, two separate drinks at ikea type of spoiling (one at the beginning, one at the end...le duh!). my mom also threw me a quick little surprise party which nearly every guest was late for. in fact, all but two showed up thirty minutes later which made me all sorts of confused...hi lindsay...why are you in my mom's hotel room? 

in other words, it was the best twentieth birthday yet; full of love, soda, and chocolate chip pancakes (with peanut butter on top!). thanks to everyone who helped me transition into adulthood (no longer a teen! say what!) and who has put up for me for some or all of these twenty years (...and i'm really sorry about my third, tenth, and fifteenth year. rough patches are real). 

cheers to the girl with the hamburger, cheers!

here's the thing, i rarely have bad days. basically almost never! like, i'll have a spout of bad hours one day but then someone will compliment my hair and i'm like what bad test score? you know? but when i do...oh boy, i really do. i feel like the bad-day brigade just sit back for weeks at a time, letting me go about my life happy-go-lucky, and then blam! all at once they lay it on me! it's like me eating donut holes. you've already had three, what's another dozen?

you know? (i've never been one for metaphors)(similes?)

and i'm really good at bad days. i've perfected the deep sigh and slouched walk and disheveled hair. because if you're having a bad day your hair is obviously disheveled, obviously.

today i woke up early to go running and four miles into it desperately had to go. like, go-go (wake me up!). i found a patch of trees and went and...didn't have toilet paper? and really need it? i waddled back the rest of the way to my car and gave myself a few thousand face-palms for eating such a high fiber breakfast. oh, by the way, did i tell you i went running this morning? (hush, it's my blog so i can brag!)

then i went to my test review and when exactly did we learn this? were they having some secret classes without me? oh! i also forgot my notebook and decided i positively hate my major. i know, right? face palm! (if you saw my tweet, yes, i did in fact google the top five easiest college majors...finals week is killer, guys) also, while i'm here, i had a chronic stomach ache the whole day.

but stay with me here? i'll stop complaining soon?

i decided to try my hardest to put a stop to my bad day. i took a shower and got re-ready for the day (...it was 7:30 p.m. but heck, it was my way of saying 'dear universe, i haven't given up. i'm just starting over! like my new shampoo?'), making sure to put on extra bronzer and three swipes of mascara like any dignified women would do, and headed to the place i knew someone was bound to be having a worse day than me: walmart.

why does walmart get such a bad wrap? i like walmart! but that's besides the point...

i wandered around aimlessly and picked up a beanie, spray paint, and a few thousand shirts. when i'm having a bad day, i get really shoppy. and snacky. and i'm not picky either! a tweetie bird shirt on sale? sure! new bowls? why not. ...it's really quite dangerous.

i wound up dumping most of it and opted for a diet coke instead (my second large helping of the day...no judgement here!). i sat in my car for a while and cranked up the heat...just riding this bad day out and really letting it soak. i thought about all the bad haircuts i ever had in my life and stubbed toes. why not, right?

then! then i noticed a girl sitting in her car directly in front of me. she looked...sullen (but so cute! how do people do that? my long face really prohibits me from making a cute sad-face...). we made eye contact and she slowly brought a hamburger to her lips and took a bite. our eyes remained locked as i fumbled for my diet coke and took a swig.

cheers to a better tomorrow, hamburger girl! cheers.

it's christmastime in the cit(aaaa)y!

the lights at temple square are kind of something you have to do if you live in utah county. you know? it's an obligation, almost, like carving a pumpkin at halloween or getting married at a stupidly young age. joking! joking! you don't have to carve a pumpkin!

onwards! pressing onwards! we drove down to salt lake and pushed around the crowds at temple square and gawked over the lights and setup. have you been? there's like, twenty billion lights per tree! and then after gawking we were like crap, now what? so we did another round and then spied on a double date that only 1/2 the party was enjoying at the capital. also the kid was wearing an all white ensemble which elicited the question, did he just get finished with karate or was he just barely baptized? because i truly can't tell? 

i fear this is getting boring. which, in retrospect, it kind of was. but in the best of ways. 

also we went to a spinning class saturday morning. jeff one time took me on a date to stuff our faces with five guys burgers followed by lap swimming...in other words, he took me on the worst date for someone who can hardly swim (i blame my mother for ripping me out of swim lessons-- i could have been more than a minnow, mom!) so today i made him come swimming with me to make up for it. it made sense in my mind? 

our teacher was the crem de la crazy. she was one of those super-fit types...you can't trust 'em! she kept screaming into the microphone and you really couldn't make out a word she was saying. whenever she said set it sounded like sex so that was fun? ("this is the best sex ever!") also we are 97% sure she said something about protecting your taco? 

...and that's saturday!

it's december first. IT IS DECEMBER FIRST.

...which means no more mustache! and a haircut! and a shower or three! (no-shave november quickly transitioned into no-effort-into-appearance november? funny how that happens!)

happy december people. 

(p.s. christmas is so close i can practically see the disappointment in my brother's face over the gift i'm giving him -- he's notoriously tough to gift for and notoriously transparent. it's a lethal combo.)