just...lots of pictures of my face.

sweeping statement!: any time i get my hair done it is a big. freakin'. deal. sweeping statement number dos!: i'm not photogenic. at all. i'm just not! (i'm blaming it on seventeen magazine; there was once an article all about taking the perfect school picture and it said to 'put your tongue behind your teeth and point your nose down' ...i did it and looked like a demon serpent and since then have over-thought every picture ever taken, ever) 

so, the combination of both beget fifteen thousand pictures of my face. different angles, facial expressions, and annoyance levels. all i wanted was to announce to the instagram world that i colored my hair a little bit! and that it might be too light for me, but i'm getting used to it! my confidence hasn't suffered a bit! i am empowered! and also that i am vain! so, so vain! 

here are all my attempts. yeah, it hurts me too.

don't worry, i've already signed up for america's next top model...twice.

p.s. i've always felt that i identified most with chandler. confirmed.

i'll take any opportunity to talk about myself...

yesterday in a job interview (i got the job! say hello to mrs. stapleton -- elementary school after school reading + math program aide extraordinaire! ...or mrs. stapleton, for short!) i paused and confessed that i actually really hated talking about myself. and i do! i genuinely and thoroughly do. i've always been a second-hand bragger -- i love bragging for people and tend to steal-the-bounce when it comes to exciting moments in life (you get a promotion and are excited...but i am fifteen times more excited for you...you get the point).

...but when it comes to this blog, oh good heavens. let's make it all about me, yeah? i shamelessly post selfies of my self in bathroom mirrors, babble on about the complexities of my monday, and ask serious rhetorical questions about the state of my hair? 

so when rachel emailed me and told me that she nominated me for a liebster award and asked if i'd play along, i jumped at the opportunity. mostly because i am kind of in a blogging rut and almost every blog sitting in my drafts starts and ends with "today i had the worst allergies..." but also because the rules are:

e l e v e n facts? yes. please. allow me. (quick side-thought/story: i think i actually do like talking about myself a bit. i remember in seventh grade, my science class played this get-to-know you game where we passed around toilet paper + the amount of sheets you ripped off determined the amount of facts you had to share about yourself. i was familiar with the game and had played it at girl scout camp years before so i took, like, twenty five sheets. twenty five sheets of pure vanity.)

so, here it goes: 

1. every night before bed, i write down three things i was grateful for that day. usually they revolve around my eyebrows, my jeffrey, and food. 
2. if i ever tell you my real name is brooklyn (which i might), i'm lying.
3. i'm left-handed and a nightmare to eat next to (i have sharp elbows!).
4. this might seem a bit backwards and heartless, but i like babies and love kids. i like the little firecrackers that don't hand out yes ma'am freely...and don't just sleep all day long. oh, babies. some day i will love 'em more. i just have a high standard for entertainment ;)
5. ...that said, i have the lowest standards for entertainment. give me some target shopping aisles or a bouncy ball, and i am set. i remember my friend and i once had a who can watch the city hall channel longest? competition and i blew him out of the water. 
6. i had the ombre before it was cool. i really did! see, look! (...also, i had a bona fide comb over. and those were never cool.)
7. can't sleep with socks on. just, bleck.
8. i lose everything but always play it off like, 'yeah, i just can't find it right now. but i know where it is. it's not lost...' 
9. i have severe a.d.d. with part-time jobs, music, and my outfit for the day.
10. have you ever been fishing? i live to take hooks out of the fish's mouth -- y'know how you have to grab the bottom lip and it paralyzes them? yes. yes. day made.
11. my energy in the morning is alarming. my jeffrey was taken aback when we were first married with how fast i can lurch out of bed and start a long, rambling conversation like i've been up for hours. just today i woke up at 5:00 a.m. just for the halibut (get it? it's a fishy joke!)

and more! i guess now i answer the eleven questions that rachel asked? yes? am i doing this right?

1. gas-station go-to snack? : right now it's a chocolate-covered reeses's egg (the peanut butter-to-chocolate ratio is fantastic!), gum, and a green machine naked juice. mmmm.
2. movie you never get sick of? : i l o v e the movie elizabethtown (i don't like the tap-dance scene either, okay?).
3. how would you ideally spend your days off? : at my shack of a cabin floating on hidden lake up in idaho. with my family, a rack of ribs, and the august sun. oh, bliss.
4. what is your 'chef's special'? oh, bother. i'm really no pro at cooking, so let's just pretend this restaurant was centered around salads, snacks, and smoothies? holy alliteration! i think i'm on to something!
5. "i wouldn't be caught dead in..." : meh, bedazzled jeans and sparkly uggs just give me the willies.
6. three things on your bucket list? : birth a child and do whatever i can to make him/her my bestest friend (motherhood will be weird on me?), travel the...world?, and...heavens! just be a super good person? i'm bad at bucket listing.
7. best/most unique quality? : i'm pretty friendly and can lady-vibe with people fairly easily. 
8. do you collect anything? : friends? part-time jobs? receipts? 
9. who would you love to have dinner with? : oh! my jeffrey and i have a mad, collective crush on tina fey. so, her. (plus i feel like she wouldn't judge me for demolishing the bread basket and asking for thirty seven refills on my diet coke)
10. if you were a fly, on what wall would you perch? : shoot, that would suck.
11. what's your favorite book? : recently? book of mormon girl (life-changing!) aaaand we were the mulvaneys.

now! my turn to ask the questions and nominate, yeah? you've probably stopped scrolling by now. 

...these are kind of lame but, here goes!: 

1. what's something that makes you cringe and why? (origin...?)
2. what's your ideal lady-date?
3. fictional character you identify most with (think: television)?
4. how did you entertain yourself at recess? 
5. favorite meal + restaurant in the history of ever? 
6. brag-town: what's your biggest feat...ever?
7. if you could give yourself five years ago some advice, what would it be?
8. if you could give someone completely random some advice, what would it be?
9. what's your favorite habit that you have?
10. you are having a bad day and need to get out of it: what do you do?
11. what's your earliest memory?

boo ya! i'm done! 

i nominate: jenna, kylee, maggie, kylie, lily, rachael, melissa, jessica, and...whomever else is in a bit of a blogging rut and wants to join. or, you know, don't. 

weekly roundup of brooke.

jeff is in class tonight till nine. i would be concerned about the late nights he is putting in at the lab buuuuut he is a computer science major and there isn't a female within five thousand feet of that building. also why would i be jealous? i really only get jealous over food, fast metabolisms, and effortlessly tousled hair. 

anyways, this week and other some some such things (mostly old disneyland pictures)...in pictures! i actually hate when people do these and am guilty of doing it...every...single...uninspiring week. but hey! it snowed today unexpectedly so cut me a break.

holy, dole whip heaven. unfortunately we decided to sit through the entire fifteen minutes of the tiki room. quite a horrifying experience for someone who is scared of birds.

 

top left: my cousin swindled me into working a wedding with him. it was...l o n g. i've never seen a less enthusiastic cha-cha slide. people were dying. || top right: wedding-time vainness with my jeffrey. || bottom left: the best leftovers you've never even heard of! grilled eggplant and ground turkey bolognese  atop spinach. yum, yum, triple times yum. || bottom right: my kylie girl came to my cousin's wedding in california. pure bliss. 

the cutest wedding decor. 

 

top left: splash mountain makes me all sorts of anxious. || top right: travel duds. || bottom left: morgan and the beautiful bouquet last night! she posted this picture on instagram with the caption jokingly saying 'always a bridesmaid, never a bride' ...and most everyone took her seriously with uplifting texts and comments. ha. classic peg. || bottom right: my brother-in-law firmly believes that i have some sort of talent in giving a jef holm-esque haircut. what in the? this might be my hidden talent that has been very, very well-hidden for years.

the wonderful world of color. so good.

...and that's a wrap! i'm planning on stuffing my face with sushi tonight while watching episodes of gossip girl because yes, i'm now hooked. 

spring cleaning of my soul.

(i'm going to use the word blog like, fifteen times in the next paragraph. so buckle up.)

yesterday around three in the p.m. i was feeling full. full of...thoughts, trail mix, and sonic water (i'm kicking my diet coke habit and am using jedi mind tricks where i still go to sonic...but get water! i know ludacris, backstroke, backstroke, stroke of a genius!). i wanted to get my brain juice out somewhere and turned to my super-top secret blog (that has two passwords!) to let it a l l out.

...and then i accidentally posted it to my old blog? (p.s. it's the junior high of my blogging career -- i truly peaked over there! i used to be so funny!)

oops. i got a few text messages from my mother and friends who were wondering if that was on purpose? or was that for my top-secret blog? is brooke actually experiencing an emotion apart from happy, hangry, slightly annoyed, or holycrapihavetopee!

it was sort of embarrassing. mostly because i ended the blog post with 'loves.' sweet mother of pete, why did i end it with 'loves'...?!

my mother, on the other hand, found it cool. she thought i did it on purpose and was like rock on, girl! way to show emotion! so raw! so cool! ...or some variation of that. so what the heck! why don't i share? though i don't plan on ending any sentiment ever again with 'loves.'

...of course this begins with a selfie. only fitting. 
it's nearly spring time which means i start to get this urge to clean. it's like some weird gravitational pull on my mind that makes me notice the clutter on the coffee table and the dust on the ceiling fan and holy shoot, do i really need all these dish towels?

jeff has been bugging me to clean out my closet. oh, my closet. if you've been to our apartment, you have probably heard about or seen my closet. when jeff and i were searching for apartments, we thought we found gold with our apartment. a walk-in closet! whiy we could store everything in there! 

needless to say, the closet is stuffed positively full with all of my junk and jeff's clothes reside in a dresser by the bed. oops.

that closet is positively and absoultely ignored. jeff refuses to go into it in fear that everything will collapse on him and he will become some version of flat stanley. i tend to just throw my clothes in it and usually grab whatever is closest. it's a mess.

i feel the same way about some things in my life (a metaphor!). i feel like i have digressed spiritually and i feel it in my bones! this winter i was served with a big ol' dose of busy. i feel like i started putted things and stuff and silly obligations in front of what matters most. my scripture study slowly turned into a quick browse through on my phone which slowly turned into days and weeks without reading. i know that my normally strong and unwavering testimony is suffering from it, too.  last week we gave a lesson in sunday school and i was feeling so crummy about things i gave no solid input -- i was kind of like the kelly ripa of the regis and kelly show (...good looking and funny, of course!).

so now it's time to clean. clean out my closet, clean up my soul + spirit, and clean up all this anxiety i am feeling over the marathon (holy, 26.2 miles in two months! will anyone judge me if i switch to a half? anyone?).

a very muttered and less-enthusiastic, loves.

...and that, my friends, was some variation my top secret blog post. showing and sharing actual emotion was relatively painless...relatively. 

(...a scroll-able post) california! in pictures!

this past week i was in california sans my jeffrey (he had school and adult-obligations...blergh!). it's funny how quickly i revert back to a ten-year-old child when i'm around my family. actually, it's probably more concerning than funny. it's like as soon as i hug my parents i forget how to do my own laundry and feed myself...and hold my own around my sassy eleven-year-old sister. ha.

we did disneyland for the first two (that's right aching calves, two!) days. you guys, the world of color light show reduced me to tears and squealing fits. it was amaze. the days following we putted around newport beach, went to my cousin's wedding, and stuffed our faces silly. one night, us ladies drove for nearly an hour trying to track down a sprinkles cupcakes...only to land up on a street cluttered with street bars in beverly hills. heh? my last day there was perhaps my favorite. we really didn't do anything besides walk, eat, and take pictures. my type of day!

anyways, feel free to scroll, scroll, scroll. or don't. the amount of effort i am putting into this post is a clear indicator that it is, in fact, monday and i am, in fact, suffering from post-vacation depression. ain't it the worst?

 

and done! i miss my family and the warm weather already.

may 4 inches of my hair rest in peace.

here's some lessons that i've learned about hair, impulse decisions, and flighty teenage girls...

|| just because you had a fat day that lasted seventy-two hours too long, doesn't mean you should go and get a hair cut from a crappy hair school at nine at night.

|| never trust a girl who when asked so, when did you graduate from high school? answers 'twelve.' not 2012, not last year or recently but 'twelve.' perhaps she is thousands of years old and is just trying to hide it?

|| when the same girl who just might be pulling a tuck everlasting on you audibly expresses her disdain for the haircut and her worry about getting it even all around, just leave. just cut the small talk about her boyfriend who won't commit, get up, and leave...uneven hair and all.

|| the fact that no one around your hair stylist can remember her name is probably a sure-sign that she's a newbie. or just plain sucks...which she does.

|| ...in the end, just grab the instructor and whisper to her that you're feeling a little uneasy about everything and can you please just finish it up? then lie to your stylist when she comes back and tell her that this was the best hair cut ever! i loved it! and you! and there is no apparent reason why your boyfriend doesn't want to make any real commitment to you! you seem as stable as your hands were while you were cutting zig-zags in my head! 

...was i ranting there?

|| never trust a lexie.

i want to be a nell...

but first: an coworker asked me if i had diabetes the other day. like, they were genuinely concerned and taken by the amount of times i peed in a working period. c'mon, people!

last tuesday, i took over a new route for meals on wheels. most of the time, the people don't remember your name or really truly care anyways...but i was wearing a very flowy dress and it was a windy day so, i think i made a pretty lasting impression. hello 87-year-old max, here's your waffles + ground up sausage...

my last delivery was at a woman named nell's house. they usually give some sort of information or description about the person. hearing loss, blind, immobile, or, in one lady's case, crazy hoarder (she really is!). for nell it said all of the above (besides hoarder!) with a slightly in front of the word blind...whatever that means. i pounded on the door and opened it a crack to announce that i was meals on wheels! here with her waffles and sausage bits and whole-fat milk!

when i finally gave up and just let myself in, i was overwhelmed by the amount of fake flowers in the apartment. so many. after some poking around, nell finally wheeled herself out into the living room and told me to set the meal on the counter and tell me a little about myself. i had, after all, just barged into her house.

but first! nell was and is tiny. her small frame was practically sinking into her wheelchair. her arms were so thin and transparent and she had one tooth that kind of hung out of the side of her mouth as if to say i am the last tooth standing! victorious! she must have been...two hundred and seven years old?

onwards: i began to tell her about how i was from idaho. and had brown hair. and liked riding my bike in good weather conditions.  i have conditioned myself to believe that some of my least-favorite parts about my body are genetic traits...even though my mother and two sisters prove they are not and...

i drifted off and started to notice that she was getting shifty. what the heck, nell? i'm in the middle of telling my life story and you're getting shifty?

i then noticed that she was holding something under her shirt. was nell going to kill me?! oh heavens. i always knew i could never trust a nell...

but i continued. she still seemed mildly interested and i was on my lunch break so, why the heck not? i started to get back into my life and how i was a pudgy elementary school kid and how i firmly believe that that is what shaped my character. i looked out the window for dramatic effect.

THEN! out of the corner of my eye, i see nell move quicker than nell should be moving. she whipped out a liter of coca-cola from under her shirt, took a swig, and returned it back to it's hiding place.

nell! that sneaky spy! the lady must have thought i was going to rat her out for her mass consumption of the dark poison. i slowly turned around and pumped my fist in the air and said right on, nell. right on.

okay, no i didn't. but i wish i had. because how kick-a is that? it was only 11 a.m. and the lady was nearly halfway finished with that thing.

it's decided: i want to be a nell.

pregnancy brain.

let's get this clear: no, i am not pregnant. not even close. well, maybe i'm close because just look at that man, would you? only kidding. anyways, last time i wrote a fake-out i'm pregnant post  (...where i so plainly said that i was not pregnant), people evidently didn't read till the end? i kept getting congratulated by jeff's friends and even had to endure a stomach graze. yes. a stomach graze. there is actually nothing worse than having your stomach rubbed right after lunch-time. or, any time for that matter.

but at the same time, am i? one of my coworkers was talking about pregnancy brain. how she somehow thought that she caught some mild case of it even though she is not pregnant. as she was giving her thoughts + theories why she thought she had it, i kept agreeing (...silently, i have to maintain some semblance of dignity at my work, jeesh! stuffing people into wedding dresses is serious business for the utmost intelligent).

i keep forgetting things ...YES! and misplacing them ...YES! and i make up weird smells in my mind and am convinced that they are real. my bedroom smells like an asian fish market ...okay, no...you should probably get that checked out?

let's dive into this diagnosis further, shall we?

symptom 1: (...let's pretend this is how doctors do it, yes?)

tuesday the 18th of february, around 5 p.m. : i had to clear up some intramural fees and was at the student offices with my credit card in hand and five minutes to spare. i was in a rush! i handed the man my card and told him my student i.d. number as i casually carried on a conversation about cross-dressing middle aged men. the usual. i was in the middle of the kicker and was making large and pronounced hand motions when he interrupted me.

"...umm, ma'am. this isn't working. will you repeat your student i.d. number again?"

"oh, of course intramural office man! i will do just that! and i am not in a hurry or mad at all about this hold-up! it is 5...1...5..." (as you can see, i am really kind to people serving me. it's whatever...) i continued to tell him the number and jumped right back into my story. "so, anyways, cross-dressers..."

he stopped me again. interrupting my stories is kind of like jumping into a double-dutch jump rope game. you have to time it p e r f e c t l y or else you'll mess it up and everyone will be annoyed.

"okay, i am so, so sorry. could you repeat it again?"

"yep. no problem. not in a hurry! 5...1...5...let's talk about me, now? so, when i was fifteen, i finally got breasts..."

"ma'am. i am so sorry. maybe just one more time?"

"here! let me write it down for you!" (*scribbling paper furiously and huffing back into my story with less enthusiasm only to be interrupted five seconds later...*)

"...ma'am. this is not even an i.d. number in the system. and by the looks of it, i think that's your social security number?"

oh. yes. that. i had never remembered it before then! so...small feats?

symptom 2: 

monday the 25th of february, around 9 p.m.: i play on a city-league team over in lindon. mostly i contribute nothing, if you were wondering. also, if you were wondering, city-league trumps intramural basketball. the fury! half of the players on the other teams have a slew of children that tag along to the games and, let me tell you, mama rage! so much pent up annoyance that is let out on the court! child not latching? throw a bow! youngest teething and getting no sleep? punch a girl out!

...apparently i am making some sort of advertisement for city-league? no matter.

anyways, we have an email group where we remind each other of games and other some such things. our captain, blake, emailed + emailed again that our first tournament game was the 25th and that we needed everyone. i confirmed and expressed my excitement and...didn't show up. i thought the game was tuesday and had been looking at a june calendar? oops.

symptom 3:

sunday the 3rd of march, around 3 p.m.: yesterday i was taking someone's engagements and kept on forgetting the boy's name! brett? brent? brad? buckley? i was calling him everything.

"k, carrissa. lean your head on br...a...o...i...d...on his head."

it got awful creative.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

you agree, no? i have to be pregnant...or just getting decreasingly worse. have i ever told you that i misspelled my name up until i was fourteen years old? yep. we were mourning over the loss of my grandfather and i noticed that my grandma's name was spelled a little funny on the headstone. 

"so it's not spelled b-a-r-a-b-a-r-a?"

...my poor children.

also am i flirting with you all and just playing up the ditzy girl act? perhaps, perhaps.

happy birthday to my father!

(this is what my father explains as the white-man dancing overbite...c l  a s s i c)

a happy birthday to you, dad! (...i am making a big assumption here that you actually read my blog? maybe?) hope you have the absolute best day and stuff yourself silly with a steak dinner + birthday cake. thank you for being such an example to me. you have taught me handful of life lessons that have stuck. like don't use the word literally casually, you are not l i t e r a l l y starving to death. or that patience is a virtue but sometimes at football games when the pack of rowdy fans behind us keep throwing profanities around, snap your head around and tell them to shut their trap. you've taught me how to properly enjoy wheaties (blueberries, lots of 'em), texas sheet cake (covered in milk, of course), and classic rock (windows down, stones up). but most importantly you have taught me to value myself and to find a man that does the same to me -- the love you show to my sweet mom each day set the bar high for my husband (he's meeting it, no need to polish that gun) and mapped out the kind of marriage that i wanted to have.

...that got sappy. well, anyways...happy birthday dad!