Just Throw a Brick

Well guys, Christmas break was pretty awesome. I needed to get back to Utah, and thankfully we were able to this year. Seeing all my sisters was awesome, and multiple times on this trip I was like "Dang. I'm related to some awesome people." I mean, P got a special solo in her school play, R is freaking almost done with high school, and N is finishing up college! Whaaaaaaaaat! Who said my little sisters could grow up?! Anyway, I'll have to do another post about that some other time. Today is Recap 2015 Day! Ready for this??? Hahahahahahahahahaha me neither. *cries* Onward! January At the beginning of the year, I was working part-time at UVU in the Finance and Business Office while C went to school full-time and worked at BYU Moving part-time. His last semester! I discovered that awesome recipe for Italian herb bread that has become a staple in our house. I was a bridesmaid in M's beautiful winter wedding. We attended C's last band banquet. C took the GRE...

How has it been more than a week since I've blogged last? I don't know. It's a hot mess over here at JTAB. I have no explanations. Crappy It's been a hard week, friends. I have felt so down. It's hard to send out application after application, and trying to talk to people and make connections, and at the end of the day you're right back where you started - jobless and a little bit poorer. You can only eat so many microwavable cups of Rice-a-Roni without going crazy. I just want to cook, dangit! Even a simple spaghetti would be better than what we're dealing with over here. I was raised on fruits and vegetables at every meal, and when you only get one tiny drawer in a massive fridge you have to prioritize. So we get bagged salads and as much fruit as we can stuff in there without displacing my skim milk. So sick of living here. Let me just say that one more time so you all understand. I HATE IT HERE. Hate it. It was fine for the first couple weeks, but it...

So I'm debating on whether or not I should make a weekly post entitled "Happy, Crappy, or Meh", where I discuss something happy, something crappy, and something meh. Yes/no? C thinks it'd be better as a Twitter post so we'll see. I've just had so many people ask me how Chicago is I was thinking of more fun ways to present information. So without further ado, "Happy, Crappy, and Meh: Chicago Edition." Happy: -Lou Malnati's pizza. Every list starts with this pizza. The end. The fact that we've only had it once and have been out here a week is impressive. -There is a Target about 10 minutes away from where we are right now. AND I got a couple v-necks from there on clearance! Awwwww yeah. I love a good v-neck. -Our car survived the trip! So now our little Utah-plated Nissan is booking around Chicago! -My friend just sent me a pic of a cute embroidered pillow pattern she found on clearance and she's going to send it to me. I'm so exc...

Do you ever just have a day that ends and you're like "You know what? I would have been perfectly okay if this day had never happened." Yeah, had one of those last week. And as is practice among people that are adults when this happens, I'm trying to think of good things that have happened lately, as opposed to dwelling on the meh. Unfortunately, adult mode is not working well today, but we'll try our hardest. Good Thing #1: C no longer has to pay an extra underage fee for renting cars! We can rent cars at the advertised price now. Yay...! (working on the excitement level here) Good Thing #2: I remembered to grab a strawberry PopTart on my way out the door today. Good Thing #3: We have cookies and cream ice cream sitting at home for me when I get back tonight. Also a few mini cheesecakes are left from C's birthday so I'll just eat one of those and be happy. Also, raspberries, the best fruit of all. Good Thing #4: My allergies have calmed down a lot...

So ever since I finished Gilmore Girls completely for the second time, I've been looking for a new show to fill my Amy Sherman-Palladino void. This week I tried... Main premise: A wannabe spoiled surgeon, Zoe Hart, is turned down for a fellowship in her hospital in NYC and is told to do a year of GP (general practice) before her mentor will consider her to be worthy of this fellowship. He also tells her that she has no bedside manner (not an exaggeration) and she needs to grow a heart. So she remembers this random guy that went to her college graduation that was like "Oh hey, if you ever want to do a year of GP down in Bluebell, Alabama, give me a call." So since she has this perfect opportunity, she goes down there and finds the practice, only to find the dude had died and he was actually her father (unexpected totally-forseen plot twist!) So now she takes over his half of the practice, while trying to get patients to like her as she ruins parades, throws terrible p...

I'm out of blogging ideas at the moment, I know I had some earlier today, but I can't remember them anymore. Story of my life. I misplaced my little notebook where I write everything and anything, so my little list is gone. So here, have a list of things that I don't like! 1) The words hubby, hubs, hubster, husby, and any other word to call your husband besides "husband". 2) The Bachelor. Why? Why does this show exist? Besides providing the office with laughter on Tuesday morning, that is. However, listening to Frankie, DB, and Jess tear it apart every Tuesday makes it all worth it. 3) Stupid people. Yes, I know this is on every list I have ever made of things I dislike but believe me, it's there for a reason. Especially when stupid people want to be catered to. Ugh. Just let natural selection take its toll on these people. I know it doesn't exactly fit here, I just really really like it.  4) Turtlenecks. Do they work for Wolowitz? D...

Well, 2015 has been semi-eventful thus far. Want a list of all I've done so far? Sweet, here you go: Caught and recovered from one awful cold Made some kick-butt Italian herb bread Went to a bridal shower for M Planned and executed a bachelorette party for M Went to the temple to see M get her endowments taken out (yes, the last three bullet points were all for the same person. January is turning into M-month around here.) Started to apply C for five different graduate schools C took the GRE (and did great!) I wore heels to church (trying to break in the heels before M's wedding, but those things were killing me yesterday.)  So that's all I can think of that I've done so far. The most stressful ones for me were the GRE and M's bachelorette party. I was really worried because she was like "Oh, I'm inviting 20 people" and I was like "Um, whaaaaaa?!" but they didn't all come so that was good. Plus she had a lot of crazy people t...

It's that time again! Time to write the best blog post of the whole year. You should go back and read last year's if you haven't, it was a lot of fun to write, and this one was too. Without further ado, your theme music: Or you can pick this one, also awesome: Here we go! January This year, January was mostly spent going to the first weeks of my last classes for my undergraduate, the most difficult being anatomy. I put together the puzzle from heck with my family (paint buckets. Who makes a puzzle of PAINT BUCKETS). Me and C continued to date, and even to talk marriage. Meanwhile in the singles ward, our church changed locations and since we had to stop meeting in the building with an elevator, we took one final culminating picture to stick with the bunches of others we took in that thing. February The Olympics started, and me and roommates had a good laugh about how woefully unprepared Sochi was. I continued to almost pass out in Anatomy lab, but finall...

It's my favorite holiday, guys! It's coming!!! :D And in honor of that, have some of my favorite Christmas songs. Since you already heard "Sleigh Ride" last time, I won't bother you with that again. But it is awesome. Let's see... Let's start out with a more upbeat, exciting Kelly Clarkson number: Definitely a fun one. Not super Christmassy, but not bad. If you know me, you know I love Michael Buble, so this next one shouldn't be much of a surprise: Another good one to check out if you've got time? Silver Bells. Melts me every single time.  And now, for my favorite band...   You're welcome. You're freaking welcome.  Those are the only ones in my head right now. I'll post another list if I can think of more favorites.  As far as other Christmas preparations are concerned, I've wrapped most of C's Christmas, and haven't hit anyone else's yet. And can I just tell you - the lines! They...

Well friends, it's that time again, that time when I feel like doing absolutely nothing, but if I know that if I do nothing I'll hate myself, but if I do anything I'll hate myself for doing something the whole time I'm doing it.  Make sense? No? Great... How about I give you a summary of my last week? It could potentially be interesting! I'll give you a breakdown: One season of Gilmore Girls watched - (Season One. Side note: Dean? Get away, Dean. Nobody likes you. Go home. Get a haircut. Boo Christopher... Also, forgot how much I hated Paris, forgot how much I loved Michele. If that's how you spell his name, that is... Should I be tagging these with spoiler alerts? I forgot all about Chad Michael Murray in the first season too...  Can't wait until Jess shows up...  I mean, come on. Out of all of Rory's boyfriends, Jess is definitely the best. (He's the middle one, non-Gilmorians.) One doctor visited - Don't worry, it wasn't for ...

So when I found out C was in the marching band, I was like "meh, whatever... I mean, I know they march around on the field during halftime and no one watches...and that's it..." But once I started dating him, I got an exclusive insider look into the world of marching band, and now I'm going to share that fascinating world with you, per R's request! Yay! You lucky people, you! And to make it even more interesting, I'll sprinkle pictures of Gus throughout! Okay, so the first thing you should know about band is that it's not just a hobby or extracurricular. It's a lifestyle to the band people (bandies, I call them), and they don't understand why the rest of us didn't "do band". Be careful when these conversations occur. Explain why you didn't using a phrase like "didn't have time", as opposed to a face like Gus's below and a phrase like "because band is for nerds?" Come on, son. You may feel o...

The other day me and C were just chilling at home waiting for Jimmy Fallon to start when we saw something called an Ice Bucket Challenge on FB. We then spent two hours watching various videos and ranking them. Here, for no reason, and in no particular order, are our favorite ALS ice bucket challenges all in one place! I have decided to rank them on 1) introduction length and clarity, 2) coldness of ice water, 3) reaction to ice water, 4) Person splashing, and 5) recovery. Rankings are out of five stars. Robert Downey Jr: Introduction: Five stars. Concise and to the point. Coldness: Not sure. I'll give it three out of five ice cubes. I mean, stars. Three out of five stars. Reaction:  Classic RDJ. I want to make his little muted scream of indignation a ringtone. Person: You go, Mrs. RDJ!  Recovery: Solid recovery. The Thor action figure is a nice touch.  President George W. Bush: Introduction: Five stars. Not too long, not too short. Coldness: ...

Guys, it's my 80th post! So have a random list of things I've done in the last week: Written addresses on five million wedding invitations Put five million stamps on five million wedding invitations Mailed five million wedding invitations Showered seven times Shaved my legs twice Watched five million episodes of Gilmore Girls Watched one million episodes of Once Upon a Time Scanned five million pictures of me as a kid Scanned five million pictures of C as a kid Bought two Papa Murphy's pizzas (and two sides...) Took a quiz on Buzzfeed that told me that I'm most like Emma Stone (score!!!) Took four trips to the mall Bought three dresses, one shirt, one belt, three ties, and a bunch of other wedding stuff Freaked out because I'M GETTING MARRIED IN TWO WEEKS Ahem. But really, the last two weeks have been insanely busy. I had no idea there was so much stuff that went into a wedding. It's ridiculous, really. Hey, to make up for my long bori...