Hap, Happy, Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year's everyone!! In the new year I hope for world peace, the end of snow, a good trip to the Dominican, a win for UB and a win for the Utes. Let's go Bulls, Let's go Utes!

This sucks.

So there is a "Winter Storm Warning" out there right now. We are supposed to get 6-12" in the next 6 hours. My office is closing at 1pm which is awesome. And all my friends are teachers and they got a snow day, awesome again. But no one wants to drive anywhere to hang out since it's so crappy out. That's why this sucks. Now I have to go home and actually do laundry and clean. Or I might just sit on my fat ass and watch Christmas movies. We'll see how this pans out when I get home. Let's all hope that this storm has passed through Buffalo and Chicago by Sunday which is when I am scheduled to fly to Utah. And by the time I get home, my snowplow man better have plowed my driveway because there is no way in hell I am going outside to shovel.

This is the view outside my window at work.

Read 'em and weep

I just got my grades back for this past semester. As you can see below I got straight A's or what some people like to call a 4.0 GPA. It was only three classes, but so what, an A is an A. Plus Corporate Finance was not the easiest class, but I maybe a genius compared to the rest of the population at my ghetto school. Boo Yeah Bitches!

What I've learned

While living here in the Northeast during winter, I've learned a few things. I will share:

1: The weather man is never right, always look outside before going anywhere.

2: Buy a car starter. When it's 2 degrees you won't want to go outside to start your car.

3: Remember to set your heater to on and to the vents that will defrost your window, otherwise your car starter is useless.

4: Have a good pair of winter boots. Not ones with heels or anything like that. Ones that are water proof and you can get dirty. Wear them to work and bring shoes to change. Otherwise you will fall on your ass walking into work in your heels.

5: Always layer your clothing. The cold air goes through your clothes. If you layer enough, the air won't feel like it's freezing you to the bone and you feel like you want to die.

6: Wear a scarf. It helps so the cold air doesn't hit where your clothes and coat don't cover and then you feel like you want to die.

7: Have gloves. Your hands will be so cold that you can't open doors or you feel like they are going to fall off.

8: During the winter you need to wake up earlier than usual because you will need to clean the snow off your car. Don't be that asshole that drives down the road with snow still on their car that's flying onto other cars.

9: If it's snowing or there is snow on the ground, I will be driving slow, don't ride my ass.

10: It is possible for it to snow 6" in 8 hours.

11: Don't put your coffee mug on top of your car when there is ice up there. It will fall off and spill all over your black pants and new red coat.

12: Buy a long coat. It will help with the layering on your legs. That way you won't feel all warm up top with all the layers and your bottom half feels like you are frozen.

13: Always wear a hat. When that wind blows your head and your ears you will feel like you want to die.

14: Buy gloves that are half glove, half mitten. And have the fingers in the glove cut off so that you can still do stuff without taking your gloves off. I call these circumcised gloves.

15: Always buy a coat with a hood. Why would you not have a hood? It protects the back of your neck from the death cold.

Needless to say, winter makes me feel like I want to die. The air here is so humid that it chills you to the bone when it is cold. The wind will go right through your clothes.

My new favorite website

So I don't know where I found this website, but it is amazing. It's called Graph Jam. You can look at other people's graphs or you can make your own. I've made a few graphs in my day but here are some of my favs.

This one is self explanatoryLori is my co-worker who likes to talk about her kids' poop

Hank is my sister's dog. He's kind of a jerk.

Jane is my other co-worker who annoys the piss out of me.

Sugar Bowl here we come!

No, not me personally, here we come. I'm talking about the Utes! We made it to the Sugar Bowl! This is very exciting. I wish I could make it to New Orleans to watch but airfare is $400 and that is a bit steep for a weekend trip. My dad is going with Elizabeth and I'm very jealous. Instead I've decided to join my peeps heading up to Toronto to watch the University of Buffalo play in the International Bowl the same weekend. It should be a great game. It's at the Roger's Centre where the Blue Jay's play, and sometimes that silly Bills team that I am no longer associated with since that girl JP Losman is playing. But any who. It's a dome and I've never been to a football game indoors, it will be interesting. I've even booked us in the Reniassance Inn which is in the Roger's Centre. I wanted the rooms that have a view to the field but $389 a night didn't seem worth it. Toronto is such an awesome city and I would want to spend the weekend but our friend Stevie will be in town so we have to come home the day of the game. So look for me on TV!!

Some Sabres fun and Thanksgiving

For Eron's birthday we bought him and Rachel some tickets to see the Sabres game while they were here. They just so happened to be in the first row right behind the penalty box. They were amazing seats. We got to see a couple players in the penalty box and even two players talking shit to each other through the penalty boxes, it was awesome.

At Pearl Street Grill before the game

Rachel, Eron and James

Opening face off and it's so close!

Eron and Rachel

James and Brooke

On Thanksgiving, Rachel came over to help me cook for the "wedding present" we were giving to Paul and Linda. It went quite well for my first cooking of Thanksgiving. There were no burns, no cuts and everything was edible! We were only about 45 minutes late serving and I had to run to the grocery store for a new can opener when mine broke trying to make green bean casserole. I ended up serving some acorn squash, potatoes gratin, Rachel Ray's Apple and Onion Stuffin', Big Martha's Mashed Potatoes, green bean casserole and some rolls. It was fantastic and delicious. The days of hockey puck hamburgers are over! I can cook!

James is being a man and putting together our two new chairs so everyone could sit at the table

Our cute Turkey Nameplates

James trying to put EJ's shoes on, it's not going well

Paul taking a nap after dinner

A wedding to remember....

How do you even begin this? James's parents were married this past Tuesday. Yes, his mother and father have never been married to each other, nor have they lived together up until 6 months ago. They have been dating for 28 years, which I'm pretty sure is a world record. I even researched it but couldn't come up with anything. I don't know the specifics of why they never married (I heard that James's dad never asked and his mom never brought it up, which is lame). The only reason they are getting married now is so that his mom can be on his dad's insurance policy because he has cancer. Yep, good reason.

It was at a "church" about 10 minutes from our house. By "church" I mean something like the Chapel of Love in Las Vegas, where they don't actually perform any sermons or spiritual meetings. We arrived about a half hour before the "ceremony". As I walked in I was handed some flowers, which I thought were because I'm "family" (not really though), because Rachel (James's sister-in-law) was handed some too. We are just standing around chatting and then Linda (the "bride") says it's time to start and that me and Rachel should go to the front. I think to myself "The front, where? She better not mean the front where the wedding party stands" Sure enough that's what she means. So I'm walking to the front, slowly, and Rachel pushes me in front of her and says I'm the maid of honor. I say to Rachel "No, I am not." She says "Yes you are, because I don't want to be". I say "I'm going to kill you" and she pushes me again. By this time, it's too late, I have to stop arguing because they are coming down the aisle.

I'm pretty sure it's customary for normal people to ask a person to be their maid of honor, or bridesmaid, before they arrive at the church and are given flowers. This was not the case. I was never asked, nor thanked for being in the wedding. I find the whole situation bizarre and I felt like I was in the twilight zone for a good portion of the evening.

He's excited for his parents to get married, can't you tell?

Fun before the wedding The "chapel" Eron, the happy couple, James

Helpful Hint

James and I were on our way out the other day to meet some friends for dinner and we were arguing who was going to drive. We always argue over this and it's not like we have a long way to drive, every where we go it's not more than a 10 minute drive. So the sneaky person that I am, I purposely left my keys on the table in the house so that when James came out he would have to drive. As he was walking out he saw my keys and picked them up and asked if I was driving and I said no. So he comes out the door, locks it and pulls it shut. We get in the car and he looks around for his keys and then asks me where they are. I'm not the watcher of keys so I say why don't you have them. And we both realize that he left them inside our house which is now locked. All the windows are locked tight because we checked them before we turned the furnace on for the year. After my tantrum where I swore so much that a sailor would blush, I call a locksmith. Forty minutes later (he said it would be 15 minutes) he shows up. He indicates that he will first try to pick the lock but if that doesn't work he will have to drill it. Three minutes later the door is unlocked. The locksmith came into the house so that we could pay him for his services, which he priced at $165. Yes, that's right, for 3 minutes of work we had to pay him $165. Have you ever felt what it's like to get kicked in the stomach by a horse? Me either, but that's what I imagined my feeling was like when he said $165. But what would have been my basis for my argument? He let me into my own house. We could have refused to pay him and he could have shut the door on us. I'm not even sure what this man does with his fees that he charges people. He drove up in a van that barely made it down the street. He certainly wasn't dressed the nicest. If I was charging people $165 for 3 minutes of work, I would be wearing Gucci suits to unlock peoples doors. That way they would know that they are about to be ripped off. Or what would have been easier is if he would have just punched me in the face a few times, I would have rather done that then pay the $165. He was even polite enough to give us a break down of his ridiculous fee, $40 to come to our house, $120 to unlock the door. So the helpful hint of the day is: Have a hide-a-key or give a key to a friend, a neighbor, a bum on the street or even the cat next door.

Fun in the car waiting for the locksmith

Why did the Utes win over BYU?

Cause I wore my lucky Utah Alumni Pin and my lucky JC Penny Utah tube socks to win. Not to mention my red sweater. Plus, they are really good at football.

*Nerd Alert*

I was informed last week that I will be hosting Thanksgiving at my house this year. Yes, it was quite the shock. But there has been an issue with cat hair in the food at *cough* James's mom's house *cough*. Rachel (James's sister-in-law) brought up an idea that we could make Thanksgiving dinner at my house as a wedding present for James's mom. His parents are getting married to each other, for the first time, tomorrow. DON'T ASK. Anyway, at first I thought Rachel was joking, but she wasn't and I'm stuck hosting. I've never made a meal this big for this many people before. I didn't even have enough chairs for everyone, I had to go buy two more. I even had to go buy more place mats because all mine are in a set of 4, not 6. I'm a bit nervous about the whole deal. I've got my meal plan and all the recipes for them. Since I like to be super organized (aka a big nerd), I've put my shopping list and my cooking time line into a spreadsheet. I even went online and checked which store has better prices for items. Tonight I will be checking to see what coupons I have. I've put James in charge of the actual shopping since I have to work tomorrow and he doesn't. We'll see how well that goes. You can't see them that well, but you get the gist of how big of a nerd I am. I even have a legend for the shopping list which indicates which items we already have, which items I'm not sure if we have, items to buy at Tops, items to buy at Wegman's, and items that are a free-for-all. Ugh, I'm such a nerd.

Oh, how I hate BYU.

Today is the day. The biggest day of the year, the whole year. Forget Christmas, forget New Year's, forget your birthday. Today is they day of the Holy War. Everyone knows what it is, they have been preparing for weeks. If you don't know what it is, you live under a rock. Today is the day BYU gets their asses handed to them on a Crimson platter. We could have gone 0-11 up until this point and a win against BYU would be a winning season. But we haven't, we have gone 11-0. Today is the day we will win the Mountain West Conference. Today is the day we are invited to a BSC bowl. Today is the day the Zoobies cry themselves to sleep because they have realized they cheer for a bunch of losers.

What do you do?

I went to pilates this evening. It is held in a room at the gym that is pretty bare which means you can hear everything. I was in class with probably 10 people. The music was up loud but you could still hear the instructor. We were in the middle of an exercise where you curl up like a ball and roll back and forth from your butt to your back. I'm in the zone, I'm doing the rolling, I'm focused. And then it happens. Pffffff. The woman next to me farts, loudly. Some how I keep my composure. I don't laugh and I keep doing the exercise. It took all of my strength to not laugh. Then we have moved on to another exercise, I forget which one. And it happens again. Pffffff. From the same damn woman. Again I keep my composure. How? I don't know. We have moved on to the stretching part of the class. I want to say this isn't true, but it happens again. Pffffff. Does this woman have no control over her bodily functions? I can't handle it any longer, I have to put my head down and focus on not laughing. I some how keep it together until the end.

A letter

Dear Brigham Young University Athletic Department,

Thank you for your pledged donation of "Quest for Perfection" and "National Champions 2008" T-Shirts that you are sending to my country. Because of your generous donation, 25,000 needy children will have a new shirt for Christmas this year.

The "New England Patriots: Super Bowl Champions" T-Shirts are beginning to be old and worn. We are very grateful for your generous donation and are looking forward to receiving the annual spring shipment, "BYU NCAA Tournament 1st Round winners" this year again as well. Although this shipment is very generous, we are still in need of many thousand more T-Shirts to meet our needs.

If you could kindly send a shipment of leftover "Max Hall for Heisman" shirts that would be plenty appreciated.

Best Regards,

President Hu Jintao

China

I might have a problem

My name is Brooke and I'm a shopaholic. I have an addiction to shopping, in particular, online shopping. I have my debit card number memorized so I don't even need to waste time taking it out of my wallet. I literally ran out of hangers in my house today while trying to hang up my new purchases that came in the mail yesterday. I even gathered a pile of clothes to sell at Plato's Closet on Saturday and I still didn't have room for my new clothes. This is generally what happens when I finish laundry. All my clothes are clean and need a place to go, yet I have no room for all of them. I have a problem.