how many quotes can i work into a post without sounding like i'm quoting something?

Ok. I do believe that my week off of work has been basically the most amazing thing ever. No, I have not accomplished much, but I have seriously enjoyed what I have accomplished. Let me 'splain. No, it's too long, let me sum up.

December 22
Christmas shopping for Dad, Mom, Darci, Brandon, Cameron, Alex and Elissa all got completed in less than one hour at Target and I spent $35 and some change (I think it was 67 cents, but I might be making that up).

December 23
NCIS marathon. Heck yes.

December 24
Family trip to Ahwatukee to visit Christmas lights. One word: Tuzigoot.

December 25
My entire family was at Grandma and Grandpa's house (aka: where I live). There were too many people, so I ran away and hid in my room, then I decided to conduct a little experiment. I decided to see if i could take a shower and get dressed again without anyone noticing. I did.

December 26
TENTH KINGDOM movie day. Again: Heck yes.

December 27
I cleaned my bathroom, then went out with Chelsea, then watched Chelsea clean her room. Because that's what friends do. Keep reading for a little adventure that happened that even Chelsea doesn't know about.

December 28
I finished Andrew's Blog. You guessed it: Heck yes!

December 29
I'm going to make pumpkin roll for basically the entire world.

December 30
BRIGETTE-ASHLEY-MEREDITH MOVIE DAY!!! I'm a little excited... :)

And then I don't know what I'm doing.

I honestly think that the thing I'm most pleased with myself about is that I am finally caught up on Andrew's Blog. Ok, my mom has been going crazy because I walk around singing the theme song, which is annoying I guess, but I love it, so whatever. Let me tell you a little about Andrew's Blog.

It is written by Andrew Keenan-Bolger, one of the coolest guys on Broadway. He occasionally writes posts, but normally he does video blogs. Most of them just chronicle his everyday adventures and shenanigans, but some of them are campy little skits that he and his friends or cast-mates cook up. This is one of my favorites.

Speaking of his friends...
The Battery's Down is an online sitcom (essentially) that his best-friend Jake Wilson stars in. I'm currently in the process of finding out what else he does, because I'm pretty sure it's practically everything from writing to choreographing (he is an amazing choreographer), but my computer is being wonky and not letting me do anything. Ok, so on the first episode, Jake was a writer, director and choreographer, and I'm pretty sure that's a constant through the season. Anyway, The Battery's Down is about Jake and his attempts to get a role on Broadway. If you're not into musicals at all, you won't like it, but if you like musicals, you should check it out. Every episode has an original song, usually with fun choreography. Watching it is basically my favorite thing to do online. I seriously almost cried at the end of the first season, but the next season starts in March and I'm totes excited. For the record, I think that the song in the first episode is my favorite, but the one in the second is hilarious too.

Through TBD I found Andrew's Blog. Through Andrew's Blog, I found The Gifted Girls. This is a show that Andrew's sister and her friends produce for their non-profit company 4th Meal Productions. The shows aren't quite as amazing to me as TBD, but they're still really good and I definitely watch every episode. Also through Andrew's Blog, I found the [title of show] show. I've only seen the episodes that Andrew posted on his blog, but this one is about not just an actor trying to get in a show, but a whole production company trying to get their show on Broadway. I'm pretty sure watching their first season is going to be my next project. They got their show on Broadway, but, unless they lied in their Christmas show, it's already closed, so they're trying to get it back on... I guess.

I think I should be trying to go to sleep now, but I fell asleep wile everyone else was watching THE THREE AMIGOS so now I'm basically doomed to be awake for forever.

OH!!! The story about Saturday night that Chelsea doesn't know!! OK. I'll tell you that story, then I'll at least attempt to go to bed.

Chelsea had finished cleaning her room and we were just hanging out when her computer told us that it was 3 AM. So we decided I needed to go home, then talked for another 45 minutes or so. When I finally left is when the biggest adventure began. I got to my car and realized I had parked where her sprinklers hit. It was less than 32 degrees out, so basically I had ice all over my car. I thought that maybe my defrosters would melt it by the time I got to the road (there's a parking lot between her house and the road), so I just started driving really slowly. Well, the defroster didn't work fast enough, so I put my car in park, pulled out my lovely ASU ID and scraped the ice from my windshield. Then I got back in my car and drove about ten feet before stopping again. There is a gate between the parking lot and the road that is rarely closed, but last night it was. So my car is in park, and I, in my heels, thin flowy shirt, and ripped jeans get out and walk through the gravel-y parking lot to open the gate in the literally freezing cold weather. Then i notice that there's a chain and a padlock on the gate. "It's ok, if it's actually locked, I can just drive back to the house and Chelsea will help me, or I can see if the other way out is open." So I proceeded and, thank goodness, the padlock wasn't locked, it was merely acting as a device to keep the chain around the gate. At this point, I couldn't be happier, simply couldn't be happier. The end was near and I was almost to Baseline. So I open the gate and run back to my car in my cute little heels and drive my car through the gate. I then put my car in park and return to close the gate. This process was simple. As I turn to walk to my car, I see that the light to get out of the parking lot has turned green. This, my friends, is an event that does not happen very often, so I hurry my little self back to my car in hopes of making it before it changes to that awful yellow color. I did not find success in this endeavor. So I waited. And waited. I put my car in park. I put my car in reverse. I backed up a little, successfully not hitting the gate. I put my car in drive. I pulled forward a little. I see the little walker man turn into a blinky hand!! It's only a matter of time now! GREEN!!!

And I'm pretty sure it took me less time to get from that light to my house than it took me to get from Chelsea's house to that light. But it was fun, and I definitely got a fun (very Brigette) story out of it. This is my life.

ok. sleep now.

totes bye!
(you'll get that if you watch a specific episode of Andrew's Blog)

One Assignment Then...

Okay, just for the record, I still haven’t written any of my missionaries. Yes, I rock. I know.
On a happier note, I only have one more assignment left for this semester then I’m done!! Then all I have is work and fun things! Hooray fun things!!
Here’s a small list of my upcoming fun things:

I. December 11: Tony Night at Arthur Murray (Yes, a dance with all Musical theatre music. No, I could not be much more excited.)

II. December 12: Broadway Bound, followed by hanging out with Mer (and hopefully Ashleyface)

III. December 13: Fancypants rich people party in Scottsdale with Lowell

IV. December 19: Last day of work

V. December 19: John and Tessa’s Wedding

VI. December 22: Fun times with Maren, Eleanor, B, Casper, and Ashlee

VII. December 22: Shumway Family Party

VIII. December 24: Christmas lights in Ahwatukee and Candy Cane Lane!!

IX. December 25: Get woken up ridiculously early by children who will spend 3 seconds unwrapping presents then leave the mess in the front room. Followed shortly by a trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

X. December 26: After Christmas shopping :-D

XI. December 31: New Year’s Eve… I don’t know what I’m doing, but it will be fun. I will make it fun.

XII. January 5: First day back to work.

You’re all jealous of my totes amazing December, I know. You’re just going to have to get over that though. You’ll find something fun to do, I’m sure of it. If you can’t though, just play Uno. Uno never faileth

I'm Failing.

On Saturday, I set a goal for myself for this week. It was fairly simple: write a missionary every day. This should be easy to do, since I have eleven missionaries from which I can choose, but I still have managed to write none of them. I've had excuses, but that's all they are: excuses. I'm tired of feeling like a lousy friend, so here's what I'm going to do: I am advertising to the entire world that I am going to write my friends who are currently on missions. Tonight, I will write Jenn. Wednesday, I'll write Brian. Thursday will be devoted to writing the lovely Ryan Kleinman. Ben M gets Friday, and Saturday goes to Drew. On Sunday I'll write Karl, and check the list of address that Jenniface gave me to see who else needs to be added to my list. I'll go from there. The people to whom I need to write most desperately are Jenn and Brian, which is why they're first.

I smooshed my thumb between a cabinet door and a paper cutter today. It hurt a lot.

Ok. That being said, I'll move on to how freaking awesome my job is. I absolutely adore the teacher with whom I'm working this year. Last year we didn't do anything for the holidays. This year is quite the opposite. We're not talking about the religious purposes behind any of the holidays--as that would be illegal--but we're talking about the different things that families do to celebrate different holidays. This week we're learning about Swedish Christmas traditions, which include Saint Lucia and the Starboy. On Thursday all the girls get to make St. Lucia crowns and the boys are making Starboy hats (pictures will be on facebook, I'm not putting my kids pictures here, where anyone in the world can see them). I'm not sure how we're breaking up the rest of the holidays, but we're also going to be learning about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas. I'm super excited. AND!!! We don't have to do intervention for the next 2 weeks because we're doing DIBELS testing. For those who don't know, intervention is basically just small-group time. We break the kids into groups of about 5 and work (rather intensely) on a specific reading skill for ten minutes, then we rotate groups and work with another group of kids on that same skill. And for those who don't know what DIBELS is... google it. I just did, it's all there. It's basically just another test to see how the kids are doing in their reading skills.

That's about it for work. I have one class that I'm taking from ASU, and I'm kinda stressing out about it because I still don't know what to do for my final project, but I'll figure something out... I hope.

Wow. My life is très boring right now. All I've got going for me is work. Oh, well. Sociality is overrated. I'm going to either go do my homework or go call Morgan now. Have a lovely day!

I really should be sleeping, but...

I decided to stop mooching off my mom's blog and make my own. I think it was confusing people that sometimes I was writing and sometimes my mom was. So now I have my own happy little blog. That's probably bad because that probably means that I'll write endlessly about myself because I'm narcissistic and now there's no concern that I'm using somebody else's blog to do it. That's ok with me though. I'm not the one reading it :)

I hate long weekends. It's basically impossible to go to work when they're done. I have to do it though, and i have no idea if any of my kids even celebrated thanksgiving. none of them knew anything about it before last Tuesday, so I guess tomorrow might be interesting.

I'm done for now. I'm going to play with layouts and probably not find anything and give up and go to bed in like an hour. In bed at midnight... I'm getting old. Oh, well.