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today is my jeffrey's birthday! he's now officially in his 'late twenties' but please don't bring that up. he's still recovering from realizing that him + taylor swift are the same age. something about the fact that she already owns like, fifteen houses or something? minor details! minor details!

we celebrated today + i gifted him allllll of his favorite foods. because of my lack of self-control around gushers + the fact refined sugar makes me like, so cranky we never have junk food in our house. our pantry is the lamest + would make ten year olds cry with its lack of -ito's + cookies + poptarts. BUT NO LONGER! junk food galore! eighty dollars worth! you're welcome!

but one more time, happy birthday to jeff! he is the funniest, most patient + kindest person. he is easy to please (wink)(but actually being serious. his request today : boxed mashed potatoes, frozen peas + a pineapple upside down cake. shockingly white trash), easy-going + ...also he is very forgiving because i royally messed up his favorite meal, chicken crescents. woops. he is my happy place + my steady. and today he is twenty six!

...now go write on his facebook wall or something.

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i am terrible at remembering dates.
seriously. i only remember jeff's birthday because it is one month + a day before mine + frantically search for our wedding date any time i'm asked (...is it august 3rd or 4th?). BUT! miraculously i remembered our engage-a-versary this year + even more miraculously scored jazz tickets for that night (thank you kenna. you come with all the perks.). THUS : engage-a-versary!

most fittingly, we stuffed our faces with burgers + fries + diet coke + then waddled our way into the jazz game where i spent most my time suggesting ways to up the players' appearances (more facial hair! tribal tattoo! fade!). i think the jazz won? i promise i love sports. truly.

anyways, happy engage-a-versary three weeks later, jeffrey! so happy you popped the question. and asked my dad for permission. that had me sweating.

p.s.
guys.
i've been to TWO nba games in one month + i feel like freakin' beyonce.
I HAVE ARRIVED!
(...or have a wonderfully gracious almost sis-in-law)

p.p.s.
i candidly told jeff before we got married that i had like, virutally no perks. besides an especially wonderful family + knowledge of all things idaho/celebrity gossip/real housewives. also i kill at the star performer section of cranium. that counts for something, right?

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Jeff Stapleton planned our Valentine's this year + proved that he so, so gets me.
He reserved us a racquetball court where we played a game chock full of sweat, blood, profanity + lots of rule-Googling. I assumed the other people playing on the courts next to us were just as into their game as we were but when I walked out to get a drink, I quickly realized we were the only ones taking it seriously + throwing my racquet against the wall out of frustration might have been a bit much. But what is Valentine's day without a little competition + lots of shots to the throat?!

Woof.

We walked home + got a giant soda + ordered a sickening amount of cheap sushi for a 4:30 dinner. I'm going to say it : sushi is one of those things that you shouldn't try to be frugal about. You know? Because when it is bad, it is bad. All bolded. We overate + felt sick + ended the night watching YouTube videos (I watched Too Many Cooks for the first time ever. I would like 11 minutes of my life back now) + Friends.

Early dinner, soda, semi-justified cursing + an all out war of a competition : my type of Valentine's Day. Three cheers, Jeffrey!

In the spirit of the month of love quickly approaching (tomorrow), here's a post about love. Also HI! Hello! I am back from my short little internet-vacation. We had both sides of our family in town last week + all my attention went to them. And to Dance Moms. Please, I beg of you, if you see a shooting star tonight or have an extra birthday candle, please please please wish that Netflix will put another season out. My life is not the same without Abby Lee Miller's hoarse threats. Also I am pretty sure hell will be the observatory of the ALDC with Chloe's mom ranting. It's like, Maddie is the best. Get over it.

Now enough about dance mom, on to love.


LOVE IS :

...waiting in the Taco Bell line for five extra minutes because they gave you a hard shell chicken taco instead of a soft shell beef. Also love is driving in the car with Taco Bell even though it makes you dry heave.

...silently watching Elizabethtown for the third time + refraining to make fun of it. (IT IS MY FAVORITE MOVIE! Why does everyone hate it?!)

...rewinding the Friends intro because your TV-partner missed the claps.

...supporting all of the many epiphanies + wild ideas that midnight and too much Diet Dr. Pepper bring (I should be an air stewardess! I should take improv classes! I should be a group aerobics instructor! I should die my hair blonde! I should try out for Survivor!) (p.s. yes, these are all life-paths I have furiously Googled until 5 a.m. then given up on. Ha.)

...pretending to know anything about video games + computer science + football.

...replacing the last Diet Coke in the fridge with a new one. HALLELUJAH!

TA-DAAAAA!

p.s. A PSA :

Jeff + I saw Into the Woods a few weeks ago. HOLY SHOOT. Guys, it was bad. I love me some Meryl Streep and Chris Pine and Emily Blunt Anna Kenderick...wait, actually why was this so bad? It's too much of a good thing. It really was awful though. I was half-expecting the lady giant to be Queen Latifah and then it would loop into the movie Taxi or something. Like all one big joke intro? The end. Happy February. And to ALL, a good night.

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this summer has been so good to me. like, mind-boggling type good. sure, there's been some thing that haven't gone accordingly to plan and some weeks we just sit at home and watch vampire diaries (correction: jeff watches vampire diaries) and eat english muffins but hey! for the most part it has been wonderful. and really, doesn't every one want a week or two of netflix + carbohydrates? thought so.

last night as i was editing a wedding at my ikea desk that jeff had set up hours earlier, i felt content. it was most probably because i was listening to lana del rey with my bra off, but that's besides the point. i could hear jeff chatting to morgan + paige about vampires in the other room and are you really team stephan? i could have sat there forever. i feel so happy where i am at in my life right now. ewww, am i getting sappy here? i don't even know. blame it on the lana.

this summer has been such an indicator to me of how little it takes to feel happiness. i have realized that all it actually takes is my jeffrey. aw, my jeffrey. i could write a sonnet about him. or five sonnets because remember how they are only fourteen lines! ha! for a long while, i thought we were so peculiar. we just aren't super blog cute, you know? seldom does he write me ballads about the way my hair flows in the wind or bring me waffles in bed just because i was such a delight to sleep next to. actually, no that has never happened (i'm a bed hog. oops). nor has he ever walked in the door with an arm full of flowers and a puppy or three.

but woof. he does so much more than that. i didn't realize that i needed a jeff stapleton, but guys! i needed one. he supports all of my wild and ever-changing dreams (for example, in one week i said i want to be a magazine writer! and then i want to be a health teacher! and he said "do it. you'd be awesome!" to both of 'em without even flinching. he was even mildly sincere). i feel like he is my springboard. you know? before i always felt this rush of nerves when i was starting something new; what if i fail?! what will people think!? but with jeff around, i know that even if i am the worst wedding photographer in. the. world, he will still be there at the end of the day. probably in basketball shorts and a button down because that's how jeff stapleton lounges?

he's my guy. he gets my need for commotion all around me (let's go to idaho! let's go to michigan! let's move! let's go to california!), but also gets that i get over-whelmed at the thought of packing and if the bed is not made in the morning, my life is sort of over.
he just gets me. or at least pretends to. i'm a complex human, you know?

awww. i just adore him. he brings out my sappy bone that will start admitting how much i want babies and a garden and why are bunnies so cute?! he makes me huggy and lovey and makes me feel like my quirks are totally okay. no really, they're fine!

and i'm done. i'm done! it's just that the world needs more jeff stapleton's. he's just a good egg. and mine. maha!

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this post actually was supposed to be a love note to july but hey, our one year anniversary is tomorrow so this seems fitting? eh?

1. rolling your eyes hard while suppressing laughter when he blasts 'the lazy song' by bruno mars for the fifth morning in a row and declares that for some reasons he just feels like he shouldn't do anything today? maybe just lay here in bed? he doesn't feel like picking up the phone, leave a message at the tone? 
2. dinners that make you scratch your head (with gratitude?). tuna melts + orange smoothies! chicken dumplings + steak! spaghetti + sushi!
3. made-up songs for everything and anything, mostly to the tune of 'stronger' by kanye west.
4. quotes. lots and lots of quotes. be it inspirational star wars ramblings or a text patterned after an update on gossip girl (my new text-name is 'b' -- i'm mostly okay with it...) or vague saturday night live quotes from a mediocre sketch. 
5. humble brags. they're cute?
6. furrowed eyebrows that will make you think for the first few months of marriage that he is angry, but really just indicate that he is focusing. le duh. you'll usually spot them when he is cleaning, studying, baking, or dancing. 
7. the latest bed-time in the history of man. holy, night owl! 
8. jealousy over his long + lean legs. if only! crossing my fingers that our kids aren't cursed with my tree trunks and dive into the gold mine of a gene pool that is jeff stapleton.
9. wearing out your welcome hard. jeff stapleton has trouble ending conversations + leaving; he hasn't embraced + mastered the irish exit quite like i have (i don't return from most bathroom breaks ;))
10. lots of smiles + head bobbing, because he's just happy to be there! 

side note: i didn't totally get cut from my basketball team senior year. it was more like a...please take your attitude + antics home type of plea. almost? hahaha. almost. and who actually knows why it says wondershare at the top nor why it gets suddenly super loud every time i speak (oh wait, that's just probably my voice?).

if you talked to me on a monday or on wednesdays around 3, i would tell you that i positively hate valentine's day. it's so in-your-face. so mainstream. so gushy and forced, you know? want me to tell you all about bands you've never even heard of? (i am all sorts of pretentious on mondays; it's just sort of a thing). but since it's friday + i had to refrain from publicly defending rebecca black today at work (...what? she's catchy!), i suppose i'll be full-disclosure and say: i love valentine's day.

i really do! we decided to keep it very low-key and jeff stapleton caught on: low-key means ...i still expect you to make a whole production out of this but want to appear like i'm a fun + cool wife...'cause i am! he brought me breakfast in bed in the morning (...which is actually very uncomfortable if you were wondering). he made me a smoothie + spared me by telling me later in the day that we had ran out of almond milk and he had handed me a milkshake with a few strawberries, essentially. bless him.

at work, a ups man came in with flowers and asked me if i was brooke stapleton. oh! me? brooke stapleton? yes. i am. are those flowers for me? are you delivering me flowers? ...i'm such a douche. i kept the everybody look at me, i got flowers! act up all day and brought it up whenever the conversation permitted. or didn't. because publicly accepting that you are and are going to continue to act like a douche is all sorts of freeing.

am i saying the douche word on my blog? i should probably go bra-less, too.

we ended the night with...oh did i tell you i got flowers?...dinner at a sort of slimy pizza spot. i wore a blazer and an extra three swipes of mascara so it was in fact a fancy dinner date. they even had a salad bar! and a grouchy waitress who reminded us that the endless breadsticks were not for sharing! girl, please.

in summation: i love valentine's day. and i especially love my valentine's day with jeff stapleton. and i'm being so braggy right now; want to hear some of my personal achievements in life? no. okay. done.

i've said it once and i'll say it again: the courtship of brooke mosman + jeff stapleton was fast. but it really didn't feel all that speedy. i never felt rushed or panicked or out-of-control. rather i felt excited and invigorated and alive! exclamation point and more synonyms for the word excited!


that said, exactly one year ago from today, i met jeff stapleton. it was a frigid january day, much like this one, and i was skipping class to grab a diet coke (school is hard, you know?) and ran into my avery-friend. she begged me to walk her to class and we sat outside on a bench, freezing and chatting, when jeff + his friend walked up to chat with avery. they were family friends from california and cafeteria-buddies.

all i can remember is that we shook hands and he went on and on and on about how he had spray-painted the design on his baseball tee-shirt he was wearing. i was freezing and diet coke-less and was mildly interested...mostly because i though the was cute and partly because i found it interesting how interesting he found himself (self-indulgence will be a trait our kids will surely inherit). also how did avery have a friend i didn't know about?! i cute one, at that? the dreaded possessive friend, ready go!

intrigued and bored, i told avery about how i thought he was cute. and tan. and was he always like that? we facebook stalked him to insure that he was single (he was! very!) and normal (he was! sort of!). i remember scrolling through his statuses and one of them was: to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.

...a sensitive type? or aren't those smith's lyrics? ...is he stable?

nonetheless, avery + i composed a hilariously forward message laced with wit and delight and movie quotes. in the light of the day, we composed one hell of a creepy message.

...and one week later, he called me and we went out (i think he needed some time to stew over the message)
and the rest is history. or something like that.

happy friday, friends! feel free to celebrate the meet-cute of jeff + i with some cryptic facebook statuses and a diet coke or three...i'm making up for old time's sake because, thinking back about it, i don't think i ever had one that day.

edited to add: jeff peeked over my shoulder and said that i am such a liar! apparently he mumbled three words about his shirt and claims that our whole encounter lasted less than thirty seconds. pffft.

1. off-color comments muttered in total serious like "i mean, kanye west is my idol but i actually want to be scott disick" or "i have a few friendships completely founded on loving cheese."
2. and, on that note, grocery lists that always involve cheese (in any form: squirt-able, slice-able, or string-able), frozen burritos, and apple juice. always.
3. mirror and window gazes that are longer than socially acceptable. (i advise to leave these uninterrupted)
4. premature compliments that are so sweet but are they really sincere? you haven't even taken a bite yet, jeff? 
5. the most mind-boggling music selection. ever. (jeff has a loyalty problem; he is too loyal to bands. did you even know bowling for soup made other songs? and that weird al is still trying?)
6. long, and i mean LONG, and detailed reviews of grocery stores, television shows, movies, restaurants, and public bathrooms ("on a scale of 7/11 on university's bathroom to barnes & noble's, it's about a three."). 
7. the emergency brake pulled always and the house locked, even if you're in it.
8. laughter. mostly with him but sometimes at him.
9. a false-sense of confidence. if you marry a jeff stapleton, you might actually become less funny (gasp!). he is the best crowd. he will pee over cat videos and roll on the ground over a butt-joke. and your cooking will probably become worse, too (read #2 and #4...it's inevitable).
10. a whole lot of eyebrow raises because you must remember, you don't have much in common with jeff stapletons (besides that you both love fictional-character liz lemon, sourdough english muffins, thursdays, and each other), but that's what makes it fun, right?