…first, we visited a park. 

     …after that, we went to a vintage arcade. 

    … and we couldn’t go home without doughnuts. 

       quaint, nerdy, delicious…and cheap! 

                our kind of day. 

did you notice all the neat light fixings? hanging geometrical lanterns, stairs, tables, chandeliers,                           alleyways…

        simple pleasures, simple pleasures.  

if you watched this video documenting “a little surprise,” you saw my teary reaction to finally finding out what was making tyler and i squirm with anticipation for months. (we both learned that surprises planned so far in advance are easier to handle if you don’t mention the word “surprise.”)

what the video didn’t show is….

                silly car ride to downtown

pre-show dinner (pate and tartare? oui, s’il vous plait!)

                  gorgeous theater lobby

                 brandi.freaking.carlile. 

…i am a lucky wife indeed. 

oregon didn’t go light on the whole “april showers” thing, so when the sun finally came out of hiding last minute, i wasn’t about to let homework (and two hours til the impending sunset) stop me from basking in its gloriousness. so, i decided to kill two birds with one stone and bring the studying to the great outdoors. gretel too :)

i’m sad tyler was at work and had to miss out on all the muddy, and frankly, disgusting fun, (the nature park by our house may look like fields, but it’s actually an overgrown swamp) but, gretel and i really did have a lovely time…and i was able to read an entire chapter out of my textbook before dusk! it was invigorating, and just what we needed to break out of our usual cooped-up-at-school-and-work-and-the-house-during-rainy-days routine. 

william wordsworth would have been proud. 
 

hello third day of spring,

i’m all about being inclusive and loving everyone, but could you kindly tell winter that this will be his/her last appearance this season? it’s quite rude to show up late and uninvited. 

i did kind of love seeing the flower-snow combo though. kindly send winter my admiration-what an artistic eye! 

aaand i loved eating the snow. 

aaaaaaaand i loved snapping priceless pics & rolling around giddily  in the snow.

okay, i totally love snow, never mind.  winter is welcome any time of year, sorry for bothering you. 

love,

brittany 

ps gertie told me to tell you that sitting at the window and seeing nothing but white is boring. (what happened to not saying anything if it’s not nice?) she is not a fan-but hey, she tried it …and she knocked it.

ty and i quickly realized this when we took the furries out on a snow escapade at 3 am:

so, come morning, (real morning, with actual sun, not this 3 am craziness.) it was a gretel-brittany kind of snow date. too bad ty had to be at work.  :/ 

we’re moving up the ranks people…the husband is now six! 

that’s right, he’s a leap year baby.

we had major plans to “leap” from a flying plane (since we’re crazy/cheesy like that), but it decided to snow on us instead. this relieved my mother tremendously…

…so much that she treated us to an original pancake house breakfast!

what made this morning even more special to me:

 * frothy bubbles from freshly poured apple-cinnamon tea

 * finding snowflakes in my hair

 * watching little snowflakes start to kiss our booth window 

 * tyler lookin extra cute with that accidental wavy-tendril-bang thing 

 * watching my two special people bond 

 * our conversational “a.d.d.” (from potato pancakes to pistols?) 

 * can’t lie….i really like free meals. 

once the post-prandial lethargy kicked in (okay… maybe it’s the all-nighter we pulled), we needed to get cozy. next leap year we might have a kiddo so we better take our birthday naps while we can, right?

it was glorious. 

then my grandparents hosted a family dinner. i think they were ready to party-hardy because I definitely sensed a “mardi gras” color scheme: 

…t’was a fun evening indeed. we got reeaallllyyyy spoiled in the food & family departments. 

what a simple, charming, and wonderful day with my darling. he makes me proud to be a cradle-robber.   :)

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so far this blog has been pretty shiny and fun, but i am finally in a place where i can talk about the heavy stuff. it’s been a tough couple months…probably the toughest in my entire life. so if you want something sparkly and full of effervescent fluff, you might want to discontinue reading. it’ll be a long one. i have no idea how i could make this a short one, i’m sorry. 

if the following seems whiny to you, please consider that i am truly grateful for all my blessings and i am a happy person, but grateful and happy people need to vent too. this is my therapy. maybe i can help some of you out there who are going through similar trials. 

this is a transitory period of my life. 

within the last couple months, i’ve:

moved

quit my job

found a new job

lost contact with two family members

lost two friends who are now in heaven

become spiritually re-charged

started eating healthy & exercising

been on national television

some have been harder than others, but each has changed life dramatically. 

i don’t want to delve into the personal details of all my struggles, because that would cause an even more obnoxiously long post than this one. i’ll just focus on the things I feel need to be addressed most. 

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quitting my job. I nannied for about a year and a half. it was a forty-fifty hour gig. cleaning, laundry, potty-training, cooking, the whole shabam. for three kids. three! all aged six and under! my love for this family kept me working for so long, but it was academically and physically straining…to the point where showering felt like a burden. 

burned out.

working full time, going to school full time, and taking care of my own family & home is more than i could handle with grace..and then taking care of my personal needs? forget about it. i was running on caffeine pills and energy drinks and spiraling out of control. it took my bosses noticing how sickly i was to personally admit that i am not superwoman; it’s okay to acknowledge my limits. facing the prospect of not seeing my favorite three little faces everyday broke my heart, but then something far more devastating put that into perspective.

during my last week at work, i found out my dear friend from high school passed away. bri. we attended the same performing arts program in high school. The program is CRAD-Commercial Recording Arts Department. we had a blast together. (oh the memories of just senior year alone! bri is left at 0:37; peeping at 4:09; lead vocalist on 7:20. i am seen here and there but featured from 7:45 on) 

two days later, one of my final days at work, i got a call while preparing lunch. against all odds, another dear high school friend, from the same CRAD class, passed away. holly. needless to say, i went home early and cried and cried and cried…then cried some more…for days. suddenly it didn’t matter that i was quitting my nanny job…they were still alive and well. they lived a seven-minute drive away, but i wouldn’t see holly or bri until my time on earth was up too.

it was not only my last week at work, but midterms week too. mourning as i was, i barely scraped by. school seemed to be one sick joke. the poems and videos we analyzed in class featured graveyards and detailed stories of carcasses. i tried attending class, but these triggers would send me bolting to the nearest bathroom to cry. then i’d go home and sob uncontrollably. night after night. i sobbed so much i couldn’t even pee. two things kept me going by and large:

         1. my faith

         2. hope that I’d find closure from attending the funerals 

so i prayed. a lot. and i flew to california to attend a viewing and two funerals. i kept thinking, aren’t i too young for this? weren’t the girls too young for this? two funerals in one day. but before any of that could happen, one of my best friends and another CRAD alum, alexis, picked me up shortly after i touched down in cali. she housed me and i couldn’t have gotten through that devastating weekend without her. this is us in the CRAD days:

the first thing we did was go to in-n-out, something i craved desperately since oregon is lame and doesn’t have it yet. i noticed the two girls taking orders were named brittany (bri’s full first name) and holly…

then we went to starbucks, which reminded me that holly used to work at starbucks….

we helped each other sift through these weird encounters and the emotions they evoked. 

then we went to bri’s viewing. intense. 

understandably, we weren’t functioning too well afterward, so we decided to momentarily suspend mourning and use the rest of the night honoring the lives of these vivacious women by doing what they loved to do…being silly, outrageous, dramatic, and out on the town. oh and of course, taking a picture like this before leaving….

and heading to a local bar! we met up with sam (also a CRAD alum) too. well i don’t drink alcohol, so i made up my own funky drinks…you know, blends of ginger ale & pineapple juice & things. but believe you me, everyone thought i was drunk by the end of the night. i maximized my personal brand of wholsesome craziness and silly extrovertedness…dancing, singing, you name it. it reminded me of a similar situation when we CRAD students flew to england to perform at the famous cavern club. here’s some pics from that 2008 trip:

and two extra special ones: 

                   bri and me at buckingham palace

believe it or not, this wasn’t posed. it captures a magical moment in my life…there was something indescribably significant about strolling down a stone lane in liverpool having girl talk after visiting the cutest little cafe. maybe for the first time i felt cool, or adult, or something. i’m not sure exactly why, but it really left an impression on my life. i’m so glad holly was there with me (far left). 

(such an awesome trip with plenty of bonding and memorable moments, like singing queen on the tour bus and in a haunted tavern, even getting bird poop on my hand) 

…after many silly memories were made at the bar, we noticed the movie “better off dead” was playing on the mounted tvs…an unnecessarily ironic reminder that there were two funerals to attend the next day. time to go home. however, it was the first night in what felt like forever that i smiled before falling asleep.  

and the heaviest day arrived. two funerals, overlapping. we had to miss bri’s burial service and still didn’t make it on time to holly’s. they were both so different, but equally heart-wrenching and comforting. it felt good to applaud and toast to the amazing lives that were lost among all their loved ones.

it felt good to see bri’s face one last time on earth and show her my love, as tragic as it was, because i know her spirit was there watching. it was closure.

i was asked to sing “yesterday” by the beatles at holly’s service. i couldn’t get through it as well as i’d hoped. but it’s the song holly said she’d wanted sung at her funeral. i was honored to grant her wish and have the chance to make her feel special…because i know her spirit was there watching. it was closure. 

closure. 

the next day, the CRAD alums held a get-together in a newly moved & renovated classroom. alexis drove us there, and on the way we took this picture at a red light

and passed the spot where holly was struck by a vehicle on PCH. we squeezed hands, rolled down the windows, and screamed “i love you holly!”

at the get-together, we watched all the videos of bri and holly’s performances during their high school career, even their initial CRAD try-out videos. tears, laughter, hugging…it was all there. and it was beautiful to see that through sharing grief in a tragedy, we were reunited again. it felt like no time had passed. and our bond is so much deeper now. after the videos, we had a tributary concert of sorts, where many of us, mostly unrehearsed, sang songs that reminded us of the girls. i sang a few duets. one such duet was a harmonized version of “i will follow you into the dark” that sam and i were known to sing in high school. bri remade this version with her own vocals, a fact that was unbeknownst to me until it was played during a slideshow at her funeral. knowing i inspired her really touched me. because i thought it was always the other way around. 

before, i presumed funerals were mainly for the deceased person; now i know that grieving people greatly benefit from them too. holly and bri, in their passing, have changed my heart. my whole life perspective. my spirituality. the way i want to embrace life’s malleable and fragile moments. 

i strive to honor their essences through mine. i take bri’s dramatic, attention-commanding, active dream-chasing, glamorous personna and holly’s weird-embracing, uniquely goofy, sweet, dull-moment-abolishing personna and imbibe it as best i can. i’ve always had these qualities, (some of which are shown here-from our england trip) but i haven’t been as brave to showcase them as i’ve gotten older. so from now on, why hold back?

lately i’ve been texting people pictures like these. holly would be proud. 

it’s ridiculous. it’s comforting. it’s hilarious. it’s liberating. 

also, i started doing yoga every monday. holly loved yoga. 

to honor bri, i’m working on implementing false eyelashes into my beauty regimen. it seems silly, but bri wore them every day. anything to feel closer to her…to feel like her memory lives on. at bri’s viewing, her mother did something very touching. she looked at me and a few other CRAD members around me, held up the rock horns, and said, “bri lives on through you.” i promised myself i would make that happen. so, be expecting a lot of accomplishments and a surge of confidence coming from this girl. bri used her passions with an insatiable vigor…that’s what i’m gonna do. 

these girls are one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable…i can’t even begin to encapsulate the magnetism of their personalities …they are truly legends in the way they inspired everyone around them. but i only hope to preserve what made them so special by incorporating what inspired me about them into my life, and hopefully that inspiration will continue to flow through to others. i also hope holly and bri are laughing, singing, and dancing in heaven just like we all used to do. 

i am still sad, but it’s a peaceful kind of sad. i know the girls know how loved and missed they are. i’ll see them again.

while treading this turbulent time of grieving, i also dealt with the massive attention being on american idol brought me (google “tripster the hipster” or “brittany zika” and you’ll see). i guess dressing up like a stereotypical hipster to differentiate myself from the massive slew of caucasian blonde singers worked….because i got major air time. i was in nearly every promo, and even opened up the portland auditions episode. online impersonators, a new friend request every three minutes, and a contract that obligated me to stay tight-lipped proved to be very stressful. i wanted to tell people all about hollywood week: how i couldn’t sleep for days on end, witnessed a seizure five minutes before my group-week performance that scared me out of my wits, and naturally forgot the lyrics to my song-not that i had a voice to begin with since i had laryngitis. but i wasn’t allowed to say anything so i had to keep that weight on my already-sunken shoulders. this proved to be especially difficult since i was back with my CRAD buds, my biggest supporters…the ones i practically grew up with in terms of becoming my own artist.  here’s some shots from my first appearance on the episode:

nevertheless, the weekend in california wasn’t all sadness and stress. i got the chance to hang out with my inlaws and my biological dad, with whom i recently reconnected with after 21 years of not knowing each other. 

unfortunately, since then, he’s become out of contact and off-the-wagon in every sense of the phrase. it’s not an unfamiliar feeling. my cousin, who used to stay with us, ran away earlier this year to revert to a life of crime and fast money. i have two family members whose whereabouts and safety i have no knowledge or control of. it’s scary.  

but from all these tribulations, i have learned that i am a strong woman. i can do this, this whirlwind experience we call life. and i can do it zealously.  

Gag me with a spoon  frog leg. 

originally, i thought these were chicken drumsticks. but alas, there was a label! kind of hard to tell it says “frog leg” when “na po tofu” is clearly seeping through from the other side. that should have set off so many alarms right there. any place that can’t be inconvenienced to make a fresh label for a new food pan display probably shouldn’t be bothered with customers either.  

despite the shoddy label and pan-bottom-cement-glued, dried-out, veiny amphibianness of it all, i had to try these bad boys. i must be sick in the head. but maybe not, because tyler was more thank okay with sharing the experience. 

yeah, you can tell who was more enthusiastic about the whole frog leg thing. 

we were lured to this joint from an ad promising unlimited lobster. the only lobster i found was plastic and hanging from the ceiling. i guess frog leg is the next best thing? worst seafood buffet ever! 

everything tasted like it came from rotting ocean. bummer. so we decided to make things a little more fun…instead of eating our food, why not play with it? after all, our mothers weren’t around!

*there are many more embarrassing pictures in stock, but i honestly can’t look through them without getting that pre-vomit gag. 

after leaving that plighted palace of putridness, we went on a mad search for the only thing that could fix our defiled taste buds: dessert. we knew our best bet, at such a late hour, would be this outdoor mall that has our favorite gelato hangout.

don’t be fooled by those smiles. our favorite gelato hangout was closed for renovation. 

the grocery store it was! we were desperate…

eureka! that carton of green machine did the trick. [its no dessert, but i think this was a healthier, smarter choice]

 i don’t think tyler and i will go to a buffet ever again, no matter how enticing the coupons/ads are.  at least we got great memories out of it! 

once upon a date night, tyler and i strolled downtown to a see our uber-talented thespian friend cory star in a one-man show. his performance induced laughter, tears, and so much pride!!!! it’s truly incredible to see loved ones share their talents…definitely served as my dose of inspiration for the day. 

oh, and the theater! how to describe it….retro-urban-warehouse chic? it certainly tickled my inner artsy fartsy. 

portland weather decided to surprise us [ha!] with a rainy greeting after the performance let out. usually when this happens, my hot chocolate-detector kicks in. no cocoa-dispensing establishment within five blocks can escape my radar. it’s a gift. unsurprisingly, starbucks was the closest beeping target. 

there were plenty of open seats, but I chose to sip my cocoa on a sack of coffee beans. for a mormon, i’d say that’s living on the edge! 

last week, in celebration of new years eve, we thought we’d keep things quaint by having breakfast at our favorite little authentique restaurant français, la provence. the archways, the any-shape-you-can-think-of-shaped bread, the sumptuous treats….don’t get me started on their brioche aux amandes or their benoît meurette! its pretty much impossible not to imbibe the “vive la vie” spirit while those gourmet flavors mingle with one’s palate. (watching husband’s face light up at the sight of a fresh hot croissant is reason enough to go for me). this place is oozing with french milieu and charm.  plus, i love that i get to practice the language i love so dearly with all the employees!

*ps i definitely ordered a side of french onion soup during breakfast hours. its just who i am.