Saturday, November 28, 2015

The day Dumbledore died

My oldest two and I have been reading all of the Harry Potter books together over the course of 2015. It started out b/c I was curious.  This series of books fell past my childhood reading, and for that matter, college reading phase.  So I missed it.  When Elena began to be curious about Harry Potter we decided that I would read them aloud to both Elena and Victor.  And thus, the Harry Potter Club was formed!
We have read and read and read...these books have been so fun to read aloud!  After I read them, Victor read the first two on his own.  Book five was a freakin night mare...it was not very good, and it was very long.  Somewhere along the way I read a spoiler alert that Snape was going to kill Dumbledore...so I knew it was coming.  I thought it would happen in book five--but it did not, so then I thought maybe that report had been false.... (fingers crossed).  
Book six totally redeemed the series!! It was fabulous!  BUT --as Elena and Victor and I lay reading the other night, the spoiler began to reveal itself as truth.  I could tell it was going to happen...
AND IT DID.  When Dumbledore died we all cried...I was crying so I could hardly read, Elena and Victor were both beside me crying (Eva was lying on top of me asleep).  We had to stop reading before we could read about the funeral.  The next day I had a work day at work and I had the best day.  I listened to the radio and just worked away, checking off my workday list.  Then, at the end of the day, a little gloomy cloud settled itself right over my psyche...when I got home Andy and I were talking and we both decided that this happened b/c Dumbledore had died!  We had become very attached to Dumbledore.  We watched the movie last night (we only watch the movie after we have read the book), and the part where Dumbledore was killed by Snape was not even sad...nope!  
After book seven (the last one) our Harry Potter club will end.  It has been so fun to have these books to read to them on nights when Andy has to work.  TV  basically sucks--we either have to watch Disney shows together, or there is a murder show on....or football.  So, I guess we will have to find another series of books to read. 

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

My personal {flair}


The house itself is bare!  One might try to disguise this as minimalism.  I however, just neglect to decorate.  I have wreaths which I could put on the door, and some years I do.  This year, however, I have not hung a single wreath.  I like to keep the neighbors guessing!  "Wiill she or won't she bring out the seasonal wreath?" 
If you look very carefully here--like with the eye of an archaeologist, you might discern an old flower bed.  There are rocks in a circle...I bet, at one point, there were flowers here..some azaleas or something! :)  There used to be a tree too, apparently.  Now, we just need to rake it out.  If we wait patiently was are going to have a pine tree there eventually.  Hey baby tree!  One  or two of the rocks in the circle is a giant piece of coral fossil.  It is very cool.  The gravel around here comes from a mine where they mine phosphate. They have to mine below with level of the Castlehayne aquafer.  The ocean used to be where we are, so there are bunches of sharks' teeth, and hunks of coral fossils.
This is a pile of pine straw, which I will be raking up Thanksgiving day...it is driving me crazy, but I will say...it does just scream, "fall!!"  And, if you look in the picture below, you can see another pile.  That one is leaves.  There are pecan and oak trees all over the yard...so we have leaves galore!  That pile will also soon be removed.  So, maybe after three posts, I have made one point.  Flair eludes me.  The older I get, it even eludes me in my clothes.  Should I just claim to be a minimalist?  That claim, to me, implies a choice.  Am I making a choice to be {flairless}, or is it just by default.  I refuse to say that it is lazy...b/c my lack of flair comes from a lack of care, really.  Where do you place yourself?  In the flair camp, or the non-flair camp, or do you actively claim to be a minimalist?  

Spot on!

Spot is our family's chihuahua.  He is what we call, "an evil dictator/stuffed animal come to life".  Sometimes, after he has ...