This is my shiner. 30 years old, and I finally get my first one. I'm so proud. :)

The fabulous black eye you see here is courtesy of my two-year-old, who hit me with her head while we were playing. (I tried telling people I got in a fight, but no one freakin believes me! So much for upping my street cred...)

She was lying next to me in bed, when she sat up. I thought (silly me!) that she was done playing so I moved my head to where she was, when KA-BLAMMMM!! she threw herself backward with a force wielded exclusively by fearless two-year-olds, leaving her mother seeing stars, for realz.

In this pic it's a day old. You should have seen me yesterday. And I can't wait till it starts turning green! I'll have to wear matching eye shadow or something. It'll be a "look". :)

Aaaannyway, I wanted to come say hi, because I've been neglecting you. I know I've been neglecting you because my internet browser doesn't even prompt me with the blogger website address anymore. It has forgotten you. :( But no more!

OK, well, not for today, anyway. I'm still in summertime blog slump mode.

(Not for long though...two weeks til school starts! I can't decide whether to laugh or cry. Kind of a disappointing summer, this. It better not rain between now and school...)

SO hi. That's it; nothing much more to say for now. I'm supposed to be studying new Zumba choreography, so that's what I'm going to do. ;)

overwhelmed

Wow, haven't been here in a while, huh?!

Well, I came here to vent, kind of.

I am so, so, overwhelmed.

I feel like I'm coming out of a cocoon, or a long hibernation or something. I'm looking around my house, and it is such a mess. Not like your average mess. A big, huge, hairy, ugly, unorganized, disaster mess.

Now, it's been like this as long as we've lived here, pretty much. But I'm realizing as I sit here that I've been in this daze of depression for so long that I just let it happen.

And now that I'm taking care of myself and feeling better? I can't believe this! I'm so disgusted and frustrated and...and...overwhelmed!

I get the mothering thing. I can do that. I love my kids and the time I spend with them is so joyful.

I get the wife thing. My husband and I are very blessed to still be deeply in love, and I feel like he and I are only growing closer as we get older.

I get the work thing. I mean, I do it, anyway. I hate my bill-paying job, but I do it because it pays the bills, and I pretty much do the bare minimum to get by. And I LOOOOOVE my Zumba job, but it sure takes up a lot of my time. Time I could spend on the house thing.

I do not--I repeat, DO NOT--get the house thing.

"You want me to what? Clean? Every day? And...cook? Every day? Who does that?!"

Seriously. I don't have time for this shit.

But! I'm learning. I'm learning that my attitude of "we're renting; this isn't OUR house" doesn't cut it because while it isn't our house, it is our home. And...I'm learning the cleaning thing.

Although, in case we needed evidence as to what a dork I truly am...I'm learning how to keep house...from...a book.

Gah, I'm such a dork.

My poor mother is groaning. You know, it's not like I didn't have chores growing up. I did! I folded laundry (although my husband will tell you I still totally suck at it). I mowed the lawn! I raked leaves. I cleaned my room...occasionally. I cooked dinner and cleaned the kitchen every night.

But hell, that stuff was easy to do when I didn't have a job (ahem, two jobs) and a hubby and kids and a social life and hobbies and...the damn internet to suck up all my time!

OK, coffee break's almost over. Then back to cleaning. Possibly. I have good motivation: I want to have a yard sale to earn money for this and this and this and possibly these, and if I clean the house, I'll find more stuff to sell. I'm trying to do a two-birds-with-one-stone thing. Get yard sale stuff, clean and organize. All that = me overwhelmed, though.

S'all good. I'll just push off the yard sale another week or two.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

Although, can I just say? What is it with my kids that they ONLY want to play with the very stuff I'm trying to clean! I clean the playroom, they go, "OOhhhh, clean playroom!" and trash it. I clean the craft table? "OOooooh! We have paint!" and trash that too.

My next cup of coffee might just have something extra special in it.

this would have made college a WHOLE lot easier

www.easybib.com . You type in all the information for the sources you want to quote in your paper or whatever, and it spits out the citation in MLA format.

I could have seriously used that 5 to 10 years ago. Internets! Where were you when I needed you?!

i'm renaming the blog "the stupid things i do"

Yesterday I was doing mad crazy laundry. Seriously, the clothes that five people go through! At some point I knocked a box of dryer sheets off the shelf above the washer and dryer. I figured it went behind the washer and dryer, but I couldn't see it anywhere. I thought I'd wait til hubby got home so he could move stuff around a bit and we could grab it, so I continued with the laundry.

Much later I came by to unload the dryer and switch out the stuff from the washer.

Yeah.

As I'm pulling stuff out of the washer and throwing it in the dryer, I notice there are dryer sheets stuck in with the clothes.

That's weird, I think. There shouldn't be any dryer sheets in there...

Then I notice there are bits of...stuff..in there too.

Oh no. Oh no no no no NO!

Oh yes. The box of dryer sheets fell into the freakin washer while I wasn't looking. And that washer did a job on that box too. Tore it to shreds.

So I had to take all the rest of the clothes out--and they were covered in cardboard box shreds, like the box just exploded in there--and vacuum out the nasty cardboard bits. Then I reloaded all the clothes and had to wash them again, hoping that a second wash would get rid of the box bits, rather than just turning them into cardboard glue or something.

The good news is most of it came off. The bad news is my entire outfit today smells faintly like dryer sheet.

Fun times! ;)

Just some random things I'm pulling together and calling a post:

• It's raining really hard. I just went to drop Devy off at the bus stop and got soaked. It reminds me of when I worked at the local renaissance faire (shut up, like you didn't know I was a dork by now!). When it rained like this, there would be puddles everywhere. But the ground was covered in wood chips, so unlike normal puddles, these puddles would have wood chips floating in them. So you wouldn't know there was a puddle there until you--whoops!--found it the hard way.
• Bek is quite the escape artist lately with regards to her clothes. You put her in for a nap and before you know it, poof! Two seconds later you check on her and she is completely buck naked, the diaper is on the floor, and she's sleeping in a puddle of pee. She has to wear footy pajamas all the time so we can safety-pin them together so she can't unzip 'em. And even then she manages to get them seriously wrenched out of whack.
• I just picked up this free "parenting magazine" from the rack at the supermarket. At first I was like, "Oh, nice, it is extolling the benefits of keeping your child from getting too overscheduled. How lovely." But then you turn to the back of the magazine and there are, like, a bazillion ads for ways to overschedule your child. And the article on balancing family time and work time is nicely balanced by tons of ads on how to buy back your kids' affection with crazy toys, parties that will one-up the neighbors', and of course, ads for the perfect preschool or private school, so as to assuage your guilt at not being home with the kids by sending them to the very best of everything. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a big advocate of unity between moms of all working arrangements. You should do what works for you and your family. But if guilt is a major factor in your family life? Then somethin aint workin.
• The childwatch at the Y I teach for just had a case of MRSA Staph diagnosed in one of the kids. Now, part of me is like, "Aw, poor thing, he's OK now, right?" (Apparently he is.) The other part of me is all, "Decon! Decon!! We aren't going back there until the whole place is dipped in antibacterial hand sanitzer! Aaaarrhh!" So now I'm analyzing my poor kids to death. Every mole, pimple, cut, and bump are scrutinized to pieces before anyone is allowed to go anywhere. Grr stupid Staph infections.
  
• Lessons in reading the label: I bought this baby bath wash by Johnson's. It's called Johnson's Naturals, or something like that, and it comes in soothing green packaging. But...I read the ingredients list. Now, I may have only barely passed Chemistry 101 in high school, but I'm pretty sure the only things on this list that were natural were water and olive oil. Or olive butter. Whatever it was. And I just made myself lunch, and OK, I'm trying to cut down on the sugar so I made myself a turkey, cheese, and pickle sandwich with some Polar Seltzer to wash it down. The pickles? Tons of sugar. And the Polar? Not seltzer at all, but soda with high fructose corn syrup. I'm so smart. :P Of course, we won't even go into what...um, goes into...my beloved International Delights seasonal flavored coffee creamers. Because they are necessary. Much like water. Or, air.
  

Now if you'll excuse me, this kind of rainy crappy fall day is my favorite kind of day for sitting in a comfy chair by a window, with a snack and a book. Kind of like this:

• 

(I don't want to brag or nuthin. But, she's 5. And she's reading a chapter book.)
(Either that or she's just checking out the pictures.)

nanowrimo: day 2

So, it's NaNoWriMo day two. I really really wish I could tell you that my novel is off to a great start.

I really wish I could tell you it was off to any kind of start.

But...I haven't written a single word. I haven't even opened a new Word document. I don't even know what I'm writing about. I wish I could take the novel I started last year, the one I had to abandon when my computer crashed. I really like that one, and I would love to finish it. But that would be cheating.

Maybe I could just wait until day 11 or so--that's when the laptop died last year--and take up my last year's novel from then.

Maybe?

Nah, still cheating. Tempting, but cheating.

This is the third year I have done NaNoWriMo. The first year I was newly pregnant with Bek and spent most of November sleeping. The second year--well, you know. So this year I am determined to finish my 50,000-word novel, if it kills me.

And considering the fact that each November the housework goes undone for a month, if the writing doesn't kill me? The husband will. ;)

I just have to stop thinking about how great last year's start was. It's hindering my efforts to brainstorm something new. Hm. OK, tonight, at work, I'm going to put a serious effort toward putting down some starting notes. Then I'm going to get myself jumped up on caffeine and come home and start typing.

I need some good writing music. Zumba music? The theme from Rocky? The Notre Dame fight song? Maybe some Dropkick Murphys.

That part would be a lot easier to put together if I hadn't promised to not steal music. Grr.

So anyway, yes. Tonight. I will write. I'm supposed to write 1,667 words a day to make 50,000 by the end of the month. Today is day two. So that's what? 3334 words by the time I go to bed tonight.

Erg.

I told hubby we should have bought new furniture this year!!!

(Go Sox!!! I knew you could do it.)

I'm in geek heaven because November 1 (which is only 16 days away, people!) marks the start of NaNoWriMo, or, National Novel Writing Month.

For those of you not in the know, NaNoWriMo is an opportunity for literary-minded people to write a 50,000-word novel. So those of you who have always said, "One day...one day I'll write a novel!" can now put an end to the "one days".

The writing is fast-paced and crazy, which is great for people (like me) who tend to over-analyze to death the stuff they've written. See, when you only have a month to finish your novel (that's 1667 words a day, people!) you don't have time to sit back and criticize yourself!

So pick up a pen and a ream of paper, or set up your computer somewhere where there is easy access to the coffee maker and the bathroom. Lock the door. Count down to 12:00:01am, November 1 and start writing until your hands hurt.

Then meet me at the local coffeeshop. Preferably one with free wifi. For, you know, email breaks.

I'll be the redhead with the laptop, the huge coffee cup and the bags under her eyes.

It's almost one in the morning. I was just lying in bed, completely unable to sleep. It might be all the things I have to do, circling around in my head.

Or...it could be that Diet Rockstar I drank a few hours back. Hm...maybe.

So while I was lying in bed for some reason I was thinking about my j-o-b. You know, the one I can't mention online under penalty of death.

I was thinking specifically about people who get paid a straight salary or hourly wage, as opposed to people who work for comission.

See, my company pays us REALLY good money to do what we do. It's ridiculous how much money we make, really. Not that I'm complaining! See, I make the same amount of money whether I'm working my rear end off trying to make mucho dinero for the company, or sitting around making photocopies.

That makes me a happy employee (I like my easy job, and I'm well paid!) and a competent employee (I've been there forever because they pay me too well to leave!) and it makes the customers happy because they get to deal with happy competent people, but it doesn't make me a very motivated employee.

We have a bunch of programs (that were not in place when I applied for the job, but whatever) that we're being tracked on. So if we're one of the lowest locations in the region for any given program, we get flack. But if what I just said about getting paid the same no matter what I'm doing is true, then why should I work any harder to reach our program goals, just for the bosses to say, "Good job. Now this time get this many."?

So then I look at people I know to be commission employees. Like at cell phone kiosks, retail clothing stores, that kind of thing. If you've got money, maybe you like shopping here because the employees are very attentive, and very careful to remember your name and what types of things you like to shop for. Maybe they even have your number so when something you might like comes in, they can hold your size and call you in.

But if you don't have money, like me, these kinds of employees come off as pushy, irritating, and self-serving. These kinds of employees make me want to yell, "Back off! When I want something I promise, I will come get you!" And I always feel like as soon as I walk in, they jump over each other to get to me first, and they're probably brawling while my back is turned. :)

So here you have highly motivated employees who don't seem too happy (that is, underneath their perfected customer-is-my-life's-joy facade), who annoy the customers, and who have a generally high turnover rate.

Nothing about this post is supposed to be particularly intelligent or persuasive--it's way past my bedtime y'know--it's just what I was thinkin about while I was lying awake, eyes refusing to shut.

some random observations from the tragically unhip household

1. It doesn't matter how many Zumba routines, kids' birthdays, song lyrics, gossip details, or job prodcedures I can memorize--if it is a dentist appointment, I will forget it.
2. The fake cobwebs we put up for Halloween are competing with the ones the spiders left...and losing.
3. It doesn't matter how long or hard I clean the house all week long--after a weekend of me working and the rest of the family home, it will just look like it did before.
4. Just because a diaper is cheap doesn't mean you should buy it. In fact, diapers are one of those things you should really splurge on. Unless, y'know, you like cleaning up that kind of stuff. Freak.
5. Babies can't digest corn.
6. Goldfish crackers make good last-minute coating for homemade chicken nuggets.
7. I feel guilty spending $30 on fuzzy warm boots I will wear all fall and winter, but it's way easy to spend the same amount on a Halloween costume my kid will wear once for about two hours.
8. I seriously need to hire some 12-year-old kid to teach me how to use my new cell phone. Seriously. How the heck do I text someone? Get my pictures from my phone to my computer? Change my voicemail message? Anyone??!

Craziness!

School is back in session, which means the Tragically Unhip household has been inundated with paperwork.

Cuz, y'know, it just wouldn't be school if they weren't sending home requests for volunteers for the school parent association (gag me), the library, the computer room, the school fair, the school store, the fundraisers, and the school walk; reminders to send payments for school lunches, school pictures, book fairs, and student magazine subscriptions (for which the teachers sign up the kids and then demand payment from the parents); memos on a thousand different school policies, and on and on.

Then, for parents stupid enough to provide their telephone numbers, there are the twice or three-times-weekly prerecorded telephone calls reminding parents of upcoming events. The upcoming events that we are also reminded of in the weekly emails we so foolishly provided addresses for.

When, exactly, do I start to just send my kid off to school without worrying about the homework she's going to bring me ?!

And now that two of the girls are in school, it's all doubled.

Sometimes I think those homeschoolers have got something.

Then the coffee kicks in. ;)

In other news...this weekend I am going away on my sweet, sweet annual women's retreat. Roughly 48 hours of no kids, no hubby, no chores, no diapers, no work...and I get to see my good friend Connie who, incidentally, I met on the retreat my first time there three years ago.

We always have such a great time--especially playing volleybally until the wee hours of the morning. Connie usually whoops my behind. I'm not too athletically inclined. ;) And there's crafts, a rifle range, archery, pedicures, quiet time, a talent show of some sort, and all the coffee and hot cocoa I can drink. All in the very beautiful mountain lakeside scenery of upstate New England in the fall.

Can't wait!!

people like me shouldn't blog, redux

I posted this on my weight loss blog but thought I'd bring it over here too. It's two! Two! Two posts in one!

Why do some people just have to try to bring other people down? Are they SO miserable?

That's it. I'm way too sensitive for this internet crap.

I was on YouTube browsing through videos looking for choreography videos for Zumba class. There was this one chick who make a whole series of videos on how much Zumba sucks/is stupid/should tell people they look bad in tank tops before letting them up on stage. She was so mean! I couldn't help wondering what she was doing there if all she was going to do was make fun of people.

Oh. You mean, like, maybe that is why she was there? Do people really suck that hard?

Part of me really, really, wanted to comment and point out that she's no prize-winner herself. The better part of me argued that that would just make me like her. So I totally started a flame-war on her butt.

OK, kidding. I kept my mouth shut.

And then I commented on this other video to tell the girl how great a dancer she was and I would love to try some of her moves in my class. Someone replied and said "whatever, Zumba sucks anyway, it's not real choreography" except they said it in the too-cool-to-spell-correctly way that all the hip kids do (gag).

Like I freakin asked you?

GRR!

I would never dream of trying to cut down someone I don't even know. It's bad enough being mean to people in person who you might legitimately have some kind of beef with. But anonymously online? Pretty tough when you're just some empty faceless voice, right?!

Life is hard. Instead of making it harder for each other, how 'bout we go through life buoying each other up?

Just a thought. Oh, and have I told you I like your hair like that? You look nice. ;) hehe

And oh yeah!! School started today! I'm such a bad mom--I forgot the camera, so there are no pictures of my baby Devy's first day of school. I'm going to dress her up in the same outfit tomorrow and pretend it's today. I kid.

But oh my goodness did I CRY like a big freakin baby when she got on that bus! She just...ran up like she has been waiting for this day for three years or something. Oh wait, she has. I remember so well the day Jo started kindergarten and it was everything I could do to keep Devy from climbing up into the bus behind her big sister. She was only 2 but she didn't care. She wanted to go to school!

Uh...Oh, there I go again. *sigh*

But!! I had a Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino today from Starbucks and while I don't think I'll go the frappuccino route next time--too sweet--the pumpkiny flavor and chilly air and the leaves that are omg already starting to fall made me all fall-ish. Yum.

i wanna be feared and despised when i grow up!

I had a dentist appointment this morning.

The good news is, not only did I actually go, as opposed to the last two or three appointments that I skipped, but only once did I get poked in a place that sent me jumping out of my chair. I thought it was going to be much worse. I credit God for listening to my desperate prayers while squirming in the chair waiting to start. Thanks God, you're the Man.

The bad news is, I have so many freaking cavities that the dentist's office has to call my insurance company to schedule the treatments. You know, so the insurace will cover them all? Yeah. That sucks.

The other good news is I got a prescription for Valium! Real live Valium! Because if it takes me three or four tries to go in for a cleaning, just imagine how nauseous I get when the words "root" and "canal" come into play!

Now I just have to get someone to take care of my kids all day so I can sedate myself before my Appointment with Hell.

In other news...T-minus 24 minutes and counting until Devy gets on the bus. Somebody hold me!

colors of fall

Signs that I am not ready to send the kids back to school:

1. I'm bothering to blog about it.
2. I still haven't bought school snacks because looking at anyting vaguely back-to-school related makes me all teary.
3. I'm pouting as I write this.
4. I refuse to go to sleep because when I wake up it will be one day closer to back-to-school and don't bother trying any of that "It's coming regardless of whether you sleep" logic crap.
5. There are large amounts of things not normally found in the Tragically Unhip household such as Pop Tarts (which suddenly come in delish ice-cream-y flavors like mint chocolate chip and cookie dough) and expensive sugary brand-name cereals and Oreos and five cartons of ice cream (although one is actually a box of ice cream pops, so there) partly because I want to give my children special treats--and we don't usually use food as reward around here, not healthy, don'tcha know--and partially (OK, mostly) because I'm all emotional and eat-y.

It isn't usually like this. Usually, by the second week of August I'm all, "Someone call the school! They've got to open early! Get these kids out of my house!!!" But this year I'm just not ready. I don't want my babies to leave me!!

Why? Well, I think there are a few things. For one, we had a great, fun summer. Last summer Bek was a little baby and I was overwhelmed and PPD and we didn't really do much or go anywhere or see anyone. This summer she's older, I'm healthy, we did lots of fun stuff, and I don't want it to end.

For another thing, this is the first year that Devy is going to school. She was my baby for four years before Bek was born, and now she's all...big. She's reading and writing and conversing and getting independent and where she used to be a little fraidy-girl princess, she's now braver and stronger and more sure of herself. And I put her hair up for the first time (ever!) today and I swear she looked 7, not 5. Not my baby.

...hold on...there I go...gimme a second...

OK.

And Jo, the oldest. She's 8. She's so great. I love talking to her, and she's not a little girl anymore. She's still young, of course, but you can see the young woman she's going to be. She's matured so much.

I am so, so thankful I get to stay home during the day to be with my babies before they're off to school. Cuz once they go to school it's like you're no longer their primary influence. Their number one concern is no longer whether they're pleasing you. The whole world comes into play. And it's wonderful, and I'm thankful that I can give our girls a solid foundation from which to launch them. It just stinks because sometimes it feels like that's it for me. I've done my job and now, because I work nights and weekends and don't get to spend much time with Jo during the school year, I have to release her to daddy and the rest of the world. Good thing hubby's there--what would I do otherwise?

Oh, the melodrama. I just had to get it off my chest. :)

Now I can concentrate on all the good things about school starting...like FALL!! My favorite season!! And pumpkins, ooh, and pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, and sweaters, and tights, and boots, and crunchy leaves, and the smell of fires burning, and HALLOWEEN! and crisp apples and apple picking! and cider and hay rides and haunted houses and hot cocoa... I love fall! Fall fall fall, fall fall fall...

such a dork

Do you ever find yourself saying "It bugs me when..." or "One of my pet peeves is..." and then thinking Gee, I kinda say that a lot. Maybe I need to lighten up.

Well, anyway. One of my pet peeves is when I go to a place that says "Open til Midnight" and I get there at 11 and I just got out of work and I'm starving and I have a lot to do and need some caffeine so I order a bagel, toasted, and a latte, but the bagel toaster is shut off for the night and the latte machine has already been cleaned so I have to settle for just nasty burned iced coffee and a stale sliced-but-not-toasted bagel instead and still have to pay the same amout I would pay for good food at 8 am.

I mean, I know you want to go home. But if your sign says you're open til midnight then I should be able to get what I want until midnight. And if you have to stay til 1 am to close up afterwards, well, that's what you're getting paid for isn't it?

Is it because not a lot of people come by for that sort of thing so late at night? Well then, why are you open so late? Is it because you get a lot of coffee orders that late but not much else? Then, maybe your sign should be "Open til 10. Just-coffee from 10 to midnight." Then you could just make it drivethru only from 10 to 12 because no one needs to go in to order just-coffee.

Is it just me?

Oh! And that reminds me of another thing that irritates me! Earlier today I went to get an ice cream cone before work. (I know, I need to stay away from the fast food places but it was a crazy day.) And I was helped by this guy who helped me the last time I went for ice cream in this particular place. And the last time I was there for ice cream, I licked it and it went plop! right on the pavement so I went back inside and ordered another one and was very thankful the dude didn't make me pay for it because it was his fault.

Why? you ask?

Because he didn't push the ice cream into the cone. He just let the big round scoop of ice cream sit on top of the cone. I hate that. You can't do that! Because then, when you lick it, what happens? Plop!

So today I went in for an ice cream and I was so excited because they had coffee-Oreo which combines two of my all-time favorite flavors so I got a single-scoop cone and was helped by that same guy and I walked out to my car and licked the cone and sure enough--plop! And of course I looked into the cone and there was no ice cream in it.

I was about to storm into the store and give the guy what-for--and now, thinking about it and getting all mad all over again, I wish I had--but the complacent part of me was pleading with the angry part of me, convincing me that we really had to get to work and did we really need that ice cream anyway?

So your lesson for today, kids, is push the ice cream into the cone, and don't tell me you're open if all I can get is burnt coffee.

mind yer p's and q's

Is it just me...or is politeness way out of style?

It seems like everywhere I go nowadays, people don't look at each other. Don't smile as they pass. Don't say "excuse me" when they squeeze past you in the aisle at the store.

At my job there are a bunch of new hires--kids, all just out of high school. I smile, try to act friendly so they'll feel welcome in their new jobs, but apparently I am just too old and uncool to react to because they just stare straight ahead like I was Kimmy the Uncool Ghost.

And at the store! Just the other day I was looking for some stuff in Michaels and their aisles are really tiny and this kinda big tall lady squeeeeezed past me and didn't even acknowledge that there was another person in the aisle with her.

And at work the other other day I was helping one woman and there isn't much room at the counter so when she backed up to get away from the desk the other woman who was right behind her almost got stepped on and instead of saying "excuse me" she just gave the backing-up woman a rude look. When she came up to me I said "You could say excuse me," and she went off on how she wouldn't be stepped on by rude people. Is it just me? Is it too much to just be polite even if the other woman could have been more careful? I mean, the second lady was kind of up the first woman's butt--she was kind of asking to get stepped on.

So your assignment for today is to go out into the big wide rude world and go out of your way to put some politeness in it. Hang up the cell phone before going up to the clerk at the counter, rather than forcing her to guess what you want while you chat to your other party. Say excuse me even if the other person was wrong. Smile and make eye contact when you pass someone in the store aisle. Just be nice for cryin out loud!

I swear, it will make your life, and everyone else's, a whole lot better! Do it for me, OK? ;)

i'm done!

Finally done with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and it was SO SO good. It ended just exactly the way I wanted it to.

I don't know anyone else who has finished it yet so I'm dying for someone to talk about it with. If you read the book and want to discuss, email me at kimberlypaine at comcast dot net and we'll chat. :) I'm reading it again, slower this time. That's how good it is--as soon as you finish you want to go back and do it all again. ;)

Well the downside of all this (besides no new HP books) is that I seriously have to go clean my house. Three days of reading nonstop except to pee and possibly eat means that my house is a total disaster. Fun fun!

get mad

I am so mad about this. The New York Times somehow got its grubby paws on a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and has published a review, complete with too much information for anyone who wants to, oh I dunno, wait until they can read the book for themselves.

Who'd'a thought the NYT would stoop to scooping a story like HP#7 and spoiling it?! I'm in disbelief. That's something I'd expect from some trashy tabloid. Not that I read those. Well, OK, I might. I might even use them as my main news source. But anyway...back to the NYT.

The Leaky Cauldron has posted a letter you can send to the paper at letters@nytimes.com. You can use theirs, which I am reposting here, or you can write your own. Theirs is pretty good though. Here it is:

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to express my disappointment that your publication printed an early review and details of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This goes against the express wishes of the author and anyone that calls themselves a true Harry Potter fan.

It is hard enough for a Harry Potter fan to avoid spoilers on the Internet and news stations now that the book appears to have leaked; now we have to avoid trusted outlets as well. You’ve not only disappointed millions of children around the world with your actions, you have disappointed the millions of adults who look to the New York Times to be a bastion of good taste and standards. When the New York Times succumbs to such tabloid tactics, who won’t?

Many ask why we care - why fans aren’t all so rabid to get the book that we’ll sop up any illegal download or purchase. There’s one simple answer: We respect the author. We thought that a newspaper like yours, where so many of your reporters become authors themselves, would understand and respect that. We’re so saddened that we were wrong. We feel let down by you and your editorial board.

Sincerely,

Your name here
Harry Potter Fan, and member of Jo’s Army

So, go now, send the letter. It's your duty as a fan!

book 7 is coming. be ready.

If you've been living under a rock for some time, I'm going to tell you: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the 7th and last book of the ten-years-in-the-making Harry Potter series, comes out at 12:01 on Saturday.

I'm very excited.

I get like this with any series of books in which I'm all invested in the characters. To me, any writer who can make me feel like I know his or her characters personally is a good writer--even when it makes me look superdorky, talking about (and caring about! and crying over!) the characters like they really exist. Like, they're real live people whose lives will continue on even if we don't get to read about it.

But this one gets me even more excited because there are movies! And merchandise! And book release parties! And billions of other fans who want to do nothing else but theorize on what's going to happen in the very last book!!! So, it's all pretty intense. Which cracks me up because if you're not a fan, you probably haven't even noticed.

"Hm? Harry Potter? Are those books still around?" :)

So yeah, the hubby and I went to see Order of the Phoenix the other night, which just served to feed my pottermania, and as I watched the movie that tried to cram the longest book of the series into the shortest movie of the series I couldn't help but glance over at hasn't-read-the-books hubby and wonder if he had any idea what was going on. Cuz, you know, there is just so much to everything. He said he liked it OK, but of course that's only because he has no idea of the vast array of information he is missing.

Like, OK. Where to start.

[Oh, and Spoiler Alert in case you haven't seen OotP yet, or read the book. In which case, get a move on already.]

[Ready??]

[I warned you.]

[OK.]

• We never see Sirius's dear old mum. We just hear her mumbling behind her curtain. Frankly, I think this is a good thing. But still.
• There's no sense of how they spend the entire summer cleaning the house, and how Kreacher sneaks stuff off.
• The whole bit with Molly and the boggart? Not there.
• No indication of the new Divination teacher or how he got booted from the forest.
• No Quidditch. I know!!
• Cho is substituted as the squealer, revealing the DA, courtesy of Veritaserum.
• The fight at the Ministry is cut super-short. There's no brains trying to eat Ron (poor kid gets no scenes nowadays), no spinning hall of doors, hardly any evidence of all the kids' hard work in the DA paying off.
• The whole bit with Rita Skeeter and the way Hermione blackmails her? Gone.

[/spoiler alert]

Basically, everything is on fast-forward. I know that they didn't cut out anything superimportant, but jeez, I could have standed it being like twice as long, at least. All the fun stuff was gone, like Ron taking the lucky potion (that was OotP, right? crap, I'm all confused. better read them all again.) All my favorite actors (Emma Thompson! Helena Bonham Carter!) and characters (Mad Eye! Tonks!!) were on screen for like, two seconds.

The wierdest thing about the movie, though? Everyone looks so old! I mean, of course the kids do. But in one scene there was a close shot of McGonagall and I wanted to cry, she looked so old! And Hagrid, and Snape...(My apologies to the actors--I should say you look older, not just old. It's just weird. It's like seeing your aunt when she's 38 and not seeing her again til she's 58.)

Ugh, I have to go. It's 1am and I have lots of ebay posting to do and I just don't make any sense at this time of night. But anyway, if anyone in my area is going to a release party on Friday night, take me with you!! Just give me notice so I can grab a Mischief Managed tee shirt beforehand. :)