I’ve read each of the Harry Potter books no less than 5 times. Some, like Goblet of Fire, I’ve read at least 10 times. And when I say “read” – I mean physically held the book in my hands and turned the pages. I’ve done Midnight release events for all since Goblet of Fire, although I didn’t actually leave with one in my hands that first night because I didn’t know I had to pre-order. I just showed up at midnight by myself to get the book. Once I realized I wouldn’t get one, I left and returned when the store opened the next morning. The last three – however – I pre-ordered and drug LilZ along with me. I think the most hysterical picture I have on flickr tagged with Harry Potter is this one. I remember ORDERING LilZ to take the picture as the transaction occurred for the last book. You know, because I wanted to capture that moment for posterity.

For the record? I only have like 2 photos of MrZ and I together at our Wedding Reception. Those moments were evidently not as important.

I have all of the books on CD. I can’t tell you how often I’ve listened to each of them because it’s too often to recall. I also would sometimes skip parts I didn’t like (Not because they were bad, but because they upset me in some way. Like when Harry searches out Nearly Headless Nick in Book 5 desperate to find Sirius as a ghost.) so I didn’t always listen to the stories all the way through. Some time last year I finally imported all of the CDs into iTunes and now can listen to the books on my iPhone. Here’s the kicker: I actually made a running playlist out of my favorite parts of Book 7 to get me through my last half-marathon. YES…you heard me correctly. I listened to random and disconnected tracks of Jim Dale reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when I ran a 13.1 mile event – and I liked it.

I really enjoy listening to the books on walks and such with the dogs so I started from book 1 when we bought the house and decided to not skip too many parts and try to really listen all the way through. I do this about once a year (that’s how often I listen to these books) – I try to “read” them cover to cover. And it’s funny – after reading and hearing these books SO MANY TIMES, I still discover things I didn’t catch before. Sometimes I’m guilty of skimming scenes I don’t feel are “important” or tuning out if I think I know them well enough. This time around? Two things new I have caught so far:

• In one of the early books a suit of armor laughs at Neville when he falls. I don’t think I realized they had personalities, I just know they were ordered to fight to defend Hogwarts in book 7. But the fact that they could react on their own to a situation? I didn’t realize.
• In book 6 when Slughorn introduces the love potion, before Harry realizes it’s a love potion, he makes note of smelling a flower he thought he had smelt at the Burrow before. And then, after the class is over, he mentions smelling it again in the hall before Ginny walks up. He doesn’t make the connection in the book (he hadn’t quite realized his feelings at that point yet) but knowing what I know it was cute to discover that.

I’ve been thinking about Harry Potter a lot as we gear up for the last movie. It has been such a big part of my life, and I’m sure it always will be. But I wonder, how different will it be for Nikki and Wes? To enjoy it…after the fact. I’m so glad E has been the perfect age throughout all of this to really allow us to enjoy it together. He re-read the books (the old-fashioned way) cover-to-cover recently too, to prep for the final movies. We take this Harry Potter stuff very seriously, you know. And we’re about at the end of the anticipation part of it all. We’ll always enjoy reading the books and watching the movies, and I’m sure I’ll have the books memorized by the time I die. But that anticipation part – the excitement of the upcoming book/movie release? That’s less than a year from being completely over. And that makes me a little sad.

Me (a curly-headed Tonks) and Professor Sprout

I still don’t have internet at my new home. I had some issues last week with Comcast not showing up to turn on our service. I bitched online. Several Comcast people contacted me, reassured me it was isolated, sent a nice guy out last Thursday to get things set up. He gave me his cell phone number because he was going to have to come back Friday since one of the jacks we needed required special tools. I was okay with this! I’m okay with most issues that arise with service because I’m a reasonable customer! And he stood me up yesterday. Didn’t return my phone calls. *sigh*

So, I’m at Panera just to relieve the anxiety that is building up from not blogging. I was thinking how I didn’t want to show you pictures of the house until it was “done” – then I realized it will never be done. So, here are just some pictures of random things I want to tell you about. YAY! Random!

My new fridge with my old personality finally put on it. The house didn’t have a fridge and the one at our old house is staying with the house, so we bought a new one last week. It didn’t feel right until I put my stuff on it. I still have a few postcards I haven’t found yet, but for the most part? It’s my fridge.

Our aprons. Mine and Nikki’s were gifts and came from Anthropologie. I got Wes’s from Etsy.

We set aside money for furniture when we started shopping for houses because we knew we’d need some if we found the size house we wanted, and we haven’t bought hardly any real furniture as adults. This was our first purchase and still our favorite. It’s from a new little import furniture store in town called Nadeau. It’s brilliant and we’ve bought several other pieces there – all reasonably priced. I may or may not have kissed this table several times.

Dad’s Shelf. I put all of his books I salvaged for sentimental reasons (he had hundreds of books) and several of the miscellaneous items that were special to me for a variety of reasons.

The built-ins in the “Man Room” – which will be the room Donnie watches football. He’s going to finally get a sound system that he’s been wanting for years but our old house had a too-small living room for such a thing. This one is huge. I took charge of putting the books in the built-ins and made sure to keep it as masculine as possible. In other words – the Twilight books? In the “Girl Room” downstairs. Next to my hot-pink hardback copy of Alice in Wonderland.

NikkiZ in her Big Girl bed. LilZ got a new bed and this is his old one. She is not transitioning as well as I’d hoped but she loves it – nonetheless. I painted this room and Wes’s – but I painted them last so they look much better than LilZ’s and the playroom. I learned a lot in the two weeks I spent painting. NikkiZ really wanted a pink room but I couldn’t do it. There is already more pink in our lives than I can stomach on most days…lavender was our compromise.

Was she happy to have pictures of her family in her room? No. Was she happy when this one finally found it’s way out of a box? Of Course.

I bought these little butterflies on clearance at Hobby Lobby over a year ago. I told NikkiZ we had to leave the in the packaging because they’d be for her own room when we finally bought a new house. It was very cathartic to finally hang them up. She wishes they were pink.

We are going to have an upstairs “office” area for the kids to use. This is it. Since we only have one desk, it looks a little pitiful right now. But since Comcast hasn’t turned on our internet yet? We see no reason to stress about it.

Wes’s room. (I painted it!) He was already transitioning sleeping in the trundle at the old house, but then his sister was in the top part. He’s actually transitioned quite well but I think that has more to do with him being exhausted at the end of the day and less to do with anything on my part. When we feel comfortable that he won’t roll out of the bed, we’ll push the trundle back under the real bed, but until then? He’s sleeping ground level.

MrZ’s old abacus and Wes’s piggy bank. They look cute on display. When the kids shared a room nothing was displayed except for a few figurines of NikkiZ’s on a shelf on the wall. I’m looking forward to setting things out in their rooms now.

We scored this table on Craig’s List. I’ll be reupholstering it eventually, but it’s perfect for the kitchen. And since it’s used I have no concerns with it getting destroyed. Love this find.

I’m very weird about coffee. I have to have it every morning but only my coffee in my house. Take the same brand, same coffee maker, same sweetener and same creamer and put it somewhere else? And I’ll swear to you it tastes funny. This coffee tasted perfect the first morning. That’s how I knew we were home.

Well…the coffee and the monster pile of recycling. That is when it truly felt like home. And for the record – the beer bottles? Not all ours. We had our first family dinner at our house on Sunday. Most of those are from other people. I SWEAR. The diet cokes, however? ALL ME, BABY.

Hopefully we’ll have internet again soon. I’ve missed you all and truly hated doing the whole “Mark All As Read” thing in my feed reader this morning. But several hundred entries? In the 20 minutes I’d have internet? No. Can. Do. Gotta blog instead.

And watch the new full-lenght Harry Potter trailer a million times too – of course.

My birthday present from LilZ

Best. Birthday. Ever.

Between roses from my husband the day before to the premiere of Harry Potter the first two hours of the day after, my birthday was most wonderful.

I actually put on makeup before I went shopping yesterday. I don’t even wear makeup to work, so you know I was trying to impress someone. I’m just still not sure who.

I had good luck at Gap and Banana Republic. I bought a few other things at a few other stores I’ll probably never go in again, but mostly from the two stores I’ve actually shopped at before. I went in avoiding solid color 100% cotton tops and blue jeans. That’s all that’s in my closet now. I came home with several pair of non-denim capris, several simply pretty blouses, and THREE SKIRTS. Can you believe it? I bought SKIRTS. And more shocking than the skirts? Shoes with BOWS on them. BOWS. And no one was confunding me to do so.

Speaking of confunding…

I saw the Harry Potter premiere last night. (No spoilers! I promise!) Or, early this morning, I guess. I was 110% pleased with 95% of it, if that makes sense. 5% of it, however? Eh. I was fine with most changes and manipulations in the story. I’ve come to expect, and almost look forward to those because it gives me something to be surprised by. However, there were TWO additions I was unhappy with and ONE omission that disappointed me. I think I’ll wait to see it one more time before I place my final judgment.

I will say this: Rupert Grint (Ron) is utterly adorable in this film.

Now back to the non-birthday real world. *sigh* At least I have new clothes to wear. And something about new clothes makes it much easier to deal with going to work after only 3 hours of sleep. It’s like…magic.

We have a winner! Therese won our contest and she declared Sorcerer’s Stone as her favorite as it opened up the world of Harry Potter to her. I’ll be emailing her to see what version of the audiobook she’d like. Now…my turn to respond!

I can’t! Why do you think I asked you to tell me your favorite? Because I can NOT. I agree that Sorcerer’s Stone is the one that started it all…and it therefore holds a certain special spot in my heart. However, for my favorite? I would have to choose THREE.

Goblet of Fire: The net between the dualing swords of Harry’s and Voldemort is one of my favorite of all the books. As Harry realizes that his Mom will reveal herself in the web, my heart stops every time. And Cedric requesting that Harry bring back his body? EEK. From that point to the end of the book I was just mesmerized. Something about the realization that Voldemort is back and that no one is going to believe him. I love that book.

Half-Blood Prince: For all of the reasons you all stated. Mainly because suddenly the ancillary characters like Luna and Ginny and Neville all get to shine. Especially at the end when they’re part of the battle. I love when Harry realizes that Luna and Neville had probably been checking their coins for a DA meeting all along.

Deathly Hallows: Because it was exactly what I wanted in a series end. It could have only been better if had never ended.

And for those of you trailer hunting like I am in anticipation for next week’s movie release – have you noticed the changes? I’ve started picking up on a lot of them in interviews with the cast members and in disections of trailers. And I just want to go on record saying: I’m fine with that. I try to separate the movies and the books as much as possible. Of course I’m sad when they leave out my favorite parts, but I understand that weaving these thick stories to fit a 2-hour time frame has got to be near impossible. I have enjoyed all of the movies as much as the books simply because I avoid comparing the two. I do everything I can to keep them separate so I can enjoy them both.

And also – let’s be realistic. I love these books so much that there is no way I could ever criticize anything associated with them. I’m kinda stubborn like that.

I’ve always proclaimed my adoration for Jim Dale and the Harry Potter audiobooks. I bought every one of them and have listened to them several times over the years. I don’t think I would like to listen to an audiobook if I hadn’t read the book already, it would require too much concentration. But since I had read the Harry Potter books several times each, the audiobooks required no concentration. Yet they still always revealed secrets to me I had missed while reading with my eyes.

I thought I’d test the fondness by purchasing the last two Twilight books and listening to them, since those two books are my favorite. And let me tell you: Jim Dale spoiled me. It set an unreasonably high standard. He gives all characters unique voices without seeming fake in anyway. He miraculously keeps those voices for the characters for all seven books. I never think about the fact that a boy is reading the girl lines. Yet he does. The girl that reads the Twilight books? Not that talented. It took me awhile to get used to her reading the parts of Edward and Jacob and not rolling my eyes to myself. Thinking, Yes. Adding a growl to your girly voice doesn’t not help. Nice try. And she didn’t change her “male” voice for different male characters so that go confusing, especially when males were talking to each other. Somehow that’s easier to keep up with when reading than when listening on audiobooks.

But once I got used to her and stopped comparing her to Jim Dale. I was fine. But listening to those books, I ended up being surprised that I didn’t discover something I missed while reading them. I think I just always assumed all audiobooks would do that for me – ends up spotlighting things I missed when reading myself. I assumed this was a trait of how I read, maybe often skimming over parts. The same parts even when I re-read books. But evidently? That’s not the case with the Twilight books. I enjoyed them, don’t get me wrong (once I got past Jacob sounding like a girl), but I didn’t learn anything new.

This weekend, however, I decided to re-listen to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to prepare for the movie. And I remembered all over again, how much I adore Jim Dale. And as I caught another tidbit in the description of a certain scene that I had missed one of the dozen times I had read or listened to the book, I realized there are still secrets in these books for me to discover. That’s what makes the Harry Potter books amazing, they’re filled with so much detail. Whether it’s a casual reference to an ancillary member of a scene you didn’t realize before, or a main character revealing something you missed amidst the other descriptions. In Half-Blood Prince, Harry references a smell and recognizes it from a scene before. While I have read the book and can of course attest to what the smell is, I never realized any of the several times I read it OR listened to it that he noticed that smell. This is probably the 8th time (at least) I’ve digested these words in some form, yet this time? I noticed that he noticed the smell.

So, while they’re outrageously priced, they’re totally worth it. And today? I’m going to do something special. I’m going to have a giveaway. This prize is only something those who have read the book should try to claim because I would never encourage you to read the books out of order, much less listen before reading. But – if you’re read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, then you should enter this contest. I’m giving away the audiobook Jim Dale reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I’ll either ship it to you on CD from amazon or I’ll give you an iTunes card so you can get it for your iPod, whichever you choose. All you have to do is answer me this in the comments by the time I wake up tomorrow morning and close the comments:

Which book is your favorite of the Harry Potter series?