Harry Potter Party 3

Here at Casa Halverson we are reading book 3 of HP. When we finish we will be having a HP Viewing Party.

Our first HP Viewing Party included popcorn and blankets on the couch. Oh, how inexperienced we were.

The second HP Party included black wizarding robes, Hermione-accidentally-turned-cat-face-esque Ears, and again, popcorn. We had learned.

The third viewing approaches and, as yet, we have nary a plan. Help me out, folks. You know the book: think escaped prisoner, wild animals, time turners... what else? I don't know which direction our décor or costumes should take. What would you do?

Keep in mind, it will be The Gracetress who will don said costume or be in charge of the décor. She loves this stuff. J and I are merely the Procurers of Movies and Things. I just like to have a few ideas in my arsenal to throw out there when she brings it up.

Ideas, anyone?

A Tale Of Two Bras

Yep, that's right. I said bras.

This Spring I finally admitted to the universe that all was not perfect in my life. In fact, it was time for new bras. And a fitting to be sure that said bras were doing their best jobs: to lift and separate (don'cha know). Very important. I bought three and life returned to its regularly scheduled happiness.

This Summer, however, what with The Wee Beasties Incident and all, a tragedy occurred. I accidentally threw all three new bras into a super hot wash load that happened to also include Bright Red Things. Yes. My new beige, neutral-colored bras. Hot Water. Bright Red.

Sadly enough, one did not make it; both wires mysteriously missing, strange blue/gray/pinkish color, one of the hooks was broken. Did I mention there were also jeans in this load. And also, this was an Accident (read: not on purpose. I would NEVER do this on purpose!).

And then there were two.

The other two came out a lovely shade of mauve and only missing one wire between the four possible (if you're following). Fortunately, I found the rogue wire and put it back. Phew! But then I didn't have any appropriately colored bras for white shirts. Because really, nothing says "I dressed in the dark" or "I'm a skank so look at my bra" faster than a dark bra and a light shirt. (again, don'cha know).

Well, maybe you can see where this is going. I HAD to bleach one of them. Yes, I did. And it did lighten it. It also sped up the decline of said bra, about one-hundred fold. (insert head thrown back in a wail)

This month that rogue wire decided to go, well, rogue again. Only, it didn't just poke out. Oh no. It poked in. Ahem. Very uncomfortable. Things must be done. Or thing. Whatever.

And now I have new bras again.

What have we learned?
A) Never wash bras on anything other than delicate cycle (or hand wash, if you're not lazy or pressed for time like me)
2*) Never wash with Bright Colors
D) Don't Bleach Your Bra. It doesn't like it.


*Sorry, MJ, I totally stole this but it makes me laugh every time.

For The Ignorant and The Haters

See what I did there? I'm that good.

RD -this thread is for all those who have not read the books, never intend to read the books, and will never even pick them up for perusal. No never. Yea verily.

So, this is the thread where you get to vent all your frustrations with the aforementioned books. That's how much I love you. I'm providing a safe-zone for criticizing something you've never experienced.



I'm the best wife ever.

Wha???

People. If you read the book, please go see the movie. I need to have more people to talk to.

Go. Now.

Come back.

Discuss.

Thank you.

I'd Like To Buy An Indulgence,Please

Wrong religion? Darn it.

It turns out that what I really want is not so much to confess my meanness as to receive absolution. J pointed this out to me last night. And it's true. I just want the guilty conscience to go away.

I need to go back to meditating. The thing is, it's hard for me to sit still for long enough to really have a meaningful experience. I think about Enos praying for a whole day and I just don't get it. What did he say for that long? Did he meditate for part of it? How did he fill the time?!

How do you all quiet your mind? How do you make yourself sit still? Or maybe you don't have to make yourself - you lucky dog. Still, I'm looking for strategies for meditation.

If you have any...you know where to find me. I'll be the one running in circles.

The Holiday For Lovers

Yep, you guessed it. Valentine's is just around the bend. Time to get started planning. We're T-87 days until the big event.

So. Ideas anyone? Big plans? I'm sure if we put our collective heads together we can share the wealth of ideas.

Let's everyone getting lovin' and then we can get back together and plan.

No, really, Justin outdoes me every year. I need to step it up this year (well, technically next year but, whatever).

More to follow.

**Edited to add: The truth is, J makes the bed for me nearly every evening because I can not sleep (no, not ever) in a messy bed. The sheets have to be perfectly aligned and I can't/don't want to do it myself.

Also, on bad days he puts my shoes and socks on and even hooks my unmentionables.

So, when it comes to V-Day, if no flowers or chocolates are forth coming...well, I'll take the day-to-day kindnesses any day and buy myself the damn flowers.

That said, J still puts on a good show, more V-Days than not. I'd like to out-do him some day.

Confessions of A Secretly Mean Person

It's important to me that you understand that I can be a mean person. Why? Just because. Maybe so you all will have lowered expectations and then when I do something nice you will be pleasantly surprised. There's just too much pressure in being known as a "nice person."

Sometimes I'm not nice!

I've done some mean things in my life. For some reason, they always come back to haunt me at night or when I slow down (metaphorically speaking) for too long. Naturally, I try to keep busy.

I HATE having my meanness come back to haunt me! Doesn't everyone? Sometimes I wonder if anyone else has been as mean as I have. Any of the really nice people I know (I mean you), who I think are wonderful — have you been mean, ever? Probably not.

If the truth be told (and it is, right here), many of the mean things I have done involved boys*. It just seems a more grievous sin to be mean to my own sex**. Don't we have it hard enough already? Unequal pay, subordination and then meanness from other women?! No. It is too much. We have to stick together, ladies.

We already have the built-in fights: college or not, married or not, kids or not, more-than-one or not, stay-at-home or not, preside or not, breast-feed or not, SO MANY THINGS. To borrow a phrase from the beloved Lola, we should be lovers, not haters.

This post has evolved into something I had not anticipated. Really, I was planning to confess all my meannesses and have done with it. Instead I want to ask, why can't we be friends?

No, really.

Women of the world, why can't we be friends? What gets in the way of us accepting each other? Beside the whole issue of not everyone will like us, individually. What is the reason that we can't decide to accept all women as they are? (Whether or not they accept us.)

Okay, turning the pointer back to myself: what's stopping me? I think firstly I'll need to tone down my sense of outrage and self-righteous indignation. That's going to be a tough one. I really enjoy the outrage.

Next... actually, that first one is a doozy. I'm going to work on that for now. Less outrage, here I come.


*Since writing this sentence ten minutes ago, I have been reminded of the many women/girls I have been mean to. In my defense, growing up with more sisters in the house than brothers puts one at a disadvantage when the meanness points get tallied. I'm just saying....

**Upon further reflection, if the above is not is not accurate (I have been mean to women and men equally), then I guess I'm an equal-opportunity-mean-distributor. Whoa. Watch out.

Various and Sundry IV

At some point, you'll learn to skip over these posts as they're not very interesting, even to me. Until then, while I have someone's attention...

• Where would one find an anthology of fairy tales? Not the traditional Grimm Brothers or Hans Christian Anderson. I'm thinking more Middle Eastern, Russian, African or even Nordic. I want to check out some new stories or different versions from ones I've grown up with. Any ideas?

• Also, I found some fun new (new to me) books: The Ordinary Princess, by M. M. Kaye (I think this was recommended by amazon) and The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan (thanks to D.F.D. for that one). Both are great for kids, and apparently for moms pretending that they are reading, in advance, for their kids but are really just reading for their own pleasure. Good for them, too.

• I came home from a girl's night, last night to find Grace still awake. She called me up to see her and had a very serious confession to make. It turns out that J had fallen asleep while they were watching a show together and Grace switched it to a TiVo'd Project Runway. "Mom. I knew it was getting late but I just had to see the clothes! Then I knew I should tell you. I stayed up until 9:23. I'm sorry." Dude, I stay up for the clothes, too.

• In Twilight news, I won't be going to the midnight showing of the movie. What kind of fan am I?! The tired kind, I guess. How sad for me. So, confess, who's going to be there at midnight?

What Elephant?

This is true: until this election period, I always thought that the donkey was for the GOP and the elephant for the Dems. How did I mix that up? Embarrassing but oh, so true.

Moving on from things I don't know.

In light of recent events, you may or may not have been reading Føfee. If you have, you may have been surprised, disappointed, interested, freaked out, or relieved at what you have read there. I don't know. You don't have to tell me. Clearly.

The purpose of my blog, however, has been to keep in touch with family and friends, post about The Gracestress and to express my many bewildered and bewildering thoughts on all things not political. Naturally, I slipped a little with the "not political" in the last couple of months—I am human.

J, however, has set no such constraints on himself and I admire his honesty and transparency in sharing his thoughts, ideas, frustrations and loves. I generally save my politicking for his blog.

What I have to say is this: I don't want my personal beliefs or disbeliefs to be a reason that we can't all get along. I can't stand the idea of offending anyone and driving a friend or family member away because of something I say or agree with (thus the aim at posting noncontroversial, one might even say milk toast, blog posts).

Isn't it possible for us to have differing, strongly held beliefs and continue to discourse? Or at least continue to make polite conversation until such time as we remember that we have many other things in common: books, movies, books, life experiences, books, friends, perhaps clothes (sorry, I'll return what I've borrowed, eventually).

Everyone here has always been kind, loving and above reproach. So I'm not really addressing this to my lovelies. I just know that both the election and Prop 8 have been a really big deal for a long time and we all feel differently about each of those things. I hope that won't stand in the way of the continued sharing of funny stories, the telling of deep, dark secrets, and the various and sundry other things we talk about. Not to mention the pictures. Oh, the pictures.

I love you all. I'm striving to be more honest about who I am. I'm still figuring out where I'm going with all of this. (If you're thinking, "A hot place," stop that! It's bad karma!) I'm thinking about Gandhi and MLK, Jr a lot these days. I'm thinking a lot about President Hinckley's call for greater decency and understanding. I'm pondering his invitation to welcome all truths into our communities.

Here I am.

My Fair Gracie

Grace and I had a Girl's Day on Saturday. We went to the library, dropped stuff off at Goodwill and perused their aisles a bit. We got our nails done and had lunch at a pizza place.

We went to the mall, picked up a new pair of "church shoes"—if the shoes are not designated as "for church only and forever, no, don't ask if you can wear them to school again" then they get worn to school and scuffed up and then the mom isn't so happy anymore. Flip flops (albeit nice ones) aren't cutting it, what with our colder weather and all.

We stopped in and got some sunglasses for The Gracestress—got to protect those baby blues. We met our favorite people at Sam's and got ourselves invited over, which apparently was in Grace's master plan all along. Good thing it worked out. Thanks, guys.

We ended by stopping in at Target and I let her pick out a dollar slinky. All the way home she sang, Rogers and Hammerstein-style, "The slinky is the greatest gift. The greatest gift of all, the slinky is." And so on. In her most soulful, sincere voice. Also, girl's got volume. And there's no end to the lyrics once she gets going.

Had I known that the slinky would be the hit of our 12-hour day, I think I would have gotten it a little earlier.

But seriously, isn't this the baby going for the gift box all over again? When will I ever learn?

Yes We Can

I'm so happy right now.

Too Verclempt

I already couldn't sleep last night as I considered the outcomes of today's election. J did his best to talk me down and then couldn't sleep himself. Poor guy. For the record, J was the one reminding me, "family before politics."

Fortunately for family relations, he also suggested it would be in poor taste to title my next blog entry, "If you voted for McCain, we can no longer be friends". He assures me, on either side of the aisle, what we really need is to get along and strive for understanding before guns.

A few other people had these ideas in mind as well. I wanted to point them out, in case you haven't already read them.

Big thanks to Christian for sharing this. I'll need to see if I live close enough to anyone willing to admit to my face that they voted opposite me. And I'll need to play nice. Maybe I'll wait 'til after the election to see how I'm feeling about this one.

Also to Darin and Dave for sharing this. I LOVE this post and agree with so much of it. Sadly, as always happens, it was taken in the wrong way by some. However, I think it's a fantastic way of broaching what Christian suggested in his post.

And because I so often agree with RD. Not so much conciliatory but certainly well-thought out. Would you expect anything less of the man I love?!

Anywho, BBQ anyone?

Also, tomorrow, let's all go back to being the best of friends. Happy voting.

A Question and A (possible) Confession

Question: Is is possible I was subconsciously influenced by the works of S. Meyers when choosing my current hair color? Just a thought that occurred to me the other day.

Confession: I think you know.

PS -Maudie Jane don't pretend you haven't had the same thought.

Hey

Hello there, all. I seem to have lost a couple of blogger weeks. Busy life, cranky body, Halloween, you know the drill. To Erika and Nicea, I missed you guys too.

As a peace offering here are a few never-before-seen pics of Frida Kahlo as a child:


And with her dear friend Diego Rivera: