Beedle The Bard

Months ago, J.K. Rowling wrote The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which is a book of wizard fairy tales that are mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  The catch was that she was only writing (handwriting and illustrating) 7 copies.  Six were given to friends who helped her during her life, and 1 was auctioned off to the general public.  Amazon.com bought it and wrote brief summaries of all the tales.  I read them and wished that I could have a copy as well.

Today, which happens to be both Jo’s and Harry Potter’s birthdays, Jo announced that The Tales of Beedle the Bard will be published to the general public!  I am ecstatic!  This totally made my day.  I have been wishing for this for months.  There are going to be 2 editions, one of which looks exactly like the original copies, and a standard one that’s just a normal book.  I really want the collector’s edition, but it costs $100.  Yeah, I really can’t afford that, but I want it anyway.  They’re only publishing 100,000 collector’s copies and they’re already taking pre-orders.  I’d be willing to pool my money with my bro and sisters, but I don’t know if they’ll go for it.  It would mean $25 each, which isn’t that bad, but we’re saving for a Harry Potter convention that’s in May, so I don’t know if we’ll manage to get it or not.

Here’s a link to the story about it, if anyone wants to read it.

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/index.php?articleID=11152

Vacation Time

Tomorrow my family and I are leaving on vacation!  I’m so excited.  I need a break from work!  We’re going to the resort in PA that we went to last year and three years ago.  It’s really fun, there’s all sorts of different things to do.  Water skiing, boating, swimming (they’ve got an indoor pool, outdoor pool, hot tub, plus the lake), various games and activities, and not to mention the food!  They’ve got the best food there.

I hope we have decent weather, though.  It has been a tradition that it rains every time we go there.  Last year it rained and the temperature was in the 50s, even though we went in August.  Maybe we’ll break the tradition this year.

We’re getting back late on Tuesday and will be home for two days.  Lucky me, I’ve got to work both those days.  Then on Friday we’re leaving to go to an amusement park called Seabreeze.  Most people haven’t heard of it, but it’s fun.  We’ll be back on Sunday from that.

New Carpet

I finally took some pics of the new carpet and my room with all the stuff back in it.  I think it was more of a pain to put all my stuff back than to take it out in the first place.  My room looks pretty much the same as it did before we got the new carpet, since my sister and I really couldn’t rearrange our furniture.  My brother and other sister rearranged their furniture, though.  My sister and I just have too much furniture to really be able to move it around anywhere.  It barely fits in there as it is.

I’m not sure if you’ll really be able to tell that the carpet is new just based on the pics.  But it’s really nice.  I love the color and it’s very soft.

The mess that is our closet.  It actually looked much worse before we redid the carpet.

Carpet shot, along with my 4-foot duck.

And another carpet shot, just outside my room.  Yes, we’ve got a random dresser in the hall.  It was mine, and then it was my sister’s, and now the drawers aren’t in the best shape.  My dad’s trying to sell it on Craigslist.

Break The Wind

The other day my mom was leafing through an L.L.Bean catalog and came upon some wind breakers.  This is what she said-

“You know, I’m thinking I might buy one of these wind breakers.  They don’t have any lining or anything.  And some mornings when I’m walking, I just need something to break the wind.’

I immediately started cracking up.

Dragon, Anyone?

I have discovered yet another online addiction.  Did I really need another one?  No.  But I’ve got another one anyway.  This site allows you to raise virtual dragons.  It is really quite fun.  You get dragon eggs and ask people to click on them to help them hatch.  Once they hatch, people have to keep clicking on them to help them grow.

Here is a link to my two dragon eggs.  Click on them to help them hatch, please!

http://dragcave.ath.cx/user/73430

I have also gotten my sister hooked on the dragon raising site.  Here’s a link to her dragon.

http://dragcave.ath.cx/viewdragon/CbaP

It’s Like We’re Moving…

A couple weeks ago my bro’s fish tank leaked all over the carpet in his room and he had to rip up some of the carpet.  My parents decided that they might as well just replace all the carpet upstairs instead of just that little corner of my bro’s room.  They had been thinking about redoing the upstairs carpet for a few years now, but they hadn’t done it yet since it would be so much work.

A lot of work?  That was an understatement.  We’ve spent the past few days taking everything that we have upstairs and putting it in the basement, living room, family room, and office.  It only took me a couple hours to move my stuff, but my bro and one of my sisters took a couple days to gut their rooms.

They’re doing the carpet today and we’re hoping it only takes a day.  Then we get to move everything back.

I took some pictures of my room and the piles of stuff in the basement.  It looks like we’re moving or something.  I never realized how much junk we have.  It’s kind of funny.  I made the pics really big just for yoon.

First, mine and my sister’s bedroom.

And here is the basement.  There’s hardly any room to walk down there.

I’ll take pics of my room once the carpet is finished and all my stuff is back in it.  Poor Weasley is spending a few days in a fish bowl.  His tank will be the first thing I move back to my room.  My room will probably be the cleanest it’s been since we moved in once I’m done moving everything back.

New Blog

My youngest sister has decided to try her hand at blogging.  If you get a chance, check it out.

http://phoenixsongdancer7.wordpress.com/

I have yet to figure out how to make clickable links on this blog…

Disgusting

I had a relatively good 4th of July.  Well, it was good once I got out of work.  Work was utterly insane the entire day, what with people buying twenty packages of hot dogs, ten cases of beer, etc.  I had not seen the store that busy since the weekend before Christmas.

After I was done with work, I headed over to my neighbor’s house with my family for their party.  It was fun and there was a lot of good food to eat.  I probably gained 5 lbs over the course of a couple hours.

However, as I was standing around talking to my siblings and playing this game, I inhaled a gnat.  It was thoroughly nasty.  I probably inhale multiple gnats each year, but this one was particularly gross because I could feel it going down.  Thus is the curse of living where I do.

Official Card Carrying Republican

My brother is turning 18 in the fall and decided to register to vote now so it would be all processed before the November election.  Everyone in my family is quite liberal, my bro included.  Neither my parents or I registered with a party when we registered to vote.  I considered re-registering as a Democrat in order to vote in the Primary, but I was lazy and waited to long.

However, my brother did not register as a Democrat or not with any party at all.  He decided to register as a Republican.  The reason?  So that when the next primary comes along, he is able to vote for the least electable Republican candidate, therefor hoping to increase the chance of disgruntled Republicans voting for the Democratic candidate.

It’s an interesting idea and I find the whole thing rather amusing.  My bro now has a card that says he is an official Republican.  I can now make fun of him for this, no offense to any Republicans out there.

Long Time, No Blog

I have realized that I have been siriusly neglecting this blog.  Yes, that was a Sirius pun.  Anyway, I haven’t posted anything in over a week, which is rare.  This time it is not due to any Plurking.  I have not Plurked in over a week either.  Life has just been utterly chaotic.

My twin cousins’ graduation from high school was last Saturday.  Graduations at their school are quite different than at mine.  Theirs are quiet and the students are respectful.  At my graduation, we were loud and obnoxious and did not shut up even during the speeches.  Beach balls, silly string, and bubbles were all over the place, despite the principal’s long lecture about not bringing them.  Then there were the loud shouts of ’06!’ and the loud horns that people had stationed outside the building to sound when their friends names were called.

My cousins’ graduation was quite different.  The students were all quiet during the speeches and I did not see a single beach ball.  There were some bubbles, but they were being used by someone in the audience.  I was impressed that someone brought some horns and sounded them a bit, which was something that didn’t happen at my other cousins’ graduations years ago.

The party was fun and the food was good.  The biggest difference between their party and parties where I live was the lack of gnats.  At outdoor graduation parties where I live, pretty much everyone has their hand in the air waving away the gnats the whole time.  There was a noticeable lack of hand waving at my cousins’ graduation.  My family found this kind of funny.  Of course, there was also a lack of little black ‘sprinkles’ in the cake.

We arrived home on Saturday night and I went to a friend’s graduation on Sunday.  That one was fun, although it did rain and we had to go inside.  Then, yesterday started my five days of work without a day off.  I worked yesterday, today, and have to work tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday.

Then, a week from today, we are getting our carpet redone upstairs.  This was brought on by my brother’s fish tank leak a couple weeks ago.  So I have to spend Monday and Tuesday moving all my stuff to the basement.  That will be a tedious job.

Other than that, not much new has been going on.  Benny is fine and he helped my mom clean out the refrigerator today.  He cleaned the vegetable drawers.  Sadly there are no pics since I was at work at the time.  Weasley and Moony are good as well.  Weasley will have to spend a couple days in a fish bowl during the carpet project since his tank is in my room.

Oh, and I am pet sitting my neighbors two tortoises for a couple days.  They’re pretty interesting.  I’ll get some pics sometime.  It was pouring rain when I went over today so I didn’t get any pics today.  They live outside.  Their names are Zander and Rocko.