A Ravenclaw at Platform 9 3/4

My sis and I at Platform 9/34 at
Kings Cross Station in London in 2007

Apparently I'm a full-blooded muggle because I smashed into the wall face first.  Either that or Dobby REALLY didn't want us to come to Hogwarts.  Most likely because he heard I had devoured Twilight in one sitting.  (I swear, Dobby, even though I'm just slightly team Edward, I am Team Harry ALL THE WAY! I PROMISE!)  Bella's incessant whining and stuttering, Edward's weird displays of affections (i.e. staring creepily at her while she slept) and Jacob's excessive shirt-ripping have NOTHING on the courageous Harry, Ron, and Hermione!

Tell me friends, have you ever wanted to know what house you'd be in if you went to Hogwarts?  This quiz has been around for a while, and if you haven't taken it yet, you probably a) live in a cave or b) hate HP.  In which case, if you chose b, you can just leave.  Now.  Buh-bye.

Okay, now that we have the TRUE fans (and those of you who live in caves)... take the quiz!  I just love this one.  It is pretty much spot on, in my opinion.

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!


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Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Tell me what your house would be and if you think it fits you!

**click HERE to get sorted!!**

And now for the sad news:  I won't be seeing the midnight showing :(  In fact, I won't be seeing it until sometime next week when the stars align and hubs and I actually have a consecutive 4 hours off together AND a babysitter can be found.  So those of you going tonight- I am SO jealous!  I can't wait to see what everyone thinks on Friday!

Excuse me while I go and cry into my pillow because it all ends tonight!!

Don't forget to visit my Pottermania friends to see what they have to say today!

Jen Daiker

Michael DiGesu

Laurel Garver

Lisa Galek

Renae Mercado

Colene Murphy

Melissa Sarno

Deathly Hallows Week!

It's finally here!  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 comes out on Friday!  Can you believe this will be the last Harry Potter movie EVER?  Its been a long but fun road, but we always knew it would end.  Makes me a little verklempt just thinking about it.

All the stars looked simply dashing at the Premier the other night:

Photo Credit

And OMG, Neville has a HOT girlfriend!  Good for him!  I love him!

Photo Credit

And of course, Jo was there in her um...floral comforter.

Photo Credit

If you want to read more about the premier and see the rest of the stars just click on the any of those photo credits above!

To celebrate the upcoming release of the movie, several bloggy buddies and I have decided to dedicate our blogs to all things Harry Potter this week!  Please clicky on everyone's links to find loads of fun HP stuff!

Lisa Galek
Melissa Sarno
Laurel Garver
Colene Murphy
Jen Daiker
Melissa Wideen
Michael Di Gesu
Renae Mercado

First off:

Lisa Galek is having a contest! She is SUPER cool and is spending the week at the Leakycon 2011 convention at Harry Potter World in Florida!!  She gets to watch HP7 with all the other crazy HP fanatics Thursday at midnight.  SO jealous.  Plus I think some of the prizes will be some cool loot from HP World itself!

I'm a judge for the contest so make those entries count!

For a little light reading (as Hermione would say) go HERE to read some fun articles from the Hogwarts student-run paper Thestral Gazette.  My Abby Gabby piece is included, so make sure to check that out.

And lastly, E! online is running an awesome Twi-Potter Tournament in which they put a person from Twilight against a person from Harry Potter.  Each day you can vote as to who would win their duel.  (I mean, it's totally obvious to all of us who would win...but it's fun to see who they pit against each other.)

So tell me, friends.  What has been your favorite HP movie so far? (just movie- we'll cover the books another day)

For some reason I keep going back to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  Even though Harry is shunned for the first half of the  movie, the end with the prophecies and the fight between Voldy's Death Eaters and The Order is just so awesome.  And then the super cool Yoda/Vader fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort just blows me away every time.  Although I'm anticipating part 2 on Friday will give it a run for its money.

**P.S. I will be traveling back home from Chicago on a train all day so I will have zero internet access :(  I promise I'll catch up on blogs tomorrow!
P.P.S. 10 hour train ride = awesomeness.
P.P.P.S. Oh wait, no it doesn't.

TWO WORDS:

HARRY POTTER.

Dude, you guys.  This is it.  The beginning of the end. 

Emma Watson was NINE YEARS OLD when it all started....she is now 20.  Crazy, isn't it? 

Rupert Grint rapped in his audition tape about how he wanted a part in the series he loved so much

.

And Daniel Radcliffe had only just made his acting debut 2 years before Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone was released, and was also approved by J.K. Rowling herself for the part of Harry

When the first movie was released in November 2001, I was 20 and in my second year of college.  Hubsies and I had been dating for a year and a half by now.  I am pretty sure I had read at least the first book, if not more (my mom gave me the first one to read and said, you HAVE to read this....being that I love anything YA fantasy, I said sure!), but he hadn't read any of them.  We saw the movie and he was blown away.  We went on vacation with my family to the beach the next summer and he (and I) mowed through all the books that were out by then.  Up through Goblet of Fire I believe.  We read them all in a week.  We were hooked and every book after, we have gone at midnight of it's release date to get it. 

I remember one year, (2003) the local Barnes and Noble was SO crowded (I think it was for Order of the Phoenix) we went to walmart where we found a HUGE stand with a million Phoenix books on it and no one around.  Except a girl in a wedding dress and a guy in a tux.  Yep, midnight on their wedding night: superfans. 

Little Monster was born on July 12 2005.  And guess who went at midnight on July 16th to get me Half Blood Prince?  Yep, Hubsies (we were up anyway with a hungry/screaming/pooping baby).  I'm pretty sure we read it during 2am feedings, and afternoon naptimes. 

Deathly Hallows came out in 2007, and I'm pretty sure Hubsies went to get this one at midnight for us too (I wanted to leave the 2 year old in bed and go too, but I guess that's frowned upon).  Pretty sure we devoured it in just a couple days.

Anyway, during our college years we went to every midnight showing.  Once Little Monster came around, it got a little harder.  But we always went within the first few days. 

I just can't believe how much time has gone by, and how much our lives have changed during this roller coaster of someone's imagination.  I went to college, dated my husband, graduated college, married my husband, got a job, moved 10 million times in the same city (renting..ugh), had a baby, bought our first house, and now just recently celebrated that baby's 5 year birthday.  Just crazy. 

And now we're going this morning after we drop Little Monster off at school!

So where were you during all this?  What can you remember from the past 12 years since the books were published and the movies came out?  What changed in your life?


**Stay tuned on Monday for the recap of meeting one of my crit partners for the first time, Colene Murphy!

Books to Movies: Love Em? Hate Em?

So, I'm sitting here watching The Golden Compass on tv, and I started thinking about why some books that are made into movies succeed, and others tank.

Movies like The Golden Compass, Eragon, and Percy Jackson didn't get very good reviews. Others, like Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and The Princess Bride are just spectacular*.

I was SO excited when they announced the making of The Golden Compass, and when it fell flat I was disappointed.  But I couldn't quite put my finger on why it (and others) have fallen flat.  I think when it comes down to it, it's the ability of the director and screenwriters to translate the book into a movie.  Honestly, the acting in The Golden Compass was pretty good (plus there were lots of big actors in it), and the same can be said for Harry Potter.  Seriously, Daniel Radcliff's performance in the first Harry Potter was far from oscar-worthy (luckily his acting improved a million times with each film). 

So I think the key lies in whether the director knows how to translate the book into a movie.  He/she has to know what to put in and what to leave out.  They have to know what can be changed without angering the audience too much, and how to flesh the dialogue out and adapt it for the screen. 

I absolutely fell in love with Lyra and Pan, Lee and Iorek, and the relationship of Lyra and Will in subsequent books in Phillip Pullman's series.  The book itself is so complex and riddled with political commentary, but at the same time weaving a beautiful world of fantasy and souls that live outside the body.  I wonder if it was just too much to put in a PG film.  (Okay, and honestly, as I'm watching it- it's not too bad.  But maybe because I read the book- it's bringing back all those emotional feelings I felt while I read it.)

I always said the problem with Eragon, was it was just a "skeleton" of the book.  There was no flesh, none of the rich history to it

 

Percy just changed a whole lot of things, even though the kid that played him was wonderful in my opinion. 

So now I'm a little worried about The Hunger Games movie- what will happen with it? Will it go the Harry Potter route, or the Eragon route?  I've also heard rumors about a Sabriel movie which worries me even more- what if it's awful?  What if Garth Nix waited all this time (like Phillip Pullman) only to have a not-so-good movie?  I just hate that it might not do the book justice, and it will turn people off from reading it. 

It also seems like nowadays people are jumping to make all these YA books into movies.  They should let them simmer a little...get people excited about the book, let it become a classic, and then they can choose who they want to make the movie.  I think part of the problem is many authors have almost no say in how the movie is done.  Meg Cabot had pretty much nothing to do with Princess Diaries and Avalon High (which premiered on the Disney Channel the other night) and they were drastically changed with not-so-good reviews.

So what do you think?  What books-to-movies did you like or not like?  Is there a certain formula they have to follow, or is it just luck/bad luck on how well they do?


*Um, yeah, so I didn't mention Twilight for a reason- so many people loved the movie, but c'mon glittery vampires with make-up lines on their necks, looooong teenage angsty pauses, and dude...where the heck did Carlyle get that accent?  So, Twilight's kinda in a league of it's own.

Writing Schedule

I figured, if I write down a schedule on here, then I have to stick to it right?  Because the internet's always right.

So, here is my weekly schedule I'm trying to hash out.  So far I followed it pretty well on Monday with a few setbacks since I got off work a little later than normal.

Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays:
7:30am-12:30pm: Work at the "day job"
1-1:30: Walk the dog and eat lunch
1:30-3:10: WRITE
3:10-3:45: Pick Little Monster up from school (I KNOW, I sit there for like, 10 years.  When it's nice out, I walk and it cuts out a lot of that waiting time)
4-6: Catch up on blogs, emails, internet schtuff, etc all the while entertaining Little Monster (Thursdays is gymnastics at 4:30-6 but luckily the Y has internet etc)
6-8:30: Dinner, relax and watch some tv or read, get Little Monster ready for bed
8:30-9:30: Get myself ready for bed, sit in bed and read crit partners ms, go to sleep.

Tuesdays:
7:30-5:30: WORK for 10 hours straight at the "day job"
6pm: die (and then get Mcdonalds for Little Monster who has been at the babysitters since school let out)
7:30-8:30: Little Monster bed routine
8:30-?: WRITE, blogs, read, catch up on shows till I can barely keep my eyes open (I'm off on Wednesdays)

Wednesdays:
7-8: "Sleep in", get Little Monster ready for school
8-8:30: Drop Little Monster off at school
8:45-10: write lets be honest- go back to bed
10-12: WRITE
12-1: eat, walk the dog
1-3:10: WRITE, blogs, internet blah blah
3:10-3:45: pick up Little Monster
Same 'ol same 'ol

Saturdays and Sundays:
Clean the pig sty house
Hang out with Little Monster
Catch up on blogs
Playdates
WRITE

Doesn't seem like much time to write when I put it all down, but at least it's something!

So you may be wondering, isn't there a husband in there somewhere?  Erm, I think so.  He's basically MIA until after Christmas since he's like Uber-"Customer Solutions Manager" of a HUGE chain store.  10 hour days, 6 days a week.  He takes Little Monster to school in the mornings, and then he doesn't come home till like, midnight.  So yeah.  Christmas season is AWESOME.  I wonder if I'll remember what he looks like in two months?

Oh, BUT we both have the 19th off together!  And you know what that means? 

We get to be super cool and see Harry Potter at like 9:30am with all the old people who need those special ear thingies while Little Monster is in school!  But, it's totally opening day and we get to go!  Woohoo!  (old people see HP right?  I mean, if I was 80, I'd totally go.  I bet I'd have a thing for Dumbledore)

Stay tuned for tomorrow's blog- I'm going to do Word Count Wednesdays during November.  Post your word count tomorrow!

Awards to erm...Award

I love you guys SO much that I'm blogging from my desk at work, when I should be down in the break room staring blankly at the wall for 15 minutes.  But I'm slaving away, because you guys are so special to me.

I got another blog award!  My wonderful Critique Partner Colene over at The Journey gave it to me!  (BTW, she is an awesome blogger and finds the most awesome links and pictures, not to mention the most up-to-date news on Harry Potter 7!  Stop by her blog if you haven't already- I swear, you are missing out on some awesome bloggage.)  Thank you so much Colene!

So the rules of this award, is I have to answer this question:

If I had the chance to go back and change one thing in my life, would I and what would it be?

I don't have many regrets in my life.  I'm a firm believer that what happens happens, and you shouldn't worry about changing it.  Everything I've done has led me to the point I am right now, and I like where I'm at.  So if I changed anything- even the bad stuff- I wouldn't have turned out where I am right now.

And besides, time travel is not a reality right now.  So, really I'll just let it up to my future self to go back and change things if I absolutely have to.  Anywho, so I think I would change the way I treated one of my best friends in high school.  I always say this, and I still think about it a lot.  She is one of my best friends now, but we had a little rough patch when we went to Europe with school.  Jut think high school drama...in Europe... and you're there. 

Or, I'd go back and not throw away that sports almanac that gave scores from the future thus giving Biff the chance to snatch it up and create an alternate 2010.  Oh wait, that wasn't me...

So, now (I'm changing this up a little to make it fun) I have to give this award out to 5 people I haven't given an award to yet:

Sam at Onesparklingstar

Library Gal at Lost In The Library

Lydia Kang at The Word is My Oyster

Anne at Writers Quandary

Shallee at Life Universe and Writing

Go check out their blogs- they're the bee's knees!

Thanks again to Colene for being awesome and getting this award in the first place, and then turning it around to me. 

Next week: stay tuned for a tribute to my all time favorite movie and trilogy in the whole world (hint: I reference to it in this post).  There will also be a special message from the time traveler himself!