HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE!

This post isn't as long as it looks, it's in Large font. Ok? So endeavour to at least read the orange part.

Also, in reading this, you are hereby sworn to secrecy about the true contents of the book, meaning no telling whether I'm right or wrong about ANYTHING! ON PENALTY OF...ME TAKING A SERIOUSLY LONG TIME TO DECIDE IF I EVER WANT TO ASSOCIATE WITH YOU AGAIN! Plus probably sending you spam mail for the rest of my life. Get the picture? If you don't, I will be really really mad at you!

We started reading it Sunday and read for about 5 and a half hours. It is amazing. We haven't read the whole thing, the last chapter we read contained page 200, so I suggest you check and make sure you've read that far before reading any farther. If you're not a HP fan, don't bother reading this at all. Except for the orange section, at the end.

My guesses for the HBP at this point are, in order of likelihood:
1. El Snápe, my new nickmame for Snape. Pronounce it as you would a spanish word, which means the E isn't silent.
2. Slughorn.
3. James Potter. I was also thinking Lily Evans, but she would be the muggle-born princess.

I think that if Slughorn knew about the writing in the book, he planted it with Harry, which I think is more likely than not.

I'm interested in Harry's Voldemort lessons with Dumbledore. We just read the first one last night. So he'll be learning Voldemort's history, judging by this first example. But this is only the first one. I think these should prove very valuble, as far as providing foreshadowing.

I'm also still wondering about the look of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes in book 4 when he found out Voldemort took Harry's blood. I still think maybe the protection Harry's mother gave Harry (which = love, which = opposite of Voldemort) could eat away at V from the inside out. But that's looking less likely these days.

So Harry's Quidditch Captain. Doreeee and I were so hoping that all Ron's Erised dreams would come true, but I guess he's really not a good enough player to be made captain. We're guessing Harry will step onto the field with no idea what they're going to do at the first practice. So far it's looking like that, and if he doesn't get busy planning practices it's going to stay that way.

Dumbledore is so infuriating with waiting until just the right moment to reveal the story about his hand. What is the right moment!?! Oh well. She can't keep us in suspense all the way until the end of the 7th book, eh?

OWL scores: I was quite happy with them. They were just about as we had predicted. Just about. I knew Harry would get an O in DATDA, and not high enough in potions. So in those respects at least I was right.

The new Minister of Magic: Rufus Scrimgeour. He's ok. I think he'll do a better job than Fudge (definitely! it'd be kind of hard not to) but he's not as compassionate as Dumbledore. Now, I know Dumbledore is exceptional and an exception, but I think Scrimgeour'll be all justice, no mercy.

Why, after all these years of keeping Snape as far away from the Dark Arts as possible, did dumbledore suddenly let Snape be Defense against the Dark Arts teacher? You might say this is the most inopportune moment yet!

Draco Malfoy: What is his task? I believe that he is a Death-Eater, and that Harry should tell Dumbledore his suspicions. At first I thought that his task was to kill Harry, but I can't really imagine Voldemort letting anyone else finish him off. Not to mention that "either must die at the hand of the other," meaning dear old voldy has to kill harry. Or, hopefully, vice versa. So now I'm thinking Draco has to deliver Harry to voldemort. Or he could be out to kill him. Voldemort doesn't know the prophecy, and I could be wrong about his determination to kill Harry personally.

Whose side is Snape on, really? The second chapter has made me question his true allegiance to Dumbledore, but I can't see him being stupid enough to play double agent. I just don't know. :> my new smily for shrug. The > is the shoulders.

We know Hermione and ron are getting together, but remember that flowery smell Harry had once smelled at the Weasley's and then smelled when Ginny Weasley walked up? Is the focus on Ginny or Weasley? They are some of his favorite people in the world, and his only real family.

Now, look at how much I know about HP, how excited we all were for it to come out, how much information I have stored off the top of my head (I'm not boasting, there is a point to this), and how much I must think about this to have all these theories and guesses, and phrases committed to memory. Besides everything here, whenever a name is mentioned in the book, it immediately gets run through the HP name sensor, to sift out if it's been mentioned before, and if so, where. Whenever we meet someone new and thier characteristics are described, they get matched up with the mysterious minor characters to see if one is coming into the forefront. In smmary, I am a HP fanatic, and the worst part is, there are people out there who are even more devoted than I am. My point is: Wouldn't it be amazing if people got this excited about the Bible. Wouldn't it be amazing if everyone knew where this name had been mentioned before, knew all the little pieces/parts that fit together, knew where prophecies and foreshadowing were and where they came true, knew where the stories in the Samuels, Chronicles and Kings stories were the same as each other. I think if everyone got as crazy about the Bible as HP, the world would be changed. If the Bible took up as much reading time and brain time as Harry Potter, people couldn't help but change the world. Unless of course they chose not to. Just something to think and pray about.

HSLT!!!!! part two, funny

We laughed so much, so hard. Bea and Cayley in particular laughed at each other super hard. Bea couldn't get up from the table without banging her leg on it, so Cayley laughed a lot. Then I laughed at Cayley cuz she looked like she was crying she was laughing so hard.

We played a lot of mafia. It was a lot of fun when you had 14 people to play with. Just about every time we had free time we swam, played mafia, or had some hardcore spoonage action, to quote Tony.

Kristin, if you read this, can I do the 10 of clubs story?

One day adam was lying on the couch, and then he randomly yells out, "miguel! miguel! close the vents!...thank you." WHAT?!!?? I heard this secondhand, but it was still very funny. He was awake, but that sounded like sleepwalking. Cayley did say, "no! the part's too far apart! no! the part's too far apart!" in her sleep.

The mafia stories were hilarious, about how people died. You wouldn't consider that to be a funny subject at first sight, but it really was when people got their imaginations running. For instance: Tom describing how James died: "He got up early this morning to go for a run. Unfortunately he didn't notice the freshly poured concrete in his path. That didn't finish him off. But the big burly man with a sledgehammer did." I laughed so hard at that one I actually got to that point that my brain doesn't particularly think it's hilarious, like you can go on to think about other things, but your body's still laughing and you actually have to make this conscious choice to make yourself shut up and stop laughing. Or I could've been laughing for hours.

James describing how Kevin died: Correct me on where he was walking, but I think it was between the condos. "A frog jumped down his throat, and Kevin croaked." That was really funny.

Can y'all think of any other funny stories? I can't at the moment. Those were my favorites, at least. Then there were Patrick's morbid ones about finding bodyparts on sidewalks. Eurgh. To quote Lavender Brown, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, looking at the Blast-Ended Skrewts.

I'll add things to this post as I think of them, so keep checking back. I'll make each new addition a different color for convenience.

HSLT!!!!!!! part one, spiritual

It was the most amazing week.

Application fee: $25.
Cost of conference: $325.
Souveniers: $18.
A week spent with your best friends and God: priceless.

It really was. Kristin, our leader, kept saying how precious and rare a week just concentrating on your relationship with God is. All week we had the analogy going of a person being like a tree by a stream. Tree=person, stream/water=God. The stream was in flood at LT, and she kept saying how we should dig our roots deep while we could, so that when the drought comes we'll be deep enough not to die. I thought also of how wet ground is really soft, and, I would imagine, easy to get roots down into. But in a drought, the ground is hard as a rock. I don't know anything about how much tree's roots grow in drought, but I'd be surprised if they grew very much, what with the soil being so hard, and not having enough energy-from-water.
That was our running analogy.

It was extremely weird to see how many "coincidences" happened, just how many times, with all the variety of subjects that could be taught, we kept hearing the same things from different sources. I think God was trying to bring to our attention how powerful and involved he is, and that was his wake-up call.

There is nothing like living in a condo with 6 girls all trying to build each other up and serve each other. We started using the word edify a lot, which basically means to build each other up. You really don't notice how many of your jokes are tearing down or picking on other people until you start trying to stop making them. We did each other's hair, played with each other's hair (I love having my hair played with!), and generally put others first. Therefore, we had no fights or squabbles and if we did they were over so quickly that I don't remember them.

The teachings were amazing, you can go to the LT website (it's in my Links list) to hear them, I think, and they said they would put down all the resources they used in the teachings.

The worship was...supercalifragalistikexpealadocious. There aren't good enough adjectives in the english language to describe it. 400 teens, on their knees, hands in the air, or jumping up and down. Tuesday night was amazing. I don't think any of us are the same people we were before tuesday night. They had stories from the gospels and revelation on the back wall/scree for powerpoint. We prayed that God would reveal himself to us and show us his face, and he totally did. I prayed that God would show me his glory, picturing the type of stuff in revelation, the king on the throne kind of thing. But God showed me his glory was in his humility, the type of stuff in the gospels. That night was totally life-changing.

The whole experience was life-changing. It was also better than last year. Meg says it might be because we're more mature and can get more out of it. Patrick says it just gets better every year. If so, next year is going to rock our socks off.

But the thing that would ruin the whole experience is if we forgot it. Forgot what God told us. Forgot what we learned. Forgot what serving and edifying is like. Forgot what being open friends is like. Forgot. That would be a tragedy. So pray that we don't forget.

Christian Rock

Tonight I discovered the Christian Rock on Launchcast, which is totally (rockin) awesome. I just felt like mentioning that.

LT

LT is in um, 56 hours and 15 mins! We're under 60!

I'm excited. In fact, last night I was so excited I stayed up till like 11. At least. And then babysat. And I'm really hungry.

Um, prayer requests for LT:

That what happens at LT WILL NOT STAY AT LT! What happens at LT has to go home and stick. Pray for permanent change.

Wisdom and all the right words for speakers and leaders.

Skill etc for the worship band.

The bus will not break down!!

That's all I can think of.

Yay!

False alarm. You can change it. Yay.

Arg!

Arg! I'm having problems cuz I don't know what to name it!!
ourblog?
commonblog?
thecommonblog?
theforum?

And you can't change it!

Somebody please get online!!

Common blog some more.

Ok people, I'm going to make the common blog! And that's what it's going to be called! commonblog.blogspot.com, since that's what we've been calling it. Ok? Ok. And I'll invite a whole bunch of people and whoever wants to can join.

Bored, then "haha"

umm, ok so I had this rambling post about how bored I was. Then I went and played the guitar. Now I'm back and bored again. I think I'll look into making a common blog some more. Haha! When I say "haha" it's not lol kind of laugh, it's sneaky, shifty, and thouroughly disreputable. Ok, not really, I just thought that sounded cool. The sneaky and shifty part is right. Kara does it sometimes, if that helps. It's more like Hnhn, really, you do it through your nose mostly. It's like haha except you close your nose like you do when you hum. Not your nose, the back of you throat. Hum. Now open your mouth and keep humming. Now hum "haha" still humming. That's what haha means. Ok, fine, I'll just show you...on Friday or next sunday! 76 hours until LT!

SHOPPING

Today I went shopping for 4 hours to get stuff for LT which is in...79 hours and 10 mins, or 74 and 40 mins. I think. I haven't checked that math, but oh well. We went to....um...the bank to deposit babysitting money and then to the Thrift Store! I love the Thrift Store!!! I got (haha, here goes!)--well, we were supposed to be getting shorts, because either I've lost weight or they've stretched. I'm not sure. And a white Tshirt cuz we're going to paint them at LT. BUT on top of that, I got three sweeeeet belts, a pair of shoes, a skirt, and...a shirt. Ok. One of the belts is links, sort of, it's metal. I'm wearing it to LT, definitely. Then the other one is just cool colors, kinda metalic-y, but not really. Then the other belt is thick and green. It matches the sandals. They're bright green. They match the skirt, which is a green snakeskin pattern. They're all sweet. And, the shirt is pink. Darker than my others. Is that everything? oh, the shorts are just denim.

Then we went to Marc's, got general stuff like travel-size shampoo and food, then went to Wal-Mart for the stuff we couldn't find at Marc's. By that time my shopper's mind was totally shut down.

Ok, now LT is in...79 hours. yay. !!!!!!!!!!!! I had to do this bright green in honor of my new clothes. I could do it brighter, but it would be hard to read.

Dad's in Chicago

I thought I should probably mention that before he comes back. His plane left at 1 today and he's getting back tomorrow evening. His aunt died. I hope he puts on his blog how God showed him whether or not to go because I can't remember it all and it was pretty cool.

So we girls have been hanging out. We watched "while you were sleeping" this afternoon. It was a very twisted plot. A girl saves this guy from getting run over by a train, but he still is in a coma, and through a misunderstanding his family thinks she's his fiancee,and then she falls in love with his brother while he's sleeping (in a coma) while his family still thinks she's his fiancee, and she never tells them until they're about to get married. That about ruined the whole movie, sorry.

A common blog

I think having a blog with all of us blog network people is a brilliant idea. What I mean by blog network people is all of us who have blogs and read everyone else's. And I think it would be pretty easy to start one, but I think it might be a good idea if we had a theme. I don't know what kind of theme. Like, obviously we all have God in common, but I don't know what we could write about him. It might be interesting to find out, lol. I dunno, what do yall think? I'm just throwing this idea out to see what you think. It couldn't be like all of our blogs put together, or we'd have to quit doing our own blogs. It would have to be totally different, with a different purpose. What do yall think? If you think it's a good idea, what should our theme be?

Happy Independence Day!

I didn't get dressed yesterday until after I posted all of that. I don't think I got dressed until about 1. At around 2, one of Mom's college friends called saying they were in town and were we doing anything. We had been throwing around the idea of going to or renting a movie, or going swimming at the F's, but hadn't really decided on anything. So they came over around 4. We played a lot of card games. Peanut Butter (also known as Kaput) and go fish, but mostly Kaput. The V's have three kids, so we had three of us and three of them, perfect for partners. I laughed so much! That means, "I had fun" but isn't nearly as clichéd. I think that's how you spell that. Sheesh! Two unknown words in as many days and posts.

We're going shopping today. Oh, I forgot to mention we did go swimming at the F's before the V's came over. That was fun too.

This crazy week

This is gona be one MAJOR post, so hang tight everybody.

I'm going to do things chronologically-backwards. Meaning Sat, fri, thurs...
But first events in chronological order.

Mon: went to granny's
tues: babysitting S's.
Wed: calling hours
Thurs: funeral
Fri: babysitting M's.
Sat: digging through old stuff

Saturday

We got to Granny's at about lunchtime, so we ate lunch and began taking things out. She has a cabinet that has glass doors and four shelves. It was full of dishes and salt shakers --Granny collected saltshakers-- and glasses and all sorts of other things. All the stuff filled up the whole table. And some of the counters. Lots and lots of stuff. Then we started getting more dishes out of the cupboards. And then you get into her dresser and find all this old jewelry and stuff stuff stuff stuff. And in the garage--wow. We found these amazing crocheted things--stitches we'd never seen before, patterns we'd never seen before, some unfinished things, boxes of doilys (plenty for everyone). It was a very unique day. And it was really neat that when you said, "I took a pin I found in her drawer," the reaction wasn't anything like, "hey, I wanted that" or "why did you take that!" It was, "Oh good, I'm glad."

"Does anyone like these dishes?"
"You can have them, go ahead."

"Aren't these glasses pretty?"
"Oh yes!"
"Do you want them?"
"No, you can have them. If you like them, take them."

Mom says that Granny probably turned over in her grave. She was a pack rat! She never liked to throw things away. And she liked to have everything in its place. That house was a wreck. When you go through everything and take everything out, it gets messy!

Oh, an example of just how much a pack rat she was:
Aunt Lynne was looking through some stuff and found a little box with "hairpins" on it. She opened it and said, "Oh my gosh." Everyone looked up but didn't say anything, thinking she would tell us. "Oh my gosh." "what?" "Oh my gosh." "What!" "Oh, my, gosh. Ewww!" "WHAT!" She went around to each of us, showed us the box with "Hairpins" written on the top. "What do you think this is?" "Hairpins." She opened it. "Ewww! Oh my word!" The rest of us, who hadn't seen, once again shouted, "What!!"

It was teeth. Large, roots and all, teeth. Ew. When Meme saw them, she said, "Those must be Dad's. He had all his teeth pulled." Ew. Aunt Lynne said, "You could make a necklace, a grandpa tooth necklace!" We all shouted and laughed in disgust. That was pretty funny.

There were also boxes of stuff from an old man who lived with them. Actually, they lived with him. He said that if they let him live with them till he died they could have the house. "Them" is Meme, Uncle Paul, Granny, and Grandpa John, who I never met. He didn't have any relatives, so there were boxes of his old stuff, like postcards and...stuff. Shrug.

I got some doilies--she made amazing doilies--magnets from the fridge (which were actually the first thing I thought of, when I noticed that the four butterfly magnets were still arranged around a flower, how I had put them months and months ago. They are now still arranged like that on the filing cabinet in my room) and a salt shaker set and glasses for when I grow up and will actually use them. The glasses have a matching pitcher. Oh, and a silver flower pin, and a butterfly pin that matches one of the magnets. And an ornament I gave Granny years ago.

It was really weird to go through Granny's house and, like, ransack it. Weirder was that you kind of had to have the attitude of, "What do I want?" which seems totally wrong, but it was right in that situation. It was a very unique day. Sad and funny at the same time, funny because we were all together and cracking jokes. Like--oh my word I can't believe I forgot this:

Aunt Leesy was looking through the cabinets saying, "Does anyone know what happened to those orange juice glasses with the little oranges on them?" No answer but some shrugs. "Did somebody take them? Who took the orange juice glasses?" Meme said, "If someone took them, they're welcome to them." So Aunt Leesy said, "Who welcomed themselves to the orange juice glasses!" We all cracked up, and the rest of the day we said, "I think I'll welcome myself to these ____" fill in the blank(s), and cracked up every time. The orange juice glasses appeared to have disappeared years ago.

We also discovered on the way home that our dog is afraid of the dark. She always shivers and shakes and pants all at the same time on the way home from Granny's in the dark. I always thought that it was because it was dark and she couldn't see what was going on, and this seems to have been confirmed. Mom and Dad took her for a walk when it was getting dusky, and she started walking really fast with her tail between her legs when it got really dark. Mom said she'd never seen Greta's legs move so fast! I think there might have been some people shooting off firecrackers too, which really freaks her out. She was pretty scared last night. We went to see the portage lakes fireworks, at the last minute. Anyway, back to the ride home. We sang a bit to see if that would calm her down. It did a little bit. It was fun to watch the sun set (it was gorgeous, streaky pink and purple clouds with a rainbow background. It was seriously rainbow, there was even a bit of light green between the yellow and blue) and watch the fireflies and stars come out.

Friday

I babysat the M's. I don't think it was too eventful. Mandy, the dog, is getting big. I swear she's grown every time I babysit. She's getting a bit better about chewing on furniture too, but she hasn't caught on about not biting hands. She'll get it. I can tell she's becoming better trained, but she's still a crazy puppy. The kids are no problem, the dog is crazy.

Thursday

We sang at the funeral. It was a very good funeral, therapeutic. I think that's how you spell that. Hey, I can mis-spell some word sometimes too! I haven't nearly filled up my misspelled words quota. Mom and Aunt Leesy spoke, and Uncle Paul. Uncle Paul and Meme always pick on each other a good bit, but he just applauded her care of Granny, which was extremely, well, sweet isn't quite the right word, but that's about as close as I can get. Pastor Glen, Granny's pastor, did a good job. He used the analogy of a quilt about her life, The backing, batting, blocks, and binding. The backing was her community, batting was her friends, blocks were her family, and binding (thread, but it had to be a b) was God and her faith in God. It was really neat, and he had some of each of the things for a visual. After the funeral there was a meal and then we went back to Granny's house to hang out. She was a very cool person. She always loved and welcomed everyone.

Wednesday

I babysat the M's and then went straight down to the F's, then went straight to the calling hours. All last week I was thinking, "This nail polish is really not appropriate for a funeral and calling hours," but I had no time to remove it. I finally did yesterday. It was yellow with multicolored dots. We practiced our songs, then had a meal (this church was good about having lots of food to eat), then went to the calling hours and shook hands of distant relatives, friends, church people, etc etc etc. We counted Thurs after the funeral, went through the guestbook and counted everyone. 323 people. Not counting some family, we didn't sign. Meme was amazed at all these people, so was everyone else for that matter. For being 85 years old, she still had a lot of living friends. Young people, too. I guess that's part of living in a small town, people are really good about going to things like that. Not all small towns, I guess, but this one. And then you got the worst of the small town, people who say stuff and it doesn't come out quite right. Like Mom introduced herself and us girls, and then turned to Dad. The woman said, "And is this your son?" "No, husband." "Oh, of course, husband." Dad's like, "Yes!" Mom's like, I'm taking that wrinkle cream away from you and using it on ME. Then another woman told Dad he favored John Travolta. And you can read about some more on his blog. Let's just say here that by then end of the week, he was mom's Mexican-John Travolta-Son. OH my.

Pops took us out for milkshakes in the middle of the calling hours to give us a break, which was nice. He left for Hungary the next day and is there now, I think. He's going on a mission's trip.

So many people came up to us and said, "and are you grandchildren?" and every time we would say, "Great grandchildren," until the most said words of the evening were, "hello" and "great grandchildren."

I think that's all the important stuff. If not, I can put it on later. Whew!