Why I Re-read Harry Potter

As I sat in the family room reading the last 130 pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Monday night, my husband sat on the couch across from me laughing. Why? He was laughing at the fact that I was legitimately crying over the events in the novel, a novel that I have read at least nine times. His thought process was simple: You know what is going to happen, so why do you continue to cry about it? For that, I have no response, because his logic does make sense, but regardless of how many times I have read the novels in the Harry Potter series, I get so caught up in the wizarding world that I find myself experiencing all those emotions as if I were reading them for the first time.

My students ask the same question every year when they realize that not only do I have Dumbledore's Army posters in my classroom, wear Hogwarts t-shirts with my pencil skirts, and use Ron Weasley's wand as a pointer, but I also re-read the entire series every summer (and have done so since middle school). They think I am crazy, but what I do not think they quite realize is that I essentially grew up with Harry Potter and even now as a 27 year old woman, it is a link to my childhood. 

The Harry Potter bookshelf in the office/library

My sixth grade teacher bought a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for everyone in our class as Christmas gifts. Right after Christmas, I moved to Richmond and was so utterly upset over moving that I lost myself in books, with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone being the first that I read. Needless to say, after reading the first, I was hooked and begged my mom to buy Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for me since those were the only books of the series that had already been released.

Fun Fact: The copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that Mrs. Wilson gave me for Christmas in 1999 still sits on the bookcase in my classroom (and will do so until I quit teaching) and has been the most checked out book in my "library" for the past four years.

I still remember going to Barnes and Noble with my neighbor Ben to get the sixth book at midnight and rushing home to begin reading it. When my mom woke up the next morning to go to work, I was still in bed reading and when she got home from work, I was still there, except this time there were tissues all over my bed (RIP Dumbledore). Even now, after having read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at least ten times, I still cry during Dumbledore's funeral. 

I am sure that in five to ten years when I have children of my own, I will tear up in the same parts as I always have when I read the series aloud to them. A part of me is so emotionally invested in the series that the emotions are unavoidable. Plus, the storyline is AWESOME and who in their right mind would not want to be a witch/wizard?! There is an Alan Rickman quote that I think sums up my love of Harry Potter perfectly:

All the feels!!!

Serious Lack of Productivity...

School has been out for two and half weeks and I feel like I have officially hit a wall. After dealing with the craziness of the school year, all I wanted to do was nothing, and that is essentially how I have been spending the last three weeks....doing nothing. Sure, I have walked 4+ miles every day and done a little bit of cleaning around the house, but nothing super productive and it is kind of boring.

I have decided to change that today. The next few weeks are going to be a little crazy with a beach trip, yearbook camp, and AP training...all three back to back to back, but once those are done and out of the way, I am hoping to actually spend the remaining five weeks of summer being productive. And I am sure my husband will appreciate me actually doing something during the day while he is at work too.

I have three major things on my summer to-do list:
1. paint at least one room in the house
2. organize office/guest room so that it is functional
3. begin organizing documents for teaching license recertification

While I cannot really do the first item until we hit our one year mark in the house and the builder comes to fix the cracks and nail pops that have appeared over the last twelve months, I think all three are completely doable once I return from the three weeks of crazy.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

As David and I are off to an out of town wedding this weekend, we are not able to spend Mother's Day with either of our moms. So, I wanted to write a special Mother's Day post to the most wonderful mom I know. 

My mom is absolutely wonderful. She is welcoming towards everyone she meets and just automatically loves them. Not only does she continue to take care of her family, but she is essentially the one who takes care of her entire school. We joke that the building must completely shut down when she is not there, but in reality, I think that is probably more realistic than a joke at this point. I am incredibly lucky to have her as a mom and I know that when it comes time for me to have children of my own, I have an excellent role model in my mother. 

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! You are fantastic and we could not have been more blessed to have you as our mom. Love you! :)

Spring Break Recap

This past week, the county I teach in was on spring break and trust me when I say that teachers love spring break just as much as students do. David was on a work trip, so I was home with the kitty all week. Originally, I had big plans to lesson plan for the fourth quarter (lame, I know), but that did not happen until Sunday night. Oops. Instead, I did some things around the house...and read. Here is a run down:

Organized the Kitchen
We have a pretty good amount of cabinet space in our kitchen, but we did not have any organization with our pots and pans. They were all awkwardly stacked and it was always super noisy to move them around when cooking. David's parents have a pot rack that hangs over their kitchen island and we really like how accessible everything is, but with our kitchen floor plan, that would not work. However, I found a pot rack from Amazon that we both really liked, so my parents got it for me for my birthday. After hanging it, I have decided I love it.

Our pans are all in one place and so easy to grab (without making a ton of noise). I plan on ordering some more hooks, so we can add some of our smaller pots to the rack. I really like that there is a small bookshelf on top. Originally, I was planning on putting my cookbooks there, but the shelf is not deep enough. However, it is perfect for a basket of tea towels (all from Belle & Union via Southern Weddings--I have an obsession and they are so useful!) and my recipe box (from Rifle Paper Co.). 

With the pans hanging on the wall, I bought an adjustable tray and lid organizer. Once it is delivered, I am going to install it in one of our lower cabinets to continue the trend of an organized kitchen.

Planted Some Things
I really want a raised garden bed so I can plant veggies and herbs in my backyard; however, I have difficulty keeping things alive. I guess I have a black thumb. So, rather than invest the money in a larger bed with tons of plants that might not live, I decided to make this spring/summer my trial run with smaller containers. If things go well, I will do the raised bed next spring. What started with just a few pots and containers sort of exploded though... 

strawberries, cherry tomatoes, zucchini squash, bell peppers (seed pod and plant), patio/container tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, basil (seed pod and plant)

I originally only planted a strawberry plant, but then the "Easter Bunny" gave me Miracle-Gro Gro-ables seed pods in my Easter basket for basil and bell peppers. I wanted to compare which would grow better, the seed pod or a seedling, so I planted the seed pods, as well as a seedling of both. With that, I thought I was done, but then I stumbled across tomato and zucchini plants on a run--a neighbor had over purchased and was giving away her extra plants in her driveway. My five pots then turned into nine. Oh well. Fingers crossed everything grows, and lives...

Updated the Porch
Our front porch is currently our only outdoor space and while we have some rocking chairs out there, it is pretty blah. So, I added some pillows to the chairs and a small table, which brightened things up a bit. I also added from potted flowers and changed out the garden flag in honor of Opening Day--Go Red Sox! 

My favorite update on the porch, though, is our door wreath. It is springy and cheery without being overly bright and in-your-face. While it potentially needs to be a little bigger, I think it works well for the time being. A how-to for the wreath will be on the blog later this week. :)

Read 
I am teaching The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald to my 11th graders this quarter, so I re-read that (and watched the movie). But in addition to my "school" reading, I read some books for fun:

1. The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic by Hazel Gaynor (post here)
2. The Secrets of Midwives by Sally Hepworth (post here)
3. The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

My 9th graders think it is weird that I read so much, so they asked me to keep track of how many books I read in the week we were off. Not sure if they will be impressed or sickened.

Overall, it was pretty enjoyable spring break. :)

60 Before 30

Saturday was my birthday and now that I am 27, I feel...older. This is the first birthday where I truly feel like I am older and more adult. Maybe it is because my students spent all last week making me feel old (I had to explain what Total Request Live was and we had an in-depth discussion about the merits of the Spice Girls) and while feeling older is not a bad thing at all, I am now realizing that I am no longer in my mid-twenties. Nope, 27 counts as late-twenties and I can actually see 30 on the horizon.

I have been thinking about this birthday for awhile. On New Year's Day, while the husband was working in the home office, I sat and reflected on 2014 (Got married! Bought a house! Started a new job!) and what I wanted to accomplish in 2015. I have never really been one for goals, but I was inspired by Emily on Em for Marvelous who regularly blogs about her monthly and yearly goals. I like the thoughtful deliberation that goes into creating the goals and I feel like she is really holding herself accountable by putting them out there for the world to see. Last year, when she turned 27, she created a list of the 60 things she wanted to accomplish by the time she turned 30. I LOVED that idea and I was actually really happy to see that we had some of the same goals. Her post stuck with me and on New Year's Day of this year, I began crafting my own list. I did not actually have all 60 things until the last week or so, but I found myself checking a few things off here and there over the last four months and I felt so great about that (it is not cheating and I did not replace the few things I completed). A lot of my goals are home-related, but I think that just goes along with the point I am at in my life. 

State Date: January 1, 2015
End Date: April 4, 2018
Items Completed: 11

1. Cultivate a strawberry or raspberry bush
2. Grow a small cutting garden with roses, hydrangeas, or peonies
3. Start a small vegetable and herb garden in the backyard
4. Order an heirloom quality wedding album for our home completed January 2015
5. Celebrate our one year anniversary completed June 2015
6. ...and our two year!
7. ...and our three year!
8. Expand our family
9. Host a themed party
10. Make our front porch comfortable and inviting
11. Renovate the backyard so it is a great place to gather--this includes adding a deck or patio completed April 2015, post here
12. Go to a flea market--and buy something
13. Make a will
14. Transfer car title from parents
15. Create a drop zone or mudroom area near the garage door completed January 2015, post here
16. Add curtains to the family room and dining room
17. Paint the downstairs (kitchen, family room, and dining room) completed August 2015
18. Install a backsplash in the kitchen
19. Add some sort of organizational system to the kitchen that holds the pots and pans to make things easier to find and more accessible completed April 2015
20. Paint our bedroom
21. Hang the gallery wall over the sofa in the family room completed January 2015, post here
22. Buy a headboard/frame for our bedroom completed March 2015, post here
23. Learn to French braid
24. Make a quilt
25. Crochet or knit a blanket
26. Get in shape and to my goal weight
27. Save money
28. Pay off credit card
29. Visit three new cities  in progress...San Diego in October 2015
30. Make at least one friend in the neighborhood completed August 2015
31. Join or start a book club
32. Install a rain barrel
33. Attend a Broadway show with David
34. See more of New England--beyond just Boston
35. Start a blog completed February 2015, post here
36. Begin creating yearly family "yearbooks" to capture our lives together
37. Wake up earlier (regularly at 8am or before) and establish a consistent morning routine that energizes me
38. Send someone flowers out of the blue
39. Learn some photography skills beyond just "point and shoot"
40. Organize the books in our home library
41. Begin working towards (or even complete!) an endorsement to my teaching license in administration, library and media studies, or reading
42. Get certified to teach AP English Language and Composition completed July 2015
43. Make a presentation in an English-based, educational setting
44. Visit Aunt Babe in Wisconsin
45. Go to a Patriots game in Foxborough with David
46. Gather and display frame family photos from both sides of the family (parents and grandparents)
47. Host either Christmas or Thanksgiving with both sides of the family--or at least both sets of parents
48. Go to Europe with David--or at least begin planning the trip
49. Donate/sell old clothes and shoes I no longer wear
50. Take a new-to-me class, such as an exercise class, cooking class, art class, etc.
51. Learn how to ski-- or at least attempt it
52. Learn how to drive stick shift
53. Take a sister-only weekend trip somewhere with Rachel 
54. Go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios in Orlando
55. Join and semi-regularly attend church
56. Plan a fun surprise date for David
57. Get my pearls and wedding ring insured
58. Go back to Phoenix and hike Camelback Mountain
59. Visit Colonial Williamsburg at Christmastime
60. Make homemade jam

While I may not be able to complete all 60 items on my list, I am really looking forward to trying. :)

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my 27th birthday, and as someone who loves birthdays and always makes a huge deal out of them, I think everyone should celebrate! I plan on spending all day with my wonderful husband, who is lovingly going to indulge my obsession with books by taking me to a used bookstore before we go out for some sushi. Gosh, I love that man!

I will be back on Monday with a special goals post. :)

New Bedroom Furniture!

The husband and I have been talking about possibly buying bedroom furniture for awhile, but with other things on our to-do list, it was only talk. However, recently, we were finding that having just a bed frame was not very helpful in keeping the blankets on the bed through the night. Every night, the blankets would start where they were supposed to, but by morning, they were on the floor, having fallen off the foot of the bed. We knew we needed a bed with a foot board, but we were not 100% sure what we specifically wanted.

Two weekends ago, we popped into a few furniture stores to just look around and get a feel for what we liked in terms of color, style, etc. Thankfully, David and I are pretty similar in terms of likes and dislikes when it comes to home things (it made building a house so much easier than what it could have been!), so it did not take long for us to find a bedroom set we both liked. Dark cherry wood, modified sleigh bed, drawers with dovetail slide-y things so they are quiet, lots of storage. However, we were not sure we wanted to commit yet. Plus, we kind of wanted to wait until Haynes was running one of their big sales.

Fast forward one week and while we were out running errands, we heard a commercial for that one weekend, Haynes would be having their lowest prices of the year. We still were not planning on buying, but we figured there would be no harm in looking at the price. Well, not only was the furniture less expensive than the week prior, but for the weekend, Haynes was running a deal for 24 months of interest-free financing. It was fate. We bought the furniture and it was delivered the next day.

Who can spot the kitty?

We have only had the furniture for 24 hours, but we love it. Yes, the bed is much higher than we were anticipating (we probably need a low-profile box spring instead of the standard height) and I sort of feel like I need a step stool to get in and out of it, but that definitely is not a deal breaker. 

Little kitten investigating the new furniture

Since we currently have a lot of grey and white in the room, I would like to add pops of color with accent pieces and throw pillows/blankets to bring out the blues, greens, and pinks in the print by The First Snow we have hanging by the bathroom door and the canvas our wedding photographer, Tori Watson, gave us. Our bedroom is not nearly close to being finished, but with "grown up" furniture, it is starting to get there. Here is what we have left to complete before out bedroom is "done":

• Paint the walls (currently leaning towards a light to medium blue with grey undertones)
• Acquire a chair and lamp to create a reading corner
• Add some pretty throw pillows to the bed
• Maybe add a bench to the foot of the bed (still not sure about that though)
• Hang something over the bed (either a piece of art or a mirror)

Playing Hostess and a Yummy Recipe

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Happy Birthday, David!!!

The happiest of birthdays to my dear, sweet, loving husband. David is the best person I know. I first thought that when we met three and a half years ago and that thought has not changed at all. I am so very proud of everything David has accomplished. I know I am incredibly lucky. This man helps me every single day without me asking and does an amazing job taking care of both me and our kitty baby. I married my best friend and my biggest support. On top of it all, he makes me laugh until my stomach hurts. He is kind and intelligent. Oh, and a total hottie. ;)

I seriously cannot believe this is the first married birthday we get to celebrate together and I am looking forward to so many more.

A Gallery of Pretty

The husband and I moved into a new house this past July, shortly after we got married and relocated to Richmond. Since then, we have been slooowly making the house into our home. Our to-do list just seems to get longer, regardless of what we complete and check off.

Immediately after moving in, we bought furniture for the family room. Once it was delivered and arranged in the way we wanted it, I realized the empty wall over the sofa was the perfect place for a gallery wall. I love pictures of the wonderful people in my life, but the husband prefers to not have a thousand pictures of us all over the walls of our house. I respect this and while I do have pictures of us strewn about the house, I try to limit them to smaller, framed pictures on side tables and the fireplace mantel. For that reason, I decided to only include meaningful prints in the gallery wall. It took me awhile to collect prints that were important and worthwhile, but, finally, it is finished! 

(sorry for the glare and light reflections--taking pictures at night is not a good idea)

Both my husband and I really love how it turned out, though I may be a little more enthusiastic about it than he is. And now for the breakdown of the included prints, clockwise from the upper left corner:

1. The cat is a photocopy of a sketch one of my former students made last year. While it is not a sketch of our fur-baby, I do not think it really matters, as it shows how important our cat is to us...he (or really his species) made the wall!

2. Since getting married, I have fully embraced my new last name and new monogram. There are Js all over our house, so the gallery wall was not to be overlooked. I stumbled across this amazing woman on Etsy who specializes in original, hand drawn works of art, StephMicheleArtworks. She worked with me to create this lovely, custom piece.

3. It is a little hard to see, but it reads, "The best is yet to come." Everyone kept saying that our wedding day would be the happiest day of our lives, but I feel like that is not entirely the truth. While our wedding day was amazing, I think that everyday we spend together builds on the one before, making tomorrow more amazing than today, which was better than yesterday...if that makes sense... This print is from paperandpalette, an Etsy shop based out of Richmond.

4. My husband went to college in Arizona (ASU...Go Sun Devils!!!) and in June 2013, he took me out to the Tempe/Phoenix area to visit and see the greatness that he loves. On our first full day there, we got up really early to go for a hike up A Mountain in Tempe, near the ASU football stadium. When we reached the top, David got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. Needless to say, Arizona now holds a special spot in my heart. Steph from StephMicheleArtworks created this print for us.

5. We got married this past summer, 366 days after we got engaged, on June 21, 2014. This is a reminder of our anniversary, and thus, our wedding day. I liked that the Roman numerals made the dates a little more intriguing than your normal numbers.

6. I LOVE fairy tales and while my life is nowhere near perfect, being able to spend it with my husband and kitty is pretty darn close. I get to live my happily ever after every day. This print is also from paperandpalette.

7. I try to stay positive and because of that mentality, I kind of fell in love with this print from Islay's Terrace. It says, "Think Happy Thoughts" and the happy, bright colors work so well with the sentiment (and our family room). I also liked that it brings some color to the blacks and whites of the other prints.

8. Oh, Virginia... This print is a companion to the Arizona state print. David and I met in Northern Virginia and spent the past three years living there. Now, we are living in Richmond and making a life here. Even if we do not stay in Virginia forever, it will always be our home and this print is a lovely reminder of that.

Now that the gallery wall is finished, I cannot help but smile whenever I walk by it. It is just a very "us" wall since every piece holds a special meaning to me and David.

One final picture.....

Mockingbird Sequel...OMG!

One of my favorite quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird, especially since it is so true!

This past Tuesday, HarperCollins announced that they would be publishing the "sequel" to Harper Lee's only novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee originally wrote the manuscript for Go Set a Watchman prior to writing To Kill a Mockingbird, which shows an adult Scout returning to Maycomb, Alabama twenty years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird. Her then-publisher loved the backstory and flashbacks so much that it was requested Lee write the story of what happened to young Scout. The manuscript was shelved...until now.

I, like almost every other English teacher I know, squealed with delight upon hearing the news. I read To Kill a Mockingbird in Mrs. Tucker's ninth grade English class and it was honestly the first school book that I not only read cover to cover without the use of SparkNotes, but also truly enjoyed. I remember thinking Scout was the kind of friend I would have wanted to have when I was little, and even as a teenager, I somewhat idolized her. While it took me until my freshman year of college to pick up To Kill a Mockingbird again, my original thoughts on the book stayed. In fact, even as a teacher, I look back at some of the annotations I made upon my first reading and use some of them in class, as both examples of what an annotation is and how, 12 years later, I still understand why it was that I wrote them.

Was To Kill a Mockingbird the first book to really hook me as a reader? No, that honor belongs to the Harry Potter series. However, it was one of the first books I can remember where I actually thought about what life was like during the 1930s and how things really have not changed that much in 2015. I think that was the case for a lot of people. 

In teaching ninth grade, I have the pleasure of teaching To Kill a Mockingbird to a new group of 14-15 year olds ever year. Over the past four years, the connections the students have made with our present-day society have been amazing. Not only do they see how in the past 80 years, many people's negative attitudes towards African Americans have not changed, but they see how prevalent, and hurtful, stereotypes are in general. During my first year of teaching, the ninth grade English teachers held a "De-Stereotype Me Day," in which the students faced their stereotypes head on by making and wearing t-shirts that bore the phrase "Just because I'm _________, does not mean I am __________." So for example, "Just because I'm a woman, does not mean I am helpless." In addition, they wrote personal narratives about their experiences with stereotypes. Both in their essays and in the in-class discussions, the parallels between these students...upper-middle class, entitled, predominately white teenagers...and the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird were astounding. For many of the students, that was really the first time they could connect their lives to a piece of literature, especially one that has been deemed a classic.

All this week, as my students have come into class, most have made comments about Go Set a Watchman and its publication this upcoming summer (July 14th). This is the first time I can remember where teenagers are excited about a book release that is not related to YA lit and it is amazing. My excitement is right there with them.

A simple "hello" could lead to a million things

When I sat down to write this first post, I was at a loss for how I should begin and what I should say, something that rarely happens to me. I even resulted to googling how a person should best write an initial blog post and everything I read said I should "state my intent." Well, that is the problem. I cannot give you the usual introduction and discuss what exactly this blog will be about because, honestly, I have no idea what will come of it except a lot of happy surprises...some serendipity, if you will. :) 

I am busy, but sometimes think I have too much time on my hands. I take on too much because I have trouble saying no for fear of disappointing people. I am impulsive and driven beyond belief. I am committed to living life to the fullest and trying to make those around me love life. I have big ideas, but I am sometimes unsure as to what I should do with them. Admittedly, I am a type-A personality, but with a lot of emotion driving my decisions. I am overly organized, but as a teacher, I think you have to be. Most importantly, though, I am a newlywed who loves her tiny family (my mister and my kitty) more than anything in the world. 

Originally, my plan for this blog was to review the books I read, and I read a ton of books. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while including books reviews would be fine, I really just want to talk about whatever I feel is important and whatever is on my mind. Goals? Definitely. Personal struggles? Yep. Obsessive love of books? You betcha. Married life and my adorable cat, Warren? Of course!

This is me--baring my soul and making the leap.