Harry Potter vs. Voldemort

 But first, a word from our sponsor:  This is Jim, I want to show you our all new daughter.  Good for all occasions and a ham for the camera.  You need a little bit of spice added to your day, just call us up for a little bit of spice!  She will create messes where once there were none.  She will bring noise to silent places.  She will redecorate whether you like it or not.  She is...for lack of a better word, SPICY!!

 Chloe has begun becoming a ham for the camera.  She sees me with it and immediately starts initiating her "Cheesy Grin" program, which is over in nothing flat, but I sometimes catch it anyway.

 Cora and I went to see the last installment of the Harry Potter movies...it was...AWESOME!  It was NOT exactly as the book, but i have learned to live with that, and given the spirit of the book, the movie seems to have done the trick.  It is, as ever, better if you have read the books.  You pick up on things better.

Where was Chloe?  My parents, kind hearted and soft headed as they are, volunteered for the task.  Fortunately for them part of the babysitting time coincided with naptime and they got a bit of a break.  We got to watch the movie in peace and really get some valuable time together.  We paid them with dinner...given my prowess with the grill, I may have over paid them.  :-)
It was a good day!

Some Pictures!

Take a close look at that photo above. See the bird in flight? Pretty cool, huh?

This last weekend we put Cora and all her sewing equipment into one of the back rooms. Look, it worked, she is sewing again!

I mowed the lawn...like this. (It REALLY was hot, so don't laugh too much!)

That night..I think it was Saturday... I sat outside, next to a torch and a glass of wine and read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince until after midnight. The temperature had to be in the 70s. It was a nice way to read.

It has cooled down a bit...but not much.

Daddy's Got a New Pair of Shoes!!

Yesterday was a relaxing day. We took it easy, but we did go to town to get a few things. I got my last pair of tennis shoes last spring…maybe last winter. I have not worn them as much since I have been teaching. I have some dressier shoes for that. However, my shoes are showing the wear of time and that hole in the sole from when I stepped down on that stupid T post is still there, too. I decided I would like to get a new pair of shoes. I don’t enjoy shopping for shoes…or anything else for me, for that matter. I would just prefer Cora get my size and do it for me. She does not like to do that, though. So, we both went shoe shopping for me…I am NOT going to do it alone! I found a pair that looked nice and looked to see if they had my size. They had one shoe that was a size 9. The other shoe was nowhere to be found. We looked high and low, no other size nine of that style. So, I decided to try a pair of 8.5’s. They seemed to fit. I thought a little snug, but decided to buy them anyway, then go to another shoe store to test sizes for that brand. Turns out the 8.5’s were fine. I was happy to get a new pair of shoes.

We came home and then yesterday evening we took the dogs for a walk. My shoes are great. I did not get any splinters in my toes. I did not have to limp because I stood on a pebble. My feet did not get too cold. When I stepped in a shallow puddle my feet did not get wet. They did everything a shoe is supposed to do. I was pleased. I kept telling Cora I was happy to have new shoes. I think she got tired of it and she told me to blog about my new shoes. Now, as I sit here barefoot and sipping coffee, I see them on the floor and I indeed felt the urge to blog and tell the whole world about my new shoes. (If you have not caught on yet, this might be a slow blog day.) I like them because they are green and tan. Not a pair of colors often seen in tennis shoes. They should go well with this year’s shorts. I bought another pair of shorts yesterday, too. I now have four pairs I am allowed to wear in public…Cora frowns on public showing of the holes in my shorts, so I am forced to wear new-ish ones. Just because there are holes in them does not mean they are bad!

We also got Cora a tiny pair of elf scissors. She said they were necessary for cutting butt holes. (She was talking about butt holes a lot yesterday. She was threatening to sew some earlier in the day…now she wanted to cut them?) Then she clarified when I looked at her funny. “BUTTON HOLES.” Oh, that makes more sense. I now knew she was talking about the dress she was making for Little Miss. Here is a picture of how it turned out. I think she did a really good job and her choices for fabric and butt(ons) were perfect.

We went and saw “The Spiderwick Chronicles” when it was in theatres and we both thought it was an excellent movie. So, when we found that it was out, we bought it on DVD. We watched it yesterday.

I spent the final portion of my evening attempting to catch up on some reading for the master’s. I hope I can manage it, it is just SO hard to set time aside for that particular reading, when I would rather re-read the Harry Potter series again…Some books I can read over and over, and those are some.

Oh, we also opened a bottle of Piety Flats Mercantile Red...Mmmm-mmmm, I wonder why other wineries bother, when perfection in a glass can be obtained from Piety Flats? It is GOOD wine. Oh, and check out Toby's position...which, I assume, he felt was comfortable, but did not quite look like it was.

I don’t know what we are doing today, maybe some more relaxation. Cora got up and had part of a cup of coffee while fighting to keep her eyes open, then she gave up and went back to bed. I think I will go read a little more about the Cold War and maybe make some notes after I finish here. I hope everyone enjoys their Sunday!