Harry Potter

Nerd alert: This post is about Harry Potter.

If you don't know the terms "horcrux", "the golden snitch", or "Deathly Hallows", then feel free to skip this post. Or read it and judge my family and me for indulging our dorky side.

If you do know all of the above terms, I like you. Holla, fellow nerd!

The Harry Potter obsession started slow, with me reading the first one as an assignment in my college children’s lit class. That grew to me discussing the book with my suitemate and another friend, both of who were fans. That led to me convincing my sister to read it…

Fast forward six years: Harry Potter has become quite the book club discussion in our family. We all read all seven books, and even Dan, who refused to crack a single one, has seen all eight movies with us. That’s over 4,000 pages of reading and 16 hours of movie watching that we dedicated to Hogwarts, people. This total does not even include the two hours we waited in line to see the final movie, thus ending our obsession with the little-wizard-who-could.

As we left the theatre, however, I couldn't help feeling like we needed one last Harry Potter hurrah. So, when I was at the beach last week, I decided to participate in Young House Love’s Pinterest challenge, where people create something based on an inspiration photo found on said website. I thought it would be fun to create a Three Broomsticks’ dessert buffet as the final goodbye to the series we all loved.

First, I scouted out inspiration images on Pinterest, like...

this creamy butterbeer:

via here

this golden snitch idea:

via here

And this peanut butter trifle

(No, the dessert was not in the book, but trifle is very English, so it fit.)

via here
My photos of what I did came out pretty horrible, but I thought I’d share anyway.

First, here I am donning my dad’s Redskin… errr… Griffindor scarf, holding one of the golden snitch chocolates:



I decided that us Muggles needed a buzz, so rather than making the uber-complicated, virgin butterbeer from the inspiration photo, I just combined butterscotch schnapps and cream soda.

I think my sister enjoyed it! And I do love that it looks like Bethany is downing some hardcore drink, like scotch on the rocks, in this picture:


I stuck feathers into Rocher chocolates to make snitches:


I put out Bertie’s Every Flavor Beans that a student gifted to me this year:


And took a funny picture of my mom trying to choke down the soap-flavored one:




Other flavors we tried included cherry, marshmallow, black pepper, chocolate, and sausage, to name a few. My dad even tried an earthworm one.

And lastly, I made this sinful trifle. My pictures may not be as pretty as the Pinterest one, but I think it was a hit with the fam. Click on the link under the inspiration photo if you want to try this crazy rich recipe as it has all the steps. Basically, you mix peanut butter chips into brownie batter and bake. Once the brownie has cooled, you cut it up into one inch cubes. Then, you prepare vanilla pudding and mix in peanut butter and a little bit of vanilla extract. Finally, you unwrap mini Reese cups. The last step is the most fun: you layer the brownie, then the pudding, then a little bit of Reese cups until your trifle glass is full. Holy calories, Batman!





The day after I made this dessert, I saw my sister and her boyfriend with my camera and his computer open to Photoshop. They kept chortling sneakily before finally calling me over. What had they been up to? They took photos of me off the camera and Photoshopped me right into the world of wizardry!

They took one of the pictures of me wearing the famous scarf:

and inserted me into a Quidditch crowd!

They took this photo of me from our Italy trip last year:


And had me keeping Ron dry, with my wand at the ready!

Anyone else in on the HP obsession? It's okay to admit it. This is a "nerd safe" zone.

Eye sores and eye candy

Our bathroom looks okay at first glance, but take a closer peek and it becomes (in the words of Cher in the movie Clueless) a "full-on Monet."

Yep, from far away it looks okay.

But then you look closer

You hear the shrieking violins of the Psycho soundtrack.

You see the dingy caulk and outdated sink:

the yellowing linoleum:

and the wood on the bottom of the vanity that has swollen from water damage:

Oh, and another fun surprise Dan and I discovered about a month after we moved in was that the supposedly bright white tile on the walls is actually Pepto Bismal pink ceramic that has been painted. You don't know how many times we mentally cursed out the previous owners for this crappy quick fix... especially now that some of the paint is peeling off.

It being summer, Dan and I've decided to do a few updates (namely the floor and sink) to give it a bit of a different look. The walls will have to wait since that's a huge undertaking that's not in the budget right now. Guess we'll be painting over the previous owner's (&%^!) peeling job.

We have, however, eager begun to pry up the stick-on linoleum squares, just to take a closer peek at what we're working with. Guess what we found?



I spy (very dirty and sticky) vintage tile!

We haven't finished prying up everything, so I can't say if we'll be using this or not, but I kind of like the honeycomb shape of this old school tile. It definitely fits our 1948 home.

Here are some blurry pictures of me ripping out the old tile while Dan pumped up "Eye of the Tiger". He's an eternal optimistic and was so excited that we found what may be a usable floor. I'm not sure if I'm as sold yet.

Dan threw on a gas mask and rubbed half the floor with mineral spirits, and the tile no longer feels like a human glue trap from the previous stick-on tile's residue. Also, the tiles that we do see are pretty clean looking (although more cream than snow white), so maybe we can salvage this floor? We'll see when the rest of the old tiles are uprooted. I'll take pictures of the clean floor as soon as we finish to see what you all think!

Again, our budget is pretty small, so this project will be more about smaller upgrades, not a major makeover. Guess I'll just have to go to Pinterest and drool over the dream bathrooms, like the below one from Brooklyn Limestone:

So spa-like.

And this one from Flutter Flutter:


Sigh.



Sweet relief to make up for all the other fugly pics :)

Summer is a time for the beach, barbeques, and...

organizing?

Yup, for this girl it is since I actually have a five week break from teaching school/ summer school and finally have time to conquer little things that annoy me during the year.

I always make a giant "to do" list guaranteed to make me awesome in every way... and then I ignore said list and only do the fun stuff on it and feel kind of pissed at myself for slacking come September.

Every once in a while, I feel mightly accomplished with myself if I actually conquer one of the nagging things on my list. Case in point: get/make a charging station to organize cords. Thought I'd share this tiny organization victory.

Before, my cords were a mess, and if I wanted to charge, say, my iPod, I'd have to unplug the lamp or one of our phone cords. And, no, this is not a staged picture where I tried to throw cords everywhere. It really did look like this:

I kept Googling stations, but most of them were pretty pricey:

I spotted this fabric covered box at Target for $12 on sale and noticed that there were two oval openings as handles on either side:

I kind of like the muted graphic pattern. If you squint at this dark photo, you can kind of see it:

The rest of this organization isn't really brain surgery. I slipped a power strip through the back whole and plugged in our mess of cords:

Presto: Put lid on to cover mess. Take lid off to charge something.

A blog post and organization in one day = successful summer morning in my book.

The more interesting "fun list" is coming soon!

Blogger is pissing me off...

Okay, folks. Sorry in advance for the technical questions, but Blogger is ticking me off, and I want to see if anyone is having these issues since Googling/ Blogger's FAQ's has been no help.

Two questions:

1. Why can't I leave comments on certain people's blogs?

Is anyone else having this same problem? It's the weirdest thing. It will work fine when I'm commenting on most people's blogs, but when I try on my favorite funny/house blog or my favorite style/clothing blog, it won't let me. Instead, Blogger keeps kicking me out after I type my comment back to the log-in screen. Even after I log-in again, it doesn't work. I don't get it because I've commented on these same blogs before, and suddenly Blogger won't let me (despite other people posting comments just fine). Just curious if anyone knew what was up.

2. Not as annoying, but I was wondering if anyone had constant problems with spacing after you edit a post. Does it suddenly look like someone hit "enter" four or five times between each picture/sentence?

Again, I know this is a little nerd alert to ask, but anyone know what's up?

D is for...

delighted to bring you

La Vida Encyclopedia: Volume D!

It's been a while (*ahem... four months) since I've written a LVL Encyclopedia entry, so I thought I'd post a few of my current "D" favorites:

Dairy Godmother, the

Two weeks ago, I hung out at my sister's apartment for a week in Alexandria while Dan worked in D.C. completing a short fellowship with C-SPAN. Besides once again seeing Wicked (still love it!) and catching up over dinner with friends in Georgetown, Dan and I also decided to visit the famous Dairy Godmother for sundaes.

Besides their creamy frozen custard, this sweet shop is famous for two things: cute atmosphere and a visit from the president and his daughters.

I appreciated the adorable fairy tale theme, with a giant magic wand in the front window:

stars to distract from the office space foam tiled ceiling:

and wands for sale at the front counter:

Yes, even though President Obama's visit was over two years ago, The Dairy Godmother has immortalized this claim to fame in a chalkboard and by bedazzling the chair Mr. President sat in, of course.




Dan and I were kind of surprised that the shop sold only three flavors of frozen custard at first. I like the old-school simplicity of it, though, like an old ice cream parlor you'd find on a beach boardwalk or something. Besides, what's better for sundaes than plain ole vanilla?








We walked around the surrounding area (Del Ray in Alexandria), which has the most charming main street and neighborhoods. There were bungalows with over-flowing window boxes that made me want to overhaul the front of our house. Might have to be a summer project I try later in August. There were coffee houses and book stores that I wanted to peruse. Oh, and there were enough puns on the main street to make Carrie Bradshaw happy-sigh. For instance, a sign for a meat and cheese shop read, "Let's Meat on the Avenue" and a Mexican restaurant pronounced itself "The Tac-O the town!" Let's just say the Dairy Godmother is in good com-"pun"-ny with these other cutesy stores.


That was bad. I'll leave the puns to the Del Ray business owners. On to the next "D" entry...

Dogs on parade

When we're in Richmond for the 4th of July, Dan and I like to go to the rinky-dink Ashland parade. There are no floats, no marching bands, and no beauty queens waving. Nuh-uh. Instead, there are kids riding red, white, and blue bikes and dogs.

We go for the dogs. Should I say, more precisely, Dan makes me go to watch the Bassett Brigade. He had a bassett named Lucas that he loved as a kid and he never gets tired of watching these droopy guys mosey down the main street. They crack me up too because inevitably one of them will catch wind of an interesting scent and he's off in the wrong direction while his owner tries to coax him to finish the course.

This year, we snapped a pic of this guy in his Independence Day best. Gotta hope that isn't paint...

Of course, the dogs on parade isn't the only thing this event has to offer. It usually ends with the lawn chair brigade, where a troop of retirees march down the street with a lawn chair looped over their left arm. They stop and unfold the chairs with military precision and rest every so often. It never fails to kill the Ashland attendees every year!

DSLR camera

Why I want to save my tutoring money to buy one of these babies:


* I want my boring pictures of dogs on parade to come out clearer


* I want to take pretentious photos of trees and leaves and title them "Leaves Series 1" and "Tree Series 2"

* I've heard repeatedly that a DSLR camera is magic and will make my pictures brighter, clearer, and the people in said photos will look prettier and their hair will appear amazing, but of course the camera will airbrush the rest of the body to be cellulite and hair-free. Or at least this Italian girl is hoping for the latter things.


* Yeah, I had to Google "DSLR", I'm not sure what "aperature" is exactly, and I couldn't give an eff about learning about "white balancing", but I like pretty pictures. In the modified words of David Sedaris, "Me snap pretty one day".


Basically, I'm not looking to become another wannabe photographer. I just want to be able to have slightly better ones for me and my blog. Keeping sort of an online scrapbook, challenging myself to try new things and documenting those efforts, and being able to share bits of my very ordinary life with other is what I like best about keeping this blog. I'm planning on slowly saving money to get a DRSL... errr... DSLR camera and lens to have some more fun on here.


And yeah, if I save my pennies and actually get one of these babies, I guess I'll have to pick up a "Photography for Dummies" and actually learn more too as I don't think simply clicking a button will do much. Perhaps a future Just Do It challenge?


Just had to get one more "D" in before I ended with my favorite:

Dan (also see: Danimal)

Enough said.

Just do it #17: See my city like a tourist

For our fifth anniversary, Dan suggested, "Why don't we do a kind of a different date where we pretend to be tourists in Richmond?" (Cue heavenly choir...)

With those words, a blog post was born!

Dan and I are loyal Richmonders. I've lived here all my life, which struck me as kind of limiting and maybe a little sad in my early twenties because I know that I hate change and I wondered if maybe that was the reason I never considered settling anywhere else. And maybe it was part of my motivation at first. It just seemed easier to do my student teaching while living with my parents and then I ended up accepting a job here.

Now, though, Dan and I really love this mid-size city! While we love to visit bigger ones (New York, Charleston, D.C.), I can't imagine any of them feeling like home like Richmond. She (yes, Richmond is a she) is just so eager to impress. If I had to compare, I'd say that Richmond is kind of like a fifteen year old who stuffs her bra. She wants so desperately to be cosmoplitan and mature like the big girls, and I just want to tell her, "People love you just as you are!" So what if you don't have a major league baseball or football team! Who cares if you haven't caught on to the latest craze in fusion food? You've got so much going for you (festivals, new restaurants, parks). You're still a perfect mid-size city to traipse around!

But enough of me mentoring my city. Back to our fifth anniversary date.

After going to a new coffee house, we started by milling around Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, which is about three miles from our house. Considering I've only been there twice a long ass time ago, it still felt like a new experience for both of us.

It has stunning flowerbeds next to complicated glass sculptures, like this one sprouting out of the fountain:

We checked out the koi pond:

walked around the rose garden near this older estate:

and were the only ones in this domed conservatory:

Humidity: good for palm trees, baaad for my hair

Dan joked that this guy looked like something from out of Little Shop of Horrors. I can see him unfolding to slurp down someone.

We took photos of pretty, real plants:

and pretty fake ones (these guys were made from glass):

Speaking of glass, I liked how these playful elves were skipping around every pond:


When we were finished with gardens, Dan and I went to the art museum, which we've been to a hundred times, but we hadn't been to check out the new exhibit yet.

Full disclosure: Dan and I are complete middle schoolers in the modern art sections that are goofily pretentious. For instance, we'll see something like this:

and we are non-stop riffing on it. "It reminds me of a time I was stuck in a snowstorm." "It says so much, without saying anything..." "I just realized the meaning of life."

We never fail to crack ourselves up. Luckily, most of the paintings were much more interesting. I which I'd been allowed to take pictures!

After taking in culture, we went to dinner via a generous anniversary gift from my parents as Amuse, the restaurant in the museum. Just consider it another restaurant ticked off our 12 restaurants in 12 months challenge.

Even the sign was arty:

The decor was more interesting and artistic than some of the actual pieces in the museum. I love the egg shaped light fixtures grouped en masse:

Not sure what kind of flower was on the table, but I loved these chartreuse puff balls:

Dan wanted to me to take a picture of our drinks because he's pretty sure you can guess who's is whose.

We had a great meal (scallops), but as Dan put it, he and I were "not amused" (pun on restaurant name alert) by the bitter dessert which didn't seem to include any sugar. Sigh. At least it was pretty!

And we finished with the requisite anniversary photo. I can't believe it has been five years!

I think Dan really had fun giving kudos to our favorite city. In fact, he look up at me at the end of the meal and said, "I think you need to do a post about a more guy-centric day in Richmond. You know, we could go to off-track betting and eat barbeque and see the Squirrels play. I could be a guest blogger and write some funny shit." So there may be a sequel to this post coming soon!

I feel so grateful to have Dan in my life and all the adventures, great ideas, and yes, funny shit he brings into it! :)