Harry Potter Geek Alert!

This weekend, my sister is coming over to start rewatching all the Harry Potter movies with my fiancee and me. We are total Harry Potter geeks. I've grown up reading them and watching the movies, so it's kind of hard not to get excited about the final two movies coming out within the next year. After rewatching all the movies in a row, I'm going to start rereading the books from the beginning also. At least I'm not one of those people who dresses up for the premiere, right?

I know there are lots of people who don't think the movies are as good as the books. This is probably true, but I think the movies did the best job they could have with the material. The books are so lengthy, and it would have been rather difficult to include every scene in the films, especially since each film was over two hours last as they were.

Every actor chosen for his or her role was amazing, in my opinion. I couldn't see anyone but Alan Rickman playing Snape's character so perfectly. The way he pauses in the middle of his sentences is terrifying, and I can't wait to see how his role will play out at the end of the movies. Maggie Smith as Professor McGonagall was equally amazing. She played the stern but loving personality exactly as I pictured it in the book.

I can't believe it's been ten years since this franchise started. Hopefully all the other Harry Potter geeks and myself will be happy with the way they end the movies.

To Elope Or Not To Elope?

Getting married is supposed to be one of the most important days of a person's life. Little girls always dream of weddings where they'll dance with their new husband and eat cake and take a million pictures. I know that's what I always pictured when I was a kid.

As I get older, I'm not completely sure if that's what I want, though. I have been planning a wedding for the past nine months for October of next year, and the more I think about it, the less I feel the need for an elaborate, expensive wedding.

My fiancee (Andrew) and I have done a lot on our own. We are both young, so we've learned how to become adults together. When we first moved in together, we were two separate people, but now we're actually a couple. We make decisions together, pay the bills together, and spend most of our free time together. We aren't the type to run to our parents when we have a problem or a question because we like being independent and taking care of ourselves.

The more I think about it, the more I think eloping would be more romantic than a huge wedding. Eloping would allow the two of us to share our vows in private. We wouldn't have to feel like we were putting on a show for all of our friends and family. It would make our wedding more about US than about everybody else. I like the idea of getting married on a beach, just the two of us.

But I know there are things I would miss about a wedding. I already have my dress, and it's absolutely beautiful. I can't imagine NOT wearing that dress on my wedding day. I would miss the pictures. I've always dreamed of the father/daughter dance at my wedding, and if I elope, I will never get to experience that.

I don't want to look back and regret my decision when I'm older. I hear women say all the time, "Once the reception is over, you'll feel all the stress melt away." But I don't WANT to feel stressed during my entire wedding and reception. I don't want to be miserable, thinking about money and hoping for perfection, while I'm trying to plan a wedding and more importantly, a marriage to the man I love.

So do you guys have any advice? Have any of you ever eloped? Have you ever regretted it? And if you had a big wedding... are you happy you got married in front of all your friends and family?

Warning: This Post Contains Bad Smells

I've been pretty swamped at work lately which means at 5:00 I'm ready to go by sprinting out the door of my office, leaping in my car, and roaring out of the parking lot like I'm driving the Batmobile. Which is exactly what I was doing last week because everyone knows Mondays Tuesdays Wednesdays every work day is exhausting.

I pulled into my driveway twenty minutes later and immediately felt calmer. Just being home makes my stress levels go way down because I know that I can spend the next seven hours being lazy.

So after checking the mail, I made my way to my front door. I was reading a piece of mail while I put my key in the lock and pushed the door open.

AND OH MY GOSH, THE SMELL.

The smell of dog crap hit me in the face so hard that I gagged on the air. And then I immediately turned back around and closed the door. Because obviously I was going to wait until my fiancee got home, pretend that I had just pulled up, and somehow force him to go in the house before me. Because the rule in my house is whoever finds the "accident" cleans the "accident" up.

So when Andy pulled up three minutes later, I was just getting out of my car and all, "Oh, hi. Wow. Totally random that we got here at the same time, huh? That pretty much never happens. What a coincedence!" And Andy was all, "What are you trying to hide, Sara?" And I was all, "Ha, ha, ha, oh, you. You sweet, beautiful, charming fiancee of mine. Don't be silly!" And he was all, "There's dog poop in the house, isn't there?"

He knows me so well.

So I guess that after five minutes of not smelling the putrid scent of twosies in the air, I had forgotten how bad it was. And when we opened the door to go in the second time, I started gagging so I had to go *back* outside in order to not throw up. Which is when I hear Andy inside sounding like Chewbacca or something because he's not really forming coherent sentences but occasionally I think I hear something resembling the words "we are so selling this dog!!"

Which obviously gets the best of my curiosity. So I plugged my nose and headed in to see what was making Andy go all Mel Gibson on Penny Lane. When I peeked around the corner into the room where we keep the dogs, I saw Penny Lane.

Covered. In. Poop.

I mean, it was everywhere. It was caked on her feet, her legs, her belly, her tail, and the top of her HEAD. The bottom of her cage was completely brown, and it was smeared on the floor like she had been finger painting with it.

Which would seem pretty bad. But alone, that story is nothing. Because Penny decided to have an "accident" in her kennel again EVERY DAY for four days in a row. So for four days in a row, I got to come home from work to the smells of Miss Penny Lane. So yeah, last week was a really great week for me.

Haughton Homecoming!

This past weekend was homecoming for Haughton High School, my old high school. How do I know this? I got stuck in the traffic for the parade. Every year, they have a parade Thursday night for the game on Friday. They close down half the town of Haughton to have it. Everyone gets to be in it, too. Danceline, cheerleaders, football players from elementary, middle, and high school.

I had made a quick trip to Dollar General to get wrapping paper for the present I bought for my fiancee's birthday. (An iPod shuffle! I was so excited to give it to him!) Since I couldn't get out of the parking lot, thanks to the parade, I decided to sit on my hood and watch by myself since it was only about 30 minutes long.

It was fun to watch and have all the memories come back after all these years. I used to ride the fire truck in the parade because I was on danceline through middle school and high school. I watched all the parents with their kids and started getting a bad case of BABY FEVER, thinking that I can't wait to bring my kids to the Haughton homecoming parade one day and tell them that I used to be in it every year. Hey, maybe I'll even see my own children in it one day.

But for now, I told my ovaries to be quiet because NO BABIES ALLOWED until I graduate from college. : )

Also, my fiancee, Andy, received his Associate's degree last year in Computer Science. He's just decided that he wants to start at LSUS and begin working on a bachelor's degree in Computer Science. I'm so excited that he's going back! I was always expected to go to college and graduate as a kid, but his parents didn't push him to excel at school so it feels like he's really done this on his own. I'm impressed by his motivation because there are definitely days when I want to quit school altogether. Hopefully I'll be able to help him out with some of the struggles that I had when I first started at LSUS.

Road Rage

A few days ago, I was driving home on I20 in the left hand lane. Somebody cut the person off behind me and ended up driving right up close to my bumper. I hate when cars do that, but I have been trying to be a safer driver lately and not brake checking like I used to! I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the truck that was cut off driving on the left hand shoulder trying to pass the jerk who was still just inches from hitting me.The car behind me jerked over onto the shoulder in order to keep the other car from passing. Now BOTH cars were on the shoulder of I20, going 80 mph.

I was incredibly nervous because I'm a timid driver as it is, and adding these idiots into the mix was just making it a million times worse. They continued to jump from left lane to right lane back to left lane and to the shoulder as if they were racecars drafting. At one point, they drove directly next to each other. Both had their windows down, and I can only guess that they were screaming obscenities at each other.

Luckily, my exit was soon, and I got off the interstate quickly, breathing a huge sigh of relief when I was out of their way. And that's when I got really angry about what happened. Whether someone cut you off or not, there is no excuse for driving like that. We were going 80 miles an hour! There is no place more dangerous to drive like that. It really upsets me when people risk not only their lives but all the other drivers' lives just because they are mad.

I guess people not knowing how to drive will be a problem we have forever. Word to the wise:  If you need to get somewhere at a certain time, leave early.

Old, Crappy Flip Flops

I got to drive to Mansfield twice last week to go to the courthouse for work. I love going to the courthouse because I can get a lot done. It's very calming getting to drive the hour there and back, too. Plus if I get finished with my work for the day early, I get to go home for the day! It made for a really great week.

While I was there, I had to go downstairs to get a few older documents. I was wearing old, crappy flip flops and four steps from the bottom, my feet slipped out from under me, and I fell straight on my butt! I slip down a few steps and hit my arm on the stairs also.

It hurt so bad! I ran into the bathroom because I was sure I was going to cry from the pain. Luckily, the throbbing subsided, and the situation became a good bit funnier when I thought about it again. I now have a huge bruise on both my arm and my hind quarters! I guess I should invest in some better shoes...

Barefoot

I've always heard that the sense most tied to memory is the sense of smell. But, for me, the thing that will always bring back thoughts of the past is hearing a song. Do you ever hear a song that immediately catapults you into a different time, into a distant memory? I was at work recently when "MMMBop" came on the radio, and I was suddenly back in the summer of '97.

You have so many relationships in this life.

Only one or two will last.

You go through all this pain and strife.

Then you turn your back and they're gone so fast.

When I think of the carefree days of being a kid, summer memories are always the first to pop into my head. I was a child of the '90s, which was easy to see judging by my Spice Girls cassette tape and my pair of pink jelly shoes. Summer mornings were spent sleeping while the afternoons and evenings were for playing outside with friends until the street lights came on. We would spend hours out in the sun every day, running from one house to another house, from one kitchen to another kitchen, until our parents, exasperated with our exorbitant amount of energy, asked us in stern voices, "Inside or outside? We can't air condition the whole neighborhood, girls."

Of course, we would choose outside because there's so much more fun outside. We had bicycles to ride, stories to imagine, and far-off places to explore. "Why would anyone ever choose inside the house?" I used to wonder to myself. Nothing fun happens inside the house. Inside is for baths, homework, and bedtimes. But outside? Outside is for capture the flag, Chinese jump rope, and hide and seek. And with a water hose in the backyard that provided me with unlimited drinking water on those warm summer days, I could stay outside for hours at a time.

We knocked on the doors of friends and asked the mother or father who answered the door, "Can Emily come out and play?" because we didn't have text messaging, email, or instant messenger. We adored our Walkmans because we knew that if they broke, Mom wasn't going to buy us a new one. We recorded our favorite songs from the radio onto cassette tapes since we didn't have the option of downloading music to our MP3 players (which often resulted in the first twenty seconds of the song being filled with the voice of the obnoxious DJ). We giggled like carefree kids as we rolled down hills in our backyards, landing in a heap of grass stains and kool-aid mustaches at the bottom.

We weren't in constant fear of being injured, losing our jobs, or having our hearts broken by people we trusted. Friendships were repaired with a shared popsicle and a pinky promise to never hurt each other's feelings ever again. Our biggest worry was whether or not we had enough change to get a Drumstick when we heard the distant sounds of the ice cream truck. Fear was just another four letter word, and we would often spend most of our days climbing (and falling out of) trees, creating bike ramps that would inevitably break somebody's arm, or challenging each other to playground antics that would rival the stunts on Ninja Warrior.

Everyone always says that you should appreciate being young because it goes by too fast. Where there is a 16-year old girl complaining about her 11:00 curfew, there will always be an adult telling her, "One day, you're going to look back on these days and wish you had appreciated them more." But she won't listen. She'll think to herself, "They don't know what they're talking about." She'll gripe, "They only say that because they're so old now," and laugh about it later with her friends.

And lately, I actually do feel old. My summers used to be devoted to eating frozen popsicles on the hottest days of the year or starting a game of kickball in the street with all the other kids in the neighborhood. My summers used to be about staying barefoot as long as my mom would let me because shoes just got in the way of learning how to ride a bike or chasing the boy I liked across my front lawn.

Now my summers are spent chained to my desk at work, craving the sun on my cheeks and the freckles that always come with it. I stare out my window longingly, remembering the days. The days of Lisa Frank folders and Saved by the Bell marathons.

Mmm bop, ba duba dop,

Ba du bop, ba duba dop,

Ba du bop, ba duba dop,

Ba du

The song comes to an end. The '90s are over, and there is work to be done, a house to be cleaned, and bills to be paid.

But while I'm going through the motions of being an adult, I smile. Because I know that the next time a song from my childhood comes on, I'll get to take my short vacation into the past all over again. So I sigh, turn back to my work, and wait.