Harry Potter Reread: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

As February is the second month (I know, I'm slow and it's March now), it makes sense that this month's Harry Potter reread would be the second book. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is book number 2 in the series. In case you're curious, the post explaining the reread can be found here, it also lists the other blogs participating in the reread if you'd like to read more posts. You can also check out my review for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
I have to say Chamber of Secrets is probably my least favourite of all the books. Not for any specific reason, but this reread didn't make me like it any better.

I hate what happens and that everyone thinks it's Harry, and Lockhart is just a giant ass. I kept internally yelling at them to not do stupid things. It's not that it's a bad book, I'm just not as fond of it. 

And again, if you've never read the books (why are you here?) I shall provide the synopsis.

HARRY POTTER is a wizard. He is in his second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Little does he know that this year will be just as eventful as the last...

Wow, the synopses for these books so far suck. Well, I suppose they don't give anything away which is a good thing, but then people might not pick the book up because they have no idea what it might be about.
I had another "hmmm..." moment while reading this one, when the trio is discussing Tom Riddle and Harry says he really wishes he knew why Riddle got the award for special services to Hogwarts and Ron says "Could've been anything...Maybe he murdered Myrtle, that would've done everyone a favour..." I definitely never caught that before (call me stupid if you will) but, in reality, he did.
I'm having a particularly hard time writing this post and I'm not entirely sure why.
There are quite a few things in this book that are important later on in the series. Sometimes it's nice reading the series and the books for the first time, not knowing that a character is going to die or that an object mentioned will be important later on. But on the flip side of that, it's amazing to see all the details that JK put into these novels.
One thing I did love about Chamber of Secrets was getting to see a little bit more of the wizarding world. With getting to visit The Burrow, travelling by floo powder and the trip to Diagon (and Knockturn) Alley.
I apologize for how not exciting this review is. This book just doesn't excite me as much as the others, and it's already March so I think I may just end it here.
So next...I suppose this...month's reread with be book 3, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This book I like a little bit better so hopefully the reread and posting will be done earlier. 

Pinterest Experiment: Basket of Sunshine

While trying to decide what to do for my pinterest experiment this month, I came across a pin of a basket that was all orange. This made me think of the Box of Sunshine that I had pinned many months ago (probably one of the first things I pinned after joining). My sister has been rather down lately, being unemployed and not having much to do, so I decided that I wanted to make this for her.

 

This is the original pin

 The original one said box of sunshine, but since I’m so fabulous at making baskets (hahaha) I decided that’s what I was going to do. I was a little concerned when Kaley originally told me she wasn’t going to be visiting for the Family Day weekend, because I didn’t know when I would see her! Luckily she did end up coming to visit so she got her basket.

It’s really pretty simple to make. You just need a bunch of yellow things and something to put them in. I want to say how much I spent to give you a rough idea but my sister reads this so, Kaley don’t read this next part haha.

It cost about $30, but you can definitely make it more or less expensive depending on what you buy.

I’ll give you a list of some of the things I put in the basket: golden oreos, wet wipes, travel Kleenex, nail polish, ring pops, star burst, carrot cake m&ms, note pad, giant clothespin, golden teddy grahams, peeps, chocolate bars, juicy fruit, soap, note book. I think that’s it. I mostly got things from dollar stores, they’re really good for cheap candy, as well as Walmart and the grocery store.

 

 

After I got everything assembled, I grabbed a basket to put everything in. I just guessed a size that might fit everything, you can always buy the basket first and get things to fill it up. I wanted to get a yellow basket but my choices were limited so I got blue. My mother was a smart ass and told me the basket was not yellow, and I was a smart ass right back and said it was the sky. I put some yellow tissue paper in the bottom and I had some clear cellophane from a previous basket I had made and wrapped it up. Added a gold ribbon and a little tag and it was all done.

 

 

You can make it a basket of just a certain colour and not call it a basket of sunshine, or their basket of sunshine could just be a bunch of their favourite things.

It’s just something little to do to brighten someone’s day.

Stay tuned for my pinterest creation next month.

Go Canada Go! Sochi 2014

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the Olympics are being held right now in Sochi, Russia.

I feel very unpatriotic saying I haven’t watched all that much, but with Russia being like 9 hours ahead of us or whatever, and working weird hours, I just haven’t really been able to. I also feel like I have a mild case of ADD when watching the Olympics…”oooh I want to figure skate!” “I want to learn how to play hockey!” “ski jumping looks so fun!” “and now I’m bored show me something else.”

I watched the opening ceremonies, which were…alright I guess. Some parts were cool. Some parts were kind of wtf? The best part was the parade of athletes. And to be totally honest the best part about that was looking at all the outfits from the different countries. I have, though, been periodically checking our medal stats. Which is super exciting! We’re not doing as well as I had hoped, but we’re still doing pretty awesome. (Ok, when I wrote that part, we were actually doing pretty well. Now, not so much. Get it together Canada!)

I think it’s funny how a lot of the podiums seem to have double (or even triple) winners from the same countries. At the end of all of this I plan on actually looking at all the medal results to see just how many have had more than one person from the same country.

My way of being patriotic and supportive, was to paint my nails. I painted them on day 4 and they lasted (mostly) until day 12. I was actually pretty proud of how it turned it. It wasn't perfect, but painting something semi elaborate on yourself is hard, so I give myself props haha.

My left hand says "Sochi" in Russian

So after I peeled all of it off (it started peeling on its own) I wanted to paint my nails in another Olympic-y or patriotic way. It was suggested that I do red or red and gold. Because gold is what we want. Problem with that, is I have no gold nail polish, and my red is kind of dying. Solution, go buy myself new nail polish of course! The red is legit, I will use this more than once. The gold, well, we'll see what happens. I decided to go more simple with this design but it still packs a bit of a punch.  

 

Pardon the mess around the nails on my fingers. I am clearly not good at colouring inside the lines. In case anyone's curious, the gold is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Wedding Glitters and the red is Sally Hansen Insta-dri in Rapid Red.

We have about 4 days left of the Olympics, so let's hope Canada can rack up a few more medals to bring home with them. Congrats to all the Olympians so far and good luck for the rest of the games!

Brief Book Review: The Green Ticket

I finished my first book of the year (Harry Potter) and asked my ever helpful sister what book I should read next. She asked what books of hers I had in my possession (quite a few that I have sadly had for probably close to a year) and she suggested The Green Ticket by Samantha March so that's what I read.
I read mostly on breaks and at work again (shh) and I actually finished it the last week of January but since I'm slow this post hasn't been written yet. And then when I want to write it, my internet at my house is not working. This is ridiculous.
I'll start you off with a synopsis of the book and then I'll tell you my thoughts about it.

College junior Alex Abrams scores her dream job at the ripe age of twenty – manager to a successful salon and spa. Thrilled to finally have a real adult job, Alex enthusiastically jumps into the world of schedules, conference calls, and getting a massage when interviewing prospective employees. What she doesn’t expect are the very grown-up issues that comes with a demanding boss. Kevin Dohlman quickly becomes Alex’s worse nightmare – covering up his affairs, dealing with his enormous ego, and trying to protect her female staff from him becomes a full-time job in its own right. Alex has also befriended Kevin’s wife and co-owner, Dani, and is trying to keep Kevin’s secrets hidden from her. The situation only worsens when Kevin starts paying Alex off to make sure she keeps her insider knowledge to herself. While struggling to keep her wits and stay happy with her new grown-up job, Alex is juggling college courses, a new love interest, and keeping up with her close group of girlfriends. When her roommate and best friend Lila gets offered an opportunity to move to Los Angeles and sign with an agent, Alex realizes her life truly is changing, and everyone around her – including herself ¬ is growing up. Knowing she is faced with some hard decisions ahead, Alex struggles with keeping her job at Blissful. But does she really want to throw away what she dreamed of as a career – or will the secret-keeping for Kevin become too much to handle? The Green Ticket is a story about morals versus money, and how one young woman navigates the shaky line between the two.

I thought I was going to like this more than I did, Alex is a 20 year old in college, who basically ends up getting her dream job. Sounds like exactly where I'd like to be right? Apparently not. I'm not quite sure what it was about her and her friends but I couldn't really connect with them. Kaley pointed out that it was probably because they weren't girls I would typically have made friends with (they were really girly and a little judgmental at times). Luckily, however, this didn't put me off the book entirely.
Alex's boss was, to put it bluntly, an ass. I can't say I would have done anything differently than she had, but I was still cringing a little every time an issue with him was mentioned and I kept mentally yelling at her to stick up for herself.
I do have to say though, I was a little bit jealous of her for having her "dream job" at the age of 20. I wish I knew what I wanted to do and I'm turning 24.
Alex also met a boy. Obviously. She meets Henry at a Halloween party and they hit it off right away. Though out the book though I kept thinking that something awful was going to happen with him. I'm not really sure why, but I felt that he was either going to either turn out to be a jerk or totally embarrass her or something. Luckily that doesn't happen.
Overall it was a fairly enjoyable book, like I said, I didn't connect overly with the characters but don't let that sway you from reading this. It was very well written and there was just enough back story to each of the characters that you could invest and tell them apart, but not too much that it dragged on and took away from the story. I plan to read more of Samantha's work (borrowed from my sister most likely) because I have heard many good things.
Fun fact, it took me until page 260 (of a 316 page book) to figure out why it was based out of Iowa of all places...that's where Samantha lives!
Hopefully this review has peaked your interest a little and you pick up The Green Ticket by Samantha March. If you have read it, let me know what you thought!

Upcoming February Movie Releases

I suck at remembering that a new month is starting. I realized today while walking through Walmart when I saw their "new releases" shelf that it was now February and I had yet to write this post. So without further ado, I present to you the upcoming new movies for February.
Huh. Alright then. I present to you the DVD releases because there are zero movies coming to theatres this month that I would like to see.

First up was About Time released February 4

On his 21st birthday, Tim Lake's (Domhnall Gleeson) father (Bill Nighy) tells him the family secret—all the males in their family are able to travel back in time. He can go back to any moment and live it over and over again until he gets it “right.” He decides to go back in time to see if he can win the girl of his dreams (Rachel McAdams), but he finds out that not everything can be fixed, and that time travel doesn't come without consequences.

This one I didn't get to see in theatres, but it did look kind of interesting. So if I stumble across it on TV or Netflix or something, I will probably watch it. I won't likely be going out to buy it.

Next and lastly to be released is Thor: The Dark World on February 25

Marvel's Thor: The Dark World continues the big-screen adventures of Thor, the Mighty Avenger, as he battles to save Earth and all the Nine Realms from a shadowy enemy that predates the universe itself. In the aftermath of Marvel's Thor and Marvel's The Avengers, Thor fights to restore order across the cosmos...but an ancient race led by the vengeful Malekith returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.

I will be buying Thor. Not necessarily when it first comes out. But I will own it at some point. My review for Thor: The Dark World can be found here.

And that's unfortunately that. Two DVD releases and none in theatres. The rest of 2014 better step up it's game if it wants to be as good as 2013.

Pinterest Experiment: Candy Sleighs

To be honest, I'm cheating a little bit for this post. I made these candy sleighs back in December, but since I doubt I'll be making anything before month end and they're cute, I decided what the hell.

I will start with a little background on why I was making these sleighs. Last year around Christmas time my mom decided to do a secret Santa thing for her and her two coworkers in her office. So for the week she'd bring in little treats each day. Candy, hot chocolate, cupcakes (mostly thought of and prepared by me). Just little things to make the week leading up to Christmas a little more festive. This week was affectionately named "Chrismukkah" by one of her coworkers. This Christmas however, there were 5 of them in the office and my mom thought that would get too expensive for her to come up with presents for everyone each day. Much to her coworkers dismay ("no Chrismukkah???":( haha). Then they had the brilliant idea of having everyone be assigned one day of Chrismukkah. They were given a limit of about $2 per person but other than that they had no restrictions. My mom's day was the last one, and as soon as she told me about this, I knew we had to make these sleighs.
So, initial pin I found was this one.

Aren't they cute? The link in the pin goes nowhere. Literally just pulls up a bigger version of the picture in another screen. But the picture basically tells you everything you need to know anyways.
Kit Kats seem to be the perfect size for the base of the sleigh. Hot glue the candy cane "runners" to the bottom of the Kit Kat. I found it easiest to put the Kit Kat upside down on the edge of the table with the "hook" end of the candy cane hanging over the edge. Makes it easier to balance everything when you only have 2 hands and no one to help (ok, I could've asked but my mother probably would've just gotten in my way haha).
Then we got thin, mint chocolate bars and ran 3 length wise across the Kit Kat. I just dabbed 3 little dots of glue down the bar and stuck in on. On top of that there were 3 of the Hershey's miniatures bars (dark, milk and crackle) one on top of two on top of the mint bars.

Tadaaaa! Hmm, seems like something's missing. I know! Let's add some ribbon and a sleigh driver! We were going to find little Santa Clauses but we couldn't find any that seemed to fit. And then I found little Lindor bears!

Final product. If I had known we were going to have a little driver I would have put the chocolate bars closer to the back of the sleigh to give him a little more room to sit up. We had to lay him down because there wasn't enough space. Other than that though I think they turned out pretty well. My mom's coworkers seemed to like them :) though I think they may have just been happy it was chocolate lol. We managed to spend around $10 for all 5 I believe. I forget the exact total. But I even got some candy out of it :). That's what I get for being a helpful elf.
So hopefully this gave you an idea for something you could do for Christmas next year. And stay tuned for my Pinterest attempt next month. I'm not going to say what it is yet, mostly because I'm not totally sure at this point.
Happy crafting!

Harry Potter Reread: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

My sister Kaley, of Books Etc, told me that her virtual blog friend from Just a lil lost was doing a Harry Potter ReRead this year. Since it’s been a while since I’ve read the books (or any book really), I decided to give it a go.

Here's the post that explains the reread.

In the past couple years I finally ended up getting the whole series in hardcover. I had the first three in paperback and since I read them so many times and had owned them for so long they were slowly starting to fall apart, my mom bought the hardcovers for me. Normally I would wait to buy the books in paperback because they were cheaper, but the last three I got pre ordered so I got them in hardcover. I also own the Hogwarts Library set, which includes Quidditch through the Ages, The Tales of Beedle and the Bard, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I have the Harry Potter Film Wizardry (because I was impatient, it's not the updated one that includes the last movie, sad) and the Harry Potter Page to Screen. I have actually yet to finish any of these (bad, I know). So hopefully I'll be able to include them into this reread and finish them this year.

I’m just going to state that throughout the course of this post and the ones for the following books I will probably say things that would be considered spoilers. However I figure if you haven’t read or at least seen the movies by now, you probably never will and I don’t care. Also don’t know why you’d be reading this post otherwise.

But in case you haven't read it, and are still going to read the post, I shall provide you with the synopsis. 

Harry Potter has never played a sport while flying on a broomstick. He's never worn a Cloak of Invisibility, befriended a giant, or helped hatch a dragon. All Harry knows is a miserable life with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley. Harry's room is a tiny cupboard under the stairs, and he hasn't had a birthday party in ten years.
But all that is about to change when a mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitation to a wonderful place he never dreamed existed. There he finds not only friends, aerial sports, and magic around every corner, but a great destiny that's been waiting for him... if Harry can survive the encounter.

That...really doesn't tell you much. Well then. Onto the review of the reread.

First point of notice, this book was way shorter than I remember. It took me maybe 6 hours to read it, and that was just on breaks and at work. Heehee probably shouldn’t have been reading, but when you are all by yourself and literally have nothing else to do, it keeps you from going insane.

As short as the book felt, I still loved it just as much as the first time I read it. Although I read a few of the lines with the actors’ voices, I managed to not compare it in my head.

I love how innocent and immature the three of them are. I know that they went through stuff that no one should have to, but they just have this youthful, troublemaking innocence that I love.

While reading, Kaley texted me her “duh” moment, that Lily and Petunia are sisters, and both named after flowers. I thought it was kind of funny, though I don’t think I realized it either. My “duh” moment was at the end of the book when I realized why Quirrell could shake Harry’s hand on his birthday (even though he didn’t in the movie) but not touch him in the final chamber. He says something along the lines of his master was so upset with him for not being able to steal the stone that he decided to keep a closer eye on him. Meaning he wasn’t the man with two faces until after that day in Diagon Alley.

I've probably read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone at least half a dozen times, if not more. I tried to reread the series each time a new book came out, sometimes even when the new movie was coming out as well.

I can't decide if I want to rewatch the movies after each book, or if I want to wait until the end and try and watch them all in one go. I'm thinking it will probably be at the end of the reread. 

Next month will be Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets which I have to say I'm not really super excited to read. It's one of my least, if not very least, favourite of all the books. I think that actually seems to be the consensus that people like the second book less than the rest. I can't even really give you a reason why I don't like it as much. Perhaps I'll be able to at the end of February. 

Hopefully you enjoyed this post and are enjoying the read along as well if you're participating. Come back next month for my next reread post.