What's Up, Buttercup?

I hope you didn't go plastering my face all over milk cartons. I know I've been kind of...absent. But here I am! With a fresh update on what's going on. Or not going on, as the case may be. You know...whatever.

Where to start? The work front? Frustrating. Disheartening. Best not to speak of it. Okay? Good - lets move on.

We have a (mostly completed) front garden! I should take some pictures of the loveliness - it's all statuesque plumeria, wildly creeping plumbago and splashes of color provided by some zinnias from the local nursery. I can't wait for it all to fully grow in. And here are some amazing...grainy cell phone pictures of the backyard garden.

We also got new chairs for the porch. Well. It's more like an oversized stoop, really. But once it's painted, along with the back porch, it'll be nice. The dog is doing fine. We've had him for about six months at this point, and although there are some little things I still need to work on, I think things have (mostly) progressed very well from where we started.The cats are. They just *are*. They're cats. It's what they do.

Due to having to replace an air conditioner - a not totally unexpected project that still managed to catch us off guard - we've had to scrap plans for any vacation later this year. Which is fine. It's better to pay down some debt and put ourselves in a better financial position to bear these salary reductions that the state has...ahem...rewarded us with. And the mortgage rate increase due to an insurance hike that is also something we can thank our legislators and state reps for. So, huzzah to the Insurance Lobby. At least the damn recession is good business for somebody...

The writing kind of fell off the priorities list with the introduction of twice-daily dog walks and multiple house projects, and having to bring work home to play "catch up" (haha, "caught up"...what do *those* words mean!?). So I've had to re-prioritize that back in. Possibly upcoming will be both the F3 cycle 40 and Terribleminds flash fiction prompts, revising and prettifying the NaNoWriMo story for review, and finishing a couple of stories that I have half-written.

Other items of note: I very much enjoyed the HP7: DH2 filmstravaganza. Bittersweet, this one. I can remember going and seeing the first movie with my youngest sister and some cousins. The cousins have all graduated from high school and my sister is going to be a senior next year. And obviously we've got the surreal experience of watching a cadre of child actors transform into young adults throughout the series.

I've been interested to see the changes in some of the actors in particular - Matthew Lewis has matured nicely. I won't go all creepy Twilight-cougar here, I'll just say he's a handsome lad who I hope has a future in films. 

(I know, right!?) 

And now...SPOILERS! 

I enjoyed Neville Longbottom's chance to play the hero, and reflecting back to a point that was made in the books but wasn't really addressed in the movies, I found it interesting that it would be Neville - born on the same day as Harry, if I'm remembering that detail correctly - to kill Nagini, thechnically the very last remaining horcrux, guaranteeing Voldamort's defeat.

If you remember, Neville was raised by his grandmother because Voldamort had sent some Death Eaters to attack the Longbottoms, I think because he couldn't be sure which child the prophecy actually referred to. My take on it is that it may have applied to *both* Neville and Harry. Obviously, Harry was "The Boy Who Lived", but without the sword *choosing* Neville at just the right time, allowing him to kill the snake, Voldamort may not have been weakened enough still for Harry to finally destroy him. This is my theory, anyway.

Also, I bawled like a child at the pensieve scene. I knew it was coming, I steeled myself for it. It still hit me like a lead brick. It always catches me off guard when a book (or a single scene in a movie, for that matter) carries that much emotional weight. I cried over Fred Weasley when I read the book, but it was such a fleeting scene in the final film that it almost didn't even register. I do know I absolutely lost it over Hedwig.

I wasn't interested in the series at the beginning, thinking like a lot of people did that it was little kid lit, but reconsidered after I was convinced to at least read the first book (thanks, M!!). I plowed through the rest of the books to get caught up through the seventh, and joined the ranks of those anticipating it. I firmly believe that J.K. Rowling deserves all the praise she's received for these books, and that they are too easily dismissed as not being "literature". Anyone who has read them all can see not only Rowling's growth and development as a writer but the richness of the world and the characters and the beautiful story she created with the Harry Potter series. It pulls you in and makes you believe in magic, and I, for one, will miss it.

And now I'm looking so forward to the return of Doctor Who, and summer winding down and fall slowly drifting into the holidays.Why do we seem to be just barreling towards 2012?