Wednesday, June 23, 2010

HP1 food

Hey, don't look at me.  I told you the other day to be expecting an overflow of posts.

Anyway, about Harry Potter food.  It was a dark and stormy night, and Carrie and I were really excited to try some butterbeer...

Okay, so here's what really happened.  It wasn't dark or stormy - well, it turned dark later during the night, but it didn't start out that way.  It was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone night, and we were super excited.  We took a short trip to the grocery store just before the movie to pick up lemon drops (Dumbledore eats them at the beginning of the book), jelly beans (symbols of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans), and ingredients for butterbeer.  Our plan was that every HP movie night would have different food, although butterbeer was expected to be a regular guest.  As soon as we got to the house, we made the butterbeer.  I'm going to tell you the recipe, but don't go crazy and say we should've known it would've been terrible.  We thought it sounded good.  This recipe came from MuggleNet, The World's #1 Harry Potter Site.

1 cup club soda or cream soda (We used cream soda b/c there'd been a sale that week.)
1/2 cup butterscotch syrup (ice cream topping)
1/2 tablespoon butter

Put butter and butterscotch syrup into a cup and microwave 1 - 1 1/2 minutes until syrup is bubbly and butter completely incorporated.
Stir and cool for 30 seconds, and then mix in pop.  It will get very fizzy.
Drink up! 
Butterscotch syrup smells, sounds, and tastes delicious.
Cream soda is also very tasty.
We figured, with only 1/4 tablespoon per cup of drink, the butter wouldn't be bad at all.


RESULTS:
Horrific.

It was okay coming out of the microwave, and even adding in the cream soda, we were optimistic.  However, once we took the first sip, we knew it'd been a mistake.  


REASONS WHY BUTTERBEER IS DISGUSTING:

  • First of all - Yknow how pop makes your mouth feel fizzy a second or two after it's been in your mouth?  Well, with this butterbeer, my tongue felt SUPER FIZZY the millisecond it touched the liquid.  That wasn't gross; it was just weird.  
  • Cream soda is very sweet.  Butterscotch syrup is very sweet.  I am not one to claim sugar overloads because, let's be honest, I really like sugar.  But this drink was a sugar overload.
  • It tasted funny warm, so we thought perhaps the sweetness or something would change if we refrigerated it for a bit.  Eight words of advice: Never drink anything with cooled butter in it.
  • And the refrigeration didn't really even help too much with the taste. (It did help a little.) 

RESULTS ON THE JELLY BEANS & LEMON DROPS:
Yum :)  

RESULTS ON EATING ONE BOX OF LEMON DROPS EACH + ONE BAG OF JELLY BEANS EACH + A MUG FULL OF CREAM SODA & BUTTERSCOTCH SYRUP:
We both went home feeling pretty gross and craving vegetables.


But the movie was really good, and we got to watch it on a big-screen television, which was fun.  Thanks to Reba and Micah for that :)  It was definitely a fun, albeit somewhat disgusting, night.  

Morals of the story: If you didn't catch them, reread the butterbeer section.




Harry Potter

I have already talked about this a little, but let me explain.

Carrie is my best not-my-husband friend.
The fact that we are friends is her mom's fault.  (more about that another time.)
We are doing something awesome.

Called a Harry Potter marathon!

I'm definitely excited.  I love Harry Potter so much.  I have a t-shirt claiming that I am Hermione, and I also have a magic wand that is so perfect for me!  I found it at Girl's Camp.  You know what they say - the wand chooses the wizard.  Anyway, when the books first came out, my grandma bought our family one of them, and we've been reading ever since.  They're the reason one of my sisters now enjoys reading.  Our family went to Walmart at midnight for the last 4-5 books so we could have them right when they came out.  Mom read them to us as a family, so no one ever knew what would happen before anyone else, and we always finished after the rest of the world.  But it was fun.  Mom would sit in her big chair, get a cup of water, and read a few chapters.  Sometimes one, sometimes two or three.  We often asked for more chapters than she read, but it makes your voice tired to read three chapters of a book out loud!  Especially a book with Harry Potter-sized chapters.  
I was talking to Carrie about Harry Potter a couple of weeks ago, and we decided it'd be fun during the summer to have a Harry Potter marathon/book club.  We're reading the books at the same time, and then every time we finish a book, we watch the corresponding movie while eating food inspired by the book we just finished.  And we usually spend the movie watching it, but also critiquing it and talking about which parts we wish they would've left in the movies, etc.  We hope to finish the seventh one at the time the seventh movie comes out in November, but let's be honest - we'll be done WAY before that.  We knew we would be, so maybe we'll just end up waiting until November to read the seventh book. I don't know.  I just know that it's fun!  I've been listening to them at work because someone has kindly uploaded them onto youtube.  Forgive me if it's illegal and I love it - but I would've just checked out the audio version at the library anyway, not purchased it.  It's been interesting, though, how much it helps me concentrate at work.  It works much better than music, for some reason.  
Moral of the story: Harry Potter is awesome.  And don't be surprised if I put up random quotes or things I'm thinking about while I'm at work listening to Harry Potter.  

Also, this post format is dedicated to Carrie because she usually doesn't write her blog with left alignment or whatever it's called.  Usually it's in the middle, sometimes it's on the right, occasionally on the left.  So I decided to try it with right-hand alignment.  I'll be honest - it's kind of fun.

Special Olympics

On May 28 of this year, I got to go participate in the Utah Special Olympics.  It was absolutely amazing.

On May 27, I was talking to my boss about her son, who has finished everything he needs to finish to get his Eagle Scout award except for one merit badge, which he has been working on for several months.  It's the community service merit badge.  So she signed him up to volunteer at the Special Olympics.  As she was telling me about it, I was thinking about what an amazing experience that would be.  She said a lot of what they needed help with was just cheering in the stands or giving hugs after races.  I thought it sounded so fun!  So I decided to do it.  I was a little nervous, though.  It's hard for me to go do things like that by myself; it's very easy for me to think, "Oh, but I really need to do the laundry - I should just stay home," and then not go.  So I emailed one of my good friends from home who loves serving, because I knew it would be something she would love.  Luckily, her open time was the same as my open time!, so on May 28 we met at the stadium to do some volunteering.

After we registered, we had to read and sign some papers, promising that we wouldn't do anything inappropriate.  Then we watched a video that taught us how to be good volunteers.  It was only a few minutes long, but there were some interesting things it mentioned that Dia and I were both glad it mentioned. (Dia is the friend who went with me.)

First, that we were to encourage rules no matter what - If we let someone win by cheating, then it would teach everyone else that in order to win, they would have to cheat.  I know it sounds silly to be glad they have that rule, because why wouldn't you keep the rules?, but that was something I'd actually been thinking about earlier.  Things like, What if they have incorrect form, or someone starts just before the whistle, etc. - would someone stop them?  Maybe they don't understand the rules or would get angry.  Couldn't it potentially be worse to correct them than if we just let them slip by?  (Please forgive me for having such uneducated ideas about people who are mentally handicapped.)  That's why I was glad they mentioned that in the video.

Second, that we were to treat every participant according to their biological age, no matter their mental age.  It said that they know exactly how old they are, and it embarrasses them to be treated younger than they are.  If some participants were our elders, we were to treat them as such.  I thought that was an interesting point because I've never really known how to treat people who are mentally handicapped, so as a general rule, I just usually treat them like they're younger than they are.  (not stupid, though. just young.)  But the video said we might need to explain things in simpler terms but to still be sure and treat them respectfully.

After the video, we were assigned the task of handing out slap bracelets to participants.  (Do you remember those?  Those things are awesome!)  We met some really neat people - a woman who was there as a coach for her son; a man who was participating in one of the races; another boy who'd been sitting by himself that we went over to talk to who had a sweet ipod and all the High School Musical soundtracks:) ; and another guy named Chuck who was really cool.  For some reason, I felt a connection with Chuck.  I really liked him and really wanted to cheer for him during his race.   Anyway, then we walked around with one of the kids to see what kinds of activities they had for people who were waiting to compete.  They had pizza, dancing (on a stage!), face painting, hair dying, crafts, and some other fun things.  We met a man who was really excited to give his slap bracelet to someone else who he knew would like it, and another boy who was very good at giving hugs:)  After we had given out all but one of our bracelets, we went to get some more, but decided on the way to the bracelet table that we wanted to be Fans in the Stands instead.

At this point, there were walking races going on.  That was something we learned from the mom coach - In the Special Olympics, there are races for people of every level of ability.  They have walking races, running races, jogging races, wheelchair races - they even have walker races!  I thought that was really cool.  Anyway, so there were some walking relay races going on, and since most of the Fans in the Stands were in the stands, we decided to stand along the fence and cheer there, since that was about halfway through the race and because the runners on that part of the relay never ran by the stands.  So we were Fans in the Stands by the Fence.  It was so fun :)  The first time that they came by, I almost cried.  They would work so hard to walk quickly and then look over when they heard us cheering and smile and make eye contact with us.  I felt the Spirit so much that I was in a good place doing a good thing and that those people were great people.  It was really wonderful.

After a few races, Dia's boyfriend came and cheered with us.  Then, after a few more, they had to leave because Dia had to go to work, but I decided to stay.  There was a SUPER CUTE little girl, the smallest one on the track (I would put her at probably 6 or 7 years old) who was racing in one of the running races.  She was absolutely adorable.  She had Down's Syndrome.  After a few more races, I saw Chuck!  I'd been watching for him to line up for his race and when I saw him, I got really excited and ran over to tell him I'd be cheering for him.  He can't talk very well, and I don't think he remembered who I was from earlier, and his team didn't win, but it sure was fun to cheer for him.  After his race, I went over to the end and congratulated him, watched a few of the awards being handed out, and then decided to leave.  Joel picked me up on his way home from school.

I'm so glad I got to volunteer at the Special Olympics.  I was scared, but I shouldn't have been.  Everyone there was super friendly and nice, and the service I got to do was so fun and felt so good.  I wish I had taken a camera so I could have some pictures of it now.  Our school hosts the Special Olympics every year, though, so maybe I'll be able to take some pictures next year. :)  And, a huge shout-out/thank-you goes to Dia, without whose support and excitement it would've been hard for me to go, and I'm so glad that I did.  :)

(and I've tried several times to add cool pictures, but it's not letting me right now. Sorry. :)

Monday, June 21, 2010

odds 'n' ends

So, I realize I haven't updated this thing in a while, so be expecting a little flood over the next little while.  Topics to include but not limited to:
music
Harry Potter marathon
Harry Potter 1
Harry Potter 2
Harry Potter 3
strawberry lemonade bars
Special Olympics
peaches
Wii
etc.

one of the pictures that showed up when I googled "et cetera"


Tuesday, June 8, 2010

So apparently, "bezoar" (a stone taken from a goat's stomach that will counter most poisons) is pronounced "bouh-jwah."

Friday, June 4, 2010

Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter. Can't believe I'm meeting you at last.

I also didn't realize that the movie has so many direct quotes from the book.

Harry Potter 1

I'm listening to the first Harry Potter book at work.... I never knew you were supposed to say Hagrid's name "Ru-bay-us."  I've always heard it (including in the movies) "Ruby-us."

umm.........

Ever since Carrie told me that at her work, they pay attention to make sure she doesn't say "um" on the telephone, I've been paying attention to myself on the telephone... and I realized that I say "um" way too often.  Not "ummm....." like I'm thinking, but just as a filler word.  So now I'm trying to break the habit.