Luna Tail

After my chiropractor appointment today (man that is helping a ton) I went to look at dressers for our spare bedroom.

We need a huge dresser. Absolutely huge. We have no where, hardly, to put our clothes. Our closets are small, and we have no folding space, and our one little dresser is just a tiny thing.

I saw a really nice one that they would even custom make for me, with another drawer and wider, which would be perfect. $1,350.00… I don’t know if I can justify that, though! I went to RC Willey and looked at some, they were all small, not want I wanted, and still too expensive. Hrmm…

And I have been watching what I eat again, finally. I haven’t needed any diet pills, but sometimes I really think I want to try them!

You might not know it, because I don’t talk about them much (I’m too addicted to dog sports) but we do have cats. We have two. One is a black cat named Phoebe, and this one is Littles, our calico mix.

In our basement we have soft tiles and we have all our animals’ names in the tiles. This is a cute picture because Littles is laying on her name. If you click the picture you can see the full image in your browser window.

Littles is pretty uncat-like. She is not very coordinated and falls off things. But we love her, and we hope she has many years left. She is our oldest animal at 11 years old.

I have a habit that I started when I was very young… probably in my early to mid teens. I pop my knuckles. And try as I might to stop, I never have been able to. I still wish I could stop. Mostly because my knuckles, both hands and feet, always ache.

I have often used some different products to ease the ache. I have used Icy Hot in the past, and it works pretty well, but a lot of the time it seems like it doesn’t quite penetrate deep down into my joints and muscles. So I am trying a new product called Freeze It which is supposed to do about the same thing, but better.

I really like the product so far. It is a gell, and it really absorbs quickly into my skin without leaving a creamy residue that I have to wash off my hands with soap and water. And as I sit here with having just put it on my hands and feet, I can feel a nice sharp cooling sensation getting into my joints. I really like it, and I think it’s going to help ease the pain I have in my joints and muscles. And as I get older, I realize that I’m not as limber as I used to be, and after agility, jogging, or camping, it comes in handy!

I went to the chiropractor yesterday and Oh My Gosh.. I feel so much better already. My neck still kinks and cracks a little bit, but not nearly as bad as it was doing yesterday.

I’m going back tomorrow, too, and probably a couple more sessions in order to get my neck straightened out. Whenever I put things like this off, I wonder why on earth I did so, because I feel so much better when it’s done.

I want to take the dogs to a chiropractor. I hear there is a really good one here in Utah, so I’m going to check her out.

*** SPOILER WARNING ***
**LONG**

It’s been over twenty four hours since I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I think it has rattled around in my brain for long enough that I can put forth my honest opinion.

First the things I did not like about the book:
First and foremost, I did not like how Ron, Harry and Hermione spent most of the first half of the book wandering around the woods, unsure what to do. When I think about it, I think it would have been more interesting had she written it in a different way. How about they had a base of operations somewhere, and were working with the Order, or the other Hogwarts kids, and finding information on the Horcruxes? How come Harry was so adamant about keeping them secret, maybe they could have found them faster, or more efficiently, had they told a few others and gotten some help? Harry was old enough to start making his own decisions, it seemed like it would be wise to enlist some more help. Just because Voldemort ‘created’ Harry as his enemy doesn’t mean that Voldemort wouldn’t still have been nasty and wanted to take over the world, even had he never heard of the prophecy. And I felt as though the trio were so isolated during most of the book, I really missed the interaction they usually had with their friends and family.

I think that was my biggest disappointment. Later in the book when they went back to Hogwarts and met Neville, I found myself thinking that I would have rather read the whole book from Neville’s point of view. They were fighting, being rebels, getting beaten up, and going through all the things Harry, Hermione and Ron did in the prior 6 years.

I did not like Snape’s reason for being on Dumbledore’s side. If a love story was not important enough to pursue between Harry and Ginny, or Ron and Hermione, I thought it odd for it to be part of Snape’s past. I did not get the feel that it was a good enough reason. Yes I know, love is important.. but like I’ve read on some other sites, it’s too cliche, it’s been over done. Maybe not for young kids, but for us older readers it just lacked … substance. I wanted something more, something that would really have surprised me.

The best word, for me, to describe the book, is flat. And yeah, I think I’m disappointed. I found it rather predictable. And although I did enjoy reading it, and I actually didn’t find myself getting bored and kept turning the pages, I still felt as though something was missing.

This seventh book didn’t seem to have the heart and soul of the first six. It was almost as if Rowlings had done everything in the first six, and this one she just spit out to close things up, but didn’t put as much life into it as the others.

I did not like how some of the characters died, especially Lupin and Tonks. It seemed to be an afterthought. If an author is going to kill off some well-loved characters, I think there needs to be a good reason for it. I still don’t like that Sirius died, and I had thought he was not really dead. I was disappointed that he didn’t come back through the veil. I did like how Dobby died. That was a valiant, heroic death. It was sad, for sure, and I missed him, but it was done well instead of just seeing his body at the end of the story.

I didn’t really like the Deathly Hallows, as I really think everything that was presented in books 1-6 should have been enough. Instead she introduced another storyline that was brand new.

I don’t like how Snape died. I would have liked to have seen Harry and Snape have a discussion, instead of Harry getting Snape’s memories to view later. Again, it seemed like more isolation.

Another thing I did not like was Harry’s lack of magical skills. I would have liked to have seen him learn more, know more. Perhaps he was an average student and not highly talented like Dumbledore. However, since Dumbledore knew Harry was going to face very high odds, Dumbledore should have equipped Harry with more magical knowledge. I wonder where all the Aurors, and other Order members, learned all their ‘advanced’ magic. Obviously they didn’t learn it in Hogwarts, because we never saw any of the kids learn that stuff. I’ve wondered if there was some sort of magical university that would teach these things. And in book 6 Harry didn’t even know how to dry himself off after swimming to the cave. Seems like that would be a commonly known spell.

Things I did like:
I liked how Dumbledore and Harry met, in King’s Cross station, and had a chat about how things went.

I love how the kids at Hogwarts were standing up for themselves, and protesting in their own way. I would love to see book 7 rewritten from Neville’s point of view.

I do, actually, like how she put the end pieces together, even while I didn’t like the Deathly Hallows. I like that they were able to find, and destroy, the remaining horcruxes. It made sense to me that Harry was the 7th Horcrux, even though when I had read that theory beforehand, I didn’t want it to be. But it ended up being okay. And I like, as I took it, how Voldemort basically blasted the Horcrux out of Harry. Basically killing Harry, but himself as well, and giving Harry the choice of whether to come back to the living world or not. If he did so, Voldemort would come back too.

I like how Voldemort discovered, at long last, that Harry was hunting Horcruxes. I like how Harry faked that he was still dead, only to come back, dramatically as a dramatic story should be, to vanquish his enemy at the end.

I like how Neville killed Nagini. I liked how Neville, Luna and Ginny were the ones leading the rebellions at the school.

Conclusion
As you can see from my very many words about the things I didn’t like, and the few words about the things I did like, I think, overall, I was disappointed.

Finally understanding my own feelings about the book, I say that I liked how the plot worked out, how she fit all the pieces together. But I did not like how she got there.

Like I said, book seven, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, seemed flat to me. As though it was missing the heart and soul she put into the first six books. I am saddened. Saddened that the series is over, and saddened that the seventh book was not what I was hoping for. I did not cry, I did not rejoice, I was not moved as I have been in the past, and I think that, more than anything, is what I missed.

I’m going to the Chiropractor tonight for my neck. It is being so uncomfortable, and I think it’s giving me head aches. And I don’t hardly ever get head aches. It cracks whenever I turn my head, and I have to stretch it out and have it crack every three minutes or it feels stiff.

I hope he can help. He helped last time and so I’m convinced Chiropractors work. I still need to catch up on comments, hopefully I’ll get to that tonight. I’m dead tired today, not really here yet. Tired from Flyball? Tired from reading Harry Potter and being sad it’s over? I plan to write my own little review of the book, too. I do plan on posting some spoilers.

With all the Harry Potter craze as of late, I bet a lot of people are interested in Publishing a Book of their own. I will tell you, I’m also an aspiring writer. I don’t like to say that anymore because it seems like so many people want to be authors. I have a great book in my head, I just need to get around the anxiety so that I can write it down. I have most of it worked out already.

If you want to get your book published, you might want to look into self-publishing. It’s a good place to start!

The next phase of my Tattoo healing is starting to come up on me. If I remember correctly from the last tattoo, the worst part, by far, was the itching as it was healing.

This one hasn’t started quite yet. Occasionally it will itch, but so far, so good. The last tat, the itching was worse than getting the tattoo itself. So I’m not looking forward to this part.

I’m actually wearing pants today. First time in over a week. It’s kinda weird.

Well not really, but I might tonight. I just spent yesterday and today inhaling Harry Potter Seven, The Deathly Hallows. I liked it. I’m sad that the books are over now. I really liked looking forward to them.

I’m glad I know the answers now! And hopefully I will get a good night sleep tonight.