The time I went to Hogwarts

Like most people who have ever been within two feet of a Harry Potter book, I am a total nerd about it.  There was the time when Alisa and I tried (failed) to knit Hogwarts scarves for the 6th movie premier in November (yeah, we can’t knit at all).  By God we still had a party.  Or that when one of the books come out I read all 800-1200 pages in 19 hours? I can’t describe it exactly.  It’s not hero worship (I don’t think he’s dreamy), it’s not because the clothes and lifestyles are so enviable (although no one was too crazy about SATC movies so maybe that’s a terrible standard), there is no love story for all the ages… and yet, you fall in love with the zillion aspects of their charming world.

Enter my Florida work trip which conveniently gave me a spare day to traipse around Orlando. 

I have to say, for someone whose parents didn’t love her enough for a Disney/Universal vacation as a child, I was pretty impressed. 

Just kidding Mom and Dad! Considering I forked over $90 for a single ticket all I have no idea how families afford to go. That stuff is ludicrous.

But awesome.  Let the tour continue!

There were two parts of the HP part of the theme park, Hogsmeade, where all of the shops (Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley) and restaurants were.



Holy crowds.  I forgot how rarely I am surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people and screaming kids.  I thought it might be weird to be there alone (hello, creepy adult alert). Except I don’t know how you could do it with a group, there are just so many people.  At the very least it got me to the front of rides quickly. Sweet!

   

The Butterbeer was out of this world.  It tasted like butterscotch root beer (I don’t even like root beer!) with some sort of butterscotch cream foam on top.  Pure carbonated sugary delicousness.  Two enthusiastic thumbs up Orlando.  It was 100 degrees and it was pretty sweet so I didn’t end up finishing it.  I admit, this would have been nice to split with somebody.

  

I hope I don't get the mucus flavor

Honeydukes was the candy shop and my oh my was it yummy.  Look! Every flavor beans!
Cauldron Cakes!



Treacle Fudge!

Do you think it's white chocolate? What IS a treacle?

However more than Hogsmeade, my favorite part was Hogwarts itself.



You could get your photo taken with some of the Tri-Wizard tournament schools, like this excited person.

he can't wait to post this on facebook

You could watch the Beauxbaton Academy’s girls (Fleur? is that you? yes I had to look up the name of the school) and their Will Ferrell esque ribbon dancing routine.  Or you could stick around and see the Durmstrang academy guys do some sort of stomp routine meets military rifle moving sequence (with their walking stick things).  Also they did back flips.  Those guys were always kind of cute.  (does that make me a creep? How old do we think they are here?)

This guy is next to normal

  
Finally there were the rides.  Now there were three rides here and I hadn’t necessarily intended to go on any of them but the shops were too crowded and otherwise that’s the whole HP part of the park, so in I went.  Two of the three rides are pretty standard theme park fare.  One is slower and fully themed hippogriff style and has tons of Hagrid’s house/hallmarks around it.  The other was the Tri-Wizard Challenge that was a buckle in flip upside down go sixty miles an hour ride.  Good ride, not so much to do with Harry.  Mostly I was just utterly charmed by the last ride, the Forbidden Journey which happened once you entered Hogwarts.  It was part regular rollercoaster and part virtual ride.  It seriously knocked my socks off.  One minute you were being spun around to close enough to touch a giant snake skeleton in the chamber of secrets and  another you were face to face with a dragon head that spewed red hot air in your face, the next you were surrounded on all sides by a screen that had you following Harry through the Hogwarts towers via broom.  I felt completely and totally immersed in the ride.  I’m sure I had my mouth gaping open in wonderment the entire time.  Hands down the best part of the whole park.  Tip of the hat to you Universal.

seal of approval

  
So I spent three solid hours there and felt I got to see a little bit of everything.  I am not necessarily one for souvenirs (hello studio apartment), so I resisted getting a wand, or commemorative do-dads.  Also because the candy (yay) would have melted en route out of the park (boo). 
Speaking of leaving the park, on my way out I meandered through the comic section and couldn’t help but take a photo of this appetizing picture.

Money shot

Bret and I used to always jokes about the Cathy cartoons all the time.  This killed me.

Like Butta...

When I was around this age.....
I would eat sticks of butter like they were candy. Gross right? They were delicious. My affinity for butter continued grossing out friends and roommates well after college. Then of course, when I decided to be healthy I abandoned my buttery ways for healthier options. Possibly that is why I forgot to include it when baking this weekend?

So I found some recipes for brownies and blueberry muffins on the stonyfield website for cooking with Yogurt (i.e. as a substituting for oil). I was WAY excited because I had all the ingredients on hand (pro of baking versus cooking, more shelf stable items) ....... Too bad that 'ol 'room temperature' butter thing meant that I microwaved the butter...... which is where it sat forgotten UNTIL I had already divided the muffins into the pan. A few expletives later I thought, well......what the hell, and swirled the melted butter into the already-mixed-already-in-the-pan muffins. Guess what? No bueno. That coupled with the addition of whole wheat (i went half and half as opposed to all white flour per the recipe) and probably too much oven time = hard and grainy muffins. They were decent when eaten immediately (but obviously i was full from batter), but the next morning they probably couldn't chipped a tooth. YIKES.

And THAT ladies and gentelman..... is why lauren can't bake. Muffin.... FAIL.

The brownies weren't horrible.... and by that I mean I ate most of the batter and was pretty indifferent about the actual baked goods themselves. MEH.

In an effort to show a picture of something I was successful at.... here was my lunch yesterday. I successfully had multiple food groups (protein of the animal and plant variety, grains, veggies.... that's hummus in there and WW pretzelsl, FYI) .... so let's redirect our attention to that, shall we?

This last weekend I got together with some friends for a slumber party and the hannah montana movie. What's that you say? Well, our respective ages were 24, 26, and 28......................... going on 12. It was so much fun, just being goofy and ridiculous at the sorority house. It was pretty much my everything :)

TGIthursday homies :)

All Hands on Deck Granger!

First off let me tell you how my week has been.... for an illustration I would like to use a visual tool a la a calendar that Angela from the office might have (or anyone in my accounting department for that matter, hey-oh) :

Staying cool as a cucumber (or Obama) during this week? Failcat.

So it was my last week of Grad School and my stress-o-meter went so far below the orange line that Kramer would've been proud (Geez Lauren, stop watching so much syndicated TV you say.... well.... we'll get to that). After my group presentation on Tuesday I got this bad boy:

And then Wednesday morning as I went to turn on the TV to get ready to the sound of Matt Lauer telling me if the Jackson family had reached a custody arrangement yet (and other such info-tainment.. i want news people!) This happened (please view the following picture with lightening bolts).... a BROKEN TV

Which prompted me to go to Target over my lunchbreak to purchase a clock radio so I wouldn't have to get ready the next morning in silence (I need news, sorry itunes).

Except that exactly 20 minutes after I had gotten back to work I realized I lost my iphone (or rather left it in the radio aisle at target while i debated getting one that was an ihome)

All this stress made me need an emergency organization break. I'm not kidding. I'm such a control freak that when I get overloaded I just need to create a little order in my life. So 3 tiers and 9 compartments later my sewing kit got organized. WHEW that helped.

Except that yesterday afternoon I had a small meltdown as I attempted to run around like CRAZY to pull together my team's enormous proposal (20-70 pages with two pages of bullet pointed instructions on formatting and content), study for my final, and unplug my stupid work phone that was ringing itself of the hook.

Luckily for me (and anyone within stomping/yelling/punching distance) the class is OVER OVER OVER OVER OVER (as is yesterday, the most stressful day of my life) and I am officially an MBA. I can't wait to add those letters to my business card. Okay not really, but I am excited for them to imaginarily exist. *sigh* Even better? Open weeknights. MWAH it's a beautiful thing.

In other exciting news, in addition to NOT getting enough homework done this weekend. My nerdy partner-in-crime and BFF from high school came to KC so we could finally get a little of this in our lives:

In honor of her visit I made a YUMMY blueberry french toast bake that the iphone helped me find.

• Cream Cheese
• Blueberries
• Sugar
• Maple Syrup
• Vanilla Extract
• Eggs
• Day old italian bread (technically it was fresh when i bought it so i cut it up and put a fan over it for a few hours... how macguyver is that?)

It was basically pouring sugar down your throat at 8 in the morning.... but like that's a bad thing.

In other news I got my parking ticket repealed, John is giving me an old TV of his (i'm not ready to jump on the $flat screen bandwagon... i kind of wish i didn't have a TV at all), the iphone was recovered just a few short hours after it's dissappearance (amber alert!!)..... I killed that test and now I am liberated of all things school.

Currently I am eating breakfast fruit at my desk and life is figuratively and literally a bowl (gladware) of cherries :)