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It’s been a hot minute since I’ve jumped on the Currently train. Mostly because it’s been a hot minute since I’ve actually spent any time working on creating new content for my blog. But here I am, y’all!

Linking up  (at the very last moment) with Anne and Shea for this month’s Currently Link up.

Currently…

snacking (on)…
Hi my name is Stephanie and I am obsessed with Veggie Chips. The plain sea salt ones are SO GOOD. Do y’all hear me? They are SO GOOD. Buy them all and buy them often. They’re like Pringles but apparently better for you because they have “veggie” in the name. Also, I got a bunch of salami + deli meats sent to me from Columbus Meats and I’ve been snacking on these a LOT. Justen and I kept commenting on how sometimes they had more of a kick to them than other times and I only just realized that there are more than one flavor, haha. They’re REALLY good.

anticipating…
Well, moving into our apartment. If you remember, I’ve never actually been in our apartment. In just a few days I will be there! Justen’s picking up the keys TODAY and I’ll get to see it on Wednesday WHEN I START MOVING IN. The. Anticipation.!

borrowing…
vehicles to move stuff! We actually don’t have much to move in. Last month my mom spotted a really nice couch + loveseat on Facebook so we bought those. That and my bed are really the only things we have to move in that require more than just our vehicles. It will be interesting to see how that changes whenever we move out.

admiring…
all the pretty Pinterest pins. This is a huge deal for me, you guys. I’ve been living either with my mom or roommates (who had their own stuff) for my whole life. This will really be the first time that I get to make a space mine. and by mine, I do mean mine and Justen’s but he is part of the equation that makes it mine. So I’ve been looking at Pinterest for ideas and inspiration for the feel of our apartment. I guess I’ll just share some here and y’all can let me know what you think! 😉

purchasing…
a LOT of coffee. Y’all my coffee spending has SKYROCKETED in the past month. I’m really looking forward to mornings at home with a pot of coffee. I’m trying really hard not to purchase a bunch of stuff because my employment situation is up in the air and that could be really awful combined with getting a wedding put together and all of these changes.

Overall, I’m currently  just ready to unpack from Nashville and figure out what life is going to look like for at least the next few months… then I get to adjust to a whole new life living with a boy. 

For the past two and a  half-ish years, I’ve been really bad the worst at reading. My goal to read 50 books in 2.75 years was laughable. I hardly picked up a book, and then at the end of last year I thought “well (@*&%, I need to read the whole Harry Potter series,” so back in November I decided to try and re-read the HP series by the beginning of June.

Last night I put down Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with a heavy but empty heart and stared at the ceiling and thought, “where do I go from here?”

I’ve read Harry Potter. I’ve seen the movies. But each time I read the books, I pick up on more than I did before.

I’m about to spoil some stuff so if you’ve never read the books or seen the movies and don’t want to know anything, then please X out now.

On this read through I fully appreciated the growth of Ginny and Harry’s relationship. I’m not sure why but I kind of glazed over it previously. I was reading the part where Harry was suppressing his feelings towards her because she’s Ron’s sister and I had to stop and show Ernie the Cho Chang song from A Very Potter Musical (PLEASE TELL ME YOU’VE SEEN THIS IF YOU’RE A HARRY POTTER FAN). Unfortunately for me, Ernie Halter has no interest in Harry Potter and as I was reading the scene where Dumbledore dies, Ernie kept singing “CHO CHANG!” at the top of his lungs, and I just couldn’t handle it.

For the first time I actually understood why Harry was the proper master of the Elder Wand. For whatever reason I just kind of shrugged and agreed and it didn’t make sense to me, but this time I read it and completely understood it.

At the end of The Goblet of Fire, when Voldemort comes back, I felt a sense of fear and panic that I’ve never felt before and was so stupid since I OBVIOUSLY knew what was going to happen. I remember putting the book down and getting up and pacing around the room, wishing I had HP + The Order of the Phoenix with me so I could keep going. I’ve never had such an intense response to the story. It was kind of weird.

I texted Mei-Ling about how I’d finished it and she said it gets worse each time you re-read it. I realized it’s kind of like how drunk drivers walk away with less pain from a car crash than the person they hit – they have no idea what’s coming, but the sober drivers see the danger, tense up, and tries to avoid it. Re-reading HP is like being the sober driver in that example. You know what’s coming and you’re bracing yourself for it, which means you’re likely to walk away a little more sore than if you had no idea what was coming.

This read through I was able to really appreciate the way that Harry Potter becomes a man. We see him go from being a little boy to trying to figure out girls to making really big decisions all on his own. I think it’s the whole trying to figure out girls thing that made me really appreciate the journey he was on.

My new 101 in 1001 list has me re-reading and re-watching the Harry Potter series in the next two and a half years, so I’m excited to see what I pick up on this next time. I’ve already started re-watching them in anticipating of going to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in October (as part of our honeymoon!). I cannot wait for the butterbeer ;D

Let’s geek out about Harry Potter. What are some things you’ve picked up on during your second or third or etc read-throughs? What house are you sorted into? I’m definitely Gryffindor, but I’m definitely Neville Longbottom.

ps these really terrible pictures are from a time when I was going to post a Butterbeer Latte recipe, but realized that the pictures sucked, I lost the recipe and I didn’t actually know what Butterbeer tasted like, haha.