We are not huge movie-watchers in this house. We’ll occasionally stream something from Netflix, or take the kids to see some family-friendly offering, but aside from a few old favorites, we just don’t watch a lot of movies.

We do, however, enjoy seeing movies based on some of our all-time favorite book series. We love the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and are anxiously awaiting the Hobbit movie coming out at the end of this year), and have enjoyed the three Chronicles of Narnia movies out so far.

And recently, Chad and I decided to (finally) watch the Harry Potter movies.

Both of us read the Harry Potter books as they came out, eagerly anticipating each new installment. And although I’m the only one who cried during books 4 and 7 (at least, Chad hasn’t owned up to crying), we both left the series with that sad, “I’m not quite ready to leave this fictional world” feeling. We had grown attached to the characters, involved in their story, and knew it would be a long time before another equally-enthralling book series would come along for us.

But yet, we hadn’t watched the movies. We’d seen the first two, and at least parts of the third, but that was it.

So recently, when Amazon.com had an awesome deal on the DVD set, I picked it up and last week, we finally decided that we were going to engage in a Harry Potter movie marathon.

Some notes about the phrase “movie marathon”:

• When you are old like us, an “eight-movie marathon” does not mean watching eight movies in a row, hour after hour, like it might to some spry, energetic teenager. For us, it means watching movies during your leisure time every night until you are done with the aforementioned “marathon.”

• And also, when you are old like us, and when you have a teenager who does not go to bed at a reasonable hour like your 5-year-old does, and who is not permitted to watch the movies because he has not yet read the books (we have a book-before-movie guideline we like to follow around here)… then a movie marathon involving very long movies might also mean that several of the movies require two nights of movie-watching to complete.

That being said, we embarked upon our movie marathon with excitement.

Our teen was not nearly as excited, though. He knew that every night, we would “encourage” him to head upstairs a few mintues early to read before bed, so we could get started on that night’s movie. We knew that we turned into pumpkins around 10:30 (and 10:30 is actually fairly late for us), so we had to get started as early as we could.

C.(13) was a good sport, though, and mostly just rolled his eyes at his silly parents who wanted to watch movies about magic and danger and the epic theme of good vs. evil.

Chad and I found that although we split the first two movies into two nights apiece, we then became eager to finish the rest of them, and stayed up as late as it took (we paid for it the next day) to watch movies 3-8.

Our conclusions?

• We genuinely enjoyed the movies, and loved our week of Harry Potter, but we had some issues with the ending.

• Even though we had read the books, we still felt loads of tension during the movies.

• We were surprised by how much of the story we had forgotten. Though the movies made some deviations from the books, we often found ourselves saying things like, “Oh yeah… I had forgotten about that part.”

• We were pretty disappointed with the very, very end. I won’t go into detail, so as not to spoil either the book or the movie, but suffice it to say that the very end was drastically different from the end of the book series. We figure it was probably done so they could engage in more “cinematic effect,” but we, personally, thought the book stood well on its own and didn’t need any “help” to make it more dramatic. But this disappointment did not detract from our overall enjoyment of the movie series up to that point.

• We loved the portrayal of certain characters — especially Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall.

• I’m thinking I might want to re-read the HP series sometime this year. I’ve said that in other years, but have never done it. But the movies made me want to re-visit Hogwarts and the rest of the HP world.

I stand by my belief that for the most part, books are almost always better than their movie counterparts. That is certainly true here. The books held so much more, and delved more deeply into the characters and the backstory. But the movies were a nice accompaniment to a much-liked series. I’m glad we finally made the time to watch them together.

Don’t go!

If you thought you were visiting Callapidder Days, but then were caught off guard by the new look, don’t worry…You’re in the right place.

The beginning of a new year seemed like a good time to play around with a new look. I’ve been wanting something more open and “clean”-feeling for a while, so here we are.

There will still be a few more little changes as I tweak things and make this theme my own, but most of the major overhauling is done.

If things don’t look right in your browser, please let me know. I’ve done as much testing as I can from my home computers, but I’m not a coder, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some things are off. Thanks!

Here is something I never say:

I spent last night working on a poem.

The reasons I never say that are:

• I am not a poet
• I do not write poems
• Also, I am not a poet

However, in this rare instance, this one time…today, that statement is true. I did spend last night working on a poem. While my kids were at our church’s midweek activities, I sat in Starbucks, decaf Peppermint Mocha nearby, working on a poem.

And it’s all because of my small group.

I’ve mentioned our small group before — we are a group of six couples that get together regularly for Bible study, fellowship, and the eating of yummy snacks (not always necessarily in that order). (Also, sometimes they make me go camping.) I genuinely like the folks in our small group — they’re kind, funny, dependable, friendly.

But they’ve asked me to write a poem.

This Friday is our Christmas dinner party, and in addition to food, fellowship, and a white elephant gift exchange…there will be the reading of a poem. A poem about — well, I guess it’s up to me. In past years, a former member of the group wrote very witty and clever poems to sum up the group’s year together. And now, that task has fallen (or should I say, has been forcibly transferred) to yours truly.

So I’ve been trying.

It’s not like I have NO experience in the writing of poems.

After all, in sixth grade, our teacher had us do a huge poetry project, wherein we wrote a variety of poems in a variety of formats. (I was particularly proud of my haiku.)

In high school, my friends and I would pass notes in class, written entirely in rhyme.

As a mom, I’ve been known to spontaneously create a poem about dinner or bedtime or any number of mundane topics. (And they’re usually really elaborate, like: “Get in your seat, it’s time to eat” or “It’s time to climb in bed, my friend; this day is coming to an end.”)

And of course, I am a person who (quite often, I admit) repeats lines from The Princess Bride:

Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?
If there are, we’ll all be dead!

No more rhymes now, I mean it!
Anybody want a peanut?

Now those were some good rhymes.

But the ones I write? Well…no literature professor would ever commend me for paying excellent attention to meter and rhyme. My rhymes are often “almost-rhymes” and my meter is often, well, not very metered.

Ah well, I know my small group won’t be grading me on meter and rhyme. But I’d feel a lot more comfortable if I had any confidence in my poetry ability. I’m just going to have to push my silly insecurities aside and attempt to channel a little Dr. Seuss. Or Fezzik.

I wonder if they’d accept haiku? I’m really good at counting syllables.

Chad and I have been married for nearly 18 years, and I think I’ve finally convinced him that I have trouble visualizing things. This process of convincing has come with a certain amount of conflict, multiple examples, and endless repetition along the lines of, “No, I actually can’t picture that.”

Here’s the thing: if you describe a room to me — the dimensions, furniture, decor, lighting, layout — that’s all well and good. But those details will not coalesce in my mind into any kind of picture.

That’s right; my brain will not automatically create a vision of the room upon which my mind’s eye can gaze.

Instead, I’ll be left with a list in my mind. You know, a list of the dimensions, furniture, decor, etc.

It’s just the way I’m made. Lists? Yes. Pictures? No.

We have a Wii game that is supposed to “increase your brain power” in a number of different ways. (Naturally, we just play it so one of us can have bragging rights about who has the better brain.) One of the challenges involves the player staring at a group of cartoon “people” for a few seconds, and then identifying (in a second picture) which of three different people was in that original group.

Here’s how I play:

I stare at that initial picture and my mind starts making lists. One list for each cartoon individual. My brain is usually doing something like this:

Okay. Red hair, freckles, smile with teeth. Brunette, ponytail, glasses. Bald, big nose, frown. Oh rats, I’m out of time and didn’t get to the fourth person.

Then when the second picture comes up, I hope that I can recall those lists as I compare them to the new cartoon people.

[Sounds exhausting, now that I write it all out.]

C.(12) was watching me play this game a few years ago, and was surprised that I wasn’t better at it. After I explained my process to him, he was downright astounded.

“But mom,” he said, “why don’t you just take a picture with your mind?”

Huh? A picture with my mind? How exactly does that work? Sorry, but my poor mind just doesn’t function like that.

I’m not saying that my internal workings consist entirely of words and no images. But it’s pretty close. Yes, I can picture my husband and my children, even when they’re not with me. And images of my childhood home are still pretty vivid. I can picture things and people and places (in detail, even) that I’ve seen frequently or that hold special meaning for me. But actual images of a lot of other things are fuzzy…or lacking details…or just plain nonexistent. (Even though there may be tons of words in my mind to describe and recall them.)

For the most part, this odd impairment hasn’t caused me too much trouble. Unless, of course, my husband is earnestly trying to get me to “catch his vision” for something and I’m utterly failing.

And judging by the recent (and huge) popularity of things like Pinterest, I know that I’m at least a little unique in this area. Most people seem to naturally think in pictures.

That’s okay, though. I’ll stick to my (mostly) lists and words brain, and I’ll keep taking lots of photographs, to capture the moments that my mind doesn’t.

And maybe I’ll keep playing that Wii game. Who knows? Maybe someday my mind will be able to take pictures too.

Are you primarily a “picture person” or a “words person”?

In honor of Labor Day, I thought I’d re-visit a post from way back in 2008. (Original post is here.)

And as you might guess (well, at least as you fellow moms might guess), it’s about labor, so any male readers should just go ahead and close their browser windows. There’s nothing gross or too detailed here, but still… I know this might not be your cup of tea.

Here we go:

How long were your labors?

How did you know you were in labor?

Where did you deliver?

Drugs?

C-section?

Who delivered?

Feel like playing along? Share your story in the comments, or leave a link to your post in a comment so I can come check out your answers!