I love being home. It seems like most people my age dislike being home for extended periods of time (which used to make me self-conscious), but I love being able to hang out with my sister in my “What What” (as in, What What in the Butt – I know you’ve seen that YouTube video) high school tennis sweatpants. I also love being able to talk to my mom face to face and getting cooking help from my dad.

Another thing I like about being home? A full size oven.

HALLELUJAH!

It’s just SO liberating to cook on a full size stove with huge counter tops. I decided to celebrate the occasion by making Mexico Joes (Mexican sloppy joes) for dinner, along with some sweet potato fries.

On a side note, I think I officially converted my dad into a sweet potato fry lover! Mwahaha!

I also decided to celebrate the fall season with pumpkin bread! After watching the throwdown between Bobby Flay and The Pioneer Woman, I had a major baking itch. Although Bobby’s entire Pumpkin Bread Pudding recipe looked AMAZING, I wasn’t feeling up to buying another can of pumpkin, yada yada.

So I just made the pumpkin bread and nixed the pudding part. For now, anyways…this bread is WAY too good not to include in some sort of scrumptious bread pudding someday. Seriously, it’s the best bread I’ve ever made…not that I’ve made a ton of quick breads over the past year, but whatever. Who would have thought that Bobby Flay, grilling/meat champ, would make an awesome pumpkin bread recipe?!

Perhaps I’m too naive.

Anyways, the only alteration I made was adding walnuts. I love the extra crunch in the bread. My favorite part is the thick crust – at first I thought it was burnt, but upon further inspection (aka scarfing two slices), I discovered that it was just crunchy, sweet, delicious goodness. The combination of spices make this bread – cinnamon, allspice, cloves and nutmeg. Cloves and allspice spell HORRIBLE by themselves (in my opinion), but somehow they taste complex and rich inside the bread. It’s probably the sugar. So yeah, go make this bread!

Edit: I just looked at the recipe again and realized I forgot the 2/3 cup water….I wonder what that did to the bread? Perhaps it would have been lighter/fluffier? Who knows? I sure didn’t miss it..

Next on the agenda? HARRY POTTER.

It was SO awesome. And it was SUCH an awesome midnight showing! Can you believe that I, the Harry Potter fanatic, have never been to a midnight showing?! Blasphemy, I tell you! HP midnight showings are much more entertaining than Twilight midnight showings (yes, I went to Twilight and New Moon at midnight. Whatever. It’s worth it to listen to the squeals and freak outs in the audience). I saw two skits before the showing and TONS of costumes; I felt like I was at a convention! This is going to sound EXTREMELY lame, but I felt this weird nerd-kinship with all of the people there…I mean, we are the HP generation!!

Anyways, the movie was definitely different than the first six movies with the whole “on the road” plotline and no Hogwarts, but the acting was seriously excellent. I mean, they’re not master actors or anything, but they’ve come SO far since the first HP, especially Emma Watson.

I have a girl crush on Emma Watson. There, I said it. I think she is incredibly classy, intelligent and extremely well dressed. Did you know that there are only FOUR degrees of separation between Emma Watson and me? I am friends with Chris, who is friends with a girl who is friends with a guy that goes to Brown and knows Emma Watson. Awesome, right?

That aside, here’s a list of my likes and dislikes of HP7 Pt. 1.

Likes:
1. The way Hedwig died – At first I thought they were going to skip out on Hedwig dying, which really irritated me (it’s sad, but it had to happen), but I loved the way Hedwig swooped in to save Harry before getting killed.
2. The beginning in Hermoine’s house – It was touching to see that from Hermoine’s perspective
3. The corny dancing scene – I love Daniel Radcliffe. His dancing was totally out of character, but it shows how fun he is in real life.
4. The graveyard scene – I cried.
5. Emma Watson’s wardrobe – ‘Nuff said.
6. The lack of CGI – It really annoyed me to see entire CGI environments in the first few HP movies. CGI skies = bad.

Dislikes:
1. Leaving the Dursley’s – I really wanted to see the interaction between Harry, Dudley and Petunia.
2. The evil Harry/Hermoine make out scene – It was just awkward.
3. Lastly, I wish they had done more with Kreacher – I really missed seeing his transformation from grumpy to sweet.

But those are just nit-picky things. Overall, the movie was great, and I can’t wait to see part 2, although I’m 100% positive I’m going to lose it at least tree times during the movie.

Hopefully I’ll update again before Thanksgiving, but if not, have a great one!