More of a garage story but we were fostering a pretty crazy dog. We had just built our house about a year or two before. He had already done just about everything to the inside of the house so I thought I will just put him in the garage for one hour while I go to church. What could he hurt in the garage? It's heated and I don't think he can get out. He was an escape artist. If I put him in the yard he could climb the fence and would run down the street chasing me, if I left him in the house he would go insane and tear up any barrier he could to get out. He had severe separation anxiety. After I pulled out I shut the door and let him in the garage. It was winter and one of the coldest days of the year for us here in the south. I had a five gallon bucket of paint and glaze I had been glazing the kitchen with, put it out there and forgot about it some time before. It was just under the windows. I didn't have a fixed lid on it for some reason just covered with foil. He thought it was a stool and was jumping up and down and in that bucket of paint trying to escape through the windows that face out to the front of the house. He managed to tear down both window blinds from the two windows and cover them in the paint. They were hanging off their headers all askew. He then jumped up and down on the garage door which is white as far up as the windows in it, a double garage door covering them in paint. The garage was nice with dry wall and pretty paint and flooring and even base molding he had paint all over the floor and walls and to make it a true heart attack we had just gotten a new SUV that was parked in there and he jumped up and down trying to get into the truck. It was also covered in green paint. When I came home and hit the door opener he ran out covered in green paint I was in shock at the scene!! My next door neighbor who always has his garage door open and had his pride and joy white BMW convertible parked in it. I scream at him CLOSE YOUR GARAGE DOOR!!! My dog was heading to his garage covered in paint. I started running after him in my high heels and dress I caught him and got myself all covered in paint but I was able to hose him off and get him cleaned before realizing in disbelief the carnage in the garage. I felt so mean hosing him down outside in the winter and was terrified the paint would not come off of him but it did. Then when I looked at the garage it was one of those times when you truly did not know how to react, it was an out of body experience. It was a horrific scene and since my husband was out of town I had to figure out where to start on the clean up. It was really a job for Service Master or a hazmat cleanup, lol. I started with the SUV and to my surprise since the paint was still wet it came off, thank God it was latex. It did not come off of the black rubber or plastic bumper areas though, it just absorbed it. Then I tackled the garage door and windows and the people door that leads outside. Pretty good, got that up but it never did come off of the flooring or the drywall which I had to repaint. Then I went to Home Depot and got new blinds for the windows and it was pretty much as good as it was going to get. To this day there is still green paint on the floor out there a little reminder of our crazy rescue boy. My new house was definitely not new anymore!!

Speaking of Beatrix Potter, on our last visit to the library my kids and I found this wonderful book called Beatrix Potter The Complete Tales. It's 400 pages long with original illustrations. We've been enjoying it so much that I wanted to buy one, but they are a bit spendy--new $40, and the cheapest I could find a used one was for $20, plus shipping which wasn't cheap either. Even the used is out of our budget right now, but maybe for Christmas:-) Kelly

I read that jk might release bk 7 on 07/07/07. yay! i also think that ron might die. Firstly, because the best friend of the hero usually dies, and second because of this article I found: "Why Ron is probably gonna get the axe before it's all over. Let's start with killing off one myth: the Ollivander's anagram. Sure, it spells out "Ronald lives" if rearranged. It also spells out "Ronald's evil" though, so I don't think that's any guarantee our little redhead is going to make it through There are two main reasons (and a bunch of smaller ones) to why I think that Ron will die. Of course, I don't want him to - it would be completely horrible - but I didn't want Sirius to die either and he did, so I figure, better be prepared for the worst, eh? Reason 1: The Stupid Joke Those of you who frequent the HP Sleuth page are familiar with the theory that when Ron makes a joke, it usually turns out to come true. I know that Galadriel Waters writes about this in her books too, but since I haven't read them, I can't make any parallels. I could repeat all the HP Sleuth arguments regarding Ron, jokes and fortune telling, but since it's already online, I'll just refer you to the HP Sleuth page instead. To the point. In OotP, Ron makes a very stupid joke indeed: "And from now on, I don't care if my tea-leaves spell die, Ron, die - I'm just chucking them in the bin where they belong" (p. 633). What bothers me here is not only that it's one of Ron's jokes, but that the "die, Ron, die" is emphasised by being put in italics. JKR could have not done this. She could have used quotation marks instead, or nothing at all for that matter. Also, the word "die" is duplicated and put around the word "Ron", surrounding it. It doesn't look too good Reason 2: McGonagall's Chess game This is a theory that I received quite some time ago from Dora and Gally. Clumsy in general as I am, I lost their e-mail address, so I couldn't write them back about it. I'll just hope that they don't mind me using it. :-) Everything in italics is part of the message they sent me. (The passage is PS p. 204-206 UK paperback edition by the way.) "Rowling always had a good sense of humour ;-). She described the Second Wizard War in the McGonagall's chess game. The chessmen (chessmen, figures...how strangely she describes them, like real people, not like pieces of stone) are black (Aurors) and white (Death Eaters). The white figures are scary, cus they are "faceless" (white terrible masks of Death Eaters) "Harry, Ron and Hermione shivered slightly -- the towering white chessmen had no faces." Then let's take a look at this: "Well, Harry, you take the place of that bishop, and Hermione, you are next to him instead of that castle." "What about you?" "I'm going to be a knight," said Ron." That's a very strange choice, isn't it? Ron is very good at chess, he must knew, that it's better to be a king, because kings can stay until the end of...

All right you fanatics! Harry will not be studying at hogwarts during his 7th year, but will return occasionaly or at some point to visit Dumbledore's (and now Minerva's) office. I believe that this office contains many clues 4 harry to go on to bigger things. Remember that this office was a place of study to DD who collected many objects,and astronomy among other things. Perhaps there is something in the stars harry has yet to learn about. As well don't forget that many portraits remain animated, containing several characters, old headmasters and mistresses whom all have great knowledge and secret portraits hanging around the country.(just a thought) Some people believe the final battle will take place in the dark forest but i think it unlikely. The idea of a final battle risking the lives of hundreds of students on school grounds is not what JK would think appropriate. It's already enough that some characters will not make it to the end... Harry will attend the weasley and delacour wedding before heading off to his personal venture. He will only tell hermione , ginny and ron about the adventure, although, certain members of the order will discover the plans he has and will keep a close watch on his journey...I believe that Lupin and tonks will secretely follow the star trio. Harry will want to learn more about his parents life before death and will discover his grandparents identity and roots as well, from where we will finally understand how harry has become so wealthy throughout his parents. I believe James potter was naturally wealthy because he had noble blood, passed on by a long term royal family, turned sour. Of course their gold will have increased with their daily jobs seeing how talented james and lily were. Harry will not linger too long in godric's hollow for many death eaters will expect him to go there. The death eaters help lucius escape from askaban. The dark lord finds out from an unreliable source that narcissa spilled the beans concerning draco's mission(possibly wormtail who was evesdropping at the door(HBP). V will then personnaly kill narcissa, but lucius will not have the opportunity to stop it. Snape who is now on the run with draco will appear finally at his supposedly masters feet once more, looking like the devoted puppet. Only snape will play his part well for some time, which will put him in the lords good graces. With all this new excitement and rush, draco starts to have mixed feelings about this new dark side he has prepared for all his life. Draco does not like his father anymore for letting his mother die and begins to understand snapes real plan. Draco starts to believe what DD told him about beeing able to hide people so other would think they are dead. He begins to want to join the other side. Remember that Draco has always been a coward and wanted to befriend harry on their first night at the castle. Children are often the products of their parents due to lots of intimidation....