A Walk and More Potter

Yesterday was a cross training day, so Erin and I went for our Tuesday walk for the first time in about...oh, six weeks. We had been so diligent with our schedule for months, but then work, travel, family, etc impeded our regularly scheduled Tuesday walk, but yesterday we were able to resume the workout. And all I have to say about that is that it was HOT. The poor dogs, they were both spent afterward -- Scooter went home and just laid on the cool tile for awhile to cool off.

I too was hot and tired afterward -- it's weird, sometimes I feel more tired after walking than I do after running. Erin must push me hard :)

Anyway, I spent the rest of the evening reading Harry Potter and I stayed up a little later than I had wanted. I've been so tired lately that I really wanted to make an effort to get to bed early so I could get plenty of sleep, but the Potter kept me awake longer than I wanted, and I had to just draw the line and put the book down so I could go to bed. Thus, I am still tired today (it didn't help that even after I put the book down and turned out the light, that my husband and I talked for half an hour about what kind of wand we'd each have if we were magic -- I went with a simple Oak wood and Phoenix feather filling for mine, but my husband said he'd want Redwood for his and dragon scales for the filling: we are dorks, I know).

But one of the reasons I love Potter (all the books) is that reading them reminds me of reading as a kid. I always loved to read, and my mother's rule about reading at night was simple: I had a very specific bedtime (8:30 -- even in the summer -- until I entered middle school), but as long as I was in bed reading, I could stay up as late as I wanted to. Trust me, there were many a school morning when I cursed myself for staying up to finish a great book (like a Ramona book or something by Judy Blume, no doubt). That kind of excitement for a book is what I'm reminded of when I read HP, and I think many others feel that way as well -- it reminds us (or me, anyway) of why we love reading in the first place: it transports us to another world and allows us to experience something completely out of our own existence, and in the case of Harry Potter, that transportation takes us somewhere quite fantastic. Thus, it's a little difficult to put not just the book, but the feeling, away at night.

Anyway, b/c I have so much work to do (student essays to read instead of Potter), I probably will only get a snippet in this evening. Plus, I have a run to do, 7 miles. At least it will give me time to puzzle over all the mysteries the book has presented so far.