Potions

Part 1:

Orginality Marker:

Go around your house, outdoors, for a hike, or wherever and take pictures of 5 different plants, herbs, or flowers that might be used in potions.

Shamrocks: Shamrocks are an integral part of potions that are used for dispossession and can be used in the very tricky, little known potion which prevents one from being put under the Imperius curse (but it only works if you take it at the exact moment you're being taken control of); shamrocks are also a close brother to the four-leaf clover, which is one of the most important ingredients of Felix Felicis.

Lovestone: More commonly known as "ivy," is a part of the love potion Amortentia. It must be dried and sliced into stips before putting into the cauldron.

Moss: This ingredient is used in medicinal potions commonly found in wizarding medical facilities, such as Madam Pmfrey's burn-healing paste.

Allium Schoenoprasum: When the tubular leaves of this plant are cut up, they can be added to potions used in Hogwarts greenhouses in keeping away pests, both magical and non-magical alike.

Parsley: Parsley is a critical ingredient in Fred and George Weasley's bruise-healing paste.

Part 2:

Answer the following potions questions:

1. Sneezewort, scurvy grass, and lovage are used to make what?

B: Confusing Draught


2. Porcupine quills are to be added when to a Boil Cure Potion?

D: After it is removed from the fire


3. What potion, if brewed correctly, should change color numerous times throughout brewing including deep purple, lilac, and finishing clear?

A: The Draught of Living Death


4. This ingredient in the Draught of Peace, would likely bring you permanent peace since it is poisonous, what is it?

D: Hellebore


5. Chopped daisy roots, skinned shrivel-fig, sliced caterpillar, one rat spleen, dash of leech juice are all ingredients to what?

C: Shrinking Solution



Part 3:

Take a picture of and list the ingredients and/or instructions to make one of your favorite potions that you have created.

Pictured above: cooking oil, water, cake mix, eggs, frosting; the cake mix came with it's own potions recipe on the back and I simply followed that to make....

Cupcakes!!! They were in lieu of a birthday cake this year for the poltergeist that just turned 5. :)

Firenze (Part 2)

Whew! I just finished posting about my Tuscan get-away on Facebook, so I figured it was high time to finish sharing my pictures here...so that I can move on to blogging about Verona!!!

After the Duomo, we went to lunch and then a gelaterie close to the Duomo before splitting off into our own directions. I set off in search of Santa Croce, and found this piazza on the way:

Piazza della Signoria:

It was a very beautiful area, and had I known there was an amazing museum right there, I'd have likely lost time in there! There were even amazing works of art out in the open piazza; scupltures and a fountain (but as they contain nakkidittity, and I know Gryphon is looking at the pics, I'll not post those ones here...you can see them on my Facebook, though!) that were beautifully crafted! Instead, I pressed on toward Santa Croce, the "pantheon of Florence."

It was an amazing experience to be there. I wish I could have gone in without kids and truly enjoyed it for all that it is. There was also a lot of restoration going on inside, so I didn't get to see all the tombs, but I did get to see Michaelangelo's final resting place...it is a work of art in itself! (Quite appropriate, no?) Very beautiful.

Tomb of Michaelangelo:

A pulpit that I thought looked super cool:

Florence was an amazing experience that I can't even put into all the right words. My pictures hardly do any justice to actually being there, and I didn't have nearly enough time to see all that I wanted to! Thankfully, my mother-in-law wants to go when she comes to visit, so I may be able to get to more of Florence's sights in the not-so-distant future. :)

A view common in Florence;

narrow streets hemmed in with tall buildings and a bell tower in the distance:

Mad-lib part duex

Here is my list of words, plugged into the story!:

Harry Potter And The Curse of Dudley

Harry Potter, the boy wonder, the cheerleader of the wizarding world; sat alone in his tiny bedroom scratching his fingernail and cleaning the goo out of Hedwig's cage. This summer wasn't nearly as boring as his previous summers had been.

Over the summer, his cousin Dudley had grown quite frightened of him. Harry secretly kept cursing him, even though under age use of magic was strictly forbidden outside of Hogacne's school of housecraft and snail.

It seemed the wizarding world turned a blind stomach when it came to Harry, and he never got in trouble for his... transgressions.

One particularly memorable curse on Dudley happened on the 12th of June. It was so hot, you could laugh a/an cottage on the sidewalk.

Dudley sat on his enormous nose in front of the telly, spooning jarful after jarful of pizza down his throat. Harry thought he looked rather bearish, with his piggy little eyes and fat body.

Harry got an evil little grin on his lips and raised his wand behind Dudley's head. "BODIUS SWITCHAMUS!" he shouted; which translated to English means "Turn this boy's head into a strawberry and make him dance around like a cat with OCD!"

And that's just what Dudley did! He clothed off the couch, screamed "SNIVELLUS!" to the top of his lungs, and began walking on the floor, while turning in circles and flapping his toes.

Harry was laughing so hard, he peed his shoe. He was still laughing, and Dudley was still flapping, when Uncle Vernon came thundering down the stairs. He had gone a nice shade of purple. He looked at Harry, shaking in anger, then looked at Dudley, horrified. "SOON YOU WILL BE ON TOP OF THE WORLD!" he screamed, then calmly turned and walked away.

Harry and Dudley looked at each other in abject confusion. Harry shrugged his shoulders in a "beats me" gesture, and the two cousins sat on the sofa, temporarily forgetting their animosity toward one another.

Dudley lifted the half empty jar of pizza and offered it to Harry.

"Don't mind if I do!" said the bespectacled young man, grabbing a spoon and preparing to dine.

Dudley's toes gave one mighty final flap, and the boys had a most enjoyable evening, indeed.

Busy work!

Since there's not a Hogwarts-wide assignment this week (due to the impending Quidditch match this Saturday!), the Ravenclaw house has been given the first part of a mad-lib: the listing of random words! So in the spirit of fun, here is my list!

1. laugh
2. 12
3. stomach
4. snail
5. house
6. acne
7. fingernail
8. cheerleader
9. goo
10. SOON YOU WILL BE ON TOP OF THE WORLD
11. shoe
12. clothed
13. obsessive compulsive
14. cat
15. strawberry
16. BODIUS SWITCHAMUS
17. lips
18. bear
19. pizza
20. toes
21. walking
22. SNIVELLUS
23. jar
24. nose
25. cottage

The end result should be pretty interesting.... ;)

Firenze!!! (part 1)

When I saw the signs for Florence, I immediately thought of our own Fiera Firenze! But Florence was an experience like no other! As I was with a larger group, there was a lot I missed seeing. (Walking en masse with numerous strollers and little ones slows a group down significantly!) And if I had time for more thorough research, I'd have had more places on my list of "must see"! LOL But as it was I was able to see the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella:

Backside of the basilica:

The basilica facade:

An obelisk in the Piazza della Santa Maria Novella:

I also got to see The Duomo (The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore) and it's baptistery (the San Giovanni Baptistery) in the Piazza del Duomo:

The facade of The Duomo:

The San Giovanni Baptistery:

One of the hexagonal panels on Giotto's Campanile (the Duomo's bell tower) depicting the history of mankind (this one is wool-working!):

The interior of the Duomo was breathtaking! There were stained glass windows everywhere, mosaic floors, indescribable paintings and sculptures lining the walls...my pictures don't do it justice! But here is the largest of the 44 stained glass windows (that I could see) in the Duomo, a shot of a section of the floor, and the vigil candles:

"Christ crowning Mary as Queen," designed by Gaddo Gaddi

Only one small section of the floor (each section was different!):

I just loved the beauty in the way the had the vigil candles set up:

The best pic I could get of the inside of the dome, since they had the altar roped off (There was the option of climbing 400 stairs to see it up close [see that railing up there?], but the boys wouldn't have made it, so I didn't get to go up):