Five on Friday #24 – Planning for Fall, Velvet Corn, Harry Potter, and More!

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Getting ready for Fall!

Yes, I know it might be a *little* early to start thinking about Fall – I am sure many of you are planning for back-to-school or are trying to squeeze in a last Summer vacation.  But I am a planner. I like to plan things. I am starting to plan for Fall.

First, I have been busy pinning away on Pinterest on my Fall boards. I have two:

Fall & Halloween Decor and Fall Recipes.

The pumpkins are planted. You see – I actually started planning for Fall just after July 4… if you want to grow your own pumpkin patch and have it ready at the right time that takes planning! 

I bought some Fall scented candles! I love the Bath & Body Works fall scents! The Leaves Candle is one of my favorite scents for Fall. I buy it every year. This year I also bought the Pumpkin Pecan Waffles, Vanilla Pumpkin Marshmallow, and Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin. I haven’t burnt these ones yet, but I’m getting ready!  

And, while I was out shopping this week, I had a little preview of this years’ new VELVET CORN!!!

I LOVE IT!!!! Just when I thought, oh, I’m done with buying velvet pumpkins… velvet corn comes along to sit next to them.  It is going to look so good next to my velvet pumpkins. I will be posting about the velvet corn some time later once I get my hands on more… it is currently shipping so we will all have to wait! You saw it here first!!

Instagram Favorites and Stories!

Have you tried out the Instagram stories???  If not, let me explain: It’s like Snapchat but in Instagram.  Still don’t get it?? Well, any picture or video you take in your Instagram Story will only appear for 24 hours maximum and then will disappear.  I am LOVING this… why? Because I can now post things that I wanted to before but it won’t “ruin” the look of my Instagram feed because it disappears! 

So, how do you use it?

On your home screen, swipe your finger right (see my lovely picture below!)

Then, it brings you to a screen with a camera.  Just simply take a picture by tapping the check button in the bottom OR if you want to upload a video just hold the button down and it will record. Then simply upload it! 

So, where can you see “Your Story” and stories by others?  

See the circles just below where it says “Your Story” in a colorful circle and then other pictures in colorful circles?? That’s where you see the stories. You will not see these in people’s regular instagram feed. You have to look at them on the home screen.

Did you like my little Instagram Tutorial? I’d Love for you to follow me on Instagram (@LePetit_Macaron). I am obsessed with it.

Let’s look at a few of my favorites…

Spotted…

Speaking of planning for Fall… last year I wanted to buy the trendy LL bean duck boots but they were sold out in my size by the time I went to buy them…. so THIS YEAR I planned ahead and they just recently arrived.

Now the most popular style is the 8″ boot here… but I got the 6″ boot here because I thought I would wear it more in sunny California.  I think if you live somewhere where it snows you should get the 8″ boot and if you live in a warmer climate go with the 6″.

They also come in different colors: there is a blue one here.  I strongly recommend getting the wool camp sock to go along with it.

Below is the 8″ boot with the wool camp sock.

from charmingly styled

from Covering the Bases

Below is the 6″ boot

from the College Prepster

Sneak Peek on the Blog…

Coming this weekend, a little sneak peek of a tour of a newly built French Farmhouse tour.  Those who follow my instagram will recognize this vignette… it is from the house tour! 

Be sure to check back on Sunday morning to tour the house!

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – A Review

I am a big Harry Potter fan (I had gone to the midnight opening at the bookstore for books 4-7), but I suppose some of that has faded with age as I was unaware that the newest Harry Potter book was even being released!  

Anyway, I knew that there was a Harry Potter play that was going to premiere in London this year.  

The newest book is actually the script to the play and is NOT a novel.  

I knew this when I started to read the book, because I wanted to create realistic expectations.  There was no way this book was going to be as good as the originals simply because of the format – you cannot have as much character development and narration with a play!  I’m going to write my review of the book below, with SPOILERS, so if you don’t want to read the spoilers consider yourself warned.

SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE BOOK REVIEW

*SPOILERS*

Ok. The play starts off 19 years since the 7th book left off, with Albus Potter, the son of Harry Potter.  Albus goes to Hogwarts and several years actually fly by in a matter of pages (what?! I wish we could all take the train back into the school!).  Much to Harry’s dismay, Albus becomes best friends with Scorpius Malfoy, the son of Draco Malfoy.  

For some reason, the two of them decide to go on a quest to prevent Cedric Diggory from dying in the Goblet of Fire. They steal a time turner from Hermione Granger, now the Minister of Magic.  They go back and time and basically screw up everything so that Voldemort would essentially rule the world.  Harry, Ron and Hermione have to come in and save the day and undo the time travel to make it all right again. The plot also involves someone who states that she is the daughter of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange – honestly, I think that this was totally lame and ruins part of the original books.

So, in short, I did not love the play, as I knew I would not, and honestly I even debated about reading the story but decided to because I couldn’t help myself. I felt like there wasn’t enough character development. It didn’t have nearly the amount of details as the books (well, it can’t, because it is not a novel).  I didn’t like how the adult Harry was portrayed because he didn’t seem very Harry Potter like at all.  

In short, a Harry Potter story written by someone who is not JK Rowling can never be as good as the original books – and I knew that when I started the story which is why I had really low expectations.  So given how low my expectations were, I had a nice time reading the play, but if you have high expectations you will be very disappointed.  I enjoyed spending some time with some of my favorite literary characters for a few hours.

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