What a weekend!

On Friday, at midnight, book #7 of Harry Potter was released. I was out at a fabric shop picking out material with Suzi for CarnEvil and was too tired to head to a release party - my last chance. I received the first Harry Potter while I was in the Peace Corps. I couldn't understand why my friend, who worked at the Borders where I had worked, sent me a book for 8th graders. My French friends wanted a "simple" English book to read. I have them Harry Potter. They gave it back a month later and said "we didn't understand a thing." So I opened it up to read it and explain it to them... I stayed up all night reading it. When I go back to the States, #2 had been released. I read stayed up all night reading it and would go to bed when my dad was going to work. (His comment was "you need a job Michelle.) #3 came out during my travels across the Midwest. And I've been thrilled to get single book. JK Rowling has grown as a writer with each book, the characters are stronger, they grow up, the plot is complex and dark and with millions of other people across the world, I'm relishing this last book - so sad that it's going to be coming to an end. What a journey.

Today, I finally, finished my rain barrel project for my P-Patch. Up extremely early this morning, I read as much Harry Potter as I could before decided I absolutely had to finish it. I started it at the beginning of the month and didn't have a chance to get back to it - plus I was lacking motivation for reasons that need their own blog posting. Two trips to Home Depot and a lot of help from Lara (both my knees were up in ice last night), my community P-Patch has a rain water barrel system fit for kings - or for very granola crunchy Ballard gardeners.

But all of this is just icing on the cake - for all of these other wonderful things stood in the shawdow of Jet City Rollergirls Expo Season, bout 2! Last night, with relatively few snags, we turned the Everett Skate Deck, once again, into a venue that held hundreds people to watch some fantastic roller derby! My team kicked butt! We had come such a long way since our last expo bout two months ago. I was so proud of all of them, thrilled to be part of such a movement and excited about the future of our league. So many friends who hadn't seen me bout with my team came out and were surprised! There were so many other surprises and though CarnEvil didn't win either game, we had a great time and worked so hard. I even got into a brawl with the Pink Pistols co-captain. We have a great schtick and our fans love us. I managed to jack both of my knees (the left one on Thursday and the right on Friday.)

One comment I truly appreciated last night was "Your team's tenacity will pay off Michelle."

Oh, you bet it will.