A Little Insight From Pottermore

I know there are many of you who are interested in Pottermore and I have gotten several questions asking what Pottermore is.  Yesterday I told you the basics of the page.  Below are a few picture from Pottermore that will hopefully help you understand the site.

The Gateway

This is main gateway where you can select the book and chapter that you want to explore.  At the moment only the first book is available.  The top of the page contains links for major parts of the site such as The Great Hall, Common Room, Diagon Alley, Gringotts, spell and potion books, friends, the notification owl, and the item trunk.

Book 1/Chapter  4/Moment 1

This here is the famous scene where Hagrid first tells Harry he is a wizard.  This is what the chapter portion of the site looks like.  The left hand side will give you extra info on everything in the chapter, the bottom lets you move forward or back in the story.  Pressing up and down on the keyboard or double clicking, will let you zoom in and out of the scene.  Each scene has three layers where certain items will become visible.  All three layers should be examined to make sure nothing is missed.

Trunk

Items can be found in almost every scene in every chapter.  Some of them are story related and must be collected to continue, but others are quite hidden and can be given to online friends.  Chocolate frog cards and money are also scatted throughout the chapters.

Great Hall

This is the Great Hall where you can see the current house standings and the top leaders from each house. Collecting text books and cards will earn you house points, as well as brewing potions and dueling other students.  Sadly at this point, the dueling portion of the site is under maintainence and I have not been able to try it.  I am proud to say, that at this point, Slytherin is winning, whoo! Also info on the Hogwarts founders and the school itself are there if you want to learn more about the Harry Potter world.

Magical Drafts and Potions

This is one of the potion books where you can see what ingredients you have.  Once you have them all for a certain potion, you can brew that potion.  It's not always easy to do, you must follow instruction precisely or else you will lose the ingredients you used and destroy your cauldron which will cost you money to buy a new one.  Ingredients can be found in the chapters but if you can't find one...

Apothecary in Diagon Alley

 Head to Diagon Alley and enter the Apothecary to buy all of the ingredients you may need.  In Diagon Alley you can also buy text books, animals, cauldrons, etc.

Potion Making

Crushing plants, heating mixtures, stirring and wand waving are all part of making the perfect potion.  It must be done in the correct order and in a timely manner if you want it to turn out right.  This potion here took a lot of patience as you have to wait 100 minutes between page one and two of the book.  But it was all worth it.  The potion earned me 11 house points. Yay!

Well I hope that helps with any confusion.  There is still lots of the site that is locked but by the time is is opened you can have a look around for yourself.

First Actual Day Of Rest

DAY 3

The carpets have been professionally cleaned and the nursery is ready to be furnished. A quick trip to Ikea to buy a rocking chair and to Jysk for some baskets and it looks like our nursery will be complete.  Ring ring!!! Sears calling: "Your furniture won't be shipped from the manufacturer for a while.  It could be two weeks, it could be two months."  Just great, with ten and a half weeks till baby, we might not have our furniture in time.  Olive Garden's all you can eat pasta will have to mask the anger for now, SO YUMMY!

DAY 4

R&R is to only thing on the agenda today, not gonna go anywhere, not gonna do anything strenuous.  Spent some time on the new Pottermore website.  I must say I am impressed.  Here is the low down on the site:
You go through main scenes of the books chapter by chapter finding items which can be given to friends on the site or kept for later use.  Lots of background info is available on each page where you can learn everything you never wanted to know about every character, location, spell, etc.  When you get to Diagon Alley you are given money and a shopping list which you must use before you can go to Hogwarts.  Once the list is fulfilled you get your wand by answering seven questions and then the wand chooses you.  You arrive at school and must be sorted into your house.  Answering several question will determine where you belong, I got put into Slytherin :)  Finding items such as potion ingredients and text books will earn you house points and the house with the most points will win the House Cup.  If you have read the books you will know what this is.  Other parts of the site include potion brewing, spells, and duels. (All of which earn you house point when completed.) Great site so far considering it is still in Beta testing mode, but as of next month it will be in full force and anyone can log on and have fun with Harry Potter and Friends.

Day off and still working

This is my first Blog so I'm still getting used to this.

Yesterday kicked off my last vacation before our little bundle is born.  But relaxing on a beach is not in the stars for this holiday, oh no, this is a week of things to do before the baby arrives.  The day began with a trip to the dealership to fix both our cars, thankfully it didn't take long and didn't cost us a dime.  Whoo hoo!!!  I knew it would be coming soon, but I had been dreading this next task.  Moving the treadmill from the the baby's room to the spare bedroom.  But after some dismantling and heavy lifting it was moved and much simpler than I had expected.  I check some emails and WOW what I had been waiting forever for had finally arrived, the welcome email into POTTERMORE.  Since the site is in beta testing still, there is much to be fixed, but I can say, it is really cool...so far.

DAY 2

The day started off with a full plate of things to do.  Paint the nursery and vacuum the stairs to prep for tomorrows carpet cleaning.  Painting went great, the room looks awesome and I can't wait to start filling it with baby furniture.  Vacuuming is now done, painting supplies are washed, now I have some time to kill before dinner with my mom and long time buddy Jeff.