Day 467: Nautical

Sometimes the "themes" of my life tend to mingle with one another, and this is most certainly one of those cases. My brother and I have been a part of our local 4-H Club for many years, and one of the things we generally do is the Foods Review each April. Basically you make a dish and then it's judged, but not just upon the food, but as well as a place setting and imaginary menu. It's actually kind of fun (until it gets to be tedious), but you can be pretty creative with it.

Unless you wait until the last minute to put your project together. In my brother's defense, he's a busy kid, so alright, we procrastinated a bit. Or he did rather. I had nothing to do with it. Until we all ended up trying to figure out a theme. His dish was something with shrimp, so we eventually decided on a nautical theme. Then, once you have a theme, you have to figure out your menu.

Of course, I knew what I was talking about. With a pirate as a favorite character on Once Upon A Time, I had some grand ideas. Plus, this does indeed relate to Disney, but we'll get to that in a minute. I mean, really, how can you go wrong with rum flavored punch? And grilled pineapple with coconut for dessert? Brilliance. Pure brilliance.

Once you have your menu set aside, you need a place setting, and honestly, that was kind of difficult to do at the last minute. But somehow, between all of us, we pulled it off, searching through the house for the perfect dishes and centerpiece. Speaking of the centerpiece, that was my idea. It's a model of the Old Key West Lighthouse that normally sits in our bathroom. I remembered that it was there and was like "GOT IT!" The judge thought it was too tall, but I still think it was pretty perfect.

Which brings us to the main idea here. After the foods review, I went shopping with one of my friends, and I realized that nautical everything is very in right now. I mean, you go to a store and where there were tons of bows a year ago, now there's everything pirate and ship and nautical. I LOVE IT.

You see, I've been embracing the nautical theme for years, and finally it's what's in. Although it seems I am one step ahead of these crazy fashion trends. That's good I suppose. To be ahead. But either way, I'm happy with it. It seems that, because I've spent so much of my childhood at Disney and specifically Old Key West, the nautical theme surrounds me. Two of the bathrooms in our house are themed after the sea, one with a very specific nautical theme (hence the lighthouse), and my favorite Disneybounds happen to generally have something to do with the theme as well. Even my favorite color, navy blue, is probably inspired by the theme.

Weird, huh?

Just goes to show how Disney can shape us in the smallest, most detailed ways.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, my brother got a first place ribbon at the foods review.

Have a magical day!