Day 1462: Dig a Little Deeper

I originally wanted to title this post "Almost There," but after 1461 days of never repeating a blog post title, I didn't want to reuse one now, regardless of how well it portrays the theme of 2017 here on Everyday Disney. 

As of today, January 1, 2017, I will have been blogging for four years - with a lapse here and there. But with a little extra time over the next few weeks, years one through four will all read 365 blog posts each, with an extra one for 2016 because of that extra day thrown in there. That's a lot of writing, a lot of blogging, and a lot of my life, all captured here in the pages that make up Everyday Disney. In addition, I've posted thousands of pictures on Instagram, uploaded over a hundred videos to YouTube, and joined other internet content teams in the process. 

Let's flash back to January of 2013, when I wrote my very first posts here on Everyday Disney. I wondered back then if I'd be able to accomplish this crazy, ridiculous goal I'd come up with of writing everyday for an entire year, especially when I was only writing about one topic - and even if that topic was Disney. I still remember sitting in one of my high school's computer labs, typing away and designing the first elements of this blog. I was making decisions about my future back then, pretty much the same way I am now, only the decisions are a bit more drastic this time around. In 2013 it was what I wanted to major in, maybe worrying about who I would get as a roommate. Today it's a debate about what the rest of my life looks like, and no, I don't need to have it all figured out right now, but if there was one thing that helped me figure it all out back then, it was Everyday Disney. 

Which is why I see no reason this blog can't help me through the next big steps of my life too. Which means it's time for a new resolution, and this is where "Almost There" comes in. For years I've dreamed of applying for the Disney College Program, but even through my semesters at St. Norbert, it's been sort of a side thought, a fear and worry for the future. The future, it seems, is now here, and as I eagerly await for applications to open for the fall program, I grow anxious and excited. I am, to play on Princess and the Frog, "Almost There," and that means that now is the perfect time to focus back in on what helped get me to where I am today and solidify everything before I hopefully head off on a new adventure! 

So this year, my resolution is simple: I am going to write a blog, called Everyday Disney, which for 365 days, I will write a post a day, or at least put something on the blog in order to keep up with the days. 

Yes, yes, I know, you're not really supposed to repeat New Year's Resolutions, but the way I see it, I already know I can do this, but technically I haven't actually accomplished the goal. There's always been a week or so at the end of the year where I frantically attempt to make up any missing posts from the year, and this time, that just won't do. Fifteen hour days, six ensembles, twenty one credits be darned, I'm going to do this. I am going to write about Disney every day for the entirety of 2017, and I hope I'll continue to have you all, as always, to join me. 

So here's to 2017, and being "Almost There." Now's the time to "Dig a Little Deeper" and find what makes us truly happy, and then work maybe just a little harder to get there. 

Or we could start with some beignets. That could be fun too. 

Have a magical day and a happy new year! 

Day 1096: A New Focus

New Year's is supposed to be about new beginnings that take over from reflections of the past, and while I cannot deny that a new year has started (my calendar tells me so), at the same time, it feels more than ever like absolutely nothing has changed. The year may have ended, but ongoing projects still require my attention, fights with people I considered my friends continue to escalate, and the stress that backs it all continues to put pressure on my shoulders.

I've tried to write this blog post multiple times now, but because, truth be told, 2016 hasn't started the way I intended, I've found it more difficult than anticipated. Due to Everyday Disney falling drastically behind at the end of 2015, the frustrations and hurt that became a constant part of my life is hardly evident in my writing. Behind the scenes, on the other hand, things were drastically different.

If you follow my social media, you may already know that I have decided to take a bit of a break from Twitter and Instagram due to "personal reasons" that I did not elaborate on. However, after much deliberation about what I really want out of 2016, I also feel that showing I am human and I am hurt is just as important as the reasoning that caused this hiatus. After all, I write a daily blog and create YouTube videos, and if you follow closely enough, and it's odd for me to think about this, you may even see my face daily. That, in turn, makes it much harder for me to put on a smile that I know is fake.

This isn't to say that I haven't smiled in the past month, because I truthfully have. When my friends and I went to see Star Wars (any of the three times), I was certainly smiling, and when my friend danced with me at a concert, I had a smile on my face the whole time. But I will not lie about the fact that I have been in immense pain over the past month, more mental than physical. Out of respect for those involved, I won't go into details, but, after all, this is my blog, and the entire situations has made me think a lot about what I'm doing and where I want to go from here, especially as we begin a new year.

In 2013 I made a New Year's Resolution to blog about Disney every day that year, and I made the same resolution a year later. By 2015, I decided that just blogging wasn't enough and added on a photo challenge which, by the end of the year, became a small ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark world. But after much consideration about what I want to make my resolution for 2016, I came to the conclusion that instead of taking on something new, I'm going to focus on finding balance in my life that allows for growth in everything from Everyday Disney to the relationships I surround myself with.

What does this mean for Everyday Disney? Well, honestly, not much. In fact, things are going to stay relatively the same other than for a few minor changes over the next few months. I'm hoping to make staying up to date on blog posts a main focus (or rather, writing blog posts on the day they're supposed to be written), and there's a few adjustments I want to make on the additional pages. I'd love to also revisit some of the posts I wrote back in 2013, as a lot of time has passed since they were written, and some of them have become relevant in entirely new ways. On my YouTube channel I'm looking forward to weekly videos, if not two per week, starting at the end of January, with a few other random additions thrown in. Instagram will continue to feature Disney photos regularly, and on my other social media accounts I'm hoping to feature Everyday Disney in ways it's never been featured before.

As for addressing the hurt that's become a part of my day to day routine, I'm not entirely sure where things will lead, but I do know that I've come to the realization that I need to do what's best for my well being at this point. The experience has made absolutely everything harder, in every aspect of the word. It's caused me to loose interest in some of the things that, only weeks ago, made up my life (OUAT especially), and while, at this point, I'm usually jumping off the walls with excitement for my Disney trip, I haven't even realized I'm going because I'm instead spending so much time thinking about the situation at hand. And I've realized that I can't live like that anymore. No one should have to live like that.

So this year, my New Year's Resolution isn't to post a picture a day on Instagram or blog for all 366 days of 2016 (although I'll do those things anyway), but rather to focus on the amazing opportunities I have right now, standing right in front of me, and that includes making the decisions that will secure my emotional healthy in the coming months. Those decisions cannot be made lightly, but they also can't be made by anyone else, and I'm not about to let others tell me those decisions are wrong, because they're not their decisions to make, nor does anyone get to decide for me whether or not I'm allowed to be hurt.

Why am I telling you all this in what seems to be a pretty long, depressing first blog post of 2016? Because I've been absolutely crushed, and I'm sure that somewhere out there someone who's reading this has been hurt too. Plus, by sharing my resolution to make the decisions that will benefit me, I can't back out, and sharing even just this little bit of the situation has made me feel somewhat better. Hopefully it's the start of a path towards a happier, more magical year.

Thank you to all of my followers and here's to a while new year!

Have a magical day!

(Note: I want to make it very clear that I am in no physical danger. I'm fine, my family is fine, and as you'll find very quickly, I'll be continuing to blog regardless of my social media hiatus or other events.)

Day 366: Here We Are

Sooo...do I start the blog posts with Day 1 or what? I guess I've decided that I'm just going to keep going up because that's a heck of a lot easier than going 1-365 again. I mean when you get in the middle you get lost and everything anyway so what's the point? If I get behind I'll have to make a big document and everything no matter what, plus it might be kind of cool to continue this for years to come and get to day like 1000. That would be epic.

I guess this continuing thing means that I'm in for another year of blogging. It's kind of funny to think that a year ago I was telling myself that I was going to do this blog for a year, and now I'm here having done it. I'm pretty sure even I thought I was crazy back then, and I probably was, but I got it done, just as I'll continue for another year. I was debating stopping a few weeks ago (at the end of the year of course), when I was still at college, and I said to my roommate "I just don't think I could stop." This blog is too much of a part of my life for me to stop now. It would be like giving up halfway through a game...although I guess now we're just in overtime.

But I said a lot of that yesterday already, so there's no need to be sentimental. For now, let's talk about the future of the blog. I may have been able to tell myself a year ago that I was going to blog every day for a year and do it, but that doesn't mean that I actually accomplish everything I set out to do. So maybe that's really my new New Year's Resolution...I want to accomplish everything on this blog post and more. Seems fair enough, doesn't it? Yeah, I think so. We'll call them missions, and then throughout the year I could add more or something and when I actually complete one I can say "Mission 1 Accomplished."

To be honest I just want to say "Mission Accomplished."

Mission 1

A year ago or so, one of the things I said I wanted to do on the blog was "Featured Attractions." I talked about this idea on Day 4, believe it or not, and described it as such: "I always thought it would be a longer blog post when I have time, featuring a brief history of the attraction, my own personal description of it and a video if there is one." It was supposed to be this thing where I would use my own pictures and talk about the attraction and my favorite parts about it and so on and so forth, one a week, but it never actually happened. To be honest I never even wrote ONE Featured Attraction post.

So why is that? I know a year ago I had it all planned out by the month and everything, how every Monday I would do one of these (although we know now that Monday's are Once days...so maybe it'll be like Saturday or something). What I hope to accomplish with these posts exactly I have no idea, but I assume eventually I'll come up with a basic template that I'll follow, kind of like what I do for my series posts right now. Plus, maybe it'll help me when I get around to making stuff for the band trip!

Mission 2

All of last year (minus January), I did the Daily Disney History. And that's all fun and games and so on and so forth. It was a good time (although it often times took me a couple of hours just to write up the history each month), but I just don't know if I want to do that again. Plus, there are a couple of days throughout the year where it's like "Nothing really interesting happened, and now I already used the one already even remotely interesting thing last year...so I can't use that again."

But I still wanted to do something similar. When I was debating the other day what this "something" was, I decided that I would attempt a "Daily Disney Fact" or "Daily Disney Did You Know" or something. You won't find one on tonight's post because that's on my list of things to check out tomorrow, but I'm going to do it on a trial run throughout January for sure. Following that who knows what will happen, but if it works out this month I hope to continue it throughout the entire year.

Mission 3

I've been debating it for a while, and I don't know on what scale it will happen, but you'll see a bit of a redesign coming up in the next few months. It takes a lot to manage one of these blogs, believe it or not, but I want to make mine the best it can possibly be. Now, there are a lot of websites that I go to and use all the time. Ones that I look at for Disney News, the Website where I get Disney History, Books and so on and so forth, and they all should get some credit here too.

What I'm saying is that over the next few weeks you'll start to see new pages, hopefully. I am looking to include an archive and new links to my different pages and maybe even a complete overhaul of the site (although I love how it looks right now so that's probably not going to happen...at least not on a super large scale). Along with a page for crediting others, there might be one specifically on me, on how the blog started and stuff like that, plus who knows what else. You get the idea though.

To be totally honest I don't have anything else at the moment...but if everything works out, along with those other pages you'll see one with my "Missions" for the year. Like I said, it seems like a good way to spice things up around here, especially since it can kind of drag once and a while when it's like "I went to class...I did my homework...I came back and went to sleep." That really is sometimes my life, and other times I could write three blog posts just on what happened in one day.

If you have any ideas for missions, please let me know! I'm up for just about anything, and it doesn't have to be specifically on this blog. Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, I'll take tons of challenges. The only rule? It has to have to do with Disney...and I guess I technically have to be able to blog about it. It'll be fun!

I do know, however, that the year ahead will be a spectacular one. This spring semester I'll be taking a class on Classic and Contemporary Fairytales, so you'll be seeing more book reviews (and yes, if there is a Disney movie that relates I fully intend to watch it). I've got not one but TWO Disney World trips ahead of me this year, one of which will be 100% unlike any trip I have taken thus far. And who knows what else.

But no matter what, I do know that it will be a future that we will take, and make, together. =)

Have a magical day, and HAPPY 2014!