Day 1280: 2016: The Beginning

Halfway through the year and you know what that means: it's time for a look back at the fix six months of 2016 and some of my favorite blog posts! To see favorites posts from previous years, just click the following links: 2013 (Part 1 | Part 2), 2014 (Part 1 | Part 2), and 2015 (Part 1 | Part 2). Now, onto January! 

Friday, January 15, 2016: Day 1110: Never Tell Me the Odds

My trip in January with Frank was filled with adventures, but none quite as grand as our Four Parks, One Day Challenge, which then led us straight into an attempt to see all the Walt Disney World fireworks in one night. Needless to say, we somehow managed to accomplish both, and while we definitely went home at the end of the day completely exhausted, it was so worth it. 

Friday, February 5, 2016: Day 1131: Santa Fe

A definite highlight of the spring semester was heading with my parents and Shovell to see Newsies at our local theater. We'd been waiting for what seemed like forever to see this show, and it definitely didn't disappoint! 

Thursday, March 3, 2016: Day 1158: Travel Life

While I wouldn't recommend trying to be in two states at the same time, the weekend I spent going back and forth between the Twin Cities and home was actually one of the best experiences I've had so far. It was a chance for me to expand academically, travel alone for the first time, make new friends, and explore a city different from my own! 

Wednesday, April 6, 2016: Day 1192: Disney By the Numbers: Epcot

In an attempt to explore a new graphics editing website I came across, I did a bit of research to come up with Epcot By the Numbers, including a few different numerical facts about the park, like how many triangles are really on Spaceship Earth, and how many attractions are listed on the park map! 

Tuesday, May 24, 2016: Day 1240: Pressed Pennies

I definitely have some of the greatest friends in the entire world, as is showcased through this blog post from May, when they finally completed a project they've been working on for over a year and a half: this beautiful pressed penny Mickey Mouse! 

Wednesday, June 22, 2016: Day 1269: Macaroons

When it comes to making Disney recipes, I think I just took things to the next level, at least with my own skills. I'd never made macarons before, but Disney inspired me enough to try and create some of my own. I've made some another time since this blog post, but I think these were better, so we'll just not talk about those other ones. 

And there you have it, the first half of 2016. Since I got rather behind I don't really have any bonus posts to share, but keep an eye on things for the second half of the year because we've still got a long way to go until 2017! 

Have a magical day!

Day 1191: Randomly Generated

I'm always searching for a good blog post topic, and every once and a while, when I have really serious writer's block, I'll head over to a blog topic generator to see if it'll spark any ideas. Plenty of blog posts have been created this way, although I usually don't use the exact topic I'm given. It's more often a play on some topic, or something that was inspired by one of these topics. 

Well, needless to say, things can get pretty interesting on these websites, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorite randomly generated blog post topics that involve Disney: 

I feel like this one is kind of true for every topic, but while Wikipedia can be a useful starting source for basic information, it's not about to tell you everything you might ever need to know about Spaceship Earth or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. 

I don't even think this one needs a further explanation because we all know the world would end without Disney...

And then things got interesting. Then again, maybe Darth Vader's Guide to Disney wouldn't be all that bad after all. I mean, he has been to Disneyland! 

And then there was this gem. So ironic. 

But my all time favorite blog post topic suggestion I've found seems both improbable and also really interesting all at the same time, and maybe once I'm finally caught up on Game of Thrones a blog post on this exact topic will appear here on Everyday Disney.

If you want a good laugh, there are plenty of blog post topic generators out there! Go give one a try and see what crazy ideas you come up with! 

Have a magical day!

Day 1093: Lucky 15: Part 2

It's time again to share some of my all time favorite posts from Everyday Disney, which I do every half year! Of course, you can always head back and see my favorite posts from 2013 (Part 1 | Part 2) and 2014 (Part 1 | Part 2), as well as the first half of 2015, which you can find HERE!

Sunday, July 19, 2015: Day 930: Bedtime Story

Spaceship Earth related things appear on my blog pretty often, but as I went back through my blog posts from the last half of the year, I couldn't help but pause at this one. I still miss the old version of Spaceship Earth, and wish more than anything to head on it again, but I suppose this commercial will have to do for now! 

Friday, August 28, 2015: Day 970: A House for the Town

I'm always proud of the Disney that makes its way into my on campus housing, and this year, with extra space, a little bit of extra Disney appeared all over the place. I'm pretty darn proud of how it all turned out, especially our kitchen, which features what I like to call "The Kitchen Kabaret Pals." 

Sunday, September 27, 2015: Day 1000: One Thousand

How can I not be proud of the fact that my blog, which started out as a New Year's Resolution in 2013, hit 1000 posts this year. After all, this is the biggest milestone we'll hit in a long while, and the fact that I'm still doing this gives me hope and reassurance that something with Disney is indeed what I want to do with the rest of my life! 

Saturday, October 24, 2015: Day 1027: Talking to a Hero

How can I not have one of the greatest days of my life on this list?!? Talking to Colin O'Donoghue on the phone is EASILY one of the highlights of 2015 for me, and that means that the corresponding blog post HAS to be on this list! Just look at how happy I was! 

Sunday, November 15, 2015: Day 1049: Fandom Life

There are few posts that are a more accurate representation of my life than this one on being a part of a fandom. After all, between Star Wars, Disney, and Once Upon A Time, fandoms have pretty much taken over my life. But that's alright, because it's actually a pretty great life to have! 

Sunday, December 20, 2015: Day 1084: A New Favorite

The Force Awakens brought a ton of Star Wars into all of our lives this holiday season, and now I'm faced with the difficult task of picking a new favorite character. With so many options, such as Kylo Ren, BB-8, Finn, Rey, and Poe, there's a new character for every new and old Star Wars fan alike. Although, I think I stand with my original decision...Poe is my new favorite. Sorry everyone else, but the pilot wins again. 

Wednesday, October 7, 2015: Day 1010: The ABCs of ABC

One of the posts that I definitely had the most fun creating this half of 2015 was this post on the ABCs of ABC, featuring some of our favorite ABC shows, such as Once Upon A Time, How to Get Away with Murder, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D! 

Despite the fact that the end of the year left me really far behind here on Everyday Disney, which resulted in me making up a ton of posts that I missed due to school work, there were certainly a few awesome posts, weren't there? As always, I can't wait to see what the next six months bring...and how many GIFs of Harrison Ford and Colin O'Donoghue somehow work their way in. 

Have a magical day! 

(Note: This blog post was written on December 31).

Day 1021: Study All Day, Study All Night

Remember when I said, just a few blog posts ago, that I was going to actually keep up with Everyday Disney and start making up posts? Well here I am a few weeks later, still absolutely ridiculously far behind...although the fact that I'm here now is a good sign. After all, once I get a few posts done, I'm more likely to continue blogging until we're caught up.

However, to give you an idea of why I'm so far behind (and why I'm writing this blog post from October in December), let's take a look at some of the stuff I'm up to this semester, and since I made this awesome graphic for a blog for one of my classes, let's bring it back!

What you see above is a basic breakdown of where I spend my time each week, but to be completely honest, this isn't anything close to what I'm actually spending on things. It's actually been a pretty hot topic around here lately...about who spends the most time on work, and aside from chats with my roommate and five minute breaks in the music lobby, I spend a ridiculous amount of my time working on things. 

This semester I'm taking 23 credits, which means I have four, four credit classes (one for each of my majors and two gen-eds), two, two credit classes, and three ensembles, all of which I'm auditing. In addition, there's performances to go to, I had a recital this semester, I have two jobs, I'm playing in a Christmas Cantata this year, and the list just goes on and on and on and on and on...

However, I have been having some fun working on another blog, which is new for me. I'm so comfortable here on Everyday Disney because I've been doing it for so long, so writing for another blog seems kind of weird at this point. For my Literary Theory and Writing Course, which is kind of a big part of your English Degree here at SNC, we have to write six papers, all on different theories, and in addition, we have to maintain and create a website portfolio - one that features a blog. 

Being my usual ambitious self, I decided that I was going to make graphics for every blog post, so just to give you an idea of some of the topics I've been working on that you probably wouldn't find on Everyday Disney, here's some of those graphics: 

I'll be pretty happy when the semester is over and I can move onto other projects, like band trip videos and YouTube videos and Everyday Disney things.

And then, all of a sudden, it'll be next semester. 

Have a magical day! 

(Note: This blog post was written on December 1...because college).

Day 969: The Freedom to Fail

As I was watching the Walt Disney special on American Experience the other day, it occurred to me that one of the greatest lessons I've learned from Walt, in addition to all the other crazy things I've picked up, is that failure is actually a good thing. Walt found failure very early on in his life, but look at where it got him! Ultimately, failing taught him valuable lessons that he could relate back to throughout the rest of his life, and I realized that, in comparison to many other students my age, failure isn't as big of a deal.

That's not to say that I like to fail. I definitely don't, but this idea actually lead me to write a blog post on my English Portfolio site that I'm required to create for my English 305 Literary Writing and Theory class this semester. As the first blog post, I have to say it was quite a bit different writing for a non-Disney blog than writing here on Everyday Disney. I've found my voice here and grown acustomed to it, making small changes along the way as I develop my writing style and my interests change. To write for a different blog, however, especially one that will be graded at the end of the semester, took quite a bit more thought.

A little bit of me feels pretty good about taking 305 and getting right into blogging. After all, I've dealt with Everyday Disney for a couple of years now already, and I've certainly found things that work and things that don't. You can't even imagine the number of times I failed at getting an HTML to work properly as a part of the design. And that's just it. Failure helps us move forward. Not only does it give us the motivation to do bigger and better things, but it also allows us to practice, to experiment, and to take risks.

That's exactly the topic of the blog post I wrote for 305, about how in our society, so much pressure is put on getting good grades, but within this one English course we're suddenly able to experiment without taking a risk of any sort. Sure, at the end of the semester we'll have a huge grade, but if I royally screw up a paper, it's not going to impact me. I can improve that paper throuhout various drafts, and when I'm ready, I can publish it on my online portfolio. In other words, I've been given the freedom to fail without consequences, and I think, for Walt, such an idea would have been spectacular.

It won't go on forever, of course, because as soon as I leave 305 I'll be back to the real world where every paper brings a different high stakes game for a high grade, but by then I hope to have challenged my own writing, making it possible for me to develop my own unique voice, and that's just about all I can ask for!

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on September 18 due to a tight schedule).

Day 938: Just Like TV

I've never really thought about it before, but with binge watching Friends, I've been thinking a lot about the titles of episodes. I famously know the titles to basically every episode of Once Upon A Time, going through and basically memorizing them as they're released...although that has more to do with figuring out DisneyBounds than it does being a crazy fangirl. Each title definitely tells us something about what could be happening in that episode. One of the more frequent questions I get with those OUAT DisneyBounds is how I always know which character to do for an episode, and I'm telling you right now that about half of it has to do with the title of the episode. Here are some examples:

For Episode 3x17, the title was "The Jolly Roger," signaling to me right away that the episode probably had something to do with my favorite pirate. But because I had already done a DisneyBound as Hook earlier in the season, I brought back his Naval uniform for a Killian Jones DisneyBound. Not directly related to what was happening in the episode, as the uniform was from 3x05 (Good Form), but definitely still related to Hook on so many levels. It also happens to be one of my favorites that I've done!

Another quick example is definitely 4x14: "Enter the Dragon," of course, we all knew it was going to have something to do with Maleficent, but I wanted to save that DisneyBound for later on in the season (and it worked out well as I used Maleficent for 4x20, "Mother"), so instead I went back to Maleficent's routes and DisneyBounded as Aurora! Perfect timing for it too as this is one of the last times we've seen the Princess on the show! 

Anyway, back to the point of the blog post. If you guys know Friends, then you'll know that every title is something like "The One With..." and then includes various elements relating to that specific episode. It's great because when there's an episode where Monica decides to make Jam, it's called "The One with the Jam," and everyone automatically knows what you're talking about. But what occurred to me this morning is the idea that, on TV shows, every episode has a different title. It never repeats, and it's always telling you something about what's to come. And do you know what that sounded like to me? 

This blog. 

Even here on Day 938, every single blog post has a different title. Some of them are definitely similar, but it never officially repeats. Not even posts about things such as the Everyday Disney Challenge have the same title. At most, every so often you'll have a collection of series, in which there will be a Volume Number that comes before the title, but other than that, everything is different, and over the past two and a have years there's definitely been some weird titles...

Day 1: The Beginning...Of Your Future

Day 45: The "Harrison Ford Sit"

Day 61: Music, Music & Pigs? 

Day 90: TRONorail, Avengerail, Iron Man 3-orail? 

Day 121: Indy & Diet Coke

Day 136: Indiana Jones...the Fourth One

Day 235: A Room in a Dorm

Day 246: Once Upon a Really Long Wait

Day 253: #SaveTheBooks

Day 290: Midterms, Coffee and Awesomeness

Day 362: I am Emma Swan

Day 368: It's Super Cold

Day 428: Frozen is an Open Door

Day 458: This Isn't Disney Food!

Day 476: What Happened in April? 

Day 562: Wait...what? 

Day 633: The Great Pocahontas Debate

Day 650: Getting Spookyish

Day 685: Lizzie Watches Her Vlogs

Day 727: #LiquifiedLaptop

Day 775: The Copy Room

Day 799: In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room

Day 806: Sláinte

Day 932: Day One

Now, you're more than welcome to go back and find some of those blog posts to see what they're actually about, but I have to say that even just going through them and picking out a few to include here really reminded me of 1. How many blog posts I have and 2. The variety of topics I've included in the two and a hafl years of Everyday Disney. Then again, we're almost to Day 1000, which seems half impossible. I still remember day 100, and now it's been almost 900 days since then. Crazy.

Have a magical day!