Day 1274: Adulting

If you're a part of my generation right now, you've probably been struggling with adulting just like the rest of us. If you have no idea what adulting really is, just think of all the chores adults are responsible for that children may not be. I'm talking like making dinner, doing the dishes, watering the plants, getting all the work done, and so on and so forth. The little jobs we actually need to do to survive. 

My laptop, HAL9000, which you've all heard plenty about over the past couple of years, died last week, which led to me waiting for a new laptop, affectionately named Lafayette (yes after the historical figure now prominent in Hamilton). Having a laptop that actually works and stays on for more than 15 minutes at a time is a huge relief, mostly because it means I can finally get work done. HAL dying, however, has created an additional list of blog posts that should have been done a week ago, especially problematic since I'm struggling to catch things up as it is. Plus, I'm leaving on a week and a half long trip to Colorado in just 10 days, so I have to plan for that as well. Long story short, with everything piling up that I have to get done, the realization that adulting is hard is more prominent than ever. 

Luckily, on the other hand, I have Lafayette, and Frank got me that awesome new mug in the picture above to help keep me company while I spend constant days blogging. Even the addition of a new mug like that is enough to help keep me going with these blog posts and videos, especially since there's so many exciting things happening in July! 

I do think I could do without another set of dishes from dinner later tonight though...

Have a magical day! 

Day 805: The Search Begins

I'll say it right off, this entire search is a long shot. An extremely long shot. But I have to try, right?

If you don't know already, I collect Disney mugs, and really, mugs in general. As an avid coffee and tea and hot chocolate drinker, it seems like the perfect thing to collect. However, you're always running a risk. You may remember that a few weeks back I got my hands on one of the now-rare Epcot Starbucks You Are Here Mugs, a piece of my collection now valued somewhere between 200 and 500 dollars (depending on where you get it...those are just the going rates on ebay as of right now). Since I'll normally have at least one cup of tea a day, usually accompanied by another cup of tea or a cup of coffee, pretty much all of my mugs get used. Here in our dorm room, our dishes tend to pile up around our bathroom sink until one of us finally gets around to washing them, and generally when one of us washes, we do ALL the dishes sitting there, whether they're specifically ours or not, and although my Epcot mug has recently gone home, I used to use it all the time, and when they had to wash it, they'd all get a bit afraid of ruining this $300 mug. To be completely honest, I was too. But despite it's beautiful design and high price tag, it still wasn't my favorite mug.

Keyword, wasn't.

Because I spend my time half at school and half at home, my mug collection is split in half, although I have several more that sit at home than at school just because I don't have space to store them all here. Several weeks ago I noticed that my favorite mug, my E-Ticket mug, was looking sort of run down. The wording was coming off due to repeated dishwashing, and I requested everyone be careful with it. So I left it at home instead of bringing it back to school.

So now my mug looks something like this:

It used to look like this: 

Now, you might be saying, "Lizzie, it's just a mug! Why are you so upset?" Well there's a perfectly logical explanation for this. Back when the writing first started to disappear I was, of course, pretty upset, but it wasn't ruined (not like it is now at least), but my wonderful friends set out on a search to find a replacement, only coming up empty handed because as it turns out, this mug is just about as rare as the Epcot Starbucks Mug that sits safely on my shelf. It, like the Epcot mug, was only sold in the Disney Parks (exclusively at Walt Disney World). I happened to pick it up at the Art of Disney at Epcot, and rarely saw it anywhere else. A few park-to-house stores sold it online, but they're all out of stock, as is logical because this mug hasn't been sold for several years. And on eBay, the mug isn't listed anywhere. 

In other words, it's gone. 

So I'm putting out a request. I don't have a huge number of followers or readers, at least as far as I know, and I've already put out this request on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram once, but please, PLEASE, if you have any information on a replacement mug for me, let me know ASAP. I can't express how heartbroken I am at the loss of my favorite mug. It's a long shot to find a replacement, and to be completely honest, it sounds like the chances of me finding one are pretty slim. However, maybe with the help of the Disney community and social media I can track one down. 

If you have any info on a Magic Kingdom E-Ticket mug, let me know via comment or any of the social media websites listed on the sidebar. I'm thankful for any help you can give me! 

Thank you so much everyone and have a magical day!

Day 786: Never Without It

I believe it was sometime last week when I first realized this, but I decided that it was a big enough topic for a blog post in it's own right, and I was certainly correct with that statement! You see, I'm not Catholic, but I do go to a Catholic College, and that means that there's always a lot of talk about Lent and what everyone will be giving up for it. I find that a lot of students on campus give up something other than meat or in addition to meat, and there are some pretty interesting ideas. My roommate Hannah has given up Starbucks, and I know several people who have given up desserts in the caf here on campus. But for me, giving up something for Lent just doesn't work very well. I do, however, get some pretty interesting suggestions on what I should give up.

First off, let's point out that if I give up any more food, I will literally be unhealthy. I'm already on restricted dairy and I can't eat most fruit, so is taking something else away really a good idea? I mean, I'm pretty sure my most popular dish here at school is salad, and that just seems silly to take away in my situation. I don't really eat desserts either, so why would that even be difficult? Doesn't that defeat the point?

One time I had someone suggest that I should give up Once Upon A Time, to which I just responded with a laugh. After all, OUAT comes back right in the middle of Lent (at the beginning, really), and considering I already spend half the year without it (literally, more than half the year), I'm really already participating in a "Non-Once" period that's much longer than Lent. Plus, after waiting 80 some days, I'm not about to give up my premiere.

Another of my roommates is giving up Make-Up, and that's great. In fact, I fully support her idea. Only it's not really ideal for me. Even if I didn't do the make-up on my OUAT Disneybounds, I still have performances that occur during Lent, and I can't just go perform in front of tons of people without doing my makeup...

But by far the most outrageous suggestion for Lent I've gotten was someone who suggested I give up Disney. Now that, that's just downright IMPOSSIBLE. Why? Because I am literally always surrounded by something Disney. If it's just Disney movies or something, sure! I can do that! I do it most of the year anyway! If it's the Disney Parks, you have to realize that I spend 99% of my time NOT at them, so that doesn't even count. But getting rid of all Disney in my life, even aside from the fact that I write a daily blog about Disney, would never happen.

Over the course of my day, I've taken pictures of some of the most common Disney references in my life. This is just photographical evidence, and certainly doesn't include every last bit of Disney that was in my day, but it's a start!

As you can see, just up by my loft where I sleep there's tons of Disney. Stitch sleeps right next to my head, helping to protect my phone (which doubles as my alarm) from both me and from falling off my bed. I also have a Disney calendar that hangs at the end of my loft, for no reason other than it's pretty. Finally, I have pictures that hang along the wall, and you can see my Star Wars pillow hanging out up there too! 

 

As if my lock screen isn't enough, my Twitter and Facebook are also filled with Disney, and if you want to go off of my phone...check out Megan's! Her phone has Disney all over it too! 

My computer screen almost always has something Disney on it, and I didn't even include my background, which just happens to be Captain Hook (the Disney version...perm and all). Plus, here's where I include Everyday Disney. That picture happened to be taken when I was in the middle of writing Day 782: Thank the Maker! 

Don't even get me started on my desk. But then again, we've covered this already, haven't we? 

Since I couldn't easily take a picture of my lanyard in class, I took one at lunch. At college, we have a lot of little things that we have to keep with us: our ID, keys for our room and for our mailbox, among other things, and in my case, lactade so I can eat. Lanyards are a popular option around here, and you don't wear it around your neck: you carry it. So to make mine easily distinguishable, I picked a Disney lanyard I got at the D23 Expo in 2011!

Even in my "office" I have Disney! Way down in the deep depths of the music building sits the music library, where I work sorting out music and so on and so forth. Since I had a coupon for shutterfly a while back, I created a desk calendar. Although you can't see it, every month has a different Disney picture to go along with it, but since it doesn't officially start until March 2015, I've been keeping it on the cover instead.

Now, I swear I didn't do this on purpose. I picked this shirt completely without this project in mind...but I probably am either wearing something Disney or Disneybounding a solid 60% of the time. Actually, most of my clothes have Disney connections, as a lot of times I buy it for a specific outfit and then it gains a name that has to do with it. For instance, I have "Hook Pants" and a "Belle shirt" and an "Elsa Dress" and so on and so forth. 

Finally, we all know that I love my mugs, and since I have either coffee or tea (or both!) at least once a day, I put them all to good use. Today's mug of choice was my Contemporary Resort mug, which I got in January, although yesterday it was my Hollywood Studios Starbucks Mug and tomorrow it'll probably be my Mickey's Really Swell Diner Travel mug! 

Now, like I said, this is just a taste of the amount of Disney in my day, but as you can see, it would be pretty much impossible to abolish all Disney from my life for Lent. I still haven't figured out if or what I'm giving anything up this year, but one thing's for sure: it won't be Disney. 

Have a magical day!