Day 923: Big Steps

For some strange reason, this blog post was an extra that got thrown in. So to clean things back up and put it in it's own place on a separate day, here's a post that was posted a while ago...reposted! 

It's no secret that there's been a lot of drama in my life over the past couple of years. My friend base has changed multiple times, and unfortunately those changes have all occurred over the timespan of our audition for and performance with Disney Performing Arts. It almost ruined the experience for me, to be honest, but I definitely see now that pushing forward was the right thing to do. 

However, that doesn't mean that things were forgotten. It's hard not to think about the way things used to be and the people you lost when presents from them hang all over your room, and in some cases, take up almost an entire wall. Despite any differences, you were once friends, and there comes a time when you have to make the choice on whether you should continue to hold a grudge and be angry or move on and take the positive road. I realized tonight on my drive home that if I want to be a positive person, I don't want these ghosts haunting from the corners of my life, and if I call myself positive then I have to be positive. So I was. 

I made a big step in repairing a relationship I lost tonight, and I realized just now that moments like those have very real Disney influences for me. Just a moment ago I happened to think of the next Disney movie on my rewatch list: The Fox and the Hound, where two very different friends still find a way to put aside their differences because of the friendship they once had. When it comes to trusting those who have hurt me, the road is a long one, and that's definitely something that reminds me of, you guessed it, Once Upon A Time. It's not as easy to gain my trust after the experiences I've had, but once you have it, it's worth it's weight in gold. You just have to remember that it might take a season or two before you get to that point. 

But in general, the past few years haven't been easy, but I don't want to live in the past. It's behind us for a reason and there's nothing we can do to change it. So we have to keep moving forward and learn from our mistakes, because the only way change happens in this world is if you embrase it and make it happen. 

Have a magical day! 

Day 922: The Old Stomping Grounds

2013 seems like much more than two years ago...seems more like two decades. Funny, considering that's how old I'll be turning this week so it's impossible for it to have been that long ago. Regardless, heading back to my childhood summer camp to visit some of my friends who now work there seemed like a great time to flashback to my last week of camp in 2013. The week was filled with Disney all over the place, not that it was surprising in the least. Attending a camp called MADD camp, which stands for Music, Arts, Dance, and Drama makes it pretty easy to expect Disney to find it's way into just about every day of the week! So now, looking back to my last year at Pilgrim Center, here's a few of my favorite memories: 

I actually forgot a picture of this existed until I went back to my blog post from the day, but here we have me getting hit with a frying pan as a part of our Five Minute Musical: Tangled! If you want to read our miniature synopsis, you can find it back on Day 175, but let's just say that I was very excited to have my favorite Disney movie as my group's musical. 

This is actually the picture that reminded me of how much Disney was stuck in my last week at Pilgrim Center, when we had a cookie decorating contest and I decided Minnie Mouse would be the best design option. Long story short, I won the competition and what I wouldn't give to have another of those cookies. Read about the cookie and more of the camp adventures on Day 176! 

I forgot this happened until I went back to Day 174 too! Every year at camp we make buttons as name tags so we can easily learn names throughout the entire camp. In 2012 I was lucky enough to find a Disney cartoon, which you can see on the button on the left, as my background for my button. And apparently, as I wrote about two years ago, going into my last year, I had no expectations to be as lucky again as to find a Disney themed background...until I found a Nat Geo from 1982 and a giant Spaceship Earth. 

And last but certainly not least when it comes to the Disney references at my last week of camp we have the Chihuly exhibit we had a chance to see. If you don't know much about Chihuly, you can read all about him and the exhibit we saw on Day 177, but basically he's a glass artist that's done beautiful sculptures for many locations I've visited, including some of the Disney cruise ships (although I'm not sure if they're still there at this point). 

Like I said, it's been a long time since I've actually attended camp at Pilgrim Center, but that doesn't mean it doesn't feel like a little bit of home to me. There were several years in the middle I didn't go, but I'm forever thankful that I decided to go back for my final two years because I met so many wonderful people that I can't imagine my life without now. If you want to read all of my posts on my last week of camp, they're in and around those I've listed here! 

Have a magical day!

Day 921: Frequently Asked Disney Questions

Lately I've been stuck in a rut, or rather, it feels like other people are keeping me in that rut. Disney fans like myself spend their entire lifes surrounded by those people who just don't quite "get it," if you know what I mean. Those people who wonder how in the world we can go to Disney by ourselves, and think we're crazy doing so anywhere after the age of 10. Those people who ask us why we don't go somewhere else, and then proceed to ask obnoxious questions that can only be asked by someone who isn't an avid Disney fan like ourselves.

And for me, those questions seem to be coming in full force lately.

Sometimes it works out that way, when you just end up with a lot of people asking you about Disney all at once. And that's great. I love talking about Disney. I have a friend who's planning a trip down there for next year and I was answering some questions for her yesterday. I LOVE that kind of stuff. What I don't love is when people act like they know more about Disney than I do and that obviously just because I don't like something else it's because I'm too preoccupied with my thoughts of WDW.

While that's probably true, especially in the cases of WDW and OUAT, that doesn't mean I'm out of my mind. It just means that I understand what it means to be a part of the Disney fandom, and that's something you can only understand once you're 100% a part of it. I blog daily because it's what I like to do, and it's about something I'm extremely passionate about, and that's why, while they may be annoying, I continue to answer these questions day in and day out.

How long did you really think I could go before this guy made an apperance in one of my videos? 

Have a magical day!

Day 920: The Newest Additions

Every once and a while things just seem to be in your favor and something you tried to do months ago that felt like it would take weeks actually ended up only taking a few hours...completely by chance. When I wrote "About Me Page" on my to-do list for the day, I didn't expect to sit at my college for almost four hours working out the kinks on not just one, but two new page additions to Everyday Disney, but that's how things ended up. And after hours of HTML work, picture editing on my computer, composition of new pages and a little bit magic, the newest additions to Everyday Disney are finally here!

When I signed on for my third year of blogging here at Everyday Disney, I knew that I wanted to change things a little more. The first year was very much a personal challenge, and the second year wasn't much different. But as I headed into 2015, I knew I wanted to make Everyday Disney more than just a personal hobby. I wanted to create something I could put on resumes and continue with professionally for a very, very long time. With that decision came the need for new elements and pages around the blog, especially with the addition of the Everyday Disney Challenge on Instagram.

First up was the Instagram live feed that's been in place underneath the 2015 header since the beginning of the year. I was given the idea by a different website that connected to an Instagrm through the same system, and after a bit of work I had it integrated here at Everyday Disney. The feed connects to my Instagram and brings the last 25 photos I've posted directly here and displays them on the blog, great for the Everyday Disney Challenge!

Then today I finally got around to the two new pages of the blog that I've been intending to add for at least a year or two now: the About and Photos pages, both of which you can now find links to in the right side bar of the blog. The About Page details the inspiration of how Everyday Disney came to be and a brief introduction to who I am without having to go through hundreds of blog posts, and the Photos page includes collections of my official OUAT DisneyBounds and Month by Month albums of the Everyday Disney Challenge. Over time new photos will be added to the page, and the About page will continued to be updated as it grows outdated.

As for other new pages that could make apperances in the future, it's up for debate, but for now I think we'll stick with just the two. After all, if you really want more Everyday Disney there's over 900 blog posts to go back and read from over two and a half years of blogging. It's a great accomplishment in my life, and I'm very excited to see where Everyday Disney continues to go in the future.

If you're a reader of the blog and are just lurking out there, this is one of those times when I ask for you to come out of the woodwork! Make your presense known! Leave a comment, share a post, send me a tweet, whatever you feel like! I love being a part of the Disney community and I love interacting with fellow Disney fans, and that means all of you!

Don't forget to check out the new pages and...

Have a magical day!

Day 919: On the Table

It seems to me that since booking my next trip to Walt Disney World, I've definitely been stuck in a very Disney state of mind, which in my terms is 100% acceptable. It's probably not as nice for my friends, family and roommates, but as far as I go, I'm happy. Regardless, sometimes Disney is just there...on the table...in our kitchen.

Every year my family enters projects at the county fair, which just happens to be held a whole five minutes from our house. Granted, I don't enter anymore, but my mom does, and so does my brother. However, photography tends to be a whole family affair, as we're all taking so many pictures all the time that we sort of loose track of who took what...meaning that once mom has the pictures edited and printed, we all sit down in the kitchen and pick out which ones should actually be entered into the fair. As you can see, the amount of Disney that's generally entered is pretty high...and this was just the vacation category...

Each year the categories Mom enters in vary a little bit, but pictures from Disney are definitely a huge part of our lives because we're all so into photography (although lately I've definitely taken up the video end of the spectrum). This isn't all we use the pictures for though, as most of these will end up in one of many photo albums. Our basement is filled with them, and I actually went through a few of them a while back and scanned some more pictures that I'm sure will end up on the blog here sooner rather than later. When Mom does finally go through and put them into the albums she does so by park, however, and that means that sometimes things get a bit hard to identify. I continuously impress people with my ability to look at a picture of the ground or a plant and correctly identify it's location at Walt Disney World. It's a game...and it's definitely one I love to play. 

Have a magical day!

Day 918: Pearl Harbor

Since I blocked off the entirety of Fourth of July weekend as "vacation time," I decided on Sunday night that instead of heading straight back into the buckets of work I have piled up, I would instead finish off my weekend in a calm way...or rather, as calm as you can really get while watching Pearl Harbor. The film, which premiered in 2001, actually has one pretty big Disney connection, aside from the fact that it was produced by Disney: The Backlot Tour.

It actually seems almost right to be blogging about this now, so soon after the announcement that The Art of Animation will be closing for good. Both tours were originally part of a lengthy backlot tour that initially started at the Art of Animation location now, touring through the Streets of America as well as the regular areas once visited on the Backlot Tour that closed about a year ago. However, as long as I can remember at least, the Backlot started from it's own location, including a walking tour portion that showcased special effects such as those used in films like Pearl Harbor.

If you've been to Disney World as often as I have, I'm sure you can recall the Harbor Attack portion of the Backlot Tour, which scared me a little right up until my last tour in 2013, but as I stood in line and watched the pre-show film about Pearl Harbor and other nautical films such as Pirates of the Caribbean, I always made a mental note to actually watch the film. Of course, I didn't know it at the time, but Pearl Harbor also appears in The Great Movie Ride Montage (or it used to at least), and I have a personal mission to watch all of the films included in that previous montage at some point in my life.

Watching Pearl Harbor never really happened though. I think it was on Netflix and my List there for a while, but like most things on my Netflix list, it never was watched. We don't have the DVD either, so when I noticed that the film would be starting soon on TV and I had the evening open, I sat down for a show and live tweeting of this phenomenal movie. To be fair, it's actually really long, something I definitely wasn't prepared for going into it, but it's well worth the length.

Honestly, I felt like I was watching Titanic most of the time, probably because throughout the entire beginning of the film you just have this knowledge of the tragedy to come and there's nothing you can do but wait for it. It's a terrible feeling, really, and while I knew spoilers for about half the movie and quickly figured out the rest, it definitely kept me entertained for a number of hours. Plus it was a commercial free showing, so that was nice. Oh, and I can't leave without mentioning the music...which was phenomenal, per usual for Hans Zimmer.

Oh, and one other quick reference. In high school you of course learn about historical events such as the attack on Pearl Harbor, and one of my friends always had trouble remembering the date. I, however, have never had trouble. Why? FDR's "Infamy" speech is a part of The American Adventure of Epcot, meaning that it's engrained into my mind for eternity.

Have a magical day!

Day 917: Tough to Understand

At this rate I feel like a master planner of trips and once in a lifetime experiences...at least right now I do. I updated my countdown app the other day and I officially have 7 things on it, with everything from Disneyland to Disney World and the most recent addition, a Once Upon A Time convention next April. Oh yes, I've definitely been adament about my latest motto in life: Do Before You Die. I figure that I only have so much time left here in Wisconsin with my friends before I take off on new adventures, so I might as well make the most of it. And with so many experiences already booked, it means that it's time to look ahead to what might come AFTER all the current experiences finish.

But what defiitely throws a loop in things is a difficulty understanding how much some of this really means to me. Don't get me wrong, I've lived my entire life with people looking at me funny for loving Disney so much (and now OUAT is definitely in that same category), but I have my people, and those who DO understand me know that I'm not crazy at all. In fact, it's the rest of the world that's missing out.

Doesn't mean I'm not a little bit worried though.

I love and adore all of my friends. Trust me, I honestly do. But if you say you're going to Disney with Lizzie, that's what you're going to do. I don't do the rest of Florida. It's not "Go to the Beach with Lizzie" or "Go to Universal with Lizzie." No, it's "Go to Disney with Lizzie," and nothing beyond that. Sure, I'll make a HUGE exception to go to Universal for a day, but you can't act like I'm trying to persuade you not to go when I tell you it'll cost a lot more than you might think. And you also can't expect me to be all happy go lucky Lizzie when we head straight into my worst nightmare.

You see, even after how many years of living a life surrounded by Disney on all sides, and after two and a half years of blogging about it, I'm still faced with this one same problem: Those Who Don't Quite Understand. There's a certain mindset that hardcore Disney fans have, and it's one that, unfortunately, only we can understand. When Disney is threatened or our love of it is called out, we get defensive...very defensive, and that's a feeling that honestly I can't even explain. The let down when someone you love says you're too invested. When your friend tells you that you need to grow up. When someone calls you childish for loving Disney so much. We all face these struggles, and unfortunately it never gets easier.

We push on though. We find our friends within the fandom and we hold onto them for dear life, because no matter what, there's always going to be that one thing that ties us together: The Magic of Disney.

Have a magical day!