New Year's Resolutions

I have to be honest and say that I am not normally big on New Year's resolutions. I normally think, if you want to do something better why do you need to wait until a new year to make that happen? But in reality this year I wanted to be intentional in my daily living and decided that there were a couple of things that I truly do want to do better in 2016.

1. Running. Late in college I started running and loved it. I didn't continue in Florida at first since I was on my feet so much at Animal Kingdom walking miles a day in the heat. However, after I left DAK and started my second PI as a desk position I started running again. I actually found that I was in decent shape due to that fact I was getting a good amount of exercise just working as an Education Presenter. However, I had to have foot surgery in June and wasn't allowed to run for 6 months. Christmas Day was the 6th month mark so I am excited to try and get back into shape. It isn't going to be easy but I signed up for my first runDisney event to help motivate me. My goal is to try and "run" all of it. Which is more like, try not to walk no matter how slow you go! Inaugural Star Wars Dark Side 10k here I come!

2. Reading. I used to read a lot. A LOT. In college I only read for pleasure in the summers but would fly through books. However, since I graduated college I have read 3 books. Isn't that sad that I know exactly what 3 books that I read?!?! So I want to try and read a book a month. It doesn't sound like a lot but I figure I need to make a reasonable goal or else I won't stick to it. I am currently reading the 3rd book in the Kingdom Keepers series (which might tell you what 2 of the 3 books I have read since graduation were :) ). I actually read half of it but stopped in May so I tried picking up where I left off and had no idea what was happening. So here goes to January's book!

3. Get 10,000 steps a day. I should be able to hit this easy on days I am running (see goal number 1!) My mom got the whole family Fitbit's for Christmas so I want to try and hit 10,000 steps a day. On days that I miss the step goal I have to make up double those steps some other point during the year. I have a spreadsheet to track this and everything ;) I work a sedentary job now and between a desk job and not being able to exercise post-foot surgery I have gained a little weight. I am trying not to make drastic changes, but right now just work on making a few better life choices and hope that it all works out. :) 

4. Spend more time outside. I live in Florida for crying out load! I feel like I spend so much time inside so I want to actually use my patio or apartment complex pool, even if it is just to read. I want to go walking and see nature (and get 10,000 steps in) I don't want to for granted the vacation state that I live in and explore a bit more.

5. Craft more. I love to craft and even have a sowing machine. I haven't been good about it lately and still have to finish my smashbook for my first PI (oops!), so I want to at least finish that this year. I may have brought my sowing machine with me to Florida, but forgot supplies and have been too lazy/cheap to buy them so I just need to go get it and make stuff! I also consider coloring and doing puzzles crafts in a way so I will do those, too.

I think that these are the main ones. I am of course trying to do other things like eat healthier, be better about cleaning, etc. I actually have been really good over the last year and a half at budgeting so I want to keep being good at that and perhaps make some additional student loan payments. But overall these are goals that I think are good for me to be intentional in adding to my life. They are all things that I like to do but have been neglectful so I need to make sure I included them because I think they are good lifelong habits that I can make measurable progress with! If you made any resolutions, I wish you good luck! 

Meeting Disney Characters

One of the great things about getting an internship at Disney is the unlimited park access. This allows tons of time to experience the magic, including meeting Disney characters. There are a LOT of characters guests can meet at Disney from the Fab 5 to the Princesses to other common characters to meet like Pooh to characters you can only meet at parties to seasonal characters to rare characters that you come across just by chance. I don't know an official number or anything but the number exceeds 200. Now if you decide to meet characters you may want to commemorate your experience. Here are some ideas to help you do that.

Pictures The photopass team will take your pictures with the Disney camera, but the photographer or the character attendant is more than happy to take pictures with your personal camera.

Disney Autograph Books Many guests also get autograph books. A cheap way to get these is if you go to the damages shop now called Mickey's Treasures at Cast Connection. When merchandise is damaged it goes to this store where cast members can buy it for 75% off, including all types of autograph books. I got one of the Princess autograph books with pages to put pictures and a bunch of blank pages of all of the non-princesses to sign. The the only thing wrong with the book was the plastic covering was a little torn! This is what I began my character journey with. 

Homemade Autograph Books When I worked in the park I saw a lot of guests make their own autograph books. This is a cool way to go if you want to get creative. These are nice because you can make them as big as you want because if you are at Disney for 6+ months you might run out of space in one you buy through Disney. Just search Disney Autograph books on Pinterest and you will get a ton of cool ideas to inspire you!

Picture Frame Mats A current trend I have seen in the parks is to bring a plain picture frame mat for the characters to sign. Then you can put your favorite character picture in a frame to display your autographs for all to see!

Blank Canvas I really liked the picture frames the guests were bringing but I don't really use frames much and thought the space taken up by a picture could be put to another use. Therefore, I modified the picture frame mat concept and bought the flat canvases at Michaels, painted a design on them and brought them to the parks for the characters to sign. I made a few smaller ones for gifts for my picture and started a larger one for me. I still haven't given those ones to my sister yet and mine still has a little work to go, so I'll maybe post them at a later date. 

Disney Character Encyclopedia I think this is my new favorite idea. I have seen a handful of guests bring a book with all of the characters in it and have them sign on their page. I googled it and I think it is an inexpensive way that allows you to be prepared for just about any character you might encounter at the parks! Each character has their own page and there is even trivia and whatnot. Unfortunately not EVERY character is in the book, but it definitely covers a majority of the ones you'll encounter. Here is a link to it on Amazon: Disney Character Encyclopedia 

Other items I've seen guests bring everything from pillow cases to  t-shirts to canvas bags for characters to sign, so the possibilities are endless!

Now go see how many characters you can meet!

VoluntEARS: WE Gives Back event

So today didn't start off great. I had some crappy children and crappy families when I started at flamingo, and after I took my 30 min break and headed to tracking it didn't get much better. I was swamped with people and within the first 5 min I was pushed by some guy since I was apparently in his way of taking his kid's picture. Because asking to move is just too much work, am I right? So after an hour and a half of tracking, when I went to lunch I was in a pretty foul mood. I felt super nauseous and couldn't eat anything so I got some Jamba Juice and ate some popcorn. I am normally a pretty patient person and normally like my job, so maybe it was because I was sick, but the day wasn't going well. I got to Animal Call and Forestry and felt like I was going to throw up on the children and was going to ask to go home but it was so busy I didn't get a chance to call Core Team. I even got ipaq'ed by Krystal and didn't even get a chance to talk before she gave me a thumbs up and walked away. I made it through that hour and a half and took a quick break offstage to compose myself before heading to Gibbon. I didn't make as much as an effort to recruit people or go up to guests, but I still had some decent conversations as I tried to keep myself together. I got to my second 30 min break and pretty much feel apart but figured I just had headquarters to go so I could push threw. Headquarters ended up being the best part of my day and closing went pretty easy (Anastasia even came by to help out since I had helped out with her signal 70 while she was at Animal Call) and I got a second good ipaq for the day/week from Krystal. 

I wasn't going to stay for the VoluntEAR event Krystal had set up, but talked myself into staying. I had signed up and really wanted to do it and felt bad backing out. I also figured I would reward myself with the pizza we ordered at the event. It was a ton of fun. We used old t-shirts (some grey ones from textile services and other colors) which was a cool way to recycle. I guess they have diverted over 500 tons of the entertainment shirts from landfills which is pretty exciting and the doggies at some shelters will get some cool handmade toys! First we cut some shirts into strips and we used a square stitch sort of thing I used to use all the time for the lanyard things I made at Kids Kamp when I was younger to put them together, so I caught on really quickly and was the first to finish so I made so more. It was fun to eat good food, chill with my fellow Wilderness Explorer Troop Leaders, my manager, and the leader from the Nutrition center who taught us how to make them. She is apart of the blanketEARS group which does a lot of crafty things so I might join if I end up staying another semester. At the end we even celebrated Christina's birthday with a cake and everything!

The one dog toy that I made! Super easy and super fun.

So ultimately, while today started on a sour note, it ended on a good one hanging out with people at the event while also giving back.