An Introduction...

Let me introduce myself…as it's been a while!

I started this blog way back in….2012….in fact the 12th August 2012 saw my very first post to be precise.

And since then me and my blog have seen some changes, what started out as a blog to chronicle my love of Disney, and specifically my travels to Walt Disney World expanded to include health, well being, more Disney and even a diary covering that period of time between 2020 and 2022 that was a little strange for the world at large.

So who am I now….

Well I am still the same Disney loving gal that I have always been but my real life world has changed. I am now retired (very fortunate to have been able to take this next step in life relatively early!). My kids have now left home and are forging their own way in this world. In the last couple of years my partner in this crazy thing called life, Simon, has also joined me in retirement and we are busy uncovering a new way to live. When I retired from my job as pre-school manager I took on the volunteer role as their committee chairperson and now devote a little of my time (and hopefully knowledge) each year to support them. I continue to co-host the Disney Dream Girls podcast with my bestie, Michelle, and we are now approaching 600 episodes. This does mean that at least once a week I get the chance to have a good ‘waffle on’ about all things Disney. We have an amazing group of friends we call family through our continued Star Wars cosplay shenanigans. My Disney tattoo collection is ever expanding. The non-sporty me has learned to love the gym (and I continually surprise myself at what I am able to do) and I now embrace anything to do with health and wellbeing from eating well to staying active to mindfulness and more. And now with more time on our hands we find that we have the time, resources and inclination to travel a little more…even if that travel is predominantly ‘Disneyfied’!

So with all that in mind I really wanted to take up writing again, to share my thoughts and to journal our adventures. In late August of 2022, after 893 consecutive blog posts, I decided that the world had gotten back to something resembling normal and it was time to stop the daily posts.

Away from the blog I managed to keep the daily momentum of writing going by keeping a personal diary and on occasions dabbled with the odd blog post or two but never regained the consistency I once had. 

And while my personal diary provides me with a memory box of daily events it, by its nature, doesn’t stretch my writing muscles.

So I find myself in a qundary; while I have a desire to write more, to chronicle experiences in our life and to wax lyrical about topics I feel passionate about I find that my confidence in my abilities to do so has diminished. I find myself in the classic ‘catch-22’; the less I write the more I want to but the lack of writing has knocked my confidence. I have convinced myself that I have nothing important to share or that no-one is interested in what I have to say…my inner critic has played havoc with my confidence.

But you know what…I don’t care what anyone else thinks, or whether anyone will read this. I am not doing it for an audience I am doing it because I want to and if anyone out there takes an interest then that is a bonus.

So enough waffling on I best get started!

It's Been a While...

Well...it's been more than a while since my fingers graced the keyboard to write a blog post (almost a year in fact) and I have no excuses. Although I'm sure I could come up with a few if pressed!

And even this blog post was initially started months ago, and several times over...I kept adding to it on occasion and then...well....yeah!

Like I said no excuses but I definitely need to figure out what I want to do with this blog and how I see it moving forward. 

When I started this blog way back in 2012 (wow that surprised me!) it was to chat about my love of Disney and going to the parks with a little bit of everyday life thrown in for good measure. Over the years I've spoken about various Disney vacations, my love of Christmas, tattoos, Star Wars and my approach to healthy living. Some years I've generated lots of posts and then others not so much.

Then we encountered the pandemic...as this was an unprecedented (a much overused word at the time!) event I decided to document the whole kerfuffle. I started on Thursday 19th March 2020 and documented every day up until the 29th August 2022...an astounding 893 days! It started as a way to record the events of early 2020 and rolled into an online diary as the world that we knew suddenly became very different and took an inordinate amount of time to get back to anything like the 'normal' we knew before! But at 893 days I decided that the world was as 'normal' as it was ever likely to get and I simply needed a break from daily posting.

By the time we approached Christmas of 2022 I was missing the 'diary' that I'd inadvertently created and started to keep an old fashioned, personal diary, albeit using the power of Google Docs. There was no way I was going to be completely old fashioned and handwrite it as I know how bad my writing has become over the years! And pretty much every day since 19th December 2022 I have documented my daily life...but this time just for me.

So where does that leave this blog?

I think I want to start posting more often and post about those 'things' that are important to me, as was the original intention. 

Back in October 2020 I hit a bit of a hurdle with my writing and at the time I drafted a blog post that I never published...here's some of what I wrote back then when we were still in the midst of the 'pandemic'...

'My decision to write was purely a selfish one; to record what was happening in my life, how the world events were affecting me and those close to me as well as from time to time chance for me to vent and express my own opinions as to what was happening and the why and the wherefore. I also like writing and it was something that I had wanted to do more of for quite a while and so 'keeping a diary' was a good excuse for me to stretch my writing muscles.

Like I said this wasn't started for any specific reason, it wasn't started to find fame or fortune or to find recognition. It was for me, by me and if anyone else wanted to read them then that was fine and if they liked what they were reading then that was a bonus.

But recently my confidence in writing took a bit of a knock...I lost my writing mojo so to speak. My writing was questioned and no doubt my writing about it being questioned will also get questioned but I am not going to let any other opinions out there stop me from doing what I want and writing about what I want, that is personal to me in a forum that I have chosen to write in.

I have been told that the manor in which I write reveals more about me than I reveal in person...does it? I don't know, I can't possibly know because I am not aware that the person I appear to be in person is any different to the person that is writing this. I will admit to not being the most talkative person and that sharing some things can be a challenge for me and so perhaps writing it down, without judgement or interruption, is easier for me.

I have been told that the manor in which I write is opinionated and aggressive; two words that I would never have associated with myself. Yes I have opinions on a variety of subjects but that is not the same as being opinionated, the definition of which is 'characterised by conceited assertiveness and dogmatism'. I like to think that I can recognise that everyone has their own views of the world and while I will always try to impart whatever knowledge I may have I know that there will always be disagreements and different thought processes and that is fine. I have always said that I will not foster my views on others providing they do the same with me. We have to accept that we will not all think the same and that is fine, it's what makes us all individuals, after all it would be no fun if we were all the same. I strive to accept that I will not always be right, that I am open to information that may change my understanding and therefore my opinion. We have to accept that change will happen, it may not be always what we want but it will happen and we need to find a way to embrace and accept it to be able to move on and change and adapt ourselves.

Aggressive; now I don't wish to sound conceited but I have never thought myself to be an aggressive person, in fact I have been accused in the past of being too laid back. I may be passionate about things that I hold dear and if my passion has been interpreted as being aggressive then I can only apologise. There may have been times over the last 220 plus days that I have attempted to express my frustrations or anger at situations, often situations that are too big for me to have any impact on or any control over and again being aggressive was never my intention.'

...so yeah that was October 2020 and if I am honest I think this has stayed with me for longer than I'd realised. I think it stopped me from always being as open and as honest as I wanted to be. It had me censoring myself and worrying about what others would think as opposed to just writing whatever I wanted.

So whilst keeping my 'pandemic diary' for 893 days was certainly an achievement and recorded a time that I could never have imagined we would experience, I do wonder how much of what I wrote was just for recordings sake rather than completely from the heart?

Moving forward I think I will endeavour to get my writing mojo flowing again, to be able to write from my heart and be open and honest and most importantly to write because I want to and because it means something to me.

Yes I will write about Disney, yes I will write about Star Wars, yes I will write about good eating and if you want to read along then great I'll be happy to have you here but if it's not for you then that's fine too.

As we used to say back in the day when we had just a handful of TV channels 'if you don't like what's on either change the channel or switch off the telly; no-one is making you watch it'. I think the same applies here, have a read and if you like it hang around but if not then simply move along. 

Let's see where this takes us...I just have to figure out what to write about first!