It Is So Hard.

One of my goals was to blog and at first that came really easy. While on vacation, there were so many things to write about. So many inspirations and revelations that would change the face of 28. Now, it is cold and the Christmas lights are down and my bank account is drained. So as I lay in bed, here are my reasons not to write:

1. I need to write at my computer which means I can only do it on the couch because the laptop battery is fried and it has to be plugged in and writing on a tablet takes forever and forget writing on my phone and Jake is sitting where I need to sit.
2. They might think what you are writing about is stupid.
3. Writing about yourself is selfish and arrogant.
4. I don't have anything to write about because I haven't crossed anything thing off and I really don't find value in writing about filling out my passport form while texting my mom about where my dad was born (Cincinnati).
5. I need to be strategic about how often I post because I want people to read this because it feels good when people read this and when they bring it up and if I learned anything in my very expensive PR education it was that frequency and quality are the most important factors in developing a readership.
6. Worry about who will read this is dumb.
7. I am too tired.

And now here we are with all of that in the open. Tomorrow, I will post an update on my goals and share some additional hopes, dreams, and fears. Goodnight.

Breaking It Down.

As a coach, I know that the best way to accomplish goals is to break them down into smaller pieces in order to manage them. This hard when you have 29 goals to accomplish and most of them have tiny pieces that need to be managed. Today, I am breaking down the steps I can take now to ensure success and walking away with a to do list:

Things I did:

• Save $300 in a Christmas fund and Put money in a savings account aside from my Christmas fund, possibly using the week in the year method
• I sent a Facebook message to one of my former tellers who works as the assistant manager at the local credit union. I am going to set up two savings accounts with them and have a certain amount transferred from each pay check to those accounts in order to save.
• Email my grandma 4 times
• I've added into my work outlook 6 lunches that I need to sit at my desk and write my Grandma an email. I didn't do it today because I just got home from seeing her and just mailed her a thank you card.

Things to do:

• Get a passport
• I need to print off the paperwork and fill out the application.
• I need to see if my friend Katie can take a picture of me that would satisfy the passport requirement.
• Get my oil changed 4 times
• I need to find a coupon for Oil Can Henry's.
• When I get paid on Tuesday, I need to make it a priority to get my oil changed.
• I need to find someone who will go with me to get my oil changed because it makes me nervous everytime.
• Mail cards to my mom, dad, brother, grandma and grandpa for their birthdays and Mother's/Father's day
• I have a $5 gift card for the Dollar Tree. I need to take this and get 5 birthday cards for my five family members. I will then address the cards and leave them in my desk but will fill them out closer to the birthday.
• I need to buy a pack of 10 stamps. The post office is just a block away from work.
• Make some sort of fermented beverage
• I have decided on making kombucha. I can get the SCOBY from Amanda. I need to research what kind of tea I need and any other instructions that I need to follow.
• I need to get distilled water.
• Hit my goal weight
• I need to charge my Up band.

Disney Movie Reflection: Pinocchio

My favorite thing about weekends is waking up around eight and laying in bed while my little family sleeps. My bed just humming with the mechanisms that create life from both my man and my dog. Just laying there and knowing they are at peace. I get up and make myself a cup of coffee and bundle up on the couch and sometimes I make cinnamon rolls from a can. Eventually, the dog follows me in and then  Jake will follow suit and the day begins. Somewhere between coffee and Jake I will watch a movie and of lately I've been checking movies off my list.

A few weeks ago I got up early and decided on the Pinocchio. Pinocchio was the other VHS that my brother watched on repeat as a kid. (The first was The Rescuers Down Under which I was underwhelmed by and you can read about.) I've also rode the ride at Disneyland more than I can count but the movie as a whole kind of escaped me.

The movie basically happens in three acts: Stromboli, Pleasure Island, and Monstro with an introduction and conclusion. The Stromboli act is a creepy tale of child labor (which tends to be a theme of Disney animated features) complete with several European stereotypes being played by marionettes. Act two is Pleasure Island which is again about child labor where bad boys go to a playground and somehow turn into donkeys because they are acting like jackasses. My favorite part has always been Pleasure Island because in classic Disney fashion the magic is in the details my favorite being the Italian villa that is set up for the boys to destroy. Once they become full donkeys they are sold to salt mines. Finally, act three involves Pinocchio trying to find Gepetto who has been swallowed by a whale and ends with (SPOILER ALERT) Pinocchio drowning in a puddle.

The movie is sad and beautiful and tries to manipulate you emotions a little too much and Jiminy sucks at his job. Jake hasn't seen most Disney movies and walked in at the end of Pleasure Island. Having grown up on these movies, it is always interesting to see how Jake reacts to the second half when he comes in the room. I know most of his comments are in jest but he does a great job of pointing out how dark these movies can be.

Disney Movie Reflection: The Lady and The Tramp

I didn't think I liked this movie. Here is what I remembered out it:

1. There is a racist song about Siamese cats.
2. There is a precious moment where dogs kiss accidentally while sharing spaghetti.
3. There is a slutty dog whose fur covers one eye sexily and she sings some song about the Tramp being skank.

I was kind of putting off watching this one but work Amanda and I went to library and they had it on the shelf and I figured I should get it out of the way and I didn't have anything to watch the next Saturday morning.

So I woke up and followed my Saturday ritual (which I detail in my post about Pinocchio) and started the movie. This version had an opener with Diane Disney explaining her father's love of dogs and how elements were based on her father and mother's life so I was a little hooked.

Turns out this is a really good movie which should make sense since it is stacked between my two favorites (Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty). The story isn't as precious as I thought and there are some pretty funny lines snuck in that are aimed as adults including one dog trying to explain to another dog "the birds and the bees" and a lot of innuendo about the Tramp, who is named Butch, being a cad that is more tongue in cheek that prudish.

I liked this movie so much that I cheesily went in and grabbed Girlfriend from the bed and made her lay with me. Being a dog person, I was significantly more invested in this movie than I was in the Aristocats which I watched first and would be released five films later. My major take away was that I want a Scotty dog who I will name kilt.

Disney Movie Reflection: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

So people who work for Disney almost always have a favorite character. Personally, I really like Mickey but specifically Sorcerer Mickey. Another friend loved Cinderella and another Snow White. I also had a roommate who love Grumpy and another who was really into Goofy. While working at the Tower of Terror, I met a lady who was a Disney lifer who loved Eeyore. Her love went beyond just simply being inclined to purchase Eeyore merchandise but was a full on love. She knew everything about Eeyore and the entire Winnie the Pooh enterprise. She wore an Eeyore t-shirt under her uniform everyday.

She wasn't an isolated Winnie the Pooh fanatic. Hundreds of people visit the park every year who are obsessed with a Winnie the Pooh character. You have your Pooh ladies and your Tiger ladies and Eeyore ladies. I am sure there are subsets who like Rabbit and Piglet and Owl too. Generally, they are over 40 and could be models for mom jeans and their hair is always frizzy. They are kind and a little melancholy and they usually have backpacks.

Anyways, that is a long frame for watching this movie.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is set of cartoons about the same set of characters. There isn't a common plot throughout the movie. The animation is exactly what you can picture. What was most surprising about this movie is how developed these characters really are especially for a children's story. I guess it makes perfect sense as to why someone would choose Eeyore to be their personal reference point.

You've got neurotic Rabbit who is meticulous and detail oriented but selfish and Piglet who is more concerned with others and filled with worry and Tigger who is overconfident and cocky and adventurous and Owl who is a know it all but will help you in a jam and Pooh who is gluttonous and moronic but has a heart of gold. When you really look at it, what seems like very flat children's characters are actually complex renderings of real people and maybe somehow we can accept our melancholy by ascribing it to a pretty drawn character that is beloved. If we can love melancholy Eeyore, that maybe we can love my melancholy Eeyore.

Who knew The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh would be so deep?

Disney Movie Review: Fun and Fancy Free and Melody Time

There exists the period in time where Disney made 6 animated features that were really just collections of shorts that they strung together. They are not well known and possibly the hardest to find.

Fun and Fancy Free is made up of a cartoon about a circus bear that escapes called Bongo and Mickey and the Beanstalk. I really like bears and I don't remember having ever seen Bongo so I was pretty excited. The cartoon was a pretty predictable story reminiscent of a lot of Disney stories were an animal find himself in unfamiliar circumstances and things his cleverness and determination will get him through but then almost doesn't make it until he finds others like himself only to prove that he should be part of the group. The best part of the cartoon is a weird song about how bears supposedly slap each other when they are in love. 

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Mickey and the Beanstalk was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid. I had a Disney picture book that also told the story. Disney does a great job of insert Donald, Goofy and Mickey into this story. One of my favorite Disney animation sequences is when are our three heroes are asleep and the magic bean sprouts and destroys the house and slowly raises them up to the clouds while they sleep. Finally, Willie the Giant is one of the best obscure Disney characters.

Melody Time is kind of like Fantasia but with popular music instead of classical pieces. It includes two of Disney's animated tall tale pieces, Pecos Bill and Johnny Appleseed, which I remember watching on film in fifth grade. Having a biased toward Fantasia, I didn't expect to like this as much as I did. The pieces were long enough to be full stories but short enough to hold my attention. They are well ordered and stay constant to a theme. "Johnny Appleseed" is by far the best piece in the whole film. It is beautifully animated and funny and a true telling of classic story. Pecos Bill is a close second because it is a perfect story to be animated because it is so over the top.

Disney Movie Review: Dumbo

My best memory of Dumbo has nothing do to with the movie at all but is about the ride at Disneyland. Not even so much about the ride but about a bad blurry picture my dad took using a neon green  Ninja Turtles camera that printed a picture of a turtle giving a thumbs up in the left hand corner and took this weird film that came in a U shape.

I don't remember what the occasion was to be at Disneyland but what I remember was that were were there and my dad and brother were in the elephant in front of us and my mom and I were one elephant back and my dad took my camera to take a picture. I was scared because I was scared of everything but my mom was really cool about it. She let me work the joystick at my pace. The picture has my mom in a traditional beaming Disney smile. I am not and I can best describe the way my mouth looks with this letter: S.

So my associate with Dumbo has always been my mom which is perfect because that is what Dumbo is really all about. A mom has a son who she loves and he turns out to be a freak and she protects him. The story is pretty simple. The animation is beautiful for being only the fourth full length Disney animated feature.

What gets me everytime is when Mrs. Jumbo, Dumbo's mom, is locked up for protecting him and she comforts him while "Baby Mine" is sung. I think I cry everytime. I think about a simple memory at Disneyland and I picture I've had since I was 6. This causes me to think back to think through my favorite memories of my mom and I.