I read a piece from USA Today indicating that Polynesian Village resort isn’t going to reopen until next summer.
The Orlando Sentinel adds that this is due in part to some theming changes to the resort, giving it a Moana makeover.
“A Disney World spokeswoman on Monday said changes to the rooms will include a move to a Pacific Ocean-inspired color palette as well as details, patterns and textures from Disney’s “Moana,” an animated film that takes place partly on the Polynesian island of Motunui.”
Now is the time to make these changes, for sure!
The USA Today article also mentions that The Boardwalk Inn and The Beach Club have no opening dates set yet. Though the Beach Club Villas and Polynesian Villas are open right now.
(Have I mentioned yet today how much I miss Disney?)
As changes to the Disney Parks happen and many Disney fans take to the Internet to announce that “Walt is rolling in his grave”, I draw on my mantra: I trust Disney. Let’s be real for a second- I don’t trust them as a multi billion dollar corporation, I trust them as purveyors of magical experiences, because magical experiences have made them a multi billion dollar corporation. And they have a LOT to lose if those experiences go wrong.
I watched an interview this morning from The Dow Report with Josh D’Amaro, Chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products. It is short, you should watch it and then come back to have a conversation.
Noodle Bowl from Satu’li Canteen.
One of the points he covers is that some of the technologies developed to reopen the parks are here to stay. Pre-pandemic recent visitors to the parks likely noticed the availability of Mobile Ordering, and many were using it, I was never alone waiting at the mobile order windows. D’Amaro suggests that the expansion of mobile ordering is going to continue and I’m all for that! Once the world opens up to more international travel, however, a credit only payment required could be a problem for guests from out of the country who don’t want to pay exchange fees with every transaction.
Another new post-Corona innovation introduced is the Park Reservation System. D’Amaro indicates that in some form that is here to stay.
<record scratch, cue momentary panic>
Passholder Park Reservation Calendar for September 2020 as of 8/28/2020
What will this mean for Annual Passholders? My brain and my heart momentarily switch places. What will be the point of living near The Magic if I can’t have dinner at Epcot on a random Wednesday after work? Is this the end of Park Hopping? Why did I watch this dumb video before I even got out of bed this morning? <deep breath> The limited information that can be gleaned from the Disney World website eases my concerns about Park Hopping disappearing. Tickets purchased for next year can have the Park Hopper option added. So that’s at least something.
No information has been released about Disney’s long term plans for Annual Passholders, and as yet it is not possible to purchase new Annual Passes, but it IS possible to renew existing passes. (I let mine expire in February and might be panicking a little bit, not knowing when I’ll be able to buy a new one.)
I have noticed that when booking a Park Pass Reservation I’m presented with a single clickable option that reads:
Select Arrival Window — show up any time during this timeframe to enter the park.
this makes me think that eventually THIS is how we will Park Hop. Pick Magic Kingdom for the AM, pick Epcot for the PM. This may also expend somehow to accommodate more spontaneous park visits for Annual Passholders. (fingers crossed!)
Guardians of the Galaxy- Mission: Breakout
A third technology adoption mentioned in this brief interview was the Ride Queue Reservation System. Having been to Disneyland a couple of times I’ve been hoping that they’ll implement in Florida the MAX Pass system that they use in California. It is easy, and makes it possible to do so many more things than can be done on the WDW FastPass system. Fingers crossed for something like that with a different pricing structure, the additional cost would be prohibitive for many visitors, the $20 per day might not work as well in a park where people tend to go for 5-7 days or more per vacation.
This could also just mean expanding the Rise of the Resistance style reservation-making to more attractions, especially as they open new ones like Guardians of the Galaxy or Ratatouille in Epcot.
Construction in France, Epcot, as of 2/7/2020 (my last park day before the Corona hit the fan)
Now with all of this Disney talk I need everyone to calm down, stay home, and wear masks for the next 30 days so that we can all go back on vacation!
I think my very Catholic upbringing requires I own up to things immediately, so the past few months I’ve been feeling VERY guilty not telling anyone that I finally got a library card. I’ve been buying books for my kindle and there are so many on there I haven’t read- and that shiz gets EXPENSIVE. I’ve never really considered book buying to be shopping but it definitely is and right now if it isn’t paint, primer, brushes or boxes, I’m trying not to buy it.
A few months ago a friend suggested a book to me. (Daughter of the God-King by Anne Cleeland. Amazing. Read it!) When I googled it instead of the top result being an amazon link it was a link to my local library using the SAILS platform. Ten minutes later I was reading the e-book.
Since then I’ve checked out a book a week, downloaded straight to my Kindle.
Ames Free Library, so many books I could owe fines on one day.
My last Massachusetts library card was from Tufts Library in Weymouth, MA. I got it in 1983, used it to read every single Nancy Drew book, and by now I must owe them thousands for the three books on the Red Scare and McCarthyism I lost in 1996. When the kids were tiny we would go to that same library often but I was always sure they would run whatever version of a Library Credit Check they had and would shame me publicly or fine me more than I could afford. (yay anxiety) We would go for story time, and to play on their amazing playground, and to read books there, but we never checked any out.
When we moved to Austin, TX I felt confident getting a library card. Certainly my debts wouldn’t follow me there, 20 years later. Certainly the long arm of the Weymouth Library didn’t extend that far. I think I owe Austin Public Library 3.00 for the late return of a Pendergast novel, clearly I am a repeat offender in the Library crime world.
I was hesitant to get another library card, to possibly restart my life of check-out-crime after 8 years on the lam, but the allure of free Regency romance novels was too great. I am a card carrying reader again. E-Books are a safe way to go, after a week they just take them back off of my device, I couldn’t forget to return them even if I tried.
There we are. I’ve confessed my library sins. I feel better.
Yesterday as part of the GISH event I made a 20 second film of filling a tiny piñata with negative self talk and then lighting it on fire and this morning I felt like anything was possible.
I spent some time thinking about ways to have a Disney career that wasn’t necessarily working FOR Disney, I think being a personal Disney shopper would be pretty amazing. I could combine two of my favorite things – shopping and Disney. Annnnnyways, here I am. 44 and figuring out what I want to do with my life. Setting goals as early as I can is now. Inspired as HECK by the wisdom of Walt and crossing my fingers that October 30th sees us in WDW for some Halloween shenanigans.
Florida – you are ON NOTICE. Get your shirt together, momma needs a Dole Whip Float.
and you guys, I’m going to make an effort to write with more frequency. I have been reading non-stop but I can’t be a writer if I’m not… writing. So- I’ll be back soon. There’s a pair of MASSIVE lobster tails in my refrigerator that we need to discuss.
In 2006 I was at Austin City Limits music festival with my kids, the youngest of whom had turned 6 days earlier. During Tom Petty’s set it started pouring rain and G got really upset, we packed up and headed out, my tiny, frightened, child crying not-so-quietly beside me in the large crowd of people leaving the event. A woman gave her her umbrella- “it’ll be ok” she said “we’re all in this together”.
her kindness, and those words specifically, were so powerful – I can’t get enough of them.
Here we are, three years into caged kids, separated families, klan marches, love letters to dictators, alternative facts, fast food award lunches, judge threatening, lawlessness. And we are here in part because 17,000 people in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania forgot that we are ALL in this together and voted like they were alone.
Maybe we can get those people back, maybe we can’t. The goal should be to reach the people alienated by those votes, by votes in years past, by gerrymandered districts, by racist voter ID laws, by purged voter rolls. We have to show them that WE know that we are all in this together.
Am I going to stop trolling the current resident of the White House on twitter? HELL NO. He stands in opposition to EVERYTHING that makes us WE.
I’m getting off track… Disney.
I was in Disney last month and even when I’m in my happy place my anxiety about the world doesn’t go away, if anything it intensifies. Surrounded by the cutest happy babies, the most cranky overtired toddlers having 6pm meltdowns, grumpy adults who missed their naps… Surrounded by tourists from all over the world who still want to spend their money and their time in our country despite everything going on here. While America is working on becoming as tribal as possible Disney is the melting pot.
aside: Unfortunately the Disney melting pot excludes the poor and less privileged. We need a living wage, universal healthcare and child care! We need to stop insisting that our baristas have bachelor’s degrees with 100,000 in student loans, and start encouraging people to explore the trades. We need to make it ok to completely change careers in midlife, if we can’t course correct we are lost.
Getting off track again – back to Disney. We were in EPCOT and I was standing in line in a restroom. A stall had come empty and the lady at the front of the line didn’t notice, a woman who was headed outside did notice and walked the lady to the empty stall. A little girl in front of me said “that was really nice!” and the woman said “sweetheart, we’re all in this together”.
I walked out of there and said to my husband: “remind me to write a blog post about all being in this together”
so here we are.
If we’re all in it together in the BATHROOM, and we’re all in it together in the rain, can we all please be in it together when we go vote? When we talk about people who are different than us? When we talk TO people who are different than us? When we think about educating our kids, or keeping them safe with gun laws that make damn sense? When we talk about immigration and refugees and the homeless and our treatment of veterans? (and in the most wealthy country on earth we CAN take care of all of them) Or when we think about the climate crisis?
Say it- every day- to yourself or to someone else, make them believe you, believe it yourself: “Sweetheart, we’re all in this together.”
if you give a mouse a poshmark she’s going to stop buying clothes because she realizes she’s GOT TOO MANY.
if she’s got too many her children will give her bags of their clothes because they’ve realized that THEY’VE GOT TOO MANY.
if they’ve got too many their dad will see what we’re doing and clean out his t-shirt drawer and those will go on poshmark too.
and the mouse will see that so many of the things she’s sending back out into the world are things she gave as gifts that didn’t have a ton of thought behind them other than just to BE GIFTS. People like picking out their own clothes!
which has made this Christmas shopping season an interesting one. I’ve been very deliberate, which in the face of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and every frantic, shiny, email in between has actually been really difficult. And maybe not 100% successful – I did buy a couple of things from Old Navy that could end up getting returned. But in the grand scheme of things I’m pleased with how this year and our relationship to THINGS has gone.
I wanted a new Christmas Tree – a 9 footer to put in the corner by my staircase but I read the piece going around about ‘the life-changing magic of making do‘ and while I found some of it to be a bit shamey, and excessive (I don’t believe in extremes other than where Disney is involved, it is a long-term side effect of having been in a cult, extreme behavior is bad), the point hit home that I have a TOTALLY DECENT and still useable tree.
So – booooo on that.
And because BOTH of my children are pursuing degrees in environmentally related fields, and because there is enough damn plastic in the world, and because I’ve watched the horror videos about Yiwu in China, where 60% of the world’s christmas decorations are made, I’m going to repaint the ornaments I wanted to replace.
So – booooo on that too. or yay, because I love a creative project.
And because of their environmentalism and a desire to stop putting literal tons of single use garbage into the earth I’m not buying any more sweater boxes to wrap presents with. And I’m using up my old wrapping paper because even the thought of THAT is stressing me out.
So – yes, a mouse with anxiety and children and a planet she cares about is going to have to start using recyclable wrapping paper – or fabric! I could learn to quilt…
if you give a mouse a poshmark she’s going to learn to quilt.
I owe you some posts, but for right now I’m sitting in the Lowe’s parking lot with a car full of plants. I think I ended up with 9… I’m feeling emboldened after keeping 2 plants alive for the last 2 weeks.
“But Erin” (you say) “haven’t you been out of town for the last week?”
Ok yes, but that just means that Blevvins and I are a power-plant-keeping-alive-team.
Winter is coming, and without my babies at home I think the plants will add to the Hygge that I NEED to get from October to April.
Despite my firm “not shopping” stance I have ordered 5 different undergarments to science out the whole Disney Parks Swampass situation when I’m there later this month.
So far I’ve ordered a pair of Knix, a pair of Thinx, a pair of Cooling ThighSociety shorts, a pair of UnderSummers and a pair of Drirelease TomboyX boxers, I’ve also ordered a pair of bandlettes for the non-undershorts times.
Knix and Thinx are technically period panties but I’m operating under ‘liquid is liquid’ an if it absorbs blood it should absorb sweat, right?
“But Erin” you say “you’re only going to have 3 park days!”
Yup, but (and since we are really oversharing right now) I usually change clothes halfway through the day because I’m a SWEATY BITCH and I like to be comfortable.
I will also be in Austin and Lubbock Texas, so I’ll try stuff out there as well.
SO. what else should I be trying? I prefer shorts since I like wearing skirts and dresses at Disney for air-flow but I’m willing to try non-shorts as well.
I feel like I should add a couple more Disney days… 😂
I’m not the only one with crotch temperature on the brain. The Bloggess is also tackling the science… Read it! (The science of crotches)
sometimes it feels like I’m Columbusing these picks…. I mean, people know this shiz is awesome, that’s why it is available, but *I* didn’t always know this shiz was awesome – so enjoy these brand new discoveries which I will name and personally take credit for.
TomboyX boxers. Gender neutral boxers in outstanding patterns and GREAT fabric. I bought a pair of these on clearance after halloween to wear under skirts at Disney – because if I can’t wear jeans I definitely prefer skirts or dresses and with my… shapely… thighs I need some friction protection. Normally this takes the form of Jockeys Skimmies which are pretty damn magical but I… and here you learn more about me than anyone needs to… I’m sweaty and I’m a bit of a prude who went to all girls school so I can’t wear skimmies without wearing underwear under them so there’s 2 layers under my skirt and twice the chance to get really forking sweaty.
annnnnyways. boxers. these are now my go-to under skirts and I managed to get a day in Disney in May while I was wearing these and they worked pretty great! I was still sweaty but I didn’t feel as gross. (moments ago I ordered a pair of Knix, I’m going to try those in the park next month, I could literally have an entire blog about Disney swampass avoidance techniques)
Yesterday I also ordered a pair of TomboyX drirelease performance boxers because I’m desperate. look for the update on those in the swampass blog sometime in August. lucky you.
also- I’m a big girl AND (I had originally written “but” here, as if big girls can’t have good asses, when of course we do!) I’ve got a pretty good booty and it looks BOMB in these. new favorite pjs. and the sizes they stock! they go up to 4X. amazing and inclusive. I love them. you will also.
use this link to get $20 off your first $70 purchase (which would make it a $50 purchase…)
I normally use Rodan & Fields for my skincare routine but while I was in Florida in January I took my oldest to Sephora to replace her face wash and she got this First Aid Beauty Skin Rescue red clay cleanser and it is amazing. I had to go back to buy myself one and I’m on my second replacement tube of it right now. So so good. Not drying but definitely feels clean when I’m done, smells really good, I love it. And it is available from Amazon, and also from Sephora, who has a great return policy.
and, while we are talking about products I’ve had for a while and only started using recently (like the boxers…) I’ve started using The Ordinary’s Peeling Solution and this stuff is LEGIT. I use it twice a week and can immediately feel and see a difference in the glow and texture of my skin. 10 minutes 2x a week, I’ve only been using it for 3 weeks but I’m liking what I’m seeing so far. Also I love spending those 10 minutes looking like I’ve just had one of those Kardashian vampire facials but with acid, and without the possibility for deadly blood borne diseases. win win. The peel is much cheaper at Sephora unless you have to pay for shipping – also if you can place an 8.00 Sephora order let me know – I have never seen such a feat.
go get that glow on.
being hydrated. my youngest is going to college next year. I thought it was hard sending my oldest to vermont, but now my baby is going to texas and I’m going to miss them both so damn much. so I’m crying a lot. and it’s leaving me straight up dehydrated. like, waking up after not drinking feeling hungover, dehydrated.
which is where water comes in. seriously. #3 is water. we have one of those water coolers in the kitchen with the 5 gallon bottles – and the water IN the bottles comes from a spring maybe 1500 yards from our house sitting beneath the oldest bottling plant in the US (Simpson Spring) and it is delicious.
behold! the Hamilton S’well. a bottle good enough to have a name, if it weren’t already called the Hamilton S’well.
though this is not about water – this is about the GREATEST WATER BOTTLE IN THE WORLD. (in my opinion) I filled it with ice yesterday morning and it is still full of ice this morning. I got it last fall when I was finally able to see Hamilton and have used it every day since then. it was FIFTY DOLLARS which is dumb stupid for a water bottle – or I thought it was – but I love a theater Merch Bar (<–you can buy it at that link if you want the Hamilton version!) and I know I’m not wearing all the t-shirts I’ve bought so I switched it up with the water bottle.
If you don’t want to spend $50 on a water bottle (and honestly, who does?) the non-Hamilton versions of this bottle are very frequently for sale for $25 – $30 on the S’well website. The sale items vary by season, there are some really cool ones right now, I keep wanting to buy another but I HAVE ONE, they’re indestructible, I’m not going to need another one ever.
I travel with this – which is funny EVERY time I’m in the airport security line as I’m chugging 17 ounces of cold water – but that means it is also my Disney Parks water bottle and in the sun the bottle itself gets quite warm but the contents are always cold. maybe I should get a parks bottle that isn’t black… 😁
and if you use ebates (soon to become Rakuten) please tell me you use ebates! if not sign up here (<–click on that) and we both get a bonus! The cash back bonus for s’well is 3% which is not too shabby!
anyhow – there are my three favorites for Spring/Summer 2019 – poor little abandoned blog.
Nothing says “Confronting your shopping demons” like destashing your LuLaRoe leggings collection on Poshmark. (yes, another poshmark post!)
Last month I set a goal for myself – I decided to set July 24th as the deadline since on July 25th I’m going to have to put my closet on vacation until August 2nd. (I HATE putting my closet on vacation, while I’m very good at going on vacation I’m not great at BEING on vacation- if that makes sense.)
I’m $60 away from my goal. I would be closer but I bought a couple of things for the girls. I’m not shopping for myself but a $6 Ann Taylor Loft Dress in the Texas Tech school colors isn’t something I can pass up while we’re starting to get the youngest packed. Lots and lots of red & black.
But I mean, I’m going to MAKE that goal, and I’ve set my next one to start immediately.
I rented a house in Florida again for January & Poshmark is going to pay for it.
Something about growing up Catholic makes me feel like I still have to confess everything. I’m not sure if I want penance or if I want the community of feeling like I’m not alone in whatever stupid shit I’ve done. Poshmark and this blog are both very performative methods of confession.
So thirty seconds of honesty – I’m in the process of listing 20-25 pairs of leggings in my Posh Closet. I’m not doing the math because I very rarely paid full price but still. HOLY CRAP ERIN. I’m keeping 7 pairs.
Mea Culpa.
I keep writing posts and then not posting them. I’m not sure if it is anxiety or that I’m just boring the shit out of myself halfway through – but I do know I miss this – so I’m going to make regular writing a thing that I just do.
I want to write a book. or three, really. I’ve got ideas for 3 and I’ve started on 1. I’m very good at starting things, not so great at finishing and even WORSE at promoting things that I have finished.
so there’s that.
and yes, one is definitely a feminist manifesto for children about a flamingo, duh.
like I said before, my youngest child is headed to TTU in Lubbock next month. NEXT MONTH. no wonder it feels as if my meds aren’t working. that is FAR. my oldest feels far away and she’s at UVM and I can drive there in under 4 hours. what the hell am I going to do?
My husband (who I just remembered asked once years ago to be called Blevvins if I ever blog about him) and I haven’t been on our own since we were 23. I turned 43 in May.
it’ll be fun. but I’m going to need a coping mechanism that isn’t buying another 25 pairs of leggings or going to Disney. thaaaat feels weird to say. I’ll still be going to Disney, but the amount of Disney that I feel like I’ll need is incompatible with the fact that I’m still not making an income.
going on 6 months now.
hence the books.
I can’t be the only nerd to google “how many pages are in a children’s picture book?” “how many words?”
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