Our Wicked Relaxing Vacation

We're making a dream come true for the kid and Grampa, too.  Grampa always wanted to go to Disney.  In fact back in the day as a young adult he tried to hit up Disneyland, but he was turned away because his hair was too long. My Gahd, that was so whack.
Appointments give me anxiety so, um...this vacation and all its reservations is testing my mental health, but it also means there's a lot of lists.  I like lists.  *wink*  I'll be just fine.  I know it.  


Day One: 

3:00 P.M. Check In at Disney Port Orleans the French Quarter
9:00 P.M. Dinner for 6 at California Grill

Day Two:  Magic Kingdom

10:30 - 11:30 Peter Pans Flight
11:40 - 12:40 Under the Sea Journey of the Little Mermaid
2:10 - 3:10     The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

8:00 P.M. Dinner for 6 at Portobello

Day Three:  Magic Kingdom

11:30 - 12:30  Jungle Cruise
12:45 - 1:45    Pirates of the Caribbean
2:00 - 3:00      Splash Mountain

8:00 P.M. Dinner for 2 at Raglan Road Irish Pub (the other four mouths are on their own)

Day Four:  Epcot

9:25 A.M.      Princess Breakfast at Akershus Royal Hall
11:40 - 12:40 Meet Disney Pals
1:00 - 2:00     Frozen Ever After

Eat and drink at the Food & Wine Festival and maybe see Tiffany sing a few songs.  ha.

Day Five:  Epcot

10:00 - 11:00  Soarin
11:25 - 12:25  Living with the Land
12:45 - 1:45    The Seas with Nemo and Friends

5:50 P.M. Dinner for 6 at Crystal Palace Character Buffet
7:00 P.M. Mickey's Not-so-Scary Halloween Party - Costume Party Yay!

Day Six: Wherever we want

Breathe.  finally.

Park?  Pool?  Shop?  Playing it by ear...for now. 

Day Seven:

Check out at Disney Port Orleans the French Quarter

school'n

perception.
a young student, the age of six, returns to the classroom where peers are reading books.  the child sits.  the adult in the room approaches and says something along the lines of, it was dumb not to ask for a book before sitting.  what the majority of students in the classroom interpreted from the statement, you're dumb.  a group of them concluded the adult in the room was, without a doubt, rude.
my daughter shared this story with me, she painted the picture first with telling me her teacher was in a meeting all morning and they had someone else as a teacher & this teacher called a young friend a bad word.
my forehead crinkled and I asked what word.
an apprehensive whisper... duhmm.
the details followed. 
I'm comforted she believes the word used by the adult was insensitive.  She's a feeler.  I did throw out the flip side, I'm sure it was a misstep of words, there wasn't intent on harming this young kids ego and a proud smile grew across my face with her firm reply, An Adult Should Know Better!
you're right, kid..in a perfect world we all would.  keep being you, you are wise beyond your years.
I sense activism in her future.
perspective.

you. me. we.

Have you ever had someone look you in the eye and say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I've been a bitch to you.  I totally, gave you the cold shoulder because I thought you were friends with ..."  (years.  this is years we're talking about.)
???
ha.  silly me, all this time I've been thinking to myself...wow, this broad is a total bitch.
I didn't actually say that out loud because...well, I'm not a asshole.  So, I said, "Oh, you know...I never really thought that much into it, sorry."
and then...I sat there...and wanted to kick myself in the teeth.  I'm sorry. ???   wtf is that?  I'm not sorry.  She, she's the sorry one.  I didn't do anything to be sorry for.  I'm good.  my inside voice: fuck her. 
The apology was followed by an accusation, ahhh ha, yes...they're always too good to be true.  An accusation that I couldn't have had something more important going on, on the day mutual friends were mourning their son.   ????  really?  and when I replied with...
"no, I was home with my sick daughter."  the face of the questioner came closer. uncomfortably close, stared me dead in the eyes and asked, "all day, you could not make it all day? "
ummmmm???  I was confused.  honestly.  I'm sure my eyes read it, but I kind of shrugged and said.."yeah, my daughter was sick all day."   Not a good answer...apparently...because another question was posed..."it was ALLL DAY...You couldn't make it ALL DAY, You had All Day to get there and you couldn't???!!"
I was thinking to myself...wtf.  seriously? who the fuck are you, the funeral police?  and then, I asked...well, did you see the flowers I sent, because they were beautiful, I know. I put my heart in them, I fucking cried at the counter as I wrote the card and told the woman exactly what I felt I needed the flowers to be.  I knew even had my daughter not been sick, I couldn't take the day off. new job. union requirements for days off.  I couldn't have worked it out without lying.  I would have had to call out with a sick day because I haven't been on the job long enough to earn a "vacation day"  NO.  It's bad karma.  If I say I'm sick and I'm not...I'll get sick. That's the way the world works... (in my world)  People can call me an asshole for it, they can say I didn't try hard enough, they can judge from sun rise to sun set, but it will never change the facts....   I love the family who lost a son.  I love the son they lost.  I love the mom who'll grieve her loss until her dying day, as well as, the dad who lost his first born.  I love these people & merely thinking about their loss. it hurts. When somebody questioned my loyalty tonight, it hurt. & shame on them for using a tragedy to judge me. My love, My Vibe. Those who believe in me....We Own it!  
this is for those...those who love.
the funny people
the likable people
the lovable people
people with big hearts
generous people
friendly people
good people
friend people
the friend who run deep people.

I grieve for their grief
You won't see this coming until it punches you in the face
Black eye
Busted nose
Broken heart

The cards.  at the store.  they don't sell...sorry for the loss of your son
...because this shit.  It's NOT SUPPOSE TO HAPPEN THIS WAY!
& it hurts!  It's fucking knives.  It's fucking spoons.  It's fucking Hurt!

 

The Year of the Blooper..sss

I don't do New Year resolutions.  The exception is This year.  I am resolved to fix my half ass approach when it comes to the creating of our original photograph calendar gifts each Christmas.  I am committed to adopting a new course of action, developing a plan that eases the, oh my goodness I'm going to miss my deadline this is too much to do in too little time, stress.  I will make monthly edited photograph additions to a 2017 Calendar file folder.  I will upload these edited files quarterly to the site I use for photo purchases.  The next calendars will be The. Best. Yet. and painless.  They won't induce hair pulling, teeth clenching, eye twitching and anxiety at crunch time.  I will spread the time consuming task amongst all the months of the year and bring this gift back to the realm of, fun to do, rather than the chore it's lately felt like.   I Can Do This!  ha.  This is the year of The New Calendar Project!
I, without a doubt, slacked more this year than those prior, not only with with the amount of good workable shots, but also with the giving myself a reasonable amount of time to pull off the final product without a hitch.  It was cyber Monday when I started and had to finish the project.  Lets face it, the lunch lady gig isn't very profitable.  This sale saved me two days pay.  ha-ha That's a whole lot of washed fresh fruit, quartered oranges and hundreds of portioned fruit cups for ten lunch periods.  ;)  I was determined to get the cyber Monday deal.   So, there I am, Monday night. The deal ended at midnight.  The site was jammed, processing edits, uploads and page refreshes were sooo slow, this cramped my quality control, the little I would have had time for without wrenches.  The closer the clock struck to my glass slippers disappearing, the more my cool unraveled.  I was sorting through literally thousands of photos on the family photo hard drive, dragging hundreds over for a second look, to finally narrow down those to fewer than a hundred I wanted to use for our gifts.  It was a tough year, Lyla wasn't a fan of the lens in 2015, so many of the pictures were tainted with mama has the camera again annoyance.   Grumpy Kid.
At 11:59 P.M. I clicked submit.  A feeling of relief rushed through me....sort of.
The calendars arrived the following week.  I make six unique calendars, three of which were super unique.  ha-ha  One was missing a cover page and a photo on the month of April.  Another had half a dogs face, fortunately, it Was Our Dog.  ha.  I got that right.  The last had photos in view for each month, but the view was a lil midget photo on a big canvas of white.   My only reaction was to laugh, at myself, at the joke calendars, at myself again.  What a knucklehead I was to think a perfect product was doable...a couple weeks worth of photo sorting, sifting, editing and uploading in a handful of hours. I was delusional.  Thank goodness I got a deal on them. hahahaha  I did have the perfect fix and pleaded with Lyla to become the hero of my calendar debacle.  She drew pictures on the blundered pages, with one slight blooper of her own.  One picture hangs upside down.  ha.  Oh, how we laughed...and that's the upside of the year of the blooper calendars, all the laughing. 
It's always the best medicine...and fix.

Holding on to vacation...

I can't believe it's already Friday.  boooo.  hisssss.
I can't believe it's Only Friday!  Yeah!  No server shift tomorrow means...whoo hooo, still a long weekend left until the end of my Christmas vacation.

What I did on my Christmas Vacation, so far....

Made references to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation & my other Holiday favorite, Elf.
Watched the kid play hide n seek with the dog.  He's quite good at seeking when she has a pocket full of treats.
Spoiled Lyla.
Stayed up late and slept late.
Introduced myself to a Moscow Mule.  delicious if you're a fan of ginger.
Won Sorry.
Lost Sorry.
Won Spoons.
Won Connect 4.
Lost my mind a few times thinking about how often I need to repeat myself.
Baked.
Listened to the kid smack talk while she played video games.
-who's in first?
-I'm number one. 
-I come to win.
-Booyah!
-I'm a winner.
-I hope you like 2nd because I'm always 1st.
-watch and learn.
-don't worry, when I'm not 1st I'm still number one in the end.
Sang and danced to Kids Bop.
Worked on math problems.
Played spy & made myself invisible from the kid while she sat in window sunbeams reading books out loud.
Had a dental procedure I've avoided for far too long.
Survived the dental procedure I've avoided for far too long.
Played video games, talked less smack than the kid.
Wrestled a laundry monster.
Payed it forward at DD.  Twice.
Put off an oil change....there's always tomorrow.
Watched movies.
Binge watched plenty of television.
Framed photos.
Hung my latest Art on the Rocks canvas.
Went to the movies and ate buttered popcorn.
Thought about breaking out the sewing machine to fix my pocketbook and every tshirt I have with a hole in the pit.
...still thinking about it.
Had a sleepover with Ly's BFF, B. 
Moved toys from room to room in some lame attempt of organization.
I drew pictures, read about the moon in the old farmer's almanac for kids.
Enjoyed breakfast for dinner and dessert for breakfast.
Unsuccessfully, boycotted stores of all kinds. 
Found myself at Market Basket Three times one day.  ha.  My attempt at I can do this without a list.
Made an effort to buy myself gifts, couldn't find anything I liked worth my money.
Told myself continually I'd pack away Christmas before work'n life was back in full effect.  Still thinking about it...there's always tomorrow.  It's still Only Friday!