Rambling On and On and On...
Life has been rather eventful of late, and I figure it’s about time for me to make an update here, isn’t it? Where to start...? We have our reservations booked for a wonderful Disney vacation! May 15, 2010 through May 20, 2010 we will be in Orlando, Florida, relaxing (or possibly spazzing from sensory overload) at the Disney All-Star Music Resort. We have park passes for all eight days; though we may opt out of one day (or only go to a park briefly) in favor of Downtown Disney and perhaps even some clubbing. The plans are haywire right now, and rather up in the air. We know that the 15th and 16th are the last days of Epcot’s Flower and Garden festival. I believe that the following weekend has some sort of Star Wars event. I’m not sure at present whether we plan to avoid both events or attend them.
We have a lot of things we want to do, that’s for sure. There are specific rides we want to ride (including several we have missed in past visits for whatever reason), we want to peruse just about every shop we find, we’re considering horseback riding at Fort Wilderness (I think that’s where Disney has their horseback riding?), and we know that we want to pay attention to all the lanyards because we hardly knew what we were doing last time we visited. I want pins, dangit! ;op
We’re actually taking our dolls with us, which should prove interesting. We want to take as many pictures as possible. I have a new (really nice, imho) digital camera, and Joel will be taking his professional quality film camera. Right now I’m working on secure, safe, sturdy carriers so that they will not be exposed to the sun overmuch when we are just walking around, won’t get banged around, and will generally be taken care of. If I have time after that, we will be working on some clothes for them. I’m going to have to figure out how to make a properly fitting pair of pants for Joel’s girl, especially, since she currently has none. Beyond that, I think Joel wants to try to make a Pocahontas costume for her. I’ve been off and on working on a petticoat to go with a modified Sleeping Beauty costume for Rhianna. I’m not sure what we’re going to make after those, honestly, IF we even have time. I guess we’ll see. Expect tons of pictures, though.
Of course, we are trying to finagle the finances to make this trip more feasible. The actual hotel and park tickets were paid in advance, but we still have to deal with food and travel. Since we’re driving up, this means I have to make sure we get the oil on the car changed, new tires, and an alignment at bare minimum. We planned for this, for the most part, so it should be alright. I also went a bit above in my spending recently to order a second doll (which probably won’t be here before we leave--NTS, make sure to put a hold on mail) to be Rhianna’s brother. Again, we’d planned for this, but only because we planned to be strapped in the actual spending department (no eating out for the most part, for example).
Unfortunately, recent events might make us even MORE tight. I’m seriously hoping that we can work our way through this. You see, last night our air conditioner broke. Granted, we keep our house hotter than most people (78-80 degrees year round), so we’re used to high temperatures, but it’s a narrow line we walk. When the house hit 82 last night, I deemed that the winter weather was officially over and cranked up the air conditioner. Thirty minutes later, I felt no cooler, and there was a loud, rather disturbing noise from the unit. Thirty minutes after that there was nothing, and the temperature had risen another degree. >.>
I eventually turned off the unit so we would stop wasting electricity, and went to bed. It should be noted that the only fan in our house is downstairs in the livingroom. The bedroom, however, has this bad (in the winter, at least) habit of being cooler than the rest of the house no matter what we do. It was bearable, so we survived the night. Gran’s given me some suggestions for HOPEFULLY fixing it without calling in a professional. Here’s hoping that it works.
Barring the untimely death of our A/C, the weekend was really nice. On Saturday we bought our friend John (Ragresen) a season pass to Six Flags so that he could go with us from time to time. We then went as a group to the grocery store before heading to the park. With the light sprinkling, the park wasn’t too bad. There was some crazy middle school band event going on, though, so there were FAR too many unaccompanied minors for my tastes. Even still, it was fun, and we didn’t have to wait more than about thirty minutes in any given line. At around one or two, we finally hit Goliath. John was fine, having confirmed the fact that it was not a coaster he could hit first thing in the day.
Joel, however, who has never had a problem on coasters before, had something strange happen. His vision went blank, solid white. He didn’t get to enjoy the coaster as he would have preferred, and instead had a deer in the headlights look on his face when we finally stopped. He was blinking furiously, and his vision DID return fairly quickly, but it still scared him. John feels this was probably caused by too much blood flow to the head. Whatever it was, it wasn’t fun, so we decided that this was a good opportunity to hike to the car and eat lunch.
Sandwiches, Gatoraide, Doritos, and baby carrots were munched. Joel had a Lunchable. By the end of it, he seemed more relaxed and at ease. The whole thing turned his stomach at first, but by then he seemed alright. We packed everything up and made our way back to the park. Sadly, however, it wasn’t meant to be. We rode Mind Bender next, thinking it would be a milder lead-up before we hit Batman. Joel was having a splendid time… until the loops hit. Once again, he whited out. It was time to go home. But not, thankfully, before John and I hit one of the water rides. Joel never rides them with me, you see, so I had to take the opportunity. Once we were thoroughly drenched, it was time to head home.
That evening, Joel went home and napped a lot. I went to John’s and tried to sew (but failed miserably, as we always get distracted by TV, chatting, and his dog Lucy). When we were hungry, we hit the local Chinese restaurant, brought some home for Joel, and then I went back for more sewing (which mostly entailed watching Phineas and Ferb episodes until we were too tired). Joel was finally awake and had eaten by the time I got home, but I didn’t stay up for long.
Of course, with all that napping, Joel had insomnia during the night. When I woke at 8:30 or so to get ready for the day, he had just dropped off to sleep, so I didn’t bother him. Off I went to the local “China Town” to meet with a friend, borrow her sewing machine (need to test that and see if it works for my purposes tonight), catch lunch, and do some browsing in the various shops. I took Rhianna with me, just for size comparisons in the gift shops, and I’m really glad she did. I had a blast using my new camera to take some pictures of her in the gorgeous garden they have right outside the food court. I also got to buy her a paper lantern that’s supposed to light up (but the batteries are dead, sad panda).
When I finally got home, I hardly had time to take my shoes off and get settled before John called. He was finally free for the day to help me replace a hose on my car that needed to be changed. I did most of the work, but I wanted him to be there since I’m still learning how to properly do all this car stuff. He only handled the one screw that was too close to the hot engine. Such a gentleman! ;op~
Anyway, with the hose replaced, I went home to grab Joel and we finally managed to go grocery shopping. Half of our ticket was stuff for the Disney trip (or, at least, stuff we were doing without, but now that we’re going on the trip, we needed to buy, like hair ties and a new hair brush, a camera case, stuff like that). We trucked it all home and put away the groceries. I’m hoping they’ll last us until we need to leave for Disney. That way all we have to do is buy some snacks for the long drive, some drinks, and some ice and we’ll be done.
Now that I had a ton of leftovers, it was leftovers for dinner before I started work on Rhianna’s petticoat. I didn’t want to set up the borrowed sewing machine, since I hadn’t planned on staying up very late sewing, so the skirt was easier to work on. Lots of pinning and sewing commenced, and as the time passed it grew hotter and hotter. Joel didn’t notice, but eventually I had to put on something lighter to get by, and so I went to turn on the A/C. That’s when we learned that it was broken, of course, which I already described.
During this time I chatted with a couple friends. One of which sent me a huuuuuuuge file (I hope it finished! I didn’t check when I woke up this morning) and the other of which kept me sane while I was going heat-crazy. <3 to you both! Finally I finished one layer of the tulle/petticoat, and it was time for bed. Of course, that just leads us to this morning when I woke up and went to work, and that’s not very interesting at all. So I guess this spells the end of my little (three page long, now) ramble. Wow. Apparently I had lots to say. Or I was bored at work. I don’t know. Either way, I probably left stuff out from the time between my last posting and now, since I only really mentioned this weekend. Let me know if there’s anything you want to know about!
OH, Floridians: I wants to see you! Will you be in Orlando? Near Orlando? Willing to visit us for a day? I know that at least a few of you have annual passes to the parks. Speak now or forever hold your peace! We seriously need to start planning! <3
UPDATE EVEN BEFORE I POST: Gran's advice seems to have worked. Joel says the A/C is working again. HUZZAH!
We have a lot of things we want to do, that’s for sure. There are specific rides we want to ride (including several we have missed in past visits for whatever reason), we want to peruse just about every shop we find, we’re considering horseback riding at Fort Wilderness (I think that’s where Disney has their horseback riding?), and we know that we want to pay attention to all the lanyards because we hardly knew what we were doing last time we visited. I want pins, dangit! ;op
We’re actually taking our dolls with us, which should prove interesting. We want to take as many pictures as possible. I have a new (really nice, imho) digital camera, and Joel will be taking his professional quality film camera. Right now I’m working on secure, safe, sturdy carriers so that they will not be exposed to the sun overmuch when we are just walking around, won’t get banged around, and will generally be taken care of. If I have time after that, we will be working on some clothes for them. I’m going to have to figure out how to make a properly fitting pair of pants for Joel’s girl, especially, since she currently has none. Beyond that, I think Joel wants to try to make a Pocahontas costume for her. I’ve been off and on working on a petticoat to go with a modified Sleeping Beauty costume for Rhianna. I’m not sure what we’re going to make after those, honestly, IF we even have time. I guess we’ll see. Expect tons of pictures, though.
Of course, we are trying to finagle the finances to make this trip more feasible. The actual hotel and park tickets were paid in advance, but we still have to deal with food and travel. Since we’re driving up, this means I have to make sure we get the oil on the car changed, new tires, and an alignment at bare minimum. We planned for this, for the most part, so it should be alright. I also went a bit above in my spending recently to order a second doll (which probably won’t be here before we leave--NTS, make sure to put a hold on mail) to be Rhianna’s brother. Again, we’d planned for this, but only because we planned to be strapped in the actual spending department (no eating out for the most part, for example).
Unfortunately, recent events might make us even MORE tight. I’m seriously hoping that we can work our way through this. You see, last night our air conditioner broke. Granted, we keep our house hotter than most people (78-80 degrees year round), so we’re used to high temperatures, but it’s a narrow line we walk. When the house hit 82 last night, I deemed that the winter weather was officially over and cranked up the air conditioner. Thirty minutes later, I felt no cooler, and there was a loud, rather disturbing noise from the unit. Thirty minutes after that there was nothing, and the temperature had risen another degree. >.>
I eventually turned off the unit so we would stop wasting electricity, and went to bed. It should be noted that the only fan in our house is downstairs in the livingroom. The bedroom, however, has this bad (in the winter, at least) habit of being cooler than the rest of the house no matter what we do. It was bearable, so we survived the night. Gran’s given me some suggestions for HOPEFULLY fixing it without calling in a professional. Here’s hoping that it works.
Barring the untimely death of our A/C, the weekend was really nice. On Saturday we bought our friend John (Ragresen) a season pass to Six Flags so that he could go with us from time to time. We then went as a group to the grocery store before heading to the park. With the light sprinkling, the park wasn’t too bad. There was some crazy middle school band event going on, though, so there were FAR too many unaccompanied minors for my tastes. Even still, it was fun, and we didn’t have to wait more than about thirty minutes in any given line. At around one or two, we finally hit Goliath. John was fine, having confirmed the fact that it was not a coaster he could hit first thing in the day.
Joel, however, who has never had a problem on coasters before, had something strange happen. His vision went blank, solid white. He didn’t get to enjoy the coaster as he would have preferred, and instead had a deer in the headlights look on his face when we finally stopped. He was blinking furiously, and his vision DID return fairly quickly, but it still scared him. John feels this was probably caused by too much blood flow to the head. Whatever it was, it wasn’t fun, so we decided that this was a good opportunity to hike to the car and eat lunch.
Sandwiches, Gatoraide, Doritos, and baby carrots were munched. Joel had a Lunchable. By the end of it, he seemed more relaxed and at ease. The whole thing turned his stomach at first, but by then he seemed alright. We packed everything up and made our way back to the park. Sadly, however, it wasn’t meant to be. We rode Mind Bender next, thinking it would be a milder lead-up before we hit Batman. Joel was having a splendid time… until the loops hit. Once again, he whited out. It was time to go home. But not, thankfully, before John and I hit one of the water rides. Joel never rides them with me, you see, so I had to take the opportunity. Once we were thoroughly drenched, it was time to head home.
That evening, Joel went home and napped a lot. I went to John’s and tried to sew (but failed miserably, as we always get distracted by TV, chatting, and his dog Lucy). When we were hungry, we hit the local Chinese restaurant, brought some home for Joel, and then I went back for more sewing (which mostly entailed watching Phineas and Ferb episodes until we were too tired). Joel was finally awake and had eaten by the time I got home, but I didn’t stay up for long.
Of course, with all that napping, Joel had insomnia during the night. When I woke at 8:30 or so to get ready for the day, he had just dropped off to sleep, so I didn’t bother him. Off I went to the local “China Town” to meet with a friend, borrow her sewing machine (need to test that and see if it works for my purposes tonight), catch lunch, and do some browsing in the various shops. I took Rhianna with me, just for size comparisons in the gift shops, and I’m really glad she did. I had a blast using my new camera to take some pictures of her in the gorgeous garden they have right outside the food court. I also got to buy her a paper lantern that’s supposed to light up (but the batteries are dead, sad panda).
When I finally got home, I hardly had time to take my shoes off and get settled before John called. He was finally free for the day to help me replace a hose on my car that needed to be changed. I did most of the work, but I wanted him to be there since I’m still learning how to properly do all this car stuff. He only handled the one screw that was too close to the hot engine. Such a gentleman! ;op~
Anyway, with the hose replaced, I went home to grab Joel and we finally managed to go grocery shopping. Half of our ticket was stuff for the Disney trip (or, at least, stuff we were doing without, but now that we’re going on the trip, we needed to buy, like hair ties and a new hair brush, a camera case, stuff like that). We trucked it all home and put away the groceries. I’m hoping they’ll last us until we need to leave for Disney. That way all we have to do is buy some snacks for the long drive, some drinks, and some ice and we’ll be done.
Now that I had a ton of leftovers, it was leftovers for dinner before I started work on Rhianna’s petticoat. I didn’t want to set up the borrowed sewing machine, since I hadn’t planned on staying up very late sewing, so the skirt was easier to work on. Lots of pinning and sewing commenced, and as the time passed it grew hotter and hotter. Joel didn’t notice, but eventually I had to put on something lighter to get by, and so I went to turn on the A/C. That’s when we learned that it was broken, of course, which I already described.
During this time I chatted with a couple friends. One of which sent me a huuuuuuuge file (I hope it finished! I didn’t check when I woke up this morning) and the other of which kept me sane while I was going heat-crazy. <3 to you both! Finally I finished one layer of the tulle/petticoat, and it was time for bed. Of course, that just leads us to this morning when I woke up and went to work, and that’s not very interesting at all. So I guess this spells the end of my little (three page long, now) ramble. Wow. Apparently I had lots to say. Or I was bored at work. I don’t know. Either way, I probably left stuff out from the time between my last posting and now, since I only really mentioned this weekend. Let me know if there’s anything you want to know about!
OH, Floridians: I wants to see you! Will you be in Orlando? Near Orlando? Willing to visit us for a day? I know that at least a few of you have annual passes to the parks. Speak now or forever hold your peace! We seriously need to start planning! <3
UPDATE EVEN BEFORE I POST: Gran's advice seems to have worked. Joel says the A/C is working again. HUZZAH!