Hello 2016

Image: happynew-year.in 

I'm extremely happy that is a new year for a variety of reasons. Mostly because 2015 was one of the hardest years of my life. A lot of the first part of the year was focused on my recovery from the seizures I had had in 2014 as well as playing the ever so fun game of medicine roulette to find meds that work.

The second half of the year was better. I still don't have the stamina I did, but I've been working on getting stronger. Dragon Con was great and I am really happy that Emily is now a Girl Scout.

But I'm trying to focus on being more positive and being healthier. Yesterday, we joined the Y after talking about it for a long time. I'm excited because the Y has a pool so I can swim which is my favorite form of exercise.

I don't really like resolutions, because they tend to become broken quite quickly. My resolution last year was not to go to the hospital, and I ended up in the ER a few weeks after the year began.

My goals for this year are basically to write more. I want to start writing short stories and submitting them to anthologies and whatnot. I want to finish my first novel so I can start querying for an agent as well as writing more novels. I also hope to be blogging here more.

2016 feels happier and brighter already. Hopefully this year will be a good one!

My Second Trip to Walt Disney World

Epcot - December 1993

This is the 2nd post in my series of Disney trips I've taken in the past. You can read part one here!

When I was 16 years old, my parents decided we were going to go back to Disney World. It was a little last minute, only a month or two before we went. And they decided to go the busiest week of the whole year – the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

Now I didn't realize that this week was the busiest week of the year until I started doing research for my Disney honeymoon. I don’t remember it being that busy but it was crowded.

We drove down from Michigan on Christmas Day. The only thing I really remember from the drive was that we stopped at an IHOP to eat. It was the only thing open so it was very crowded. We got to our hotel later on Christmas Day.

During the trip we went to all three parks that were open at that time. Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney’s Hollywood Studios) had only been open for 4 years at that point. I loved MGM, especially Star Tours since I had always been a Star Wars fan. I do remember wanting to eat at the Sci-Fi Diner and being disappointed because we didn't eat at any table service restaurants the whole trip.

Once we left, I wanted to go back. My lifelong love of Walt Disney World was cemented with that trip. My college best friend and I talked about taking a trip down to the World, but being poor college students it didn't happen. It would be13 years before I would step foot into my favorite place again for my Disney Honeymoon.