Also known as The Chapter That Simply Didnt Want to Be Posted.
Your intrepid pre-trip reporter has been doing LOTS as of late!
LOTS I tell you!
EVERYTHING!
...
Well, everything
except posting on this here pre-tripe.
Fear not, dear readers. This does not mean that I've been doing nothing Disney/trip related. To the contrary, in fact!
(And for the record, I have NO IDEA why this chapter is reading like the narrative out of an Indiana Jones movie/Hamlet/comic book/ChooseYourOwnAdventure novel. (Remember those? I loved those. Except I always picked the one that led you straight to the end. I used to get SO MAD! Then I'd pretend I didn't pick that one and pick the "right" one. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.))
::ahem::
Nay, I have been a busy Disney beaver! (NOMr.BeaverfromPrinceCaspian)
As I mentioned before, the Croc flops are in...have been in...for some time.
They are the Canvas Capris and I love them! I've been wearing them everywhere. To the point where I'm worried that they might be old and grubby by the time the trip rolls around. ::sigh:: No matter. They shall be worn! I've also tossed around the idea of buying a pair of solid (colored) Canvas Capris. I just don't know if I want to spend another $32-$40.
I've actually decided that I'll bring one black pair of Old Navy flippies, my Croc Capris (and likely leave the Athens home - gasp!) and a pair of brown NY&Co. flippies. These last ones are the bomb diggity of normal flippies.
They are more substantial in terms of size and support than the Old Navy jobbers, including some extra arch support. As shown here:
The insides/bottoms are super-soft (though I imagine also super-slippery when wet (NOBonJovi)) and the straps are also soft and just the right combo of tight/loose that I don't think they're blister-worthy. And that's it. Probably no cutsie sandals. One pair of sneakers. Four pairs of shoes total.
I KNOW.
I simply don't want them to be taking up oodles of room in my suitcase.
Believe me. I'm crying inside. I may also need to enlist BF's help in terms of packing. I'll need someone to act as my self-control so as to not arrive in Orlando and find a suitcase full of shoes. And ONLY shoes.
Secondly, the trip backpack is in and it's just as cute as it was online. The size is exactly what I expected and I think it's going to work well for a carry-on/pool bag (not to be confused with a carry INTO the pool bag). I just need to get some ScotchGuard (thanks LegoMom!) to help ward off stains from it's pristine white and citrus scattered glory.
Here is one of my dining room chairs modeling it:
The tertiary matter - clothes purchases. I got two new tank tops from Old Navy. Plain old shelf-bra type camis:
in black and white. I LOVE these and needed them but have decided not to break these bad boys in until the trip. I also bought three non-shelf tanks for shirt-makin' purposes for me, Missy and TK, like those pictured here, only white:
I haven't yet finished the designs, though I'm close. Once they are done and properly applied to said tanks (read: once I have fought with the iron and cussed it out while trying to get the transfers on straight) I'll post pics.
Well, of all of them except TK's. She has to wait until LapuLapu Fest for hers.
Not that she hasn't really seen it already.
I'm just sayin'.
Moving on.
Numero Quatro: Mickey Heads. Or my current lack there of.
You might recall about 26 chapters back or so, my mission to HD to liberate some tri-lobal paint chips for use in various craft projects. I successfully freed 70-something heads. Only about two of which were lime green. My dislike of the lime is well-documented here on the DIS so I'll spare you all the power naps.
About all said Mickey heads have been used in one of four projects:
1. An "Alms for the Poor" Disney fund bank. It's for all my loose change between now and then. Well, in all honesty, it's for all my loose change between a couple months back and then. I used an old Crystal Lite container with the label peeled off. Cut a coin-shaped whole in the top and got to stickin' some Mickeys (as opposed to slippin' some Mickeys):
See, right here is where there would be a picture of it. If Photobucket hadnt eaten it.
Ill edit this post later on once I have the picture. I just didnt want to delay this chapter any longer because Photobucket got hungry and thought my Mickey bank looked nummy.
It still needs to be spruced up with my glitter pen, but I ran out of steam when I was doing this on Saturday. I also have one that's about twice as big that's completely full. That one is Mickey-less as I wanted to make sure I had enough heads for the rest of my projects. Good call by me.
2. A "Countdown Rolodex".
Rolodex?
Yes. Rolodex. Lemme 'splain.
I think BF's head may literally pop right off them thar shoulders if he has to watch me count my trip down at home. Something along the lines of, "What are you seven?" might find its way out of his mouth. Followed by, "Is there some sort of problem with that? finding its way out of mine. Commence light-hearted yet slightly serious cussing out. Which doesn't bode well for me since I'm trying to limit the use of 'colorful language'. So. I'm sparing him the countdown calendar.
By using a countdown Rolodex.
In lieu of a large calendar I took a spiral bound book of index cards, glued some MHs (45, to be exact) to the blank side of each card, numbered them, and am in the process of adding Disney trivia to the lined side. As shown here:
and here:
And here:
I will start counting down at 45 days (I don't include my arrival day, so that'll be on 8/6) and each day I will share the trivia with Missy via e-mail and have a nice little visual reminder of the trip at my desk. If you'd like I can share the trivia here too.
3. TK's surprise. I used one, red MH for this. Maybe she'll share it with you once she receives it, hopefully today or tomorrow.
4. A tag for my park bag. While it won't be lime green and it may not have my DIS name on it (I don't want to attract TOO much attention and freak Missy out) it's a cute little accent:
Also, here are a couple of pics of my trip binder:
The cover:
The inside pocket currently containing my yet to be decorated trip journal, my packing list and a Disney gift card:
A sample of the inside pages, this one with my ADR info:
A picture of my itinerary page, followed by a close-up of the nifty, kinda-piratey-type font I found and rendered my entire trip binder in:
And finally some fun stickers Ive kept in my binder to decorate with (Im partial to the Tink ones, go figure):
I was pretty much crafted out after all that.
Before I continue onto the toiletries portion of this chapter though, some notes on using the MH's:
*If you want the MH to have a solid backing, make sure to remove the trilobal piece of cardboard the paint is actually stuck to from the square that includes the paint color name. You could probably either cut it out with scissors or use an X-acto knife. Tink did not follow this method. See below.
*If you want flexible MHs that you can fit to curved surfaces and, in general, eased the gluing process, remove the paint only. It'll lift off easily and will seem flimsy. However, it's a pretty sturdy piece of material simply because it's dried paint. Also nice is that it has an almost "fuzzy" paper backing that simply loves to soak up glue.
*Elmer's glue is WON.DER.FUL. Raise your hands if you knew it could be washed off with just water and a cloth.
...
Notice Tink's hand is not up. Tink didn't notice this until after she ended up with glue all over the
front of one of the MHs on her bank. She was not happy. She didn't want to have to start all over. Then the little light bulb lit up and she thought, "Hey, if I could wash something off a painted wall, I bet I can wash it off this paint chip. I wonder if Elmer's Glue is washable?"
It is.
So started a fond relationship between Tink and her bottle of Elmer's.
*Painting the glue onto the back of the MH with a small paint brush (the brush part should be about a 1/2 inch wide) is the easiest. thing. ever. If I were going to marry glue, I'd marry Elmer's.
*For my park bag tag (say that ten times fast!), I simply glued two MHs back-to-back. Worked like a charm and there's no lamination necessary since it's just the paint now free of paper or cardboard.
Toiletries - ahhh...I love shopping for travel-sized items almost as much as I like shopping at Staples.
::ahem::
I was inspired to get this out of the way (or spend money, whatever you'd like to call it) after LegoMom posted about minimus.com on her PTR (Shout out for LegoMom's PTR! Read it!). After looking around CVS a bit (I had a coupon and some ExtraCare Bucks to use) I decided to get some empty travel-sized bottles and use my own shampoo, body wash and lotion. I did pick up, though, some toothpaste. I also picked up an additional bottle of Nutrogena SPF 85 (the bottles are rather small) and some aloe, just in case. I plan to be diligent with the sunscreen but just in case I somehow end up looking like the Lobster and Fried Shrimp combo at Long John Silver's, I want to be prepared.
I like to call this my LL Artistic Toiletry composition:
Be prepaaaaaared! (NOScarandtheHyenas)
I'm up in the air about bringing along a little thing of detergent. Part of me really wants to so I don't have to do laundry when I come home, but the vacation part of me is saying, "Laundry? Pfffft."
So, that's about it. I still need to decorate my little trip journal and I have just enough MH's left, I think, to do that. I have to make the actual shirts and I still need to pick up a wee shirt for TK's DS but am waiting until closer to the trip so that I have a better idea on his size. I think his shirt is one of the one's I'm most excited about. I will have something for TK's DH as well, although I think I might try to pick something up on my...
...Segue (NOEpcotSegways)...
...August vacation.
The BF and I have a week off together in August and have decided what to do with a few of those days. While this would normally be all sorts of anti-Disney and un-PTR, I have tied it in because it's where I'm hoping to pick up a lil' sumpn sumpn for TK's DH.
BF and I will be road tripping down to Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ for a couple of nights the week of 8/10. I'm excited (we're coaster people). He's never been and I haven't been since I was a teenager (back in medieval times). We're going to take it slow and relax and do the park over two days, with the safari on one of the mornings. We should be booking it this week. Yay! A mini-trip to look forward to before the GRANDADDY trip to Disney.
We actually
almost ended up in either Orlando, (but not at Disney-at the OTHER place, which I love) or in Tampa at BG, but the prices were outrageous. And I'm not even talking the airfare. That was actually manageable between $200 and $250 a piece on short notice. It was the hotels. I wanted to stay on property at US, which was running in the $750 price range for 3 nights (with tickets, but still!). BG in Tampa was less, but not by much. Six Flags won out. With gas and food it's going to cost us about $300 each total. And the Tinkerbellarella household can totally rock that.
So here we are.
We are here.
And Im BEAT.
Hope you enjoyed.
But 
And index cards? Are you writing a book report? 
