Pocahontas – This is actually my second-favorite when it comes to design/practicality for a running costume. Nude sports bra and shorts for the base with beige “one-shoulder” top and skirt attached. Faux suede fringe. A blue fabric “necklace” attached to collar of sports bra. And a henna tattoo on the arm to top it all off.

Pre-Slipper Cinderella –

brown top with sheer blue sleeves, brown skirt with pumpkin and mouse embroidery, white apron, white crinoline, head kerchief.

Cinderella - blue or silver top/sports bra, sheer “sleeves”, blue or silver skirt, crinoline, blue headband, pearl earrings, and running shoes that have been slapped with a Bedazzler. Obviously!

Rapunzel – purple top with white ruffles, striped puffy sleeves, and pink sheer sleeves with white ruffles. Purple skirt with a Pascal patch. Flower hair band with long yellow ribbons attached.

Bookish Belle – Another one of my favorites and a close contender for my choice. Blue top over white “blouse” (just collar and sleeves attached to top), blue skirt, white apron, white crinoline. Blue bow.

Belle – nude sports bra, yellow shrug top attached, skirt with pickups and roses, yellow or pink crinoline. And a light up rose from the Parks. Obviously!

Jasmine – nude sports bra with blue shrug top attached, gold fabric “necklace”, blue shorts, sheer blue harem pants, headband with jewel.

Pre-Thimble Sleeping Beauty – A more obscure one! White sheer “blouse”, black top, grey skirt, white crinoline, black headband.

Sleeping Beauty – nude sports bra with pink/blue and white shrug top attached, two tone light and dark pink/light and dark blue skirt, crinoline, tiara.

Blue Fairy – Another more obscure (but apt for my charities!) one is Pinocchio’s Blue Fairy. Blue sequined or glittery sports bra and shorts, sheer blue dress with long sleeves, brooch, 30′s style belt, wings, headband.

Tinkerbell – nude sports bra with green sweetheart top attached, green shorts, skirt made of sheer “leaves”, wings, attitude.

Minnie Mouse – black sports bra, sheer red sleeves with black polka dots attached, red skirt with black polka dots, gloves, crinoline, black tail, hair in buns or an “Ears” headband.

Snow White  – Blue sports bra/top, blue and red “slit” sleeves, high white collar, yellow skirt, crinoline, red bow headband.

And the winner is…

Ariel – Ultimately Ariel seemed like the best decision because of the simplicity of the design. She will be the easiest of the costumes to run in! Bright green shorts, nude sports bra with purple shells OR purple extra-support bra/bathing suit top with purple shells, skirt made of strips of various green fabrics and strings of green sequins. Purple flower.

I may even use temporary color rinses to have red hair for the run! I’d love to know people’s experiences with stuff like Wella Shaders and Toners, Schwartzkopf XXL Color Live, or Manic Panic. I have very dark brown hair. Could I go bright red for the weekend?

You read quite a bit these days, among all the huff and puff about girls and sexism in society and all of that, about how bad the Disney Princesses are for girls. But are they?

I was never a terribly “girly girl,” as they say, and although I liked movies like Cinderella and Snow White, I never pretended to be either character. I never role-played such things, by myself or with friends. But that’s okay. I didn’t really hold anything against them, it just wasn’t my thing, as they say.

Surely you’ve seen the internet meme images. Like this one, which reduces the princesses to some basics. At this blog page, the author reproduces the text for discussion in her comments.

So let’s look at this. Are these comments accurate? Sure, to a degree. But can they be interpreted another way? Probably. And to be clear, although I know most of the fairy tales have been “Disneyfied,” I’m going with the Disney interpretation because that’s what’s usually causing the issues.

Sleeping Beauty: Pretty girls don’t even need to be alive to get some hot princely action.

This has to be filed a bit under “not her fault.” Someone else held a grudge against Sleeping Beauty’s parents, and as punishment, took it out on her. Few things are crueler to a parent that seeing a child suffer, and certainly suffer for something that isn’t their fault. As far as we know, SB does everything she’s supposed to do, and yet still, she is attacked. Is it her fault that the solution is in someone else’s hands? No; the witch designed it that way. So I give SB a bit of a pass.

Jasmine: As a woman, your political worth is reduced to your marriageability.

Hey, guess what? This was true for a very long time! And still is in many places today, even if politics aren’t involved. A woman’s youth and child-bearing ability were some of her chief assets until fairly recently and for many people, they still are. Some of that is biological, or at least I’m willing to go with that theory, but it doesn’t make it less true. Although it’d be nice to have some revisionist history-type stories, I don’t think we can fault Disney for historical accuracy. Also, as I recall, Jasmine does the best she can with the hand she’s dealt (been a while since I’ve seen this).

Snow White: At first it may seem terrible, being so beautiful that other women get jealous enough to try and kill you. But don’t worry, once your beauty attracts a man, he’ll protect you.

Again, I think a little sympathy is called for here. Snow White (even if you take the more recent version of the tale, Snow White and the Huntsman) is a victim of circumstance. Her mother died, her father remarried, and she got the short end of the stick there because of the old stand-by, jealousy.  How is this her fault? In this somewhat medieval tale — and more medieval in Huntsman – she gets away. In Disney, she is warned by the Queen’s hunter, but she listens (smart girl!) and tries to hide herself. It is the Queen who is so consumed by jealousy.

Plus, let’s be honest, physical attraction plays a part in nearly any relationship. So if a man (or woman) is attracted to someone else at first on looks, why do we condemn them?

Maybe some want to blame Snow for being stupid, for not seeing that the old hag with the apple is the Queen in disguise. Why should she suspect that? It’s a perfect disguise, really — the Queen who is so afraid of others’ beauty, of growing old, uses that knowledge to go after her prey. How many of us have been hurt or deceived by people when they did something we didn’t think they would, because it didn’t fit what we knew of them?

Snow White tried to keep to herself, to be helpful — and if you want to grumble that she went from being a poorly-treated maid to a well-treated one, that’s fine — and again, she is attacked. Someone helps her; why is this so awful?

Belle: Appearances don’t matter; what counts is what’s in your heart. Unless you’re the girl.

I just watched Beauty and the Beast the other day and couldn’t find much fault here. Yes, Belle was pretty. So what? I honestly don’t think that was the point. Also, It’s a movie! People like to watch pretty things in movies. And in truth, I don’t think Belle was quite as gorgeous, if you will, as Cinderella and others. She was certainly pretty, make no mistake, but there were more classically gorgeous women, if you will, in the town, namely the three Gaston groupies. They were much more in the traditional Disney mold of soft hair, big eyes, and tiny waists.

Let’s give Belle some credit. She loves her father, the dotty old inventor, and he loves her. (Like so many Disney movies, there is no biological mom; perhaps that needs more attention than the princesses.) He values her and doesn’t force her to marry for money or position or status. She is educated, and one gathers that he encourages it. When her father turns up missing, she goes and looks for him and offers herself as a hostage in exchange for him, despite his denials.

After some time trying to defy the Beast, to the point of escaping, Belle comes back.  In large part, this is because the Beast saved her after she ran away but I like to think that Belle, being an honorable woman, also realized she’d gone back on her word to stay and was trying to make amends for that.

Belle has faith and courage; after her initial encounter, she refuses to be cowed by the Beast. For his part, although I realize the Beast thinks she’s pretty, he doesn’t let that sway him completely. He’s been lonely enough, long enough that one cute girl isn’t going to suddenly make him swoon, and it is work for him to even be civil.

The Beast forces Belle to look beyond the surface; Belle forces the Beast to try to be a better person. Why is this so bad?

Cinderella: If you’re beautiful enough, you may be able to escape your terrible living conditions by getting a wealthy man to fall for you.

Let’s go back again to some likely rules of society in Cinderella’s world — women are not in power, or at least, very few are. Now here is a girl whose mother has died, father has remarried, and then the father died, presumably leaving anything of value to his wife (I’m guessing that’s how that stuff worked back then, although I could be wrong). She has no other relatives to take her in, at least it’s presented that way, and so she stays in the house she was raised in and is subject to what some might call abuse.

What does Cinderella do? She endures. Abuse is no laughing matter, and I am not trying to belittle it. But I think this is what happens here. She may not be physically abused by being beaten (although she was in Ever After), but she is at least ill-used.

Cinderella dreams, and who wouldn’t, of escaping such a place. Yes, she gets fantastical help — the fairy godmother, the animals, etc. And this is where I say again, it’s a movie! She is fortunate enough to meet and fall in love with a powerful, rich man. (Sigh. Come on, we all want to hit the lottery, right?) So I’ll grant you that here you’re getting into serious wish fulfillment territory, but I’d say that Cinderella is not sitting around waiting for this to happen.

Just what was she supposed to do, anyway? With no money, and no family, where could she go? She stays and endure some more, and then has a happy ending. I don’t begrudge her that.

Ariel: It’s okay to abandon your family, drastically change your body, and give up your strongest talent in order to get your man. Once he sees your pretty face, only a witch’s spell could draw his eyes away from you.

I’ll admit this is a tough one to defend, and I probably won’t try very hard. I will say that nearly everyone has probably undergone a time when they want to break free of family, free of any constraints they feel they are under, and chase someone or something they want, even if it’s dangerous or stupid.

But let’s remember a few things. Ariel was apparently never one to go with traditional mer-behavior. Her father destroyed all the treasures she had collected. Sure, he had a right to be angry — Ariel embarrassed him by not appearing at an event he’d presented in her honor — but what would you do if your mom or dad (and again, where’s Ariel’s mother?) did that to you? You’d be pissed, right? Maybe even run away from home.

Also, Ariel’s pretty face only went so far. When the prince found her, and she couldn’t talk or sing, he didn’t think she was the woman he’d hoped for. So his eyes were still searching. He treated her well, but that was all, until he got to know her. It might be important that he got to know her with as few trappings as possible. Then it wasn’t about her pretty face so much as her spirit.

Still, I can see the argument that basically, if you make stupid choices it will turn out all right. And that is not a good message because that is not true most of the time. It might turn out all right if you have support of family and friends (and Ariel did have friends, albeit the talking animal kind). Mostly, it’s going to be pretty crappy.

At perhaps the other end of the spectrum, we have HBO’s and George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones. This has also taken some flak for its portrayal of women, with and without clothing. But Martin has based his story (and it is epic) on many events that have transpired in European history, especially in the Middle Ages, and guess what — not so many big, powerful women there.

The strongest female character is likely Danaerys Targaryen, held by some to be the rightful ruler of Westeros, where the story is set. But the others are no pushovers. They may have less freedom than Dany, but then Dany is almost half a world away and has dragons. Dragons are some serious leverage for respect and influence.

Most of the women chafe at the restraints imposed upon them. Cersei Lannister, mother of the (awful) King Joffrey, laments more than once that she was born with the wrong plumbing. And she’s right; likely if she was a man, the qualities she was vilified for would be praised. Hey, that sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it? Arya Stark, a much more likable character than Cersei, has that much in common with her. Arya doesn’t want to wear pretty dresses and dance and flirt, as her sister Sansa does; yet Arya is still constrained, both by her age and gender.

Catelyn Stark unfortunately becomes the Cassandra of the show. She knows what her son, Robb Stark, is doing will have dire consequences, yet he will not listen. Neither will the other men. And to everyone’s great dismay (this is as much as I’ll give as a spoiler), she is right.

So perhaps the lesson is that when you have a story with any kind of princess, you are likely going to come up against the rules of behavior that were in place in so many areas for so much of history, and most of that meant that the men had the real power, and the women had to find other ways to exert influence.

Many of us want Sansa Stark, in GoT, to basically grow a spine. But spines are not always viewed as an asset for women in her world, and Sansa is surrounded by enemies, so I can’t blame her for being somewhat paralyzed in fear. It unfortunately makes her a bit of a dull character, but that may be remedied later. Never expect Mr. Martin to follow the rules, I think it’s safe to say.

And I wrote more than I intended, so thanks for reading.

Question #1 – “Brad it always seems that I am the guy that always walks up to every Disney bus stop just as it is pulling away.  Any help for me?”

Disney World busses run on a schedule of arriving every 15 minutes on the hour.  Except when they don’t, and that is most of the time.  The first large crowd of the day will throw any Disney bus schedule off for the remainder of the day.  Therefore, your best best is still to try to be at your bus stop at the 15, 30, 45, and 60 minute timeframes.  I know that sounds crazy, but I can tell you from experience that it works.  By practicing this, I have found that the longest we typically wait for any bus is about 10 minutes and that is usually on very busy days.  So my advice to you is keep your watch handy and try to be there on the fifteens!  As a final hint, if you see any Disney Castmembers standing at the bus stations, this instantly means that things are going afoul for the busses that day so just resign yourself to being patient.  They realize that no one wants to wait in the Florida heat for a bus, and they are trying their best to get it fixed for you quickly.

Question #2 – “Brad my kids ask me for a Mickey balloon every time they see one and that is usually every twenty steps or so.  My fear is that they will either A) let it go and it will fly away, or B) when we tie it off to our stroller when we go inside a ride that someone will steal it.  Any thoughts?”

I’ve been down that same road many times before.  It is a very tough decision expecially since it seems that just about every kid in the park has one.  So here’s my advice to you based on what we did with our kids when they were younger.  We bought one balloon for each child.  We immediately took pictures of the kids with their balloons then tied them to the childs wrists.  This helped them to hang on to them a little longer than they normally would.  When we went inside of rides, I would tie the balloons off in the tightest knot that I could so no one could casually walk by and snag it,  They were going to have to cut the balloon ties if they wanted it that badly, and thankfully no one ever did steal our Mickey balloons.  But as we all know, there will come a time when the kids are just holding them and they will let go, usually at the most windy time of the day.  Crying will follow so make sure you are close to an ice cream stand so that you can replace the Mickey balloon with a Mickey Head ice cream bar and all will be right with the world again!

Questions #3 – “Brad every ride seems to dump you off at a place that shows you pictures they have taken of you riding the attractions.  There are always people in line buying them so I figure they must be popular, but they also seem extremely expensive.  Where do you fall on buying these photos?”

As I have mentioned on the blog before, my family makes a huge game out of these photos.  We will get in all kinds of crazy poses for the pictures just to see peoples reactions to what we were doing on the ride.  Will will do things like all face backwards, open park maps and act like we are reading, act like we are fighting with each other and fake choking each other, you name it, we have done it for these pictures.  But we absolutely never buy them.  I take my camera with me everywhere and as our pictures show up on the TV screens I will snap a picture of them with my own camera but I simply refuse to spend $25 dollars for a single photo.  But we do have great fun with them and watching people crack up laughing at us every time.  Besides who wants a picture of themselves looking absolutely terrified like the guy in the lower right in the picture below?

Ok, so that’s all the questions for tonight, but I am about to leave you with something icredibly super secret that hardly no one knows about and they just started doing this in the parks, so I will let the next picture speak for itself and the next time your at Disney, especially with your kids, you have to promise me you will try this!  It works and you will look like a genius!

Have an incredibly magical day and I would greatly appreciate it if you could pass on my blog to anyone you might know who shares our love of all things Disney!  See ya real soon!

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So everybody knows that The Disney World Resort is made up of four different theme parks – The Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and The Animal Kingdom.  Each park has its strengths and its weaknesses, but beyond a shadow of a doubt, each park is well worth seeing and to do each of them correctly, you need a couple of days in each park.  

The best way to do a trip to Disney World is to buy The Park Hopper option on your tickets.  What this means is let’s say you start your day at the Magic Kingdom, but by about midday the park is swamped with people and its hot.  So you decide to head back to your hotel room and spend some time at the pool.  When you are done with the pool you realize that Epcot has Extra Magic Hours that night, meaning they stay open a few hours extra after closing for any guest staying at a Disney hotel.  The thing is, if you do not get the Park Hopper option, then you can only go back to the Magic Kingdom during the same day.  Bummer!

Of course, price is another reason to go with the Park Hopper option.  It is simply cheaper to buy a seven day Park Hopper ticket than it would to buy seven one-day tickets to a single park.  In fact it costs almost HALF as much to go with the Park Hopper option, so why not right?

I have found over my years of going to Disney World that park hopping is the only way to go.  We usually get up early and head to the park that has Early Extra Magic hours and do as much as we can until about noon.  We then either head to Downtown Disney for a cheaper lunch, or we we head back to the room to go to the pool or just rest.  We then find out which park has Extra Magic Hours for that night and then head over to that park and spend the rest of the evening.  This way we do not totally tire ourselves out, we have gotten to save on the cost of at least one meal, and we are getting to be in the parks when the crowds are thinner.

So yes, at first it appears that going with the Park Hopper option is expensive, in the long run you will find that if you plan your days correctly, and you like saving money, then by all means hop all over the Disney Parks.  Here’s a challenge for you – see if you can actually make it to all four parks and ride a ride in a single day!  It’s a fact that a family from Wisconsin did just this and ended up riding every major ride in all of the parks in a single day!!

Thanks for stopping by the blog today, and I hope you have had a very blessed and magical day!  I’ll see ya back here real soon!

The award for Best Makeup / Mejor Maquillaje went to:
Colosio el asesinato
Alfredo Mora.

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Now as we grow older especially females most grow out the princess phase ( as a child I wanted to be a warrior like Usagi or Xena) and some do not. Some adults think that the overall image in which the Disney princess franchise presents to young girls is unhealthy in terms of body image and being the damsel in distress ( have these people even watch all the princess movies? ) Granted all the princess are innately beautiful and perfect figures but should the message within their films be more important?

Currently today there are officially 12 Disney princesses and they are Snow White from Snow White & the seven dwarfs,Aurora from Sleeping Beauty,Cinderella from Cinderella,Ariel from the Little Mermaid,Belle from Beauty & the Beast, Jasmine from Aladdin,Pocahontas from Pocahontas,Mulan from Mulan,Tiana from the Princess & the Frog,Rapunzel from Tangled and Merida from Brave. Each princess is unique and gives us a cultural diversity ( I just realized that each princess of color ,their films come right after each other ) . Now to analyze each princess and her her story.

Snow White is the first princess and her story ends a happy note but her role in the film is that of the damsel in distress. The story is pretty much the evil queen is vain and wants to be the most beautiful of them all and she is for awhile but when Snow reaches a certain age the queen is no longer the fairest in the land, which upset the queen dearly and she orders the huntsmen to not only kill her but to bring back her heart in a box. Now beauty for women especially in todays society is crazy – how many commercials are there for age defying products, is it really that bad to grow old? I guess it is because males will not longer find you attractive ( Charlize Theron in the film Snow White & the Huntsman makes a point as the Evil Queen Ravenna. Men loves us while we’re full of youth but once gone women are quickly discarded and they move on to the next youthful woman). Now back to Snow. Snow is pretty innocent and naive throughout this whole film. The huntsman takes her out and tries to kill her but cant and tells her to runaway and hide somewhere in the woods. Snow then eventually finds a lovely cottage which is home to dwarfs- seven of them. Now this is where most adults minds become sinful. One woman living in a house full of seven men and given the time period Snow is supposed to be in I doubt any man would marry her. Anyway the queen finds Snow and persuades her to eat an apple, now the dwarves specifically told Snow don’t talk to strangers and she does the complete opposite. The princess then eats the apple, the dwarves chase the queen off a cliff resulting in her falling to her death and the dwarves encase her in a glass coffin because she was ” too beautiful” to cover up ( men and beauty ). A prince finds her wakes her up with a kiss and takes her to his castle the end. Snow White does nothing to help herself throughout the whole film except cause herself to be put to sleep.

Aurora story is somewhat the same to that of Snow in terms of being the damsel in distress. Aurora is born a princess and is cursed by the Malificient to died when she turns sixteen. The last of the good fairies counteract the curse stating she will fall into a deep sleep. Now Aurora is also bethrothed to Prince Phillip who looked like he was ten while the princess was a baby. The fairies take the princess and raise her as their own and she turns sixteen she mets her bethrothed in the woods ( she doesnt know who he is) and they sing ,she comes back to the fairies and finds outshe’s a princess and bethrothed ( bummer) and is sent home. Now the king burned all the spindles but Malificent still gets Aurora to prick her finger. The princess falls asleep along with the rest of the kingdom and heres comes Prince Philip to save the day, he kills Malificient who turns into a dragon and awakes the princess with true loves kiss- the end. Again Aurora does nothing in her movie to help herself, she is given her beauty and talent by the fairies and her prince slays her dragon. Some woman might find this romantic and some do not , it’s all about preference.

Cinderella is the same scenario, her evil stepmother is non magical but that still does mean cant be …well a witch. She is treated poorly but her stepmother and sisters and befriends mice and birds ( the only friends Cindy can have apparently) also she protects her friends from Lucifer no not Satan the cat which belongs to her stepmother ( a cat name Lucifer in a kids film betcha you didn’t catch that as a kid). The king throws the prince a ball so his soon can find a girl and tie the knot. The evil step sisters are invited to go and Cindy wants to go to but she has to finish all her chores. The poor thing does not have time to finish her dress but thats what having mice and birds for friends are for. They finish her dress and Cindy comes down the stairs only to have her dress ripped to shreds by her step sisters; Cindy then runs off crying ( like really? ) her fairy godmother comes gives her a nice dress and a carriage sends Cindy off to the ball where she and the prince dance till midnight and then she flees the scene leaving behind a glass slippers. Now prince will marry the one who fits the shoe ( he danced with the girl all night and apparently can’t remember her face so he needs her shoe to tell if she’s the one) the shoe gets to Cindy’s house but she’s locked up in the attic while the stepsisters trie on the shoe. They cant fit the shoes , the mice free Cinderella and she goes to try on the shoe but the stepmother trips the man causing him to drop the glass but Cinderella has the other one and ding dong she marries the prince. Poor Cinderella, does nothing for herself except cry when her dress is torn to shreds. She gets help from her fairy godmother that ensures her happily ever after.

Now the Little Mermaid begins the Disney Renaissance where the princesses get more independent, more control over their situation and eventually save an entire country. I will analyze Ariel’s story in Disney Princesses- An in depth look part 2.

Starring Helen Mirren as Prospera, the female Prospero.  It’s the Shakespearean play about Prospera’s revenge on all the people who have wronged her.  They are cast onto her island. Prospera wants her dukedom back from Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian.  The spirit, Ariel helps.  Miranda, Prospera’s daughter, is betrothed to Ferdinand son of Alonso.  Two seaman Trinculo and Stephano meet Caliban, the momster who saves Prospera.  They plot to overthrow the kingdom of the island.  Justice is done, Prospera will return to Milan and all is well.

Review

In this interpretation the male Prospero becomes the female Prospera but it’s not as if the text can support that!  The male Prospero is unaccountable and controlling and this does not fit well with Prospera who is a supposedly wise mother to Miranda.  I suppose the comparatively trivial fact that a woman would not have ruled a 16th century Milanese dukedom can be put aside but the text needs more for Prospera to work on.  Still it’s a novel idea and Helen Mirren does it with aplomb.  I’m not partial to her voice (sounds as if her jaws are wired together).  Prospera’s relationship with Ariel is a sort of wary equality occasionally imbalanced by the debt that Ariel isn’t allowed to forget.  Ben Wishaw plays Ariel as a special effects wizard, occasional star man and scary harpy.  It’s a sort of rueful parental relationship.  Her daughter, Miranda, is hardly the innocent novice of the play., in this production she looks like she’s competing with Ariel for ‘Androgyne of the Month’.  Caliban is unprepared to accept either Prospera’s benevolent condescension or her hostility that comes from wounded vanity.  He is not so much a noble savage gone wrong, more a sort of hominid performance artist hybrid.  Antonio and Sebastian are suitably weasely.  The pompous Gonzalo is a Polonius clone though Tom Conti tries to make him more likeable.  David Strathairn as Alonso is.  Trinculo and Stephano, played by Russell Brand and Alfred Molina, only have to gurn like failed stand up comedians, and we get irritated with them long before the long suffering Caliban does.

The island itself is unprepossessing  like an Aegean hideaway made of bleak volcanic rock.  At times, it’s like watching Lost in fancy dress, and Prospera is in danger of looking like an eco- tourism guide who specializes in light shows.  Speaking of which, the film’s astrological performance is more inventively spectacular than any attempted visual analogy of an Elizabethan court Masque would be.

Let this be a lesson to you!

Tal vez la personalidad que más tiempo recorrió la Alfombra Roja de los Premios del Ariel de un lado a otro,siendo también la más ovacionada por el público,fue Martha Higareda la actriz,que reafirmando su simpatía y amabilidad lo mismo contestaba entrevistas,que daba autógrafos,se tomaba fotos con fans o sonreía y saludaba a la gente,que principalmente,a pesar de que ya tiene una enorme trayectoria fílmica y de tv,la recuerda como “Renata” de “Amarte Duele”…

(click para ver las imágenes en grande)

Igual y se puede pensar que todo era promoción porque me parece que está a punto de estrenar una película,pero como sea,siempre ha sido sencilla hasta donde recuerdo las veces que la he visto en algún evento,así que no queda mas que esperar que le vaya muy bien a Martha en sus proyectos …

UN PEQUEÑO VIDEO

Reseña: Docso

I know we don’t really do alot of posts like this on here but I really couldnt help myself. I worked extremely hard on these babies and I just love them so much! And just incase you didn’t understand what my nails are from the picture, I have like a modern take on Ariel’s hair and face on my thumb, fishtail scales on the rest of the nails, and Ariel’s purple top on my ring finger.

Here’s the original picture I got my inspiration from:
<3

And here’s just some more pictures

Lots of Love,
Rose <3

I haven’t posted much lately because nothing has really been going on. I’ve hung out with friends a couple times, done a couple things with my mom (like seeing “The Big Wedding” at our discount theater tonight), and been confused as hell by James, who kind of showed up out of nowhere with a birthday present for me after cutting all connections. It would figure that he finally picks out something I genuinely like when I’m trying in every possible way to let everything go.

Because it’s really ridiculous, how easily you know you’ll bend, when something along the lines of decent is all you know.

I feel a blubber-fest coming on. Minor, but blubbery nonetheless.

When I was a kid, all I really wanted to do was fall in love. My horizons are much broader now, but I was one of the many little girls who wanted a prince to sweep me off my feet and profess his love to me, bonus points for it being in musical form. Because that is classy. Yet, the thing is, I also wanted a love so pure, so deep-felt and true, that there was no way I could negate it. That it was so incredible, that was all it could be. Ariel was my favorite Disney princess and I guess I wanted something worth taking a risk for, like she did. Also wouldn’t have minded the always-perfect Disney princess hair.

My point is, I wanted something fantastic and worthy of a storybook, but I also wanted it to be something real. Something I would be willing to fight for. And I’ve not found that yet. I’m not even sure if such a love exists. It certainly doesn’t feel like it now.

Yet, there is one big hunk of advice I can give: Don’t settle. Don’t you freaking do it.

It’s so easy to do, but you’ll regret it, I promise. Don’t settle with anything, but tonight the topic is love, so we’re sticking to that category. Settling is giving up, it’s taking what you already know is second-best or less.

And when I’m not actually in the throes of fighting its weird appeal, it makes perfect sense that settling is a horrible thing to do. Horrible for you and the person you’re with. Horrible for you because you get to trot through your rut every single day, knowing you want something more for yourself, and horrible for your partner because, whether or not you tell them, they’re going to know. It’ll be obvious either in a random fit of tears, a midlife crisis, or how much you get pissed at them for the littlest things just because you’re so mad at yourself for sticking around.

Everyone deserves a second chance. But a majority of the time, that second chance is with someone else.

It’s so easy to assume nothing so great as what you have is going to happen again, even when it’s obvious that it will. This is especially hard when it’s all you’ve known. You talk yourself into it, think you can handle the bad and the ugly because this is your only chance. Well, it’s not. There are millions of other chances out there, you just have to head out and look for them. I think I posted a quote on here not too long ago that, “If you keep telling the same sad story, you’ll keep living the same sad life,” or something to that effect.

Well, it’s true. So, is that what you want? That’s not what I want.

Will a fairytale-worthy romance happen? Probably not. But there’s got to be something better, truer, and deeper than what I felt with James. If there’s not, I’m honestly happier by myself.

Being single is super nice, even if I don’t do what most girls seem to do (“most” girls being the ones who get all up in the social media ridiculousness), which is party and bring guys home. I more or less just go where I want to, plan what I want to, hang out with who I want to, and don’t worry about whether or not I’m going to be upsetting anyone by doing it (had to deal with a lot of that pre-breakup). That, to me, is pretty awesome. I honestly like being alone. I enjoy simply being able to be without criticism.

So maybe I’ll be a cat lady. Maybe I’ll be a princess with a prince to save me at the end. Maybe I’ll save myself. Maybe I already have.

Hello Disney friends!  Tonight I’ll be sharing some of my most used Disney Insider tips and tricks with you and many of these will also answer some of your questions that you have written in to me with.  I love it when I am out places or even at work and people come up to me and ask me questions about Disney World.  Just today a co-worked was telling me that she is taking her two grand kids to Disney World next week and she was almost terrified by it!  So I sat her down and started going through all of my tips to help out.  By the end of our talk, she had 3 pages full of notes and she was feeling much better about her upcoming trip.  She looked at me and said, “You need to write a book and share these amazing tips with the world!”  Well many people have already beat me to that, but I CAN write them all down here on my blog, so let’s get started!

Insider Tip #1 – Use Disney’s Magical Express!

If you are planning on flying into the Orlando International Airport to get your Walt Disney World vacation started, then you absolutely MUST call ahead and save your seats on Disney’s Magical Express Bus.  These busses truly are magical in that they will put your baggage on the bus for you, you will enter a luxury bus with some very comfortable seats on them, you will get to watch a great video all about your upcoming stay at the Disney World Resort, then you will be dropped right off in front of your resort hotel, and then your bags will be taken directly to your room for you.  What could be any easier than that?  Nothing, that’s what!  If you have no need to rent a car, then please take this absolutely FREE bus trip to your hotels front steps and enjoy a great video or enjoy a 45 minute nap before you hit the parks!  You’ll thank me for this the first time you use it.  Disney will even mail you luggage tags to put on your bags as well.  It is truly carefree for you saves you rental car fee and having to drive everywhere you go and pay for parking as well.

Insider Tip #2 – Character Meals – Should I Or Shouldn’t I?

The short answer here is Yes and No.  Let me explain.  If, like my co-worker, you will be traveling with younger kids, then here is my tip for you.  You most definitely must do ONE Character Breakfast at Chef Mickeys in the Contemporary Resort.  Why?  To begin with, you will end up taking a Monorail to get there and younger kids absolutely LOVE riding on the “highway in the sky” Monorails.  They get to look out the windows and see that they are up so high in the air above everyone else and it makes them feel like super heroes.  The monorail actually goes right through the Contemporary Resort so you will get to watch the Monorails come and go as you eat, and they is cool for younger kids as well.  Next, Chef Mickeys breakfast is by far the cheapest Character Meal you will get.  Looking to save money and still see characters right at your table?  Then Chef Mickeys is your ticket. Next, Chef Mickeys has the largest choice of food items for breakfast for the entire family.  The little ones can get the Mickey waffles they love, and Mom and Dad can get a made to order omelette with just about fillings that you like.  They have cereals, bacon, eggs, all types of fruits, hams, french toast, basically if you have had it for breakfast, it is available here on the buffet.  Finally, you are guaranteed to see each and every character at your table before you leave.  You will see Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Chip and Dale and Pluto.  They come to your table and pose for pictures with everyone at the table, and sometimes they have time for autographs.  The only thing you have to watch is that sometimes the little ones get so wound up about the characters that they fail to eat much, and you will be paying a higher price for this breakfast so you have to be dilligent in reminding them to eat when the characters aren’t there.

If you have slightly older kids, then the magic of the character meals are mostly lost on them.  Now at 45 I still love to do character meals.  Like Peter Pan, I’ll never grow up and will always love posing with Mickey for a new photo, but older kids just see it as a waste of time that they could be using to ride the rides in parks.  So for these parents I would tell you to save your money.

You can ask around to see if you have a particular character that you would like to have a meal with because different characters show up at different restaurants.  Some can be down right impossible to find, such as Rapunzel.

Insider Tip #3 – You Will Get Wet

Splash Mountain is my favorite ride in the Magic Kingdom (sorry Haunted Mansion!).  There is a sign outside the ride.  It is kind of a little sign and most people walk right by it without reading it.  Here is the sign:

It should say, “You WILL Get Wet”, because for the most part, your going to get wet to some degree.  This can be off putting to a lot of people I have found, especially at certain times of the day.  To begin, if someone in your party does not like to get wet, they have the option of sitting in the waiting area just outside of the rides entrance where they can sit peacefully and stay 100% dry.  You can also buy a rain poncho for them and have them put it on before they even get on the ride.  Why before?  Most of the time when you start to get into your log for the ride, you will find the seats are soaking wet because the last group got soaking wet and dripped all over the seats.  So put that poncho on immediately and you will not get wet.

Finally, not only will you get wet, but I also find that many people forget they are holding cameras or camcorders and let me tell you, if you get them wet, they can totally stop working.  I do not even recommend trying to put a plastic bag over them.  Simply do not take them on any water ride.  It is just too easy for water to work its way into the inner working of your electronics.  This includes iPhones that you have in your jeans or shorts pockets so watch those as well.  

Insider Tip #4 – FastPasses – Get Them Early and Often

FastPasses can be a huge time saver for your family, but you have to be quick for the more popular attractions and shows.  Let’s take what is the most popular ride in all of Disney World these days, Toy Story Midway Mania at Hollywood Studios.  Many days my family has had to get up by 7am so that we could have a quick breakfast, get on the DIsney Bus, and head over to Hollywood Studios so that we could be one of the first groups in the door.  That way my son can run ahead to Toy Story Mania and get our FastPasses.  This is because on a normal day, ALL of the FastPasses are usually gone by 11:00 or 12:00 noon!  Yes ALL of the FastPasses for the ENTIRE DAY are gone by then.  So if you do not get there early, you can be one of the many unhappy faces waiting in the 2 hour lines to ride the ride!  Your best bet with FastPasses is to plan out your days as much as you can and the minute you are allowed to get your next set of FastPasses, you are then ready to get your next set.  It is best to try to mix it up with popular rides, and not so popular rides so that you can always be riding something during the day.  You will find that without FastPasses, you will spend the greater portions of your days waiting in long lines in the hot Florida sun.  FastPasses are your friend and you should use them whenever you can.

Ok that’s it for today.  There is a LOT of information here for you take in today, and that is purposefully so because I will not be able to do a post for tomorrow, so feel free to come back tomorrow and read any of the other great posts that are currently on the blog, and as always please feel free to leave comments or feedback for me.  Have an amazing weekend, and I’ll see ya back here on Sunday for some fresh, new content about Disney!

(Patrick Star from ‘Spongebob Squarepants’ was just wanderin’ through…!!!)

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A Publisher Withdraws

The big news this month, was from independent publisher Salt, who announced they would no longer be publishing single-author poetry collections due to a massive decrease in sales. Salt had become well-known for launching a number of successful poetry careers, making the announcement especially sad.

The news prompted numerous commentaries on the state of poetry and the changing face of poetry publishing, including this article in The Guardian.

A Poem for Mars

NASA has launched a poetry contest. To enter, you have to write a haiku that is a “message to Mars” and submit it by July 1. Three winning poems will be sent to Mars with the MAVEN mission in November.

Mars
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © cosmobc]

“Demential”

One of the worst poems in history was published this month by ESPN. ‘Jet’s View from the Stanza‘ by Rick Reilly is all about picking a football team. It’s extraordinarily bad and is therefore a must-read. The use of the word ‘demential’ to deliver a rhyme with ‘influential’ says it all.

Ariel: 50 Years On

It’s 50 years since Sylvia Plath‘s manuscript for Ariel was discovered on her desk. Actors and poets including Juliet Stevenson and Jo Shapcott gathered in London’s Southbank Centre to read the entire manuscript. What a great idea for a commemorative event!

The Restored Manuscript of Ariel
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © Père Ubu]

Blanco and Boston

Richard Blanco, who wrote and performed Obama‘s inaugural poem back in January of this year, was commissioned to write an original piece for “Boston Strong,” the fundraising evening for victims of the Boston bombings.

More Plagiarism

The poetry world was rocked by another plagiarism scandal this month. Following on from the Christian Ward scandal that I reported on in January, the poet David R Morgan has admitted passing off numerous works as his own.

Kate Birch, of the online poetry site Ink, Sweat and Tears, broke the news after being contacted by US poet Charles O. Hartman, one of the victims of Morgan’s plagiarism. It’s made many people wonder just how widespread plagiarism is in the world of poetry.

Thresholds

Carol Ann Duffy, the UK poet laureate, unveiled 10 poems by 10 leading poets who were inspired by 10 museums in Cambridge, in the so-called Thresholds project. The poems covered a range of topics including Arctic foxes and slave ships.

All the poems can be viewed on the Thresholds website. It’s well worth a look.

Poems at Auction

Some of the major poetry auctions this month:

• A handwritten Philip Larkin poem about ‘love’ sold for £7,500.
• A handwritten poem by polar explorer Captain Scott, which poses a riddle about what sailors eat, sold for £3,000.
• ‘Heart’s Yearnings’ by Oscar Wilde sold for more than four times its estimate, gaining €80,000.
• A poem by Amy Levy, a Victorian feminist described as a ‘genius’ by Oscar Wilde, sold for £3,500.

Book Releases

Last by not least, here are a couple of highlights from the poetry books published during May.

• Found at Sea by Andrew Grieg, a book length poetic sequence set in the Orkney Islands. The Guardian says it is “a bold attempt at imbuing epic scope and adventure into a book-length sequence” but that “not all Grieg’s images catch fire with equal clarity.”
• The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Roland Greene. The Guardian says that the entries can be “a bit dry” but that “there is really no better book” if you want to know how poetry is put together.

Be that as it may, I’m now just about half-way through Act IV, which is actually one giant scene, breaking down into three parts: 1) Prospero’s ‘blessing’ of the betrothal of Ferdinand and Miranda, and his warning to them to not have sex (consummate the marriage) until ‘all sanctimonious ceremonies may/with full and holy right be ministred’; 2) the pageant created by Prospero and Ariel, featuring spirits playing the characters of Iris (messenger and servant to Juno, Queen of the Gods), Ceres (Goddess of the Earth), Juno (wife to Jupiter), and various Nymphs and Reapers; and 3) Prospero’s interruption of the pageant to foil the plot of Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo against his life.

I’ve just finished memorizing parts 1 & 2, with some initial observations:

- Miranda is completely silent during the scene between Prospero and Ferdinand–it seems to me that, in some respect, Miranda now only has eyes for Ferdinand, and that her father understands that she is now ‘lost’ to him;

- Prospero’s admonishing the young couple to be more ‘abstemious’ seems to indicate a fair bit of un-noted actions–I imagine them almost completely ‘entwined’, which to a protective father would give cause for concern;

- once the Spirits enter to perform the pageant, there’s a shift to what might be called a more archaic form of language, full of rhyming couplets and rather obscure descriptions of the world in which the Gods and Goddesses live–in terms of memorization, I thought the arrival of three new characters would present a problem, but in fact, the rhyming structure made the process more straightforward than anticipated;

- yet another lovely song (THE TEMPEST is truly full of music, in many manifestations) sung by Ceres and Juno–interesting to consider how this may be played/sung in the context of a solo performance.

I look forward to taking on the last part of the scene, as the drunken clowns re-enter to receive their ‘just deserts’, which will then leave only Act V to memorize, en route to completing this first stage of work inside Shakespeare’s Brain.