100 Days of Wonder – #73
Here’s me in September 2017 on a sun lounger at the Contemporary Resort. It was 31degrees C and I was a very happy Jess. This wasn’t my original plan for today’s photo but it feels like I need to remind myself that rest and escapism and hopefully some warm sun is coming.
We’ve just got back from a lovely few days in Hamburg but I wouldn’t call them restful and our return journey was made more stressful by motorway closures which meant a detour into the unknown and significant delay getting home.
I was looking for a photo that would make me smiles, give you all a break from Christmas stuff and provide a promise of warm and calm. I can almost feel the sun on my skin looking at the photo and finding it and writing this post have made me pause long enough to remember that I don’t have to log onto work email tonight to get ready for the work day tomorrow- that’s tomorrow’s job. Tonight is just about enjoying my evening off, reflecting on the last few days, getting more excited about how close the Disney trip now is and getting to bed early.
Happy Tuesday Evening.
100 Days of Wonder – #71
Happy 2nd Advent
Happy 2nd Sunday in Advent. To the Magic Kingdom tree picture I took, I’ve added Disney tree number 2, a tree from Wilderness Lodge. I have seen a few pictures of it online recently and it always looks magnificent. I re-watched a documentary about decorating the Disney parks for the holidays the other day and was again struck by the detail and effort. Christmas decorations are refurbished annually, there are so many individual touches that are perhaps not necessary and so many corners that could be cut… but they are not.
I think for me Disney World is always a reminder that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing right, with attention to detail and proper pride in doing good work. I think sometimes we, or certainly I, rush from task to task and am focused on getting it ticked off the list that ‘good enough’ is all that matters. In many ways that is a good thing. I have way too much work to not work on a good enough principle but that should not take away from some things taking more priority than that. Which are the good enough things and which are the doing it right things will vary between us and over time. There is also joy to be found in perfection, sometimes more so than in just getting things done.
100 Days of Wonder – #62
Here’s the latest Lego build. We finished it today. Piglet looks pleased with it anyway. Most of our Lego is Disney or Starwars. It feels like we’ve been building Lego sets for as long as we’ve been going to Disney, it feels like they are somehow connected. But that’s not actually true. The first proper set we built was a Winnie-the-Pooh set that Kath bought us when we bought our flat in Birmingham. So we’ve only been doing this since 2021. I sometimes wonder if it would have helped me recover more quickly if I had discovered how calming and helpful it can be. Lego is great for headspace and for quieting a too busy brain and for me Disney adds another layer of happy place magic.
I like this build because it mixes old Disney with new Disney. It looks back but isn’t stuck in the past. It celebrates the new (er) without throwing out the classics. Yes, yes I know, it’s just Lego. My brain is very overthink-y today so obviously I’m reading everything into everything. And building this set as well as just chatting about the upcoming trip has made me think about the importance of being able to celebrate new things and embrace change but without just dismissing what came before. I guess the point is a similar one I made when writing about traditions previously. I think it’s about enjoying the familiar as a place from which to explore the new rather than being permanently stuck in the familiar.
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