I recently wrote a blog advising those renting an RV on how to make it special for Valentine’s Day. No reason not to use these ideas to create your own Valentine’s Day memories!
What are your Valentine’s Day plans this year?
Well, it’s arrived. The day we dreaded one whole year ago.
What is this dreaded day, you may logically be asking?
Well of course – it’s the day that our Disney World annual passes expire.
Some of you may be thinking, finally! We’ll get a break from this Disney stuff! And if that’s you, yes, you’ve got lots of non-Disney posts to look forward to. Others may be saying – wait!? Why would you let them lapse! Go renew them, and enjoy them while you’re still in Florida!
Well, we could certainly do that. And if money weren’t so tight for us, we probably would! After all, our current plans have us in the area for another month, so we’d get more use out of them for sure. But the passes, even for Florida residents, still aren’t that cheap. We pay more than $500 for annual passes. Compared to a day rate to visit Disney World, that’s pretty great (It would only buy you 5 individual tickets, at best) but for people without a lot of disposable income, $500 can go along way toward other fun adventures. (One of them will be the Kennedy Space Center!)
Plus, you may have noticed that while we’ve been in Florida, we haven’t done much that isn’t Disney. Sure, we’ve performed a few concerts, attended a few open mics, shopped for sneakers and for a video game…but have we seen a concert? Visited a state park? Checked out a museum? Negative on all fronts, so far, although we plan to do at least two out of three in the next month.
We’ve also got lots of social time scheduled with visiting family and friends, and when you’ve only got one or two days free for adventuring, that can be a challenge. Without the impetus to go to Disney and use our passes, we can visit the beach or grab lunch with friends and not feel like we’re missing out on something.
So will we miss Disney World. Yes! Definitely. But we are estimating that we’ve visited the parks at least fifty days this past year. How amazing is that!? Disney World will be there in the future. And in the meantime, we’ll be enjoying everything else life has to offer.
Like friends.
And family.
And planning for the future.
If you want to learn more about RVing at Disney World, I wrote about that here.
Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful day!
Hi friends! We need a few good people with an interest in good entertainment to help us out.
Will you be a beta tester for our podcast?
Ross and I have created a new podcast that centers around the idea of creating a musical theater season within certain constraints that change each week. We think it’s fun and funny, and we’d love to get some feedback on our pilot episode before we release it to the world!
If you’ve got a half hour or so to listen, and another five minutes or so to share your thoughts, we’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment here or send us a message with your email and we’ll get you on the list as a beta tester! This isn’t just for fans of musical theater, although that doesn’t hurt. We look forward to hearing from you!
Ross and I fell hard for Decorah, Iowa when we visited. So hard, in fact, that I decided it was worthy of its own blog post!
It’s come to my attention that I left off the story of the eagles…you can view them here.
And here’s the blog!
We’ve been staying in the Orlando area for almost two months now, and in settling down for a while, there are a lot of perks. We’re enjoying full hookups and access to high-speed internet (we never thought we’d be so thankful to have Comcast), and we’ve been 
befriending a lot of cats, including one who has adopted us that we’ve nicknamed Squeak due to her adorable squeak instead of a meow.
We’ve gotten tons of Disney parks time in, seeing the Halloween decorations in the Magic Kingdom, enjoying the Food and Wine Festival and experiencing the holiday magic throughout the parks. Probably the biggest highlight was our gift from Ross’ parents – dinner at San Angel Inn, Mexico at Epcot followed by a reserved seat for the Candlelight Processional with Jodi Benson (the voice of Ariel, the Little Mermaid) as the narrator.
Jamie has also auditioned twice for roles at Disney – once for Finding Nemo: The Musical and once to be an improv performer. No luck thus far, but it doesn’t hurt to try! The absolute dream would be a role as a musical director or performance coach, but we hope this gets me noticed at least.
We’ve also done a wee bit of performing (an open mic here, a few church services) and have been booking future gigs like our lives depend on it – which they kind of do! And we’ve got a new website up for teaching online music lessons! New students can save big with our “holiday special” if you book before the end of December.
We’re also enjoying the opportunity to visit with family and friends. So far we got to see our friend and performer Judy Pancoast and we’ll be seeing Ross’ sister Emily and her husband Ryan for Christmas. We also plan to visit with some of our friends from the Outer Banks while they’re in town early next year, and we’ll be reaching out to my grandparents and aunt for a visit soon too. And there’s the chance for other family and friends visiting in early 2018 too! So all of that is really wonderful. If you’ll be in town by the end of February, please let us know!
I’ve been loving being a paid blogger for Outdoorsy, and my most recent article documents why I think ice cream should be a popular RV and road trip activity. In a similar vein, an opportunity to apply to manage the social media for Cancun.com has taken the world by storm, and it sounds so perfect for Ross and I (as a team) that we have applied for it. If you want to help us pay off our debts and spend six months living and working in Mexico, we’d greatly appreciate you voting for us here. No need to sign up for anything and voting is super easy – just click the button! And if you really want to help in an extra, above and beyond way, you can actually vote for us DAILY. Sharing our link and our story with your friends and family helps us get additional votes too!
Happy Hanukkah if you’re celebrating, and if you’re celebrating Christmas, we wish you a merry one. Lots of love and peace to all of you this holiday season, and thank you for your support and for following along on this journey with us!
We’ve been visiting Disney World for about a month, and prior to this we’d spent a few months visiting this past winter. So we feel like we know it pretty well and don’t experience a lot of surprises, beyond things like the festivals in Epcot.
So when we visited Club Cool and were treated to a delicious slushy, we were shocked and excited to hear that if we visited Coca-Cola at Disney Springs, there was a rooftop bar where Ross could get a mixed drink called Beverly’s Revenge, with the base of his favorite soda, Beverly! We had read the Beverly is only made for Club Cool at this point so we didn’t realize that was an option ANYWHERE.
Armed with this knowledge, I did some further research and learned that there are some amazing samplers available at this rooftop bar. Samplers are literally one of my favorite things. I’ve enjoyed wine flights, ice cream flights and appetizer platters. I love samples and wandering places like Epcot for miniature tastes of deliciousness. So I got really excited about this.
Note: If you really don’t care about reviews of international sodas, I won’t be offended if you stop reading now!
Unlike our attempt to go during Thanksgiving weekend (the lots were full), Disney Springs was downright pleasant this past Wednesday. The garages had tons of parking, and while there are always crowds, they were very manageable, both in shops and outside of them.
We had two major goals: to visit the Christmas Tree Trail and the Coca-Cola lounge on the top floor of the store. We also shopped a few of our favorite stores, but the focus of our trip was elsewhere.
The Christmas Tree Trail features a variety of themed Christmas trees. I especially enjoyed the ones that had wrappings that were unexpected, like the octopus legs on the Villains tree. This area got a little crowded, but it was a blast to see what they’d come up with, and it was a fun and free holiday activity. Santa is also here for visits.
After we walked the trail, we headed to Coca-Cola, resisting the pull of a burger or Eliza’s Bakery. The store itself is more fun than I realized. I managed to find an adorable shirt on clearance – it’s lavender so a purple pastel color with a rainbow on it, so it’s basically perfect for me. I paid less than $10 with our discount.
They also carry some awesome glasses and glassware, including some smaller Tervis styles we had fun debating. And you can meet the Polar Bear here.
The walkway to the rooftop bar is awesome. It’s handicapped accessible and has fun facts about Coke throughout. So fun! The rooftop bar is beautifully done. White tables and countertops, plus see-through ones you can stand at on the outside edges for the full view.
Ross’ goal was to get Beverly’s Revenge. If you haven’t sampled the Beverly at Club Cool in Epcot, be sure to. It’s super bitter and a bizarre soda that some hate but Ross loves, and he knew it would be the perfect base for a mixed drink.
Ross of course ordered his dream, Beverly’s Revenge, for $13. It includes Hendrick Gin, Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur and Beverly, Ross’ favorite (very bitter) soda.
Ross’ Beverly’s Revenge was pretty perfect! Mixed drinks are pricey at Disney, but Ross found this on to be very reasonable overall. It was everything he wanted in a mixed drink! Fun and the bitterness of the Beverly so it already had a very complex flavor…and then the orange, though sweet, is citrus-y so it’s not a sweet drink. Tastes like it means business. Doesn’t try to take away what the Beverly is, just compliments it and puts the bitterness into context. Done excellently and he can’t wait to have another one.
If you’re interested in a sampling adventure, you’ve got three highly-recommended options.
Float Tray – $10.50: This includes 8 different sodas with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. Coke, Sprite, Fanta Grape, Cherry Coke, Pibb’s Extra, Barq’s Root Beer, Barq’s Red Cream, Fanta Orange
International Tray – $9: This includes 16 different sodas from around the world, including Inca Kola and Beverly, available at Club Cool in Epcot.
Combo Tray – $16: This is both the float tray and the international tray. 24 delightful beverages for you to consume. It takes 3 trays.
Of course, being the crazy sampler that I am, and someone who loves a bargain, I had to get the Combo Tray, which would retail for $19.50 individually but which costs $16 together. And given that we’re Annual Passholders, we saved 20% on the combo tray on top of that!
I started by sipping each international soda for a quick overview. Then I focused my attention on the floats. I drank most of them, but Ross helped me out with a few of them. Honestly, you can’t go wrong with a float. They were all delicious. I was especially excited about the Sprite float – unexpected and refreshing – and the Grape float, a taste of my youth combined with vanilla ice cream. And I’d never had Barq’s Red Cream, so I enjoyed that one a lot. But honestly, they were all delicious.
For the international sodas, I thought you might want the full run down. They do give you a cute booklet with the info on all of the sodas. So here you go!
Tray 1:Â
1 Stoney Tangawizi from Tanzania – This is an amazing ginger beer. My favorite!
2 Fanta Exotic Fruit Punch from Uganda – This is tasty fruit punch; it’s not really fizzy.
3 Bon Bon Anglais from Madagascar – This is sweet, almost like bubble gum
4 Frestea Green Honey Tea from Indonesia – Wow, this was refreshing, Light and palate cleansing, definitely a tea. Lovely.
5 Minute Maid Joy Apple Lychee from Korea – This is sweet and light. Apple flavored plus the lychee awesomeness. It’s really great.
6 Fanta Apple Kiwi from Thailand – This is super fun, you can taste both fruits. Kiwi a bit artificial like a Jolly Rancher but very fun.
7 Smart Watermelon from China – This was one of my faves. I’m a sucker for watermelon.
8 Thums Up from India – A cola, with a little something else. I’m not big on normal colas so not my favorite. Ross liked it a lot.
Tray 2
1 Beverly from Italy – This is so bitter…but that does make it great for mixed drinks!
2 Aquarius Libre from Spain – This is like a nice lemon-lime soda.
3 FUSE Berries Tea from Georgia – A delicious, somewhat sweet tea. Definite berry.
4 Sunfill Black Currant from Mauritius – This is awesome! Fizzy and currants is a delicious combination. It has a slight bitter and sour richness to it.
5 Lift Manzana from Chile – A very light apple flavor with fizz; reminds me of sparkling cider.
6 Bjare Lingonberry from Sweden- This is a favorite. Sweet and sour lingonberries is fabulous!
7 Inca Kola from Peru – I adore this bubble gum stuff I discovered at Club Cool. So sweet.
8 Delaware Punch from Honduras- This tastes like fruit punch made with Dimetapp (artificial grape) as the base! Pretty bizarre.
So in conclusion, this is an awesome way to spend your day. My stomach still hasn’t recovered from the carbonation two days later, but it was so much fun! And this would be amazing to share with an entire family or a larger group. For the two of us, it was probably a little too ambitious. But we had to try it once!
Do you have a favorite soda? Is it listed here?
As I lie here unable to fall back to sleep this Thanksgiving morning, I’m thankful. Thankful for friends and family who support us and are patient with us as we travel, follow our bliss and work to piece it all together. Thankful for the incredible opportunities and privileges we have that allow us to travel freely and relatively safely, and the resources and experience (and faith) to figure things out as we go along.
I’m thankful for all of the experiences we’ve had thus far, for the gigs and work and people we’ve seen. For those who’ve cleared their schedules and offered us a meal or a hug. Who’ve taken lessons from us and told people about our work.
We’re almost a year and a half since I ditched my full-time job. More than a year into fulltime RVing. And we’ve been together for almost eight years, 3.5 of them married. We’re so grateful to still be in love, happy and inspiring each other.
We’re thankful to be relatively healthy, both mentally and physically, and to have a fridge full of delicious food and the means to buy more too. We’re thankful to have work opportunities this winter, a great job lined up for April and the chance to fill the in between times with whatever work we choose.
We are incredibly blessed to have a wonderful home and a car to get around town and wherever we need to go. To have resources to fall back on when we need them. And to always have the ear of family and friends.
We love you and we thank you. Happy Thanksgiving. 
Ross and I have been hard at work. I’m following a weekly schedule I’ve created for myself, and it keeps me busy. Mornings I blog or work on my book and work on building our business, and then most days I do arts admin and Human Resources contracting I’ve been hired for. Teaching in the afternoon or evenings is also a part of my day.
Ross, on the other hand, is hard at work pounding the pavement for short-term employment, remote work as a podcast/audio editor or composer and bookings.
Hence the blog title. Some days, it’s easy to get fed up that we don’t have more success with bookings. I’ve reached out to at least twenty local churches in the past week. Ross had reached out to a similar number of venues, and he’s applied for at least that many jobs. When your rate of return is low, it’s hard not to feel like you’re hardly booking anything. We’re still establishing a name for ourselves in Florida, and it’s not an easy market to break into without contacts.
But from what we’ve read, the key at this stage is numbers. The more we ask, the more we succeed. 1 out of 30 isn’t a great rate of return. But 10 out of 300 could get us enough work for the next 4-6 months, if we got the right types of gigs. And the more we ask, the more those people forward our emails…so things could grow exponentially if we play our cards right. How nice would 50 out of 300 be?
So the effort continues. And in between, we’ll talk to Groot at Disney World.
  
Crafting The Life You Want: A Practice in Living 