Pagan Pages August

PaganPages is an online magazine or e-zine about all things pagan. The August Issue is up now!

My column is called Tink About It: What's in a name? about nicknames, magical names and how that works for me.

Kickin' It Old Skool - the end

click to read
more KIOS

Kickin'It Old Skool, Day 31
Yay!! We kicked it through the holidays. We kicked it through ice storms. We kicked it all month long! Give yourself a gold star - or a turquoise star or a fuchsia one! It's time to celebrate! What would you like to celebrate about this month and Kickin' It Old Skool?

~*~*~*~

To celebrate the transition from old to new year Ron and I walked a beach labyrinth at sunrise this morning, made by friends. It's becoming a tradition, 4th time this Dec. 31:

I want to thank Jamie & Shannon Ridler for organizing this blog-a-thon. Also thanks to everyone who participated and commented on each other's blogs. I've tried to visit as much as possible and ended up following quite a few new blogs! Yay for meeting new friends and their blogs, and for reconnecting to old friends and their blogs.

I really liked getting back into blogging again. I didn't succeed in participating every day because of various reasons, but that doesn't matter! It was fun and I want to try to stay more active this coming year.
Therefore my question for you all: do you have tips for memes to do? Prompts to find? Anything fun to help me keep blogging?

A new year's wish from me for everyone that participated and the readers of my blog:

all the best to you and yours and I hope to see you again in 2014 (and after).

Disneyland Paris

Thursday Ron, Joke and I returned from a 4-day/3-night stay in Disneyland Paris. We had a fabulous time! Because of the snow and x-mas decorations it was a true winter wonderland. So beautiful... We stayed in the Santa Fe Hotel in a simple but well-equipped room with double beds, decorated in Cars-style. A shuttlebus service was available to go to the parks.

The first day we left early, because it was a 500 km (310 mi) drive. When we arrived we moved into the room, unpacked and rested for a while. We decided to take the bus to the parks to look around a bit. Joke had been there before with Leo, so she knew where to go. The parks were covered with snow. Around 5pm the Once Upon a Dream Parade started, my absolute favourite thing to do (watch). Main Street looked wonderful. A few times my eyes filled with tears of sheer happiness. Finally there, as I've always wanted ever since the opening in 1992... My inner child enjoyed herself to her heart's content!

After an early night and deep sleep we had an early breakfast, so we could leave for the parks early too. Guests of the Disney hotels are allowed early access before opening hour. The first thing we did was Space Mountain. Holy moly, that was quite a ride! I loved it, although I was a bit unstable when I got out. Some attractions were closed because of the weather and/or refurbishing. We did all we could and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. From thrills to wonderful attractions like "It's a Small World" and "Peter Pan's Flight". It was very tiring but I walked on adrenalin! We never had long waiting times; that's the benefit of going on weekdays outside holidays. For dinner we had booked the Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Great entertainment and the food was good (except for the cold potatoes).

Wednesday we 'did' the Walt Disney Studios Park. That one is smaller but also great in a different way.The absolute tophit was The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror! Woohoo! Inside it looked spooky and the ride was awesome. The Moteurs... Action! Stunt Show Spectacular was abridged because of the snow, but still spectacular. It was very cold on the grandstand, so after the show we had some hot chocolate and went into the theatre to get warm again. When we had seen what we wanted, we walked to the other park again to shop and of course watch the Parade again. I bought and got some wonderful Tink-stuff! We had dinner in The Steakhouse about which I can be brief: a big disappointment, not something I'd recommend. But we didn't let that spoil our fun too much! We returned to the hotel, very tired (and Ron with painful knees) but very satisfied after another great day.

Thursday we decided to skip the parks and drive home early because the weather forecast was bad. The homeward journey was long. In France and Belgium it wasn't that bad, but in the Netherlands we fell into an early traffic rush hour. We were home around 6pm. First we picked up the dogs at Ron's sister; they were so happy to see us! I had missed them a lot, and the cats too. We ordered dinner in and talked about our adventures. What an experience, what an amazing time...

A selection of our (800+) photos are in my Facebook album "Eurodisney December 2010".

Welcome to 2010!

Happy New Year!!!

May you be blessed with
warmth in your home,
love in your heart,
peace in your soul
and joy in your life.

Fall for Tinkerbell

Today Ron and I attended the "WDCC Fall for Tinkerbell event 2008" in The Collectors Closet, my regular shop for Tink stuff in IJmuiden. Special guest was Jacqueline Perreault Gonzales (picture), sculptor for Disney. She made a sculpture from scratch (wire and clay), very impressive! She was also signing pieces from her hand. Here she is signing a Stitch-sculpture of Ron's niece. In the front you see a sculpture of Jiminy Cricket getting shape. Unfortunately she hasn't made any Tinkerbell sculptures. Ron bought me the limited event edition called Blithe Spirit (see picture above this text), Tink sitting on a fall leave. It's gorgeous and I'm very happy with it. I also got 3 Tink boxes. It was a great afternoon I wouldn't want to have missed!

Meet my Dolly!

This is my RSS-Dolly. Perhaps you already noticed her in my sidebar, where she is linking to my RSS-feed. She is made by Emila of Emila's Illustrated Blog. I found her blog while dropping my Entrecard some days ago. She has made a lot of these Dolly's already. I liked them a lot, so I decided I wanted one too! :-)

Do you like them too? Go over to Emila's blog and order one for just $2,- or 500 Entrecard Credits. You'll find the instructions in her sidebar. She works very fast and you can tell her exactly what you want.

She's not just a fairy, she’s a guardian angel

Last week Lonnie Lardner, grassroots filmmaker in Los Angeles, sent me an e-mail and told me about a very special, different documentary including Tinker Bell. My curiosity was stirred! I looked more into it and got more enthusiastic with every line I read. I'll tell you more.

"Angel in the Hood" is a documentary profiling two tough Latina girls from a gang neighbourhood, who have turned their lives around (attending college, working toward degrees in nursing and education). But the kicker to the story is: they are obsessed with Peter Pan's Tinker Bell; specifically, Disney's version of Tinker Bell. Both of Mexican descent, the girls see Tink as a guardian angel or personal spiritual guide. Their "tough-love" teacher tries to talk them out of their devotion, saying she's "a fairy going nowhere." But the girls stand firm in their conviction. The documentary follows their story for three years, their life-changing journey out of the ghetto and into adulthood through the inspiration of a most unlikely source.
You can read a lot more on the Angel in the Hood website. Don't forget to listen to the wonderful "Neverland", original music by Kyle Lardner.

“Angel in the Hood” will be featured in the first annual Hollywood “Feel Good Film Festival” this Saturday. The mission of the festival panel is to showcase “films with a positive message” that let you “leave the theater feeling good.”
The festival screening will be held at Hollywood’s historic Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, just east of Highland, on Saturday, August 23rd at 1:30 pm. Unfortunately I'm too far away to be able to come, but if you are a Tink-fan too and live close enough to attend: it would mean so much to Lonnie if you could come and show your support. The film runs 50 minutes, and there will be a Q & A session after it screens.

Date: Saturday, August 23rd 2008
Time: 1:30pm
Place: Egyptian Theater, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028

Tickets are $9 and may be purchased at the door or on line
Questions? Call Lonnie: (805) 490-7099, Chuck Mills: (818) 591-8252 or Sharon Lignier: (818) 300-7055

If you're going: please let me know and tell all about it!!