The 5oz Foodie

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month 1 in 8   Number of women that will be diagnosed with Breast Cancer in their lifetime. Ranks #2   -Second leading cause of death among women. 2,150   Men will be diagnosed (though it's rare.) 410   Men will die... 220,000  Women diagnosed in the United States with breast cancer each year. 40,000  Women will die... It is scary to know that Breast Cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide... The one thing that can fight it is attention... We need to pay attention to our bodies... We need to do self exams, both men and women... We need to have regular doctors visits... Ladies, if you have a family history or are age 40, you need to have a mammogram every year... We have lost to many Grandmothers, Mothers, Aunts, Sisters and Friends to this horrible disease... In my family I lost an amazing cousin... What started out as breast cancer spread througho...

I love when the day starts out like any other day... On Fridays, Mom, BFF and I usually start off at Wawa for Breakfast and then off to buy groceries... Well today started out pretty similar, except instead of groceries we went to the Magic Kingdom and spent the day playing and sweating in the Florida humidity... I won Magic Backstage, which is a Cast Member give away that you sign up for... I wont the chance to be a part of the My Magic + ticket tests, which BFF did too but not until the next day after I found out and his was for Epcot, but we had already made surprise reservations for lunch at the Crystal Palace so that Mom could eat with her favorite Disney character, Winnie the Pooh!!! The picture pretty much says it all... She loved it and BFF and I loved the ham as well ;) We rode some rides so we could test the Fast Pass system with the My Magic + enabled park tickets, which was extremely fun... BFF and I were able to go on Splash Mountain for the first time in I ...

It makes me smile when I get to work with someone new and they are as crazy and silly as I am... I had another opportunity to get to be a part of the team that welcomed over 600 new college program cast members today and I laughed nearly the entire afternoon... Sometimes I start to think what would have happened had I been one of those new college program cast members standing in the hall waiting to go through my paperwork and to hear about my first week at Disney... Would I still be where I am or would I even be in Florida still... Then I remember where I was when I was these kids age... I was working and going to community college for three years trying to decide what I truly wanted to be when I grew up... Then for my final two years I was at Webster University living my Fame dream pursuing a vocal music degree...  Then after graduation I was spending my last summer with my Dad before he made his trip to heaven... That's when I realize that I got to Disney at the right t...

As I sit and ponder what I have done over the last almost 6 years at Disney, the one thing that stands out more than anything is how blessed I have been to work with the people I have worked with... My COT mentors, My Core Team, My Training Managers, My Typhoon Team...  I miss my Core Team very much but it makes me feel so good to know that we each support each other in all of our pursuits... I love when I am working at my desk and my IM alerts me and it's one of the Cores... Now I won't be getting those alerts from the Principal... It was a great time celebrating his new Teaching job last night but something I wish we had done was go around the table and share our favorite Principal story... So, I will share a few of mine... I had the honor of being his first Disney trainer in Future World North... It was me against 3 guys and out of the 3 he was the only one that still remains at Epcot... He was the first trainee to turn me bright red and leave me speechless and it...

"Don't settle for small dreams, Go for the big one..." I heard this tonight watching a Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie... And it really struck me... It made me realize that so very often we dream things for ourselves but we only settle for small things not hold out for the big ones... It's like our mind says, "That dream will never happen, it's Too big, just aim for something small..." It's like the shirt I saw once, "When all else fails, lower your standards..." Why do we always think we aren't good enough? If we are willing to work towards a dream and work hard to get to it, then obviously we do deserve to live out our dreams... We can't just sit around and wait for our dream to come true. And we can't lower our standards when things aren't going to plan... If we are truly passionate about a dream, we can't give up just because one person says it isn't good enough... There are plenty of stories out there of peo...

Sometimes it takes years to realize that you aren't happy with your life, that you don't feel like you are where you are supposed to be... Thankfully, I don't feel that way at all... I feel like I am right where I am meant to be... I feel peace, I don't wake up dreading a new day at work... In fact, I quite enjoy it... Today I am extra in love with it because I am extended until May 18th at Typhoon... It makes me feel good when I tell my cast, trainers, coordinators and leaders and all of their responses are extremely positive... One of my friends has had many jobs in her adult life and this past year she made a life changing decision that would not only effect her but it also would effect her husband and two boys... She decided to go back to school and try her hand at becoming a hairdresser... This would mean being away from home 5 days a week during the day and that money would be tight... Well, while others in her class struggled she excelled... Every up date I hea...

Even though I am not feeling well, magic happened to me in the sweetest way... Growing up I remember sitting in the backseat doing the pull the horn sign to truck drivers or competing with my friends to see who could get more drivers to wave back... Today on the way home I was stopped at a stop light when I noticed something in my peripheral vision... I turned my head to see a little boy in the car next to me waving... So I waved back... He giggled and continued to wave back and so I waved back... His older sister was on the other side and he told her I waved back and so she started waving... I then grabbed my name tag and held it up showing them I work for Mickey... They both began giggling and continuing to wave.... The game went on for another 30 seconds when their Dad realized what they were doing and so he turned and made the motion that his kids were crazy... I rolled down the window and he again repeated that the kids were crazy... I laughed and said no crazier than I am.....

Alright, first and foremost, an update on my interview... It went really well... I met with two different training managers, one for water parks and the other for one of the value resorts... They asked me about myself and then asked me 10 questions... I was told that the interview would count for the next 30 days, meaning, if I don't get the TA at water parks I could get one at the resort... The way I look at it is even if I don't get it at either, I feel like I had a pretty decent interview... I am going to send a thank you email to both tomorrow and ask if there is any feedback they can give me for future interviews... So, NO, I haven't heard anything back yet... ;) The rest of my day was a celebration of my friend "Belle's" birthday... We met up at the Studios to see "Beauty and the Beast" and ride Great Movie Ride and then traveled to MK to finish off the day at Beast's Castle for dinner... Even though it got chilly out, a great time was ha...

 When I finally woke up this morning after a refreshing 11.5 hour slumber I was ready to take on the world. Now almost 16 hours later I am ready to retaliate to my bed once again. I love the saying "Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional," because this is my thought process in a nut shell. We spend our whole youth always wanting to be older and our whole adult life wishing we could still be young, Age is just a number, it's not a sentence to boredom. My sweet mother is almost 70, Mom forgive me, but she doesn't act it. She doesn't just sit around the house waiting for the end to come. She is outside enjoying life, digging in the garden helping make the world a more beautiful place. She works out on the Wii Fit to get herself into shape. She still prefers writing letters or sending cards instead of spending emails. I want to be like her when I grow up. :) Most people at work have no idea how old I am, because of my vest for fun and magic they assume...

Not much for excitement today, just another day in the magical land of Disney. Had a great evening training a new cast member. Got to practice my four words I know in Portuguese, since the Brazilians just kept coming, and got to end the night with a bang by watching Illuminations with my trainee. I love when guests see us doing fun things, like playing with plush (stuffed animals) and we ask them, "Can you believe they actually pay me to do this?" Normally the guests get a good chuckle out of it and sometimes they ask how they can get a job like that too. I am anxiously awaiting my reunion on Saturday and tonight my trainee reminded me what a cool job I truly have. For awhile I have been stressing about going to see all of these former classmates and how many of them work as lawyers or doctors or make a ton of money and have big homes and families and how do I compete with my hourly job as a retail trainer? I know it's petty but we can all get that way at times. Well, t...