September was a bit of a mixed bag at the parks. On the one hand, it was the beginning of Halloween Time, which is always fun (and always equals lots of yummy new food to try), but on the other hand, it meant saying goodbye to the Pixarmonic Orchestra, which honestly, was a little bit devastating. DCA has been letting go of a lot of its live entertainment and it’s a trend that really sucks. And I hope it means there is more new live entertainment in the works, but I’m not holding my breath. Let’s take a look back at September in the parks:
Happy Pumpkin Spice Month! For the record, I love the smell of pumpkin spice, but hate the taste. Does that make me like half basic? Either way, we are well into “fall” right now. Hopefully some of you are actually enjoying things like leaves changing and weather cooling. I am not. #SoCalLife But I still had a pretty good September, so let’s see how it all shook out.
On the goals front: I met five of my six goals this month, which I consider a win. I met my reading goal (duh), booked a wedding, and finished my latest round of edits on my newest manuscript. I also entered Pitch Wars in September (more on that later). And I even published ten blog posts in the month of September! Woohoo! It’s been a while since I met a blogging goal, so go me.
On the writing front: So my focus in September was to get my manuscript ready to enter Pitch Wars. Pitch Wars (henceforth referred to as PW) is a contest for unpublished writers. You submit your manuscript to four different mentors, and hopefully one of them picks you as their mentee. You then work with your mentor to edit and revise your manuscript and at the end of the process, your newly shiny manuscript is posted in an agent showcase, which hopefully then leads to agents wanting to read your book, and hopefully hopefully sign on to represent you. I submitted at the end of September, but nothing is announced until November 3rd, so for now, I wait (im)patiently to see if I made it! But if nothing else, I have met some cool people along the way, and it forced me to finish my revisions, so it’s already a win.
On the reading front: I read fifteen books in September (not as many as August, but still a good month!). Romance reviews will be coming your way shortly, but I also read some other genres in September (gasp!) and those were Spin the Dawn and Sorcery of Thorns. Okay. I read two non-romance books last month. I had a lot of 4.5 star reviews in September, and one 5 star-er so check back later for those in depth reviews!
On the movie front: I saw three new movies this month (actually, I saw four, but I will not be talking about Angry Birds 2…let’s just say it was a hot day and Squirt and I needed something to do in the AC). So the real movies I saw were Peanut Butter Falcon, Hustlers, and Brittany Runs a Marathon. You can read in depth reviews of each by clicking on the title, but suffice to say Hustlers is amazing (I saw it twice), Peanut Butter Falcon is heart-warming, and Brittany Runs a Marathon has a lot of problems that take away what could have been an empowering movie.
In other news: Not a whole lot to report this month. House stuff is going well, we’re pretty settled. We’ve all gotten into the school every day routine (Squirt LOVES school, which is awesome). I’m focusing most of my attention on writing since this is the end of wedding season, and Matt is busy working with a million different high schools and playing in two bands at Disneyland. Life is good!
I was compensated in the form of money, discount, or free product/experience in exchange for this post. All opinions are my own.
So we were super stoked to head down to our first ever Brick or Treat at Legoland last weekend. Squirt is just starting to get into Halloween in a way that actually means something, and he is basically the world’s biggest Legoland fan so this was the perfect opportunity for us to celebrate. Matt and I hadn’t been back to the park since our trip last December, but Squirt was lucky enough to go with the grandparents a couple months ago (and he asks to go back pretty much every week). I was excited to get to explore some different areas of the park and see what tricks and treats were in store for us at Brick or Treat.
We might have just entered the month of October, but Halloween Time at Disneyland has been up and running for almost a month now, which means I have had time to sample plenty of the tasty treats on my must eat list. Here are some of the highlights (in no particular order):
Okay. Lots to digest with this one. I kind of have a love/hate relationship with it. But first, the basics. Brittany Runs a Marathon is about an overweight woman names Brittany (Jillian Bell) who goes to the doctor and is told she needs to lose weight. She can’t afford a gym membership because she has a crappy job and no career and lives in New York. So she decides to run since it’s free. She starts slowly and over time, makes some running friends and together they decide to run the New York City Marathon. They train, Brittany loses weight, she finds a new job, life is good. Until she finds out she has a hairline fracture in her calf and she can’t run in the marathon. She spirals, gets depressed when she sees her running friends finish the race, pulls herself back up, and runs the race the following year. Overall, there is nothing new or surprising about the story itself (inspired by a true story and written and directed by Paul Downs Colaizzo).
So. Some things I liked about the movie. In general, overall, if you take out some of the stuff I’ll get to in a second, I like the message of perseverance. Brittany sets out to do something and through a lot of hard work and training, she eventually accomplishes that goal. That’s a good message. I’m also on board with the idea of taking care of your body translating into taking better care of your mind. I think this is also a thing.
But I had A LOT of issues with this movie. First and foremost, it should be noted that this film could be majorly triggering for anyone who has ever felt fat-shamed. It happens throughout the movie, both clearly expressed and hinted at. The writer/director is a man, and a man who (based on his IMDB pic) is not overweight. Not to say he never has been, but judging by some of the choices made in this movie, he hasn’t ever been. The biggest thing for me is the constant focus on the numbers on the scale. The whole movie could have stayed the same, without consistent scale shots, and it would have been vastly improved. The stress placed on the numbers going down makes it seem like the only way to improve your life is to lose weight and THAT IS NOT TRUE. In fact, plenty of people train for a marathon and don’t lose any weight. It’s a thing. The other main component of this is watching Brittany’s life improve because she’s losing weight. She gets a better job, finds a boyfriend, has good sex, even has people hold the train for her, all because she drops some pounds. Again, had there not been scale shots every ten minutes, we could have figured her life was improving as she ran because her confidence was improving, or because her mental health was improving. All of these things can be reasons behind life improvements, they didn’t need to be attributed to losing weight.
After Brittany finds out she can’t run the marathon, she goes to her brother in law’s birthday party and, while drunk, says some truly heinous things to another female party guest who is overweight. Brittany eventually apologizes, and in the woman’s acceptance, she tells Brittany she thinks about her body and her weight every day. I would just like it to be made clear that not everyone who is overweight thinks about their weight every day. Brittany and her “best friend” also have a truly heinous blow out fight that made me pretty angry. I do not want to see females tearing each other down over their looks on my movie screens in 2019. Be better. There was NO NEED for this scene, and it was quite frankly, disgusting and incredibly unrealistic. Trust me, in my younger days, I said and did some truly horrible things to girls who were my closest friends, things I still regret twenty odd years later. But I have never come close to stooping to the levels of Brittany and her best friend. Ever. And I sure as hell would never talk to a woman like that at my current age (or in my twenties). It pisses me off because this is the kind of interaction we see between women all the time, screaming and yelling at each other and tearing each other down, and that so rarely happens in real life. Yet we’re primed to think at any moment that’s how our friends might treat us because that’s what we see on screen. And it’s not true. Women support women, and if you don’t believe me, go hang out in the bathroom of any club on a Saturday night.
In the hands of a woman, preferably an overweight woman, this film could have been truly powerful. But the shaming, offensive, insensitive moments completely drag it down, wiping out any goodwill that may have been created. This movie gets a D from me. So I guess it’s more of a hate/hate relationship *shrug*
Okay, okay, I know this post is way late. But to be fair, I did already write Part One of my monthly reviews, so it’s kind of like this post is a bonus. As you know, in August I read nineteen romance novels, most of which I received during RWA (which is why I’m reviewing all of them, even if they aren’t technically romance-they were given to me at a romance writer’s conference so I’m going with it). There are still some amazing books I need to tell you about, so let’s jump right in!
So the other day we had a rare opportunity: family day at Disneyland! I know, I know, you’re totes thinking, isn’t that like a weekly occurrence? But actually, it’s not. Squirt and I go to the parks together about once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. But usually when we go, Matt is working (usually in the parks) so we see him, but he doesn’t get to hang out with us. Last week Squirt happened to have a minimum day on one of Matt’s days off, so we headed over as a fam, and here’s what our typical day at the parks looks like:
11:51 Leave the house
12:12 On the tram-because that’s how we roll now! Twenty minutes to drive to Disneyland, park and get through security, ka-chow!
12:24 Enter Disneyland and realize the Disneyland Band March Along starts in three minutes, so we of course head to the castle because what does Matt want to do when he’s not playing in the band? Watch the band!
12:48 Train time! Since we marched down Main Street with the band and ended up at the train station, we hopped aboard to head over to Haunted Mansion because Squirt is suddenly super into Haunted Mansion.
12:55 Fast Passes to Haunted Mansion secured!
1:04 And since we’re in the area, we might as well try the Groom churro (thoughts on Halloween food coming soon!)
1:10 Time for a walk through Galaxy’s Edge! Not going to lie, we had no intention of going on Smuggler’s Run, so we were literally just walking through. We stopped to look at some of the marketplace shops, and filled our water bottle (obviously), but that’s about it.
1:44 Squirt’s new favorite ride: Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters! Matt and I have a special connection to this ride so it’s fun to go on it all together. I almost beat Matt. Almost.
2:05 Squirt and I snagged our Halloween AP magnets and buttons. Matt didn’t get one since he’s a cast member and not an AP (he was not sad about it).
2:19 Headed to Pizza Planet for a quick lunch. We brought Squirt a sandwich from home, and Matt and I shared a piece of the Halloween pizza (again, more on that soon!).
3:00 Time to walk back across the park for our Haunted Mansion Fast Pass. I don’t know where it came from, but Squirt went from hating this ride to insisting we go on it every time. Not mad about it.
3:34 Walked across the esplanade to check out some of our DCA faves (and by that I mean beer).
3:48 Sat down to enjoy a pretzel and some beers at Sonoma Terrace, which might literally be my favorite place in the parks.
4:11 Matt and Squirt headed in to the “Superhero Store” while I sat my tired ass on a bench in the shade. Disneylanding with a five year old is hard, y’all.
4:58 When given the option between a ride and meeting Spider-Man, Squirt surprised us and picked Spidey. Normally he is not into meeting the characters, and he was super shy when Spidey actually talked to him, but he had fun. And yes, my kid is wearing a Legoland hat at Disneyland.
5:12 Even though it’s early, we decided to head out. We didn’t want to eat dinner in the parks, and even though Squirt didn’t have school the next day, we still wanted to keep to our normal nighttime schedule as much as possible. Also, he woke up at 6:45 that morning, so we know the wall would be getting hit at any moment.
Honestly, these are my favorite kind of days. I love being able to hang out with Matt in the parks (it’s fun to watch him play too, but it’s better to actually get to enjoy the parks with him) and Squirt absolutely loves getting to have Dad time at his favorite place. Nothing can beat hanging with my favorite guys in my favorite place!
