Caterpillar:
Who are you?
Alice: I hardly know sir. I’ve changed so many times since
this morning, you see.
Caterpillar: I do not see. Explain yourself.
Alice: I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, because I am not
myself, you know.
Caterpillar: I do not know.
Alice: Well I can’t put it any more clearly, for it isn’t
clear to me.
Caterpillar: You….
WHO ARE YOU?! - Alice in Wonderland
Our dear Beth, bless her heart, has asked some of her fellow
Alabamians/ psycho Disney bloggers to introduce ourselves and our sites. Since
you’re reading this now, chances are you are a Disney Addict, like myself, or
are at least hoping to plan the best Disney Trip “ev-a”, so we already have at
least one thing in common. Of course, if you got my “bless her heart” reference
then we have WAY more in common than I thought.
My name is Kristin, aka the “Disney Diva”. I am a
Communication Arts professor at a research-1 university in North Alabama. I was
raised in Tuscaloosa, undergraduate degree from the University of Montevallo,
graduate degree from University of Alabama – Tuscaloosa. One of the few native Alabamians that
doesn’t drink sweet tea, never craves the “big breakfast” or “greens” of any
sort, and really only enjoy talking about football if it annoys someone from
another team. I don’t get out for “Harvest”, I wear shoes in public, and I have
no idea what sound a tornado makes when it’s coming through a trailer park.
(Though let me tell you that growing up in a city which frequently had tornados,
and is currently rebuilding from a terrible and tragic one, has me convinced
that tornados ARE the scariest things on earth). I’ve been married for 11 years
to my “pencil-pusher” hubby who has a completely different mentality than me on
everything, which balances me out nicely. I have a 9 year old son who never
needs a map at Disney World, and an (almost) 5 year old who can sing every word
to Magic Kingdom’s park-opening ceremony from memory.
I went to Disney a few times as a child, none of which I remember
except through photos (which I’m sure just IRRITATES the heck out of my
elementary school teaching parents), but didn’t get hooked on Disney until my
husband caught “the bug”. I took him for his first ever WDW trip when he was
30, and five years later when our son went for the first time, the fire of
addiction was lit and that’s all she wrote. I admit, a large part of my love
for Disney comes from it being the only place my husband is willing to
vacation, but the scary part is that although I write for two different Disney
blogs, my family declares me the “least addicted to Disney” in our rankings.
They actively participate in my blog post writing and think of many tips I
would forget. So I’m thankful for my little family unit, complete with the
standard American 2.5 children (the cat only counts as half because he (a) only
has three legs, and (b) still forces me to clean up his poop.
So,
yeah, my blog, the point of all this. Well I started Tips from the Disney Diva
(www.tipsfromtheDisneydiva.blogspot.com)
sort of on a whim when I was writing another blog that was basically just my
thoughts spilling out of my brain onto a keyboard. If I would have had a “stats”
counter then I would have known it was pretty popular, but I didn’t know at the
time. Whenever I thought about a helpful tip for planning a Disney World
vacation I would write it down and hope maybe someone, somewhere out there, was
getting something out of it. I had to shut down the other blog once some people
started realizing it was me and my anonymity was gone, so I laid off the
blog-sauce for a while. Then, just for kicks, one day about a year ago I saw
the stats counter and it said there had been over 200 views on my Tips From the
Disney Diva site! It was CRAZY! I hadn’t written anything in months, yet there
it was, still getting attention.
So I decided to actually do ONE of my New Years Resolutions
(for a change) and get back to writing (as it somehow magically cleanses my
soul, and helps me blabber less) and started writing articles. It wasn’t long
before the former owner of Disneydispatch.com discovered my writing and asked
me to come and write some for him as well. My page views continued to go up on
Tips for the Disney Diva, and eventually I decided to submit an article to one
of the “Big Dogs of the Disney blogging world” Chip & Co.
(www.chipandco.com). Chip liked my style too, which as you can read is open and
“chatty”, and I was given the opportunity to write some more Disney silliness
for C&C (most of it centers around Disney addiction). The majority of my
Tips from the Disney Diva articles are tips for packing, ride order (aka daily
plans), enjoying quality of life over quantity of rides, dining, and avoiding
time pit-falls that make your Walt Disney World Trip miserable. I’m currently
training to run the Princess
Half Marathon at WDW on Feb. 26th, 2012 (which happens to be my
34th birthday). If you will be down there for the race, either the
Half or the Royal Family 5K I would love for you to come to my “meet up” where
we will have some cool giveaways for you (t-shirts for sure!) You can learn more about that at my “team”
facebook page http://www.facebook.com/DisneyDivasInTraining
to get details as they come.
If you “dig my style daddy-o” You can read my blog by going
to: www.tipsfromthedisneydiva.blogspot.com,
check out my articles on Chip & Co. at http://www.chipandco.com/author/disneydiva/,
join my facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/TipsfromtheDisneyDiva
or follow me on Twitter (though I NEVER remember to tweet) at @wdwdisneydiva
Thanks Beth for the opportunity to tell your readers “whooooo….
I…… am”. I hope to get to know you all soon!
Kristin- Thanks again for participating in this segment! So much comes from Alabama that needs to be shared with everyone! :)
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