What is your favourite fairy tale and why?

By Madam Marie

I am back with doing BlogHer’s writing prompts… post to follow

I am a huge Disney fan.  I know, I know, he borrowed from the greats and made them his own, but think about it for a moment… Most artists and writers do borrow from the original and make it their own.  That is just the way the world works.  People borrowing from on another to either try to make it better, if not the same.  It is not illegal and it does not violate copyright law.  Copying and pasting to make it your own, and I have a couple of posts that speaks about that very problem.

Off -subject, let me focus

Anyway, like I said, I am a huge Disney fan.  I like the parks, the characters, all things Disney, so my favorite fairy tale comes from Disney.  I will have to say that my favorite fairy tale is The Princess and the Frog.  It is one of the newest movies, and yes, it is in book form, but the prompt did not say that it has to come from a book.  I have several reasons why this movie is my favorite.

            First of all, it is diversified.  It has several elements of that.  OK, dare I say it…. The female lead is African American AND she looks just like me.   OK, I do not expect anyone, but another African American dark-skinned female to understand this, but I will explain it.  When the entertainment world comes up with an African American character for some reason, they either go too dark or too light with the character in mind.  This includes drawn characters.  When I was little, there was very few I could see myself in, and Disney had none.  So, it seemed right to make her of African American decent.  Prince Naveen is not white, but either of Hispanic or Middle Eastern decent.  This was the first animated movie to do that.

            The music was upbeat.  OK, all of Disney’s movies has some climatic song, but I hate to admit it, but “Let It Go” from Frozen is a bit slow, but it fits for the scene that was drawn too, New Orleans in the Princess and the Frog is a lively place, even the swap area urged you to “Dig a Little Deeper” with Mama Ode. 

            How can you not love an alligator and a firefly?  Louie is the best.  He does not think he is an alligator, he just wants to play jazz, and he gets to towards the end of the movie.  (sorry for the spoiler alert for those who have not seen it.) It is the other people who have a problem with it. Ray, his love for Evangeline, who is actually a star, but he does not care, he just loves his Evangeline.  He gets to meet her too.

            Voodoo.  OK, I personally do not mess with that stuff.  I had some great aunts who did it, but I do not touch the mess.  My mom hated going to their house (OK, she went once, and my grandfather, being a Christian, did not like it).  Voodoo was the thing that got Prince Naveen in the mess he was in.   Dr. Facillier sings about “Friends on the Other Side”, and you do not want to mess them either.  Prince Naveen’s overseer loved it because that magic allowed him to become Prince Naveen while he was a frog.

These are some of the things that draw me to Princess and the Frog, and there is plenty more to talk about.  My only disappointment is in Disney and the Parks in regards to the characters.  When Princess and the Frog was released, there was much fanfare to them.  They even had a coronation ceremony to officially welcome Tiana into the Disney Princess fold. All the Princess up to that point was there, and it was done right there in New Orleans Square at Disneyland.  After a couple of months, with new shows featuring them on the riverboat, and a few other things, the characters sort of went away, except for events like Disney’s own version of Mardi Gras.  Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen finally were allowed to be in the newest castle show that started in May 2016, but none of the other characters can be seen anywhere else, even though Dr. Facillier can be seen with the other villains in a Halloween show. 

I invite you to seek out your own favorite fairy tale and comment in the section below.  Next, go to your writing journal, if you have one, and talk about your favorite fairy tale. 

Day 7: What dish transports you to a different place and time in your life?

Today, I decided to take a clue from my Blogher writing prompts.   The reason is even though I had sign up to write the prompts for almost two years now, I have not written a BlogHer prompt in 2 months.

(c) 2015 P. Lynne Designs

Everyone has a dish they really love.  It does not matter if it is a hearty soup, sweets, or a savory dish, there is a dish for everyone.

I do not have a particular dish that transports me to a different time in my life, I have several dishes, so rather than giving you my one dish, I am going to give you several dishes.

·         Sweet potato pie:  Sorry Ms. Patti Labelle, but I have to go with my mom’s Sweet potato pie to sing the praise of.  I did not feed into the hype of that You Tube Video, because I was not going money for something I can get for free.  Yes, the pie is good for those who do not have a loved one to bake one for them, and actually my Aunt Liz bakes a good sweet potato pie as well.  The Sweet potato pie recipe was handed down from my grandmother.

·         Grits:  OK, so it is Hominy Grits, and there is nothing special about this corn item, except when I was a little girl, that was how my mom disguised my eggs in.  She mixed my scrambled eggs in the grits (of course after they were cooked).  I ate them that way, and I still do.  Another favorite way is Shrimp and Grits.

·         Seafood:  Speaking of shrimp, I am a big seafood lover (different from See Food).  I have eaten my fill of seafood, even gone as far as trying sushi, and loving it.  I get my love for seafood from my father (except he does not like sushi)

·         Pork products:  In addition to your traditional pork products (pork chops, honey baked ham, ribs), I also like Chitterlings and pig’s feet, another love that me and my father share.  However, this is every once in a while delicacy, since being told that I have High Blood Pressure in 2004.  As of 2016, it will be less than that because I am headed towards a cleaner eating lifestyle, and pork is not on the menu.  (neither is beef, but I am not cutting that out yet) I am not upset about it, and I have one cousin who has stopped already eating it.

·         Mac and Cheese:  OK, out of all of this, I love this dish, both the way mom makes it (custard style) and the way I make it (sauce style, no yellow powder).  My mom makes her by boiling the mac, and layering mac, then the cheese (she uses a cheddar/sharp blend) like you make lasagna.  She mixes the milk and egg into a custard base, and then she pours that mixture on top and bake it at 350° for about 30 -45 mins.   My version is made like the box mac and cheese, except no yellow powder.  I either make a béchamel sauce (basic white sauce) and add 3-6 different kinds of cheese in it and pour it over the boiled mac before baking it, or I just take Con Queso sauce, heat it, and add the 3-6 cheeses and let them melt the sauce.  In either case, I top it with more cheese so it can brown on the top before baking it at 350° for 45 mins for a huge pan, less for a smaller pan.  This is so that the mac can mingle with the cheese sauce and the cheese on top can brown a little.

·         Chocolate:  This is my go-to

dessert.  Nothing says dessert like chocolate, even though I have ventured out with other flavors.

Well that is it for now.  I also like to try international foods, but that is another subject for a different day.  It is the end of day 7, so make it a good night, and I will see you tomorrow.

In the rush of things to come….

(c) 2015 Google images 

Did I just come up with that title for today’s prompt?   OK, this is not how I wanted to start out, but I am waiting on my client to tell me what he wants me to next in setting up his payment accounts.  I will have to talk about that in the next post.

Ah, the next post.  Posting has been a little sporadic for me in the last month or so on all of my blogs.  That does not mean that I am ready to give up blogging.  Life took a change for the better, I hope.  It has to do with that client I just mentioned, plus, I am making some changes in my scrapbooking business, which I hope will help me in the long run.  But I will get back into my regular routine when things settle down.

OK, so I was going through my writing prompts for today, and I came across this one:  “Tell us about your morning routine”   I will have to admit that I used to have a morning routine.  I am finding out in the now 6 years since I stopped commuting to a work place, that I have the morning routine of a retired person, LOL.  Please, I do not mean to offend a person who is retired, but I do.  I cannot speak for the other entrepreneurs, but my routine is quite simple:  Get out of bed, think happy thoughts (pray), bop down to the computer, and read my email, Facebook, and other social media.   I skip breakfast, which is nothing new, since I did that when I was commuting.  By that time, it should be lunch, and I eat that.

What I SHOULD be doing:  Wake up, do devotions in bed, do a good washing of the face and teeth (I do a 5-minute thing, unless I have somewhere to go), bop down stairs, eat breakfast, then do everything else.  I do a workout twice a week (I am getting use it). 

Should life be so rushed that you skip half your routine?  I do not think so, especially for a single with no kids.  Besides that, what am I going to do when I do have a kid?   

How do you remember blog posts you want to write until you're ready to sit down at the computer? Do you have a system in place, why or why not?

(c) Disney

As a line from the song, Poor Unfortunate Souls (The Little Mermaid), goes, “The boss is on a roll”, I would have to say, yes she is, and that I am. I am on my third blog post of the night, and I am smiling.  I may not be a believer of playing catch-up, but I am doing pretty well, to say that I did not blog hardly at all in July.  (Love my birthday month)   It is bittersweet when you are the owner of 5 blogs, and I get comments from amateurs to experts saying, that I only need one, to how do you keep up with them?   This leads to today’s question about remembering what posts I want to until I sit down at my computer.  

It is funny, because I am on this computer all the time.   If I am not answering a social media question, I am writing a post.  If I am not doing that, then I am watching a video, playing a game, making orders for customers, or making or listing products for customers to buy. 

As for creating posts, I have to it right now.  I create a post on MS Word, and I tweak it.  I tweak it by doing research if it calls for it, upload the research into the post document and check grammar.   Lastly, I cut and paste it into either Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, Hubpages, or BlogMutt, depending if it for myself or for others and the subject matter.  Once I am in the editing area, which is when I do photos and last minute spell and grammar check (because Google Chrome is like that)

I am now starting to keep track of blog post subjects on Outlook calendars, because I write so many, and for those who follow Google, knows how Google hates duplicate topics and posts.  Why?  Because I would be lost, and I do not want my blogs shut down by them. 

Getting back to the line from Unfortunate Souls, I find it funny that there are days when I do not want to write anything, and other days (like today), I am spitting them out like a fully automatic rifle.     Yes, the boss is on a roll, but this is my last one for the night, so, as character from “War Games” puts it….”Shall we play a game?”

So what do you think?  I would love to see your comments below.

Guest Bloggers R Us

Today, I am taking a break from journaling blogging for Blogher, because for one, there is not prompt for today. (And the last one I just posted a few hours ago because I was late.)  Anyway, I am on here to introduce a Guest blogging post.   I did it before, and the results were not so great.   I gave my requirements, and people gave me posts that were not right for my blogs.   I went ahead and published them anyway.   One post I got like over a hundred hits, because it talked about internet marketing, something I never covered, except in a two month old blog that never amounted to anything.   Are people that interested in making money on the web, I asked myself.  

Photo courtesy of www.transitioning.com

Anyway, this time, I went on Blog Linkup to request guest blogging for the holidays.   These reason is clear, we all need encouragement and a little plug in our lives, and I hope to do that for all 5 of my blogs.  

So if you want to submit something, let me know through my email address, plogan721@att.net (subject:  Guest blog) with your idea, or if you are or want to be a Facebook friend (TriciaLynn Logan) or through Twitter (DM @tricia721).

The next post is by Tim Torkildson.   I hope you like it, and show him some blogging love by going to his blog and follow him.  I will have rules for guest blogging on a separate page.

Be Blessed, my friend

Tricia