Blogmas ’22 | Disney Springs Review: Everglazed Donuts

In the last 10 years Disney Springs has gone through a lot of changes. A lot of new and interesting places have opened up and honestly, I’m thankful they weren’t around when I was still working there otherwise there goes my paycheck… along with all the fucks I gave.

Everglazed Donuts is located on the West Side area of Disney Springs, right next to the AMC theater.

Their set up is a lot like Dunkin Donuts with the way that the donuts are displayed. They have a bunch of unique flavors including Purple Glazed Ube which I was super surprised to see!

They also have a food (and coffee) menu that features a donut burger and chicken sandwich. When I lived in Florida there was a place that had this pretty amazing donut burger. I wasn’t able to try it this time around, but I do plan on trying it next time!

I grabbed 4 of the donuts which are freakin huge:

Glazed, 50th Anniversary, Ube & Strawberry with Sprinkles

I was expecting them to be placed in a donut box but as you can see, they’re in individual containers.

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Monthly Favs | Nov 2022

Monthly Favs | Nov 2022

This year has been crazy. And by crazy I mean crazy.

The way the year began and the way it’s ending are totally different. As someone who thought they had learned a lot from past experiences, I still had a lot more to learn. I have learned a lot more.

There’s so much more I want to say… but I really don’t know how just yet. I’m trying to go back to focusing on the things that make me happy and feel gratitude.

| Family Dates

We started going on family dates. Well we would go out to lunch and it was Tums who would call it a family date. Super cute, right? I forgot that date nights usually meant date night gifts. Every time Bubba took me on an actual date night there would always be a gift waiting for me.

He also got me this self help book I wanted by Lin – Manuel Miranda literally ran into B&N 3 minutes before they closed and grabbed me this book because I was talking about it earlier that day. Super thoughtful.

| Comfort Foods

I was able to get L&L which is like an hour away. Not too far but far enough. They serve Tocino which is a Filipino breakfast plate (and one of my favs) so I got an order of that to go. Did I pick at it before sticking it in the fridge for the next day? HELL YEAH. Also got one of my fav L&L plates, the BBQ Chicken. I use to get this every single day after school. Oh the memories…

Upside to being married to someone who’s Mexican? Requesting things like Elote and Caldo when you’re in need of some soul comfort food. I love the way he makes Elote. It’s always so warm and comforting. I also love that requesting Caldo doesn’t get questioned.

Strawberry pancakes with whipped cream and strawberry sauce; “you two are the only people who will make pancakes a dessert and want it for breakfast”. Me and Tums do fight over them though lol.

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Monthly Recap; Feb 2022

For being the shortest month, Feb sure felt like one of the longer ones. I don’t mean that in a bad way… I’m glad at least one Feb in the last few years felt longer than usual. And so far, it’s been my favorite month. Full of trying a shit ton of new eats, seeing new cities, finding new favorite things, seeing some of my favorite people. My Feb was full of insane love from my friends, my support circle who’s been rockin with me for over 21 years. If I know what boundless unconditional love is, it’s because of them. They’ve loved me through all the rough and smooth stages of life from the jump and I’m so very thankful for every single one of them. Not having to feel like I’m being judged or having to censor myself is a feeling I took for granted, for sure.

Despite not really having a place to stay this trip, my BFF made sure I was comfortable. I literally didn’t have to worry about anything the whole week. He also had me drive and while I was SUPER nervous because it was a freakin nice ass car, it felt so good to drive through the streets of my hometown again. You don’t realize how free and liberating driving can feel after years of not feeling comfortable enough to do so. I also appreciate that if I’m PMS’ing he just feds me, tells me I’m funny and let’s me yell lol. I had the best week.

| WATCHED

I know I’m supposed to be working my way through my streaming queues but it’s kinda hard when you have a toddler who wants to watch Dinosaur videos lol. I’m not gonna knock her urge to learn things.

Attempted to watch In the Heights but I just… got lost.

I watched Crazy Rich Asians the first night I was in Napa and there’s just something iconic and inspiring about that movie every time I watch it. Def made me want to work harder on my business; I wanna build something that’s going to outlive me.

Watched Cars… while in a 2 hour queue line for the Cars ride. I forgot how the first movie even went. But Lightning McQueen was a little shit head.

Watched Hamilton on the plane ride home to kill time since I couldn’t sleep. The girl next to me was watching In the Heights. Yeah even watching the little snips I did, I still couldn’t vibe with it.

| DID

Finally got to try Sugar Factory since they opened up one in Dallas and honestly, it was more instagrammable than the one in Vegas I always walked into. The food was amazing and the drink I got didn’t even taste like a drink. Def coming back here.

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5 must haves before your next Disney trip

5 must haves before your next Disney trip

As a Floridan that somehow ended up in Texas; I don’t worry too much about forgetting most things. I know I can always either pick it up at the resort shop, a shop at a park/Disney Springs and worst case I could DoorDash it to the resort through Instacart. However on my last Disney trip the entire Disney property sold out of sunblock and as much as I don’t care to put any on; I had a toddler with me and it was blazing hot. When it wasn’t raining. Florida never has cold rain, but apparently this week it did? And I lived there for 5 years. I was totally confused. Between that and trying to fit everything we wanted to do in our Disney days, Instacart wasn’t an option by the time we got back to the resort.

Did I learn my lesson? Maybe. Who knows. I probably didn’t. But I’m hoping that writing this blog post will remind me to do better next time.

My 5 must haves before my next Disney trip (I can’t believe I’m writing this lol);

| Sunblock & Hat’s
I’m forever going to feel stupid for this, for sure. I figured we could just grab sunblock at the resort or somewhere at Disney Springs and if it came down to it, I could just DoorDash/Instacart it. And sure, I could had but we didn’t get back to the resort until super late all the days we were there and all I wanted was to just pass out in bed. And ironically the weekend we were there, sunblock was sold out property-wide. So yeah, I ended up sunburned. My BFF was smart enough to bring a sun hat. And in that moment I was really salty I didn’t bring one. Or buy that cute Minnie Mouse one (despite it being $40+).

| External Chargers
Maybe it’s just me but I find that if it’s hot outside my phone also gets hot and the battery drains for absolutely no reason. I use to just bring a charger cable with me and charge my phone by It’s a Small World in the Tangle rest area. But busy days mean more people are using it than usual and it’s not a very fast charge. Meanwhile I can just charge my phone in my purse with my external charger while I’m on a ride or two and be good.

| Umbrella/Raincoat
2021 has everyone’s weather all kinds of messed up — it’s raining here in TX in JUNE which never happens. And with that said it COLD RAINED during my trip to Disney in April which also, never happens. It’s not freezing cold in Florida in April. Figured it’s just Florida rain, it’ll be fine. It wasn’t fine. My BFF and I got down poured on and it was so bad and we were so cold we had to head back to the resort and spent about an hour sticking the hair dryers in our pants and shoes. It wasn’t just a little rain or a lot of rain you could just deal with. It was more like nonstop rain and a very angry cold breeze. I had never been so miserable at Magic Kingdom in my life.

I don’t believe in raincoats at Disney or even ponchos but that experience was enough to change my mind!

| Swimsuit
I was told the pool was going to be closed during my trip because of COVID, only to find out that the pool was indeed very open. For a fire sign, Tums LOVES playing in water. We stayed at Art of Animation and I’m sad she wasn’t able to experience the pool while we were there! Maybe when she’s older. But I’m def going to make it a habit to pack a swimsuit with us every trip just in case. We thought to just buy one but the prices of swimsuits at resorts are in-fuckin-sane. So that was a hard pass.

| Medicines
This might sound like a duh but seriously; if you know a certain medication works with you in terms of headaches or pain control BRING THAT. Allergy medicine. Any other other type of medicine you’d need to ease any kind of discomfort you’re capable of feeling! It’s just better to be prepared than screwed and potentially ruining your own vacation ( I have a weird habit of getting migraines every time I would reserve at Blue Bayou and I never brought my hard hitting pain meds. You’d think I would had learned after the first 2 times, but nope).

I miss the days of being a Floridian and easily saying “oh it’s cool, I can grab it from home”. My experience this time at Disney was def different knowing that I wasn’t able to just run home for something. It also made me realize how spoiled I was living in Florida and having unlimited time on property and in the parks. This time it felt like I couldn’t even fit everything I wanted to do — not to mention Hollywood Studios was all booked and we weren’t able to get to that park.

I’ll absolutely be more prepared next time — but I’m also hoping next time I’ll be a Florida resident again.

3 Bay Area Eats I Miss

Northern California is full of amazing eats and places to discover. I moved away from home eight years ago and it was such a different place back then; I hear a lot has changed. Including some of my favorite places I frequent that have closed down. I’m a little too scared to actually see if this is true. I loved driving all over The Bay and honestly up and down Northern Cali to find my next favorite meal. My ex husband was such a good sport and just dealt with my crazy plans to sit in traffic for 2 hours just for some amazing pasta. But living in Cali, traffic is just part of life and doesn’t bother you too much after awhile lol.

It was a bit hard to narrow it down to just 3 places but honestly, I either couldn’t remember the name of other places or I didn’t have pictures! Weird.

On to the eats;

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May The 4th Be With You!

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I’ll admit, I wasn’t a big fan of Star Wars growing up.

I remember seeing Episode One in theaters back in the 90’s because my best friend at the time and her family were all nerds. I didn’t understand what was going on or who was who… I was only like 9 or something at the time. But I remember the pod races and that I really liked Jar Jar Binks.

When I started working at Disney in 2011 I had not seen a single Star Wars movie (I barely remembered Episode One at this point) so when the Star Wars Vinylmation collection came out I was a little confused as to why everyone was chasing after it (I worked at D-Street at the time which was the Vinylmation hub) and who the heck was Obi Wan and why was the chaser a ghost of him?!

I obviously knew the main gist of things like who Darth Vader was and who Yoda was and all of this but I didn’t know very much else.

A friend of mine ended up buying a case of the Vinylmations chasing after Ghost Obi and he was trading the rest so he gave me a Stormtrooper.

And that.

Began my obsession with Star Wars.

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My past birthdays… II

I somehow forgot to write this little section in the previous entry. I guess I thought the photo had copied to my desktop when it didn’t and I didn’t realize it until I went to bed last night that I didn’t talk about this!

This birthday was probably the most memorable, and definitely not in a good way.

My ex husband was pretty… selfish. Bubba had asked me months ago if he was ever controlling and in a sense I never thought of M as ‘controlling’, I guess because he never acted out, if you will. Like he never made public scenes or he never flat out showed your typical version of jealousy. But if I think about all the things he expected of me or all the things he pushed then in a really subtle yet un-subtle way he was controlling. He wouldn’t throw a fit or make a scene but he was a pro (A FUCKIN PRO I TELL YOU) at ignoring someone for as long as a week and a half. And I mean IGNORE, like not talking, not responding. But if we’re talking ignore then he went years doing that shit.

But he was selfish in a sense since I can’t really think of another word to call it — let’s put it this way — if he had friends (and 99% of his friends were girls which was fine cause 100% of my friends are usually guys though I DO NOT hug coworkers AT WORK. Hell I don’t hug them AT ALL unless I’m REALLY close to them and that takes a lot of time. I’m not a hugger if I don’t fuckin know you and I’m definitely NOT a hugger if I suspect you have a crush on me. In fact I’d be less than a friend if I suspected you had a crush on me and I definitely would not be hanging out with you, ever) which were mostly girls he would completely ignore me. If they asked him to hang out he would be prompt and he would stay out as late as 2am. He wouldn’t tell me WHERE he was going or WHO these girls were and he wouldn’t update me from time to time. If he went to hang out with friends or coworkers I wouldn’t get a single text or call the entire time he was out. If I texted asking him something while he was out he would get pissed and wouldn’t respond.

This particular year we had to take the same work bus to work (the E bus for those of you who do/did the DCP and worked on the Hollywood Studios route whoot whoot); we barely ever started work at the same time or ended at the same time to ever really have to be on the same bus. But the very few times we did he wouldn’t even acknowledge I was on the bus, especially if his coworkers were there.

Once we were standing at the bus stop, I had my headphones on cause we were waiting and he was standing next to me, a coworker comes and says hi. Looks at me then walks off. He turns to me mad saying, “why do you always have to repel my friends.” uh bitch what? I’m sitting here, listening to music, on my phone, minding my own business. Don’t no one care about you and your janky friends. She need to brush her hair.

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This was the birthday year I’m talking about.

The one I had mentioned where his friend’s birthday was the day before mine and they went to lunch and I was waiting for him at my spa appointment. His friend had asked about me and he didn’t like it. So he resolved to not have me meet anyone he worked with. So this year, though I saw some of his coworkers from time to time on the bus with him, I wasn’t allowed to meet them or say hi. So most of the time when I’d run into him say on the bus on the way home, I’d sit away from him and with my coworkers instead and ignore the fact he’s actually on the bus since he did such a great job of ignoring me even as I walked on.

Great marriage, right?

So he was never into social media, he always said it was “stupid” and “gay” but during my birthday week that year he got back on Instagram and Facebook, added all his chick friends and would frequently be in a group chat with them on Facebook or on Instagram and leaving each other comment threads. I noticed he got back on social media but he still hadn’t liked or commented on any of my posts anywhere. But I knew he was texting people on these apps.

He said he had gotten on for my birthday as if THAT was his bday gift to me. Just like how he frequently used, “I was nice to you all day.” as if it’s something that he should be praised for. It didn’t occur to me at the time that Chanel’s birthday was literally the day before mine and that he added all his coworkers and was constantly texting them. Yet he spun it around saying he got back on for me though he left no trace of any activity on any of my posts.

I do a lot of random things.

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At EPCOT you can color in a Perry or a Duffy at any of the countries. There’s a table for kids to color at and you take it to every station in every country and they stamp it for you.

I was pretty proud of this guy cause I thought the body color was pretty accurate and at the time I was kind of obsessed with Perry (not so much Secret Agent P) even though I didn’t watch the show. But I always thought it was funny how as Perry he’s kinda cross/bulge eyed but as Secret Agent P he looks all professional lol! And no, sadly you can’t meet Perry in the parks!

So I decided to color a Perry and take him around the world for my birthday. M colored some of him but I colored most of him and it was me who took him around and I’d chit chat with the people in the diff countries. The guy in France noticed I had a Vinylmation pin and we talked Vinylmations for awhile.

There was another photo of just Secret Agent P by himself without me in it and I noticed M had posted it on his Instagram with the caption, “I scraped those little whack ass kids.”

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I noticed that there was no mention of me or my birthday at all on that post. When his friends left comments he took ALL the credit and he made it sound as if he was so hardcore that he “scraped” some KIDS in coloring a fuckin character. It’s not a content or a game. It’s something fuckin fun for kids to do. If you need to boost yourself up by down talking KIDS who are on VACATION you’ve got some fuckin problems. Foreal.

I had brought it up as we were going to Magic Kingdom to watch Wishes and it started this big argument where the above was said. I don’t remember the entire fight. I do remember sobbing my fuckin heart out at the Magic Kingdom gates not even wanting to go see Wishes. Not even wanting to celebrate my birthday anymore.

I was just so sad and so hurt.

And I was so tired of being hidden. And sadly this was the start of the next 2 years of being hidden and BANNED from his work location. Oh yes, it got worse.

I was so tired of him saying anything having to do with marriage was gay. When that shit didn’t even make fuckin sense. He never told people he was married. They would have to figure it out themselves. If I did go visit him at work and someone asked who I was he’d say “oh that’s Hazel.” it got so bad that some of his coworkers speculated he wasn’t even married and was lying about it since no one EVER saw me. There was one coworker who he got into an altercation with at work who ran into us doing laundry once and was like “oh, you really are married I guess.” and he got pissed he said that. As if it wasn’t obviously his own fault. Or as if he was mad he was married in general.

As much as I loved that Perry in the end I ended up throwing him away. Every time I saw him I’d just get sad and remember that day.

At the end of the day M blamed everything on me and “acting crazy” so he deleted the photo off his Instagram and deleted the app off his phone along with the FB app. And in the end he ended up joining SnapChat with all of them and refused to add me to his friends list.

I try to cling on to the good memories of this birthday — my facial. Finally meeting Remy at Chefs de France and getting to eat in France. My day 2 outfit with the top hat. How good this outfit came out and how I didn’t feel insecure in it at all (it was the first time wearing a dress in forever). Getting to eat Ohana’s.

And I think that was it.

But this is definitely one birthday memory I wish I could erase.

On my past birthdays….

It’s my birthday week.

And though I’m not turning a significant age I thought I’d look back on all my past birthdays. As a reminder, if you will.

I’m a little sad I’m not going on vacation or doing anything epic this year for my birthday. I am going on foodie adventures through out the DFW area though which I am REALLY REALLY excited about especially since there’s a few places I’ve really wanted to try since I moved here!

But I was thinking the other day and this morning; I had mentioned to Bubba I never look forward to my birthday. Like ever. And though I’ve had traditions that I’ve held on pretty tightly to through out the years I wonder, really, how do I FEEL about my birthday?

Continue reading “On my past birthdays….”