In typical Zanna fashion, I started full-force on this website and blog at the least financially…um…fit moment of the year so far. While we are working on correcting that and battling the economic woes affecting us all (as a one-income family of 5), of *course* I want want want all these shiny, pretty things I see online. I tend to get very Veruca Salt about things when I start on a new venture. The fact that I am not able to go overboard with my wishes is probably for the best, but I simply have to get it off my chest, hence this entry you are reading now. If nothing else, it will help me keep everything in one place and have a list to tell my family and friends about for my birthday and the holidays!

moo mini card holder

1. Business cards from Moo.com. About 2 years ago, Moo.com did a cross-promotion with livejournal.com (where I have blogged privately since 2001.) to promote their new company. You could order 10 randomly designed Mini Cards with your livejournal name on them, or whatever you liked (I was not into handing out my lj name so I just got my gmail address on them with “Faith, Trust & Pixie Dust”). Naturally, when I decided to make this place a reality, Moo.com was my first and really only choice to head to for business cards listing the website. They are currently running a 50 free business cards promotion with paid shipping, so I might be able to take advantage of that, but my wish is still for the Mini Cards, because I think they are so unique and unexpected. I also want to get a nice Mini Card holder (in pink of course!) so I can actually take them with me and hand them out.

Geisha Poken

2. A Poken. I will fully admit to this being a luxury item for me. I am not yet a blogger with 100′s of followers, but I am damned determined to get there. I first discovered Poken on Twitter, when many of the bloggers I follow there were discussing their upcoming trips to BlogHer ’09. I googled Poken and fell in love. “HOW CUTE!” I thought. I will also fully admit to having a soft spot for all things Japanese inspired (ironic since they are not Japan-based), whether toys or candy or animation. So the idea of carrying around an adorable miniature creature, and ‘high four’ (Pokens only have 4 fingers) another Poken to instantly exchange contact information? I was sold. It was hard to decide which Poken I coveted most, but I settled on the Geisha. There are a few sites you can purchase Pokens on, a couple of which I’m following on Twitter as well. I can’t wait to be able to Poken with someone soon!

Disney's D23 Membership - look, it's Tink!

3. A Membership to D23, the exclusive Disney-run fan club. I have wanted one of these since it came out, but the planets have not aligned for it to happen yet. I asked for it for Mother’s Day, but I think that was around the time everyone in our family took turns being sick, twice, so it didn’t work out. I have the first issue of the magazine, but the membership is a must-have for a Disney site like mine, purely research purposes of course! Since the waiting list for Club 33 is 18 years now, I figure at least this is attainable!

4. A BIG OL’ Barnes and Noble or Amazon Giftcard. This really IS for research purposes. I’d like to increase my Disney library and brush up on my totally NOT useless trivia, history and stories behind the parks. There are several guidebooks I’d like to have on file as well as many more Disney trivia and history books. In this same vein, a Disney gift card would be fabulous to use for booking tours and other special events for research purposes!

Disney's Princess Netpal computer PINK! and Disney!!!

5. A mini-laptop. I am lucky to actually have a laptop, thanks to a tax return in 2007, but I was a little over-eager and thought the 17″ Dell Inspiron was the only choice for me. I love it, dearly, but when we do travel to Disney or somewhere else it is a bit of a hassle to lug around. We were able to get both kids mini Dell laptops for Christmas last year, and while the keyboards are kind of tough for me to type on, I think they’d be a great investment to be able to stay mobile with ease. Plus Disney just came out with new Princess Netbooks, though if I got a Disney one, I think the kids would stage a mutiny.

I think that’s it for now, short of listing items off my regular amazon wishlist. And that’d just be greedy. Any other ideas for must-haves that I’m missing here? Obviously I’m writing and keeping the site going without these items, but a girl can dream, can’t she? Especially a Princess. Is Genie from Aladdin still around? Maybe he’ll grant me a wish or two…In the meantime, I shall count my non-pressed pennies and save my pixie dust. *:•..•:*¨¨*:•.ºoº.•:*¨¨*:•..•:*

[Edit: originally published on ZannaLand on 7/31/09]

I was recently given the opportunity to try out some EcoStoreUSA products – and BOY was I glad I did. The well-packaged spray cleaner arrived in the mail after a day when cleaning the house had fallen to the bottom of the priority list. With a 9 month old cruising around, that happens every now and then. I was able to jump right in to testing out the Citrus Spray Cleaner because my stove and counters were covered in grease from cooking the night before. I will fully admit to being skeptical – “won’t all-natural mean it won’t work as well?” but I was quickly proven wrong. The citrus spray cut right through the grease and left no streaks. We have a clean-top stove, so streaks show up easily, however not with this spray!

EcoStore Citrus Spray Cleaner

Ok, I thought, let’s give it another tough test…dog stains. We have a Chihuahua. The kids love her, but don’t love walking her, so there are a few accident spots here and there on our light beige carpet. I had been avoiding cleaning those too thinking we’d have to lug out the big carpet shampooer. Nope! I sprayed the Citrus Spray Cleaner and the spots rubbed right out. Seriously, I was shocked. I almost hugged the bottle!

Next up, dried baby food, bananas and cereal on the baby’s high chair. By that time I wasn’t surprised that the cleaner cut right through that caked on mess with ease. In addition to the obvious cleaning ability, it smells great. A lovely citrus scent replaces the harsh chemicals you usually have to endure with other cleaners. I was so pleased with this product it has now become my favorite cleaner. The fact that it isn’t full of “nasty chemicals” as their website states is a wonderful bonus. I always worried about spraying the harsh Mr. Clean I used to use, with the baby nearby. Now those fears are forgotten when I use the Citrus Spray Cleaner. It’s the perfect marriage of effectiveness and feel good results.

I was also given a bottle of the Baby Moisturizer. I tried this out on myself first and loved the scent. It made my elbows so soft and it wasn’t greasy at all. I used it on the baby next and it worked wonderfully as well as making him smell wonderful.

EcoStore Baby Moisturizer

I had received several national brand baby moisturizers as baby shower gifts but was reluctant to use them because you could just smell the chemicals in them. I didn’t want to put them on him and risk a reaction. With this moisturizer, you know what’s in there, you can smell the ingredients from nature, and you feel good about putting it on even the most sensitive skin. We all feel soft and smell delicious around here now!

In order to pass on the news of their wonderful company and products, the good people at have agreed to giveaway a $25 gift certificate to one of my readers! You can use the $25 certificate to purchase anything in their line of products – baby products, hair care, pet care.

EcoStoreUSA Giveaway Entry Information:

There are 4 ways to gain an entry for this giveaway-
1. Comment to this entry telling me why you would love to try EcoStoreUSA products and which ones you’d be interested in trying. (counts as 1 entry)

Optional additional entries:

2. Subscribe to ZannaLand in a reader.

3. Become a fan of ZannaLand on facebook and EcoStoreUSA on facebook. Leave a comment on EcoStore’s facebook page mentioning the ZannaLand giveaway and tell them if you’re excited about their product line. Comment here with the link to your EcoStore comment on facebook. (counts as 1 entry)

4. Add EcoStoreUSA on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway. Link to your tweet (click on your tweet’s timestamp to get the permalink) in a separate comment below. (counts as 1 entry) (you may tweet daily and comment with your tweet links for additional entries!)

Winner will be randomly drawn from received entries by midnight on Wednesday August 5, 2009. Good luck!

EDIT 8/6/09:

CONGRATULATIONS to Bethany, the winner of the $25 gift certificate from EcoStoreUSA! We wrote out names for every entry people submitted and my daughter drew Bethany’s name out of a hat. Thanks for everyone for participating and please be sure to check out EcoStore USA’s products!

[Edit: originally posted on ZannaLand on 7/24/09-comments may be viewed there]

Hello fellow non-BlogHer 09ers!

I am pretty shiny and green with public blogging (been doing it on livejournal for almost 10 years now eep!), but I quickly learned about the phenomenal planetary alignment of bloggers that is BlogHer 09. And of course said, “I wanna goooo!” Then realized how many ways that would be impossible, so here I am.

I’m still getting my blogging legs, I’ve recently done a complete redesign of the site and am trying (clawing, begging, pleading) to find my path here. My focus is Disney World and all my memories and time spent there as a former cast member and obsessed annual passholder. I sometimes have something useful to share, maybe a tidbit of news or so. I am also a mom of 3 – a 10 year old boy, almost 9 year old girl and 9 month old boy. Married to my high school sweetheart. We live outside of Tampa but are originally from Boston.

I think that’s about it – feel free to stop by and say hello, offer any tips, thoughts or ideas for my journey here, follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or simply share in our joint commiseration of swag-deficiency! Welcome to Zannaland!

And a big thank you to Robin at BlogHop09 and everyone at BlogHer@Home for putting this together

[Edit: originally published on ZannaLand on 7/15/09]

As with most things of a fantastical nature, I avoided Harry Potter and all its hype for years. That sounds pretty confusing coming from someone that identifies as a small, stubborn, flying pixie. With the notable exception of The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien in general, I’m just not a sci-fi/fantasy kind of girl. After reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I especially wanted nothing to do with this obvious attempt to cash in on a similar story line that was Harry Potter. And then, the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone came on tv, back in 2003 or 2004 I believe. Wouldn’t you know I got sucked in by The Boy That Lived? I was pretty annoyed at myself, actually. Then we saw Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I didn’t care for that one as much, but it led to me wanting to actually read the books. The ironic thing was, we already had all the books that had been released up to that point, thanks to my mother-in-law that had been sending them down for the kids to read when they got older. So I cracked open Sorcerer’s Stone, and not only proved my earlier impressions wrong, I promptly fell in love.

When I had finally caught up with all the books, I had also found a new friend in my Starbuck’s barista at the local SuperTarget, who had read all the books several times. Our Harry Potter kinship led to us getting together with our kids, who were close in age, and eventually my getting a job alongside her. So when July 21st, 2007 rolled around, we were there with our two eldest children (both of whom dressed as Harry) for the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. My friend wanted to stay up all night and read the whole book, but I couldn’t last much past 5am. When I did read it, of course I cried like a baby, as I had with certain parts of The Order of the Phoenix, as well as The Half Blood Prince. It was exciting to be a part of something that was taking place all across the country that night, and I’m glad my son got to experience it as well. Like it or not, the books got kids eager to read; connecting with their parents in some cases was an added bonus.

As our children have grown, so of course have Harry and friends within the books and movies. Honestly, the past two years since the release of The Order of the Phoenix film have been chock full of growth for both my older children. No longer interested in primarily toys, they now favor video games or just hanging out with friends. So I was surprised when they both exclaimed with great interest that of course they wanted to see the new movie at midnight when it was released. More than willingly, I purchased tickets online for the 12:05 showing in our local movie theatre.

It has been a while since I read The Half Blood Prince, so I won’t get into how “true the movie was to the book” or “this or that was missing and how dare they!” All I know is on its own merits, the movie was beautifully shot, and the story told was wonderful. It definitely set the scene for how Harry is growing up and must bear the burden of responsibility in the troubled world in which he lives. I loved the various camera angles and the different sets used this time around; visually it was just gorgeous. Not to mention Snape.

But quasi-movie review aside, what I loved the most about last night was the realization of the tradition and memories JK Rowling has unknowingly created within her series. This was the second time we’d seen a midnight release of a Harry Potter movie, and the kids were no less enamored of the event. When they are my age, they’ll remember these times and hopefully create some of those same wonderful memories with their own families.

It is quite a unique feat to fashion such constant yet ever-changing characters that serendipitously grow along with your very own children. While mine are not quite at the “snogging” phase yet (thank Merlin!) they are getting there, so they can still relate to this whole tale as opposed to quickly outgrowing a movie as being “kid stuff”. I love that about this series. It truly is something we can all share, get excited about and discuss for years to come.

So I am happy to proudly say that I am a Potter fan. While I may not own a Gryffindor scarf myself, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at one, nor anyone wearing one. In fact, it would be a great way to get to know them better, knowing we already share a love for something that has brought such joy to so many – hopefully my kids share that same realization. So thanks again, Jo. Well done.