"I don't have time for dancin'...that's just gonna have to wait a while" - RDP SAL Week 2: Tiana

Morning Stitchers!

It's Friday and you know what that means - it's time for the next pattern! Don't forget that if you're stitching along, I want to see the finished products to I can post them here. So head on over to the Flickr group and share them with me!!!!

Last week, I forgot to share what I like best about Mulan, which is something I want to do with each of the ladies as each week goes by, so...yeah. I didn't really appreciate Mulan as a character or a movie until just recently when I went back and finally watched it again after many many moons. And the thing I found myself liking best about her was two-fold.

The first, her famous ballad "Reflection". Mulan isn't what she should be. She doesn't want to be the pretty housewife. She longs for something "more than this provincial life" (a trait she shares with my girl Belle). And while in imperialist China, this wasn't something to be admired, nowadays, it's a great message to convey to young children...especially young girls. She longs for the day her reflection shows who she is inside. The day the things she loves most about herself will be the things others see about her and love as well.

The second pearl of wisdom I missed at 9 was the line her father says to her not long after this: "My, what beautiful blossoms we have this year. But look, this one's late. But I'll bet that when it blooms, it will be the most beautiful of all." I, like Mulan, was a late bloomer...something I never could have known I'd be at 9. In a lot of ways, I'm still blooming. Still finding my place on the medicine wheel, as the Lakota would say. Still finding my place in the circle of life, as a another Disney masterpiece would put it. People make it seem like you should have life figured out in your 20s...that upon graduation from college, you should know exactly what you plan to do with the next 40 years until you can retire. But the realization I've come to recently is that your 20s is exactly when we should be figuring this thing called life out for ourselves. And figuring out exactly who "ourselves" is.

But that's enough espousing...I promise they won't all be that long.

Onto this week's Disney girl: It's Miss Tiana!!!!

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I think the thing I loved most about Tiana was her lack of need for a man. Kinda like Mulan last week. She had big things to do before she settled down and married her Prince and lived happily ever after (literally). That's something I really admire, because I too have a lot to do...or at least a lot that I plan to do, before I'm married and have a family.

Here's hoping that like Tiana, I get my chance.

That's all for this week stitchers. Get stitching and send in those pics!!!! I'm anxiously waiting to see them!

I met Tiana for the first time last Christmas.

The Run Disney Princess Stitch-A-Long is a non-profit, for the fun of it stitch-a-long. All patterns are copyright AEAC, all characters are copyright Disney. Stitching patterns based on Michelle Thompson's paper-pieced patterns, done with her permission. No infringement intended.