![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/epcot2.JPG\")
Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. <\/p>\n
As you regular readers know, normally I feature an illustrator every Sunday, but this week has been devoted to some straight-up chillaxin’, as the young ‘uns would say. Or Chillaxin To D Maxin, as the severely hip<\/em> young ‘uns might say. <\/p>\n So, knowing I’d be at Disney World this week, I just took off altogether and didn’t even get an illustrator lined up for today. My apologies. Instead, you’re being greeted this morning with a photo of me and the girls at Epcot. I try to limit photos of my children at the blog, which are probably only interesting to me and the grandparental units, as I’ve said here before, but I GOTTA have at least one image this morning, don’t I? That’s right. Thanks for agreeing. <\/p>\n This trip was my first Disney visit, or what I now like to call The Land of Sanitized Children’s Lit. I don’t mean to sound as if I’m being snarky about an actual vacation, ’cause I got to ride some coasters and see my girls nearly explode from happiness upon meeting Marie from The Aristocats<\/em>, which pretty much was their ultimate goal. <\/p>\n Looks like while I was gone, I missed this<\/a><\/strong> from The New York Times<\/em>. Since I blog about picture books and illustration, am I panicking? Nope. I think I’ll keep on keepin’ on. If the NYT<\/em> is right, it’s all the more reason to keep shining the spotlight on contemporary picture books. <\/p>\n Oh and kicks? It’s late on Saturday as I type this, and we just got home and unpacked, but I’d say, quickly: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Hollywood Studios; visiting the countries of the world at Epcot, which is a nice break from mouse ears (mostly); getting to take a break from work and writing; the actual brewed coffee I’ll have this morning after a week of coffee-from-machines; reading the work-in-progress chapters of my writing partners-in-crime<\/a><\/strong>, Betsy and Peter; and the fact that I’m, as you read this, at the Southern Festival of Books<\/strong><\/a> to see friends, hear authors, and volunteer. I missed this<\/a><\/strong> yesterday but heard it went very well, and I got to see the documentary in advance, which was a treat. <\/p>\n