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How can I possibly sum this up in one post? Well...I promised I would so here goes.

Many of you know the story of how I began the Basement. For those who don't, let me sum it up and let you in on it:

I was banned by the "other" pin site after having pins disappear and not get mailed. Although we did find out who did the deed and gave this person a great deal of guidance to get her life back on track, none of that mattered to the higher ups at that site. I went from a two year member of that site to lower than dirt in a matter of days. I had people emailing me constantly and threaten mail fraud charges. I was cussed at and called every name in the book by some elitist pin traders there (whom I later found out ran the reference center!!). I was horrified, and I did everything to make things right. I mailed people's pins back to them immediately, I bought replacements for the ones I never got without question. The mods themselves helped me replace pins and get things done until they realized that people who were threatening me at the time (even though they got their pins back) could implicate them in a lawsuit. They told me not to post on that site for at least a month or so. Well, the problem was, I had that site as my Internet homepage, so my name naturally showed up in the "who has been online" at the bottom of their page. Within an hour, I received an email from the site owner telling me she told me not to be there and that I was permanently banned now. Now, in all fairness, I did lie to her at one point about my last name (a fact that I am not proud of) because I did not want to be associated with my ex husband, whom she knew of (as do I more than any!!) as not being a good person. We had been divorced for two years and I had no intention of telling her I had been married to a man who stole from people in the past, to include a lot of pin people when I was at work during one week in 1999. (He apparently emailed people and sold MY pins while I was at work and pocketed the money, none of which the girls and I ever saw or knew about until afterwards.) The head of the "other" site informed me on the phone that he had stolen thousands of dollars, etc, and that if word leaked out on that site as to who I was people would have a riot because they were helping me. They told me if the information were to get out, that it could shut down their site. This is something I do not fully understand to this day. Did I steal from people? NO. Was I guilty of any wrongdoing? NO. Was there ever a lawsuit or complaints filed against my ex husband for the alleged pin thing? NO! I didn't know what to make of this information, but pins and Disney were my passion next to my daughters and I felt as if I was being treated as if I were the guilty party. Banned. Me? They thought I was a liability, and so they thought they would censor me. Odd thing is, I was no liability at all.

I explained the truth to my friends on that site, many of whom I still trade with and communicate with today. Those who really took the time to get to know me knew I was not the horrible person those Mods made me out to be in order to cover their own, well, rear ends. My heart was broken, however, and I was banned from PinPics the next day. My references, all 1700 of them, were deleted from the reference center and I was told that I would "never pin trade online again".

Now, I suppose most people would have given up, and I would not blame them. The more I thought about it, the more hurt and angry I became. How is this Disney-like, I wondered. Judging people, censoring people, taking money for running a pin site so the Mods could go on cruises, etc- it was not right, and I knew it. The more I learned about the powers that be on the other site, the more motivated I became. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. How many others had been treated this way? Who gave them the right to say who could and could not pin trade online? Should it be up to a handful of people? These questions plagued me for a few months. Walt would HATE that site, I thought, and he would not be a fan of the people who run it, either. People needed an alternative. A true Disney site that was not just about Disney, but Disney minded!

This left me with a few possibilities. I could open and run another pin site, but Disney to me is much more than pins. It is a sense of friendship, fellowship, and love. It means to care about your fellow man and help people to see the beauty in life regardless of what it throws at them. It means family friendly, positive, safe, and optimistic. How could I open a site that would accomplish all of this and more? It was something I knew I had to try to do. People deserved a place where, like me, they could express themselves without fear of banishment, judgement, or a lack of compassion. I hated to think of another person being made to suffer the way I was made to. On New Year's Eve, 2006, filled with hope and no animosity towards the others, I built Walt's Basement.

So what does this site mean to me? Everything I stand for in my life I have put into this place. It stands for integrity, freedom, and compassion for everyone. It is much more than a place to type about Disney vacations- it is a place that I dedicate to the idea that you can love endlessly. I did not build this site to compete with another pin site, as many have tried to attest. It really had nothing to do with that. I simply wanted a place to connect with people who believed as I do and loved the pure sense of childlike wonder that Disney creates.

I genuinely care for everyone here on the site, many of which I would do anything to help if they needed me, and I think they know that. For here is a place that started as a dream, a wish if you will, that everyone that desired to be treated with kindness would attain it. Within our site, we are a family. There is nothing that can compare to that. I hope Walt would be proud of us. Would I ban someone from this site? If they posed a threat to others that was PROVEN to me, and after conferencing with ALL mods and discussing alternatives, etc, maybe so. I guarantee you, however, that here we choose to believe the best in people, all people, and not the worst. I prefer to take the high road. I bear no ill will towards the other site. I really do not see the point in wasting the energy and I know I have proven my case to be true and myself to be more than trustworthy as a pin trader. My issue was only with the Mods of those pin sites, not the members that are still friends of mine. Friendship is everything! That makes all the difference, and thank you all for making such a difference in my life.