On twenty years

I will take this moment to give a shout-out to the two most amazing, incredible, fantastically fabulous, cosmic people that are and probably ever will be in my life. About twenty four years ago, a girl named Samantha Browner came to visit her sister Jennifer in college. She met Jennifer's friend Jason there, on the day she left. After she got on the plane, Jason turned to Jen and asked, wide-eyed, "That's your sister?"
My aunt replied in the affirmative, adding a testy "and you can stay away from her."
The next year Samantha came to college. And after three years of dating, two breakups and three consecutive proposals, on August 20th, 1993, Jason Negri and Samantha Browner were married (my dad with a 102 fever).
My parents are everything to me. My Dad supports my insane antics (sometimes)., and understands my humorous side. He knows the importance of quality time, he is funny and loves movies and books just like I do. And he gave me two gifts that I don't think I can ever repay: the gift of musical talent (which I only exhibit around the house), and the gift of discipline and expectancy. Yes, I know that's technically three things, but the material point is that he drives me to do my best in everything, and is always proud of what I accomplished if I tried my hardest, even when it's terrible.
My mom is far and above the most understanding person that I have ever had the blessing to talk to. She has a gift with words that makes me understand what she is trying to get across to me (usually), and never in my life has she failed to make me feel better when I have a problem. She is a great deal like me, and she has a "been there, done that, and I know how it feels, and its not as bad as you think" attitude towards seemingly every problem that makes everyone who has come to her with a problem feel much, much better about it. She passed this gift on to my my brother, and I hope and pray that someday it will come to me. In the meantime, I got the love of...everything. Just a simple outlook on the beauty of life that makes me happy. 
But the most incredible gift that my parents and God ever gave me was...the gift of me. I am alive and kickin', and hope that I will be for a while yet. I hope that someday I will be able to make the world as wonderful for someone else as they do for me. 
Today I watched the DVD of their wedding and reception. The best movie I've ever seen in my life. Someday I hope to meet someone like my Dad, and that I'll be worthy of love like that my parents share. Until then, this post is a measly amount of gratitude I can give them. Happy anniversary Mom and Dad! 
"Rise up, my love, and follow." - Song of Solomon 2:10. My parent's wedding verse. 
-Rhian

On little women.

This one is for the girls, and it's long, so stick with me here :) Well for those of you who don't know me, I'll enlighten you to the fact that I deeply get into books and movies and revel in them, usually to the point of tears in most cases, sometimes - more often then not - at ridiculous things, like The Wizards of Waverly Place, (and you can read all about that, as well as my queer knack for crying at kids movies, in a previous blog post.). Luckily, I rarely cry so hard that anyone notices besides a runny nose, but I found today, to my great chagrin, that one of the books I pined over and grumbled over and hated with every particle of my body proved to be, on re-reading, the second most moving book I have ever read, and I pride myself on a wide variety of novels. 

How sad it is that people these days are so caught up in the Vampire Chronicles and such things that they've forgotten how to read a truly good book! Three years ago, in my Harry-Potter mindset (after re-reading the excellent series for about the fourth time) I set about to read the classic Little Women, and only after my mother had forbidden any other book until I read it. As I had attempted to pick it up at least thrice before and always put it down early, it did not bode well. but I got through it, hated it, and resolved never to read it again.

I should have known better than to judge a book from my first reading of it, having had a similar experience with Pride and Prejudice, and after declaring how much I hated the dry book, which I had only read in order to watch the movie, I have promptly re-read it six times. 

This summer, I was about to start my annual summer reading of Harry Potter, when my amazing mother stopped me and told me flat out that I wasn't allowed to read it until I had read Little Men and Jo's boys. Much as it pains me to write, I must honestly say that I have rarely been in such a bad mood about having to read a book. 

And I couldn't put Little Men down. Immediately after it I picked up Jo's Boys, which I had heard from my sister was the weakest of the trilogy, and prepared myself for the worst. 

And never at a book, and rarely in a film, have I cried so much. I don't expect anyone who hasn't read it to understand what it was that made me feel this way, but I felt a keen connection in Louisa May Alcott's writing that made lines to my own family, and she had a way of writing that moved my heart. 

After that, Mom completely banned Harry Potter until Christmas, and though I complained then, now I see that I have to thank her for so much. I put together a book list that maybe some of you saw, but I have, in the course of the summer, expanded far beyond that. This year, I have been to France, London, Middle Earth, Perelandra, The Great Depression, Russia, Outer Space (multiple times) and many other places. 

But then, two days ago, I felt a deep need, suddenly, for something old. Something I had already read, something that would relieve me from the stress of a Tale of Two cities, just for a few days.

I chose Little Women.

Little Women; even the title suggests something great, something really amazing that most people seem to brush past. I started from the very beginning, and from the very beginning began to find something that I had missed my first time around in a haste to be over with it. In the title characters I saw people who I wanted to be, and wanted to have in my life. There's a depth to her book that my frustration had skipped over.
I saw my small vanities in Meg, but I also saw the housewifely woman that I've always wished I could be. In Jo the faults of a hot temper and tactless tongue; I also saw the desperate struggle of always trying, but not always succeeding, to be truly good. 
Beth was the one that truly brought tears to me, because I bear her name (there goes my secret identity), and because she is someone I am constantly wishing to be like, and know that I will never be as good as little Bethy.
My mother calls me "Amy" due to my tendency to make up my own words, or use incorrect ones in context. But out the four girls, Amy is the one I strive the most to be alike to - a true little woman, who won't let herself be taken in my the ways of the world, and though she enjoys life to it's fullest, remains a true lady.
If only we could all be such girls! The timeless struggle for goodness that Louisa May Alcott threads into her story makes me cry - not because it is sad, but because it is beautiful. The simple wishes of the girls' mother and father for them to be no more than "little women" remind me of my own parents' wishes for me and my sisters.
So I'm calling to you girls out there! In today's society it is a hundred times harder to be who God meant us to be, but we need to "shoulder our burdens and toil on" so that we can find the peace that every girl who tries to be her best will find. Little Women shows the beginning of the downhill society, and we are getting it in it's prime. But Mr. and Mrs. March aren't the only parents who pray for their girls to be the female leaders of society - by example, not by wealth or position. Your parents also are begging you, praying for you, and helping you to grow up and be the little women that you were born to be. 
"I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock it remains to be seen." - Little Women
-Rhian

On aiming high

While it may not be the best thing to do whilst practicing target shooting, I find it really good advice. Take your goals and make them the biggest that you possibly can - why, though? Why just get disappointing with everything? For example, if you decide that you want to aim for the goal of becoming President of the United States (although why anyone would is beyond me...), if you don't, you'll be crushed, that's the end of your dreaming, kaput, gone forever, time to go back to bed. Right?
Wrong.
The higher you aim, the higher you go. You might not reach where you wanted, but you will go farther than if you had aimed lower. We'll use the allegory of a target and a gun, though I know I previously advised against this (don't try this at home, kids!). There's a bird on the top of a tree that you want to hit (but make sure it's not a mockingbird - its a sin to kill those!...now I'm just being weird...) There's another bird farther down, too, but you want to hit the top one. You shoot, you miss the first bird, but you hit the second.
But what if you had aimed for the second bird? If you had only aimed as high as that bird, you might have missed it and gone even lower. Now, this isn't an insult to sharpshooters, who could probably hit it anyway, and I'm not saying to people who can't aim (like me) that they're goals have been buried with a grave marker. This is strictly allegorical, and a pretty badly written at that, but I'm hoping you get the point. Pope Francis said the words "aim high" at World Youth Day, and I plan to. I've always been a big dreamer with big plans for a big future. But there's a difference between wishing and hoping and planning and actually aiming for the goals. I say again that the higher you aim, the higher you'll go! And in the words of Les Brown:
"Shoot for the moon...even if you miss, you'll land somewhere among the stars."
-Rhian

On Siblings and Selena Gomez

You can probably guess from the title alone that I have nothing to write about, but I figured since a month exactly is long enough to be absent from my blog, I have to write about something. So here we go; try to stay with me here. It has now been a while since I watched the screen adaption of Beverly Cleary's Ramona and Beezus, and consequently feel like like an idiot every time I see it because I bawl like a baby. Maybe its because the character of Ramona was brought brilliantly to life by Joey King, but I'm guessing it was more the fact that Ramona herself reminds me freakishly of my own little sister - and the character of Beezus maybe just a little bit like myself. Not really trying to be mean, but just has it in her veins to tease the life from her rambunctious little sis. The death of the family cat and Beezus asking Ramona to sleep in her room because she misses her little sister, and the confidences the two share reminded me a great deal of my own relationship with Genevieve, and about how even the age difference between us still can make us close. After watching the film, after sobbing, I decided wholeheartedly to be nicer to Genna than Beezus was to Ramona. I suppose only Genna will be able to tell me if there was any change, but it woke me up to the reality of maybe that's why I don't feel close to her and I know for a fact that we've certainly enjoyed a better relationship after watching that movie. So there's Selena Gomez movie #1.
#2 is the Disney flick The Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie. While I know nothing about the TV show, on a hunt for a family movie last night I suggested it and we ended up watching it. For a Disney Channel film, it was surprisingly moving - surprise, surprise, it was Selena Gomez and her siblings again (I should have expected as much). Only this time it was with her older brother. And while her character Alex certainly doesn't remind me of myself(...I think...I hope...), Justin really did remind me of my own older brother, and a few of the more touching scenes did reduce me to tears. And there was one scene, one line, that the crying Selena says to her brother that has rung true with me my entire life: "You're everything that I've ever wanted to be". So while Genevieve laughed her head off, I curled up under my blanket and sniffled (I can't expect her to know why I cry at such things, I don't even know why I cry at such things). 
So out of this comes 2 lessons - #1, Disney movies aren't as bad as everyone makes them out to be. Really. And #2, I've found a new respect for the Disney flick actress Selena Gomez - she's got a good modern girl act that can make me cry, and she herself, as a person, is pretty good as far as they go - I said, 'Dad, I want a promise ring.' He went to the church and got it blessed. He actually used me as an example for other kids. I'm going to keep my promise to myself, to my family and to God." This is her own personal quote on remaining a virgin until marriage - not bad for the people out there today, right? She's not as terrible as everyone makes her out to be, either.
Thus ends my post, and only you, my readers, can tell me if I can pull off not having anything to write about.
-Rhian