Despicable Me 2

Good early afternoon, my dears, it felt like a bright, crisp spring day today, even though christmas is a week and a few days away. I suddenly realized how much I love the feeling of spring, of freshness, of new beginnings. I love it so dearly. And this last month, I have had to go to doctor and "airrosti" appointments (they are sort of like a form of chiropractic therapy….) and I've been sore and cranky and depressed, and I got out today after my doctor appointment, and I went to my beautiful river and just relaxed and enjoyed nature in peace. I love soaking in the hot sun with a chilly breeze.



Last night I couldn't sleep so I put on my computer the second installment of Despicable Me… and fell asleep within the first twenty minutes. LoL Not because it isn't cute, funny, and sweet… but because the first twenty minutes  made me laugh so hard, I just drifted off to sleep smiling from happiness.



I remember when the first D.M. was out in theaters, I was pregnant and I took my growing self alone atleast three times to the movie theater to watch it. You'd think it would give me nightmares that someone like Gru is capable of adopting, but instead that never crossed my mind. What was on my mind, was my growing baby, and how I suddenly decided that before my pregnancy I hadn't really enjoyed going to see children's movies in seemingly forever, and it wasn't too late to start then… So, what did I do? I went see Despicable Me three times.

I never went to see this Despicable Me 2 in the theaters, but I did buy it, and I'm glad I did. I love the crazy imagination of this story, I love Steve Carrel, and I love the softy Gru is and how much he loves those little girls.  If you like children's movies, you should give this one a try, it is pretty cute. I hope you all have a light and fresh afternoon.

Sincerely,
Read Riding Hood

The Grinch

I am tired of talking right now, especially about myself.. So, if you actually have read any of my blog, I would like to hear from you all, and tell me one of your favorite movies to watch during the holidays. Have a safe evening all, and if you don't hear from me before Thanksgiving, Have a safe Thanksgiving, I hope you have a day for relaxation, a day to do whatever you need or want to do, but haven't been able to find the time to do lately….

Sincerest wishes,
Read Riding Hood

Elf

Well, my dears, it is the same day, only later. It feels like just a minute ago I was getting up early, watching Warm Bodies and heading off to work. And now I am getting myself tucked into bed, getting ready to get to bed and wake up early again. (oooo and fun fact about Warm Bodies: I didn't know that Jonathan Levine is dating Jennifer Lawrence… that's kinda cool=)  And what am I doing?… Watching a movie..=)

We are having a cold front here in Texas, and going outside tonight, the air smells like "snow…" It won't snow (at least I don't think it will) however, it smells like what it smells like in Colorado right before it snows. I'm sure there is a scientific reason for it, but I only know it as, "smells like snow."

I used to watch so many newer and recent movies, and/or just more variety of movies. I was all over the board, trying everything it seemed. But anymore, I am much more picky and I stick to favorites. I venture out of my comfort zone when I start to feel the stagnant waters of boredom pooling too close for comfort, but that isn't too often. I ventured out to try Elf a few days ago, a Christmas movie with Will Ferrell. It is gloriously cheesy, stupid, and gooberish and full of christmas tinsel, What is Not to Love? I mean Will Ferrell smiles cheesy/creepy smiles and says, "smiling is his favorite…" AND he makes spaghetti and pours maple syrup on it… and then m&m's… then chocolate pop tarts… and then mashes it all up and stuffs it in his mouth because elves focus on the four main food groups, "candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup…" That's ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous, but it's great ridiculous. And it's about finding what's important in your life, and singing out loud (not just lip syncing…) And that's all I have to say. I also have been working on not giving plots of movies away, because I probably am ruining them for people, but *sigh* we'll see… 

Anyhoo…. I hope you all have a beautiful and safe evening, stay warm if you are dealing with a cold front like me, and I will talk to you soon as the holidays roll in. Sweet dreams all

sincerely,
Read Riding Hood

From Up On Poppy Hill: true love is always young love

 Good early afternoon all my dears, it is a cloudy day here, and the threat of rain is hanging over us all.  I am actually off of work and just arrived home from the river. I enjoyed quiet time at the river and I ate my early lunch before coming home and tucking myself up to maybe write, watch some movies, and thumb through some books.








I had the pleasure of watching the latest Ghibli film, From Up On Poppy Hill. I first found out about it a while ago from a trailer on YouTube. Since the poppy is my favorite flower, the title alone drew me in. It is about two school kids in post World War II Japan that fall in love with each other.

I think Studio Ghibli enjoys sharing stories about love, and more specifically, about young love, or love found by people young in heart, people new and fresh to finding true love. Like Howl's Moving Castle, the characters aren't necessarily young, but upon falling in love with each other, the love they share isn't messy, it is pure and adulterated, it is a love that children often find and lose and that adults are lucky to ever find again. The love I am talking about is a love that doesn't stem from lust or loneliness, but a love that sparks between two individuals over a connection. Two people can be a perfect match for each other, but if they don't have that "love" for each other, it's like that saying, "who cares for all the crinkling of a pie, if at the bottom some sweetness doth not lie?." It basically is saying even if a pie looks perfect, if it doesn't taste sweet, no one will care  for it. And just like two people, even if they look "picture perfect" together, if there is no love, what's the point?


As we become adults, we go through experiences that jade us and we begin to look at all our childhood dreams as "childish notions" that should be set aside to "grow up." As little girls we want our prince charming, and as little boys we want our princess, but sometimes growing up, life and circumstance gets in the way and over time we convince ourself that the notion of finding "prince charming" and finding "our princess" is ridiculous and foolish. This is where we are wrong. It is not wrong to hope for our prince, or our princess's, we just have to grow smarter about seeing things for what they are. It is not wrong to love, but it is wrong to stay with someone just because you love them, when all they do is hurt you and never give back the same love you gave them. As young people too often we fall in love with someone that we "see" as our prince/princess, when really love has blinded us and what we mistake as royalty is really just the opposite.
So, what am I trying to say?....
Never stop believing in love.
Never stop hoping for your fairy tale.
Women, We should want a prince charming!
Men, You should want a princess!
But don't go looking for a princess in a slut
and don't go looking for a prince in a player.
And if you want a prince, don't present yourself as anything less than a princess.
And if you want a princess, don't present yourself as anything less than a prince.
AND never settle for less than Exactly what makes you happy.
Learn to recognize what's in front of you, and don't beat yourself up for loving people, you can't help who you love. But you can help what you do and who you get involved with.

Watching From Up On Poppy Hill, I enjoy the belief that true love is always young love, no matter what age it finds us; whether it is like the little children in Ponyo, or these young adults in Poppy Hill.







  ...........

Hope Springs..... Eternal

Good Early Morning my loves, it is the "madrugada" as they say in Spanish. I am awake and just thinking, about cycles that we go through and cycles of the year, cycles of emotions, cycles, cycles, cycles.. Around and around in my head.  

I had begun to watch this movie Hope Springs with Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, and Steve Carrel with my grandparents a few weeks ago. It is about a married couple that have been married for thirty plus years, and the wife realizes she needs more from their relationship, she wants intimacy again, something they lost somewhere along the road. Meryl plays the wife, Kay, Jones is the cantankerous husband, and Carrel is the therapist.  I didn't get to finish watching it with my grandparents,  but I knew I had to see how it ended, so I purchased it, and having now laughed and cried to Hope Springs in the madrugada. 

I am always thinking about the same topics it seems, just from different new angles, re-evaluating how I understand something. Sometimes that gets me in trouble, because I drift away from the true foundation understandings of certain things that really don't require any further verification or definition. I am getting better at not doing that: a lot of that I now know is stemming from trust issues.... I have a hard time trusting.. Pretty much anything and everything, and unfortunately everyone. In some ways, it is a good safety mechanism to protect myself [probably the very reason the issue manifested within me: self preservation]... But, in other ways, not being able to trust cripples me, horribly.   

  I have learned that when you finally find people that love you, and you love them back, you Must trust them: you must commit that to them; because, I guarantee there will be times you go through different experiences and you may not understand exactly the choices your loved ones are making, but you Must trust them to know that while you may not "understand" completely, you do know they love you, and you love each other, and you know they would never do anything to hurt you. 

 

I am going to leave you with the therapists closing monologue that talks about marriage, but just makes me think about how what he says just applies to life in general; and how when you set out to do something because it's the right thing and you have love driving you on.. You have only wonderful things to look forward to. I think about how for so long I was tied down to the life I had, and it wasn't till I moved to Texas and decided to marry and commit to the life I wanted for myself that  I really started living a life I can be proud of. Before, the relationship between me and my life was like one of the couples that never should have gotten married, I did things based on emotional decisions and none of them worked out.  The last thing Steve Carrel says is so true, and I am going to remind myself of it whenever I feel like giving up. 

 "I have patients who never should have gotten married..and you are not those people.. Even great marriages have terrible years. So bad that you're tempted to just give up. But don't. Hold on. There will come a time when you will look back at this moment as the prelude to something fuller and richer than you've ever dreamed."

That being said, I hope you are able to sleep well my dears and live the life you want. I hope so many good things to those that seek the better life. Hold on. There are always just bumps in the road, none of them have been in vain. Good morning my darlings and to all a beautiful day. 

The Flintstones Christmas Carrol

Good early morning my dears, it is still night out and admitably too early.. or late (depending on your point of view) to be properly blogging, but here I am regardless of any and all those factoids. Here I am a quarter gallon of ice cream down, two movies played twice over back to back, and just thinking. ...

Anytime I watch these children's movies, I love the cozy and comfortable feeling they possess. I don't know what it is so much that strikes me at my core when I watch them, but the best way to describe it I guess is I love the feeling of "home" I get when I watch children's movies or any holiday flicks I particularly enjoy (example Fred Claus.)

I spend time with family, but I realize I don't hold it in a place in my heart that when I reminisce about fun times, family get togethers pop up to mind. Why? Why don't I, I sincerely ask myself?... I do love my family, and I don't Not like spending time with my family.. So why don't family memories hold higher regard in my inner affections more?...

My aunt asked me if holidays when I was younger were fun, and I replied honestly no. I didn't have much of a social life, I was home schooled (not to say that automatically means I did no social activities) and I really had no lasting friends or typical social grouping with a consistent bunch of people my age, until I was about sixteen years old. So, any family shin dig was painful for me: I was shy, I knew nothing of pop culture or any similar activities to talk about or really do with any of my cousins, I was very self conscience about eating in front of people (not to mention growing up I was raised according to certain religious views not to eat ham/pork, which of course was inevitably the main/second main course of any holiday dinner.) So, summed up, family get togethers as a kid only seemed to confirm to me more so every year how isolated and different from everyone else I was, and I would spend the day rotating between living rooms and bathrooms, trying to sneak out to pet the dogs, and avoiding the kitchen unless I became so hungry I just had to at least pass through for something to drink. Now that I am older, I think how sad that is, I know that for many, the kitchen is a place of warmth and safety, a place of comfort and for family; and, the fact I felt I had to avoid it, makes me realize how blatantly now I see those were the things I was missing. I am not trying to wallow in self-pity nor am I angry at the way I was raised; yes, I recognize now, childhood holidays spent with holidays should not be spent that way, but.. it is what it is, and what it was... And to pull a paragraph from a book I am reading,
           "Of course, as a child, I couldn't see it that way. It was just embarrassing and painful to me- ... I can't tell you how much I hated it..... But now, at least to some extent, I can understand...I'm not saying that it was right. It left me with scars. It was hard for a child. But what's done is done. Don't let it bother you. One good thing it did was to make me tougher. I learned firsthand that it's not easy making your way through this world. ... I'm going to go on living one way or another. I think I can do a better job of it from now on, without such pointless detours.... I don't know what you want to do. Maybe you just want to go on sleeping quietly, without ever waking up again. That's what you should do if you want to. I can't stand in your way if that's what you are hoping for. All I can do is let you go on sleeping. In any case, I wanted to say all this to you- to tell you what I have done so far in life and what I am thinking. Maybe you would have preferred not to hear of this, and if that's the case, I'm sorry to have inflicted it on you. Anyhow, I have nothing more to tell you. I've pretty much said everything I thought I ought to say. I won't bother you anymore. Now you can sleep as much as you want."

Taken from the novel 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.

So... trying to organize all my thoughts and put them together in a nice, neat package....

I remember not too long ago, I was spending time with the man I fell in love with, the man I am still in love with.. and he was heartbroken he had to spend a holiday from his  family.... And at the time, I didn't understand... My life never had experienced any reason to be hurt and sad to be away from family on a holiday: that was my reality, and like with most "realities" every individual is mistaken in believing their is the true reality... So, what am I saying?....

I told my aunt yesterday, well... more like asked her, "Wow.... I never thought about it that way... What must it be like to feel heartbroken over such a thing?... what must it be like to be torn up about Not being with family for a holiday?...."

And then I answered my own question:  I really do know what that feels like, because that's what it feels like to be away from the one you love.

So, my loves, I hope that whatever family you have or whomever is closest to you, you are granted the wonderful gift to be with them. Some just pray for their dream to happen, and for good to happen, but I hope that you are wise enough to Make it happen: happiness is worked for... and where there is hope there is trial. No, happiness is earned without trial.

All those seemingly simple things like home, warmth, and love that children's movies revolve around may Seem basic, but they are the hardest things to accomplish, and maybe nowadays everyone is too busy grasping at a bigger picture someone handed down to them, they've lost sight of what makes us all tick and why.....

Never forget, I won't, I can't. With much love and sincerity my darlings,

Read Riding Hood

Hotel Transylvania

Good afternoon my dears. I am watching Hotel Transylvania, bleh, bleh, bleh......

I tried to watch it last night and I was just hung up on the fact that Adam Sandler was the dad's voice.... And that Selena Gomez was the voice of the daughter. ... I am not a fan of Selena Gomez, but I'm not a hater of her either, I would just prefer not to watch her. However, in this case that wasn't an option... And Technically(!) I'm not watching "her.." I'm just "listening to her... So, I huddled down  and set my differences aside and fell asleep twice at the point everyone starts dancing to the "wiggle" from the LMFAO song. It is now afternoon and I watched it all the way through and focused off expectations and just enjoyed it for what it is... And it's a fun kids movie. And it does have three important messages:

1. we should never try to outsmart the truth and just let truth have its' day

2. children are not their parents... and we are not our parents....

3. at some point children have to fly from the nest to make their own mistakes and find their own happiness and their "zing"

 And aside from Adam Sandler, I recognized a fellow actors voice that usually appears in other movies with him. AAAnd I heard the glorious-ly nasal Fran Drescher!! I love her! She voiced Frankenstien's Bride.

Ok... So I should sum up the plot for you. Dracula's wife died, and he raises their baby daughter alone. He builds a hotel for monsters where no human should ever be able to enter... time passes until the present day and the daughter is now turning 118 years old (the human equivalent of 18) and the eve of her birthday party, a young man.. (hu-man) stumbles onto the hotel unknowingly. From which ensues the rest of the story, including cute little baby werewolves, Quasimodo the French Sniffing Chef and his Sniffer Mouse Esmerelda, Bat pouty faces, ukelele song, magic, human pot pie, frozen language, and zing... just to name a few articles and events... dot, dot, dot, and never more.

It was cute and made me laugh. If the beginning is a wee bit too zany for you and tween popp-ish, give it a few minutes, cut it some slack.. I think there really is some sincerity at the heart of this movie.

Have a Beautiful Day, filled with Zing if you've already found it.. or just filled with the hope for Zing if you are still searching for it my loves.


IMDB list of Cast Characters and Actors:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0837562/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm#cast

Read Riding Hood is As Lucky Does

Lucky

that hace

seven months-

No-

now eight-

No-

Now nine months

Ago:

I got My fresh start:

My chance to chase

My dreams

My hopes

My want

My need

For a

Different me.

How lucky....

Some never even get

What

They

Need.

I got:

Family

A home

Support

Opportunity

Space

Time

Understanding......

Location isn't everything...

What a place can offer you

Is. Everything.

I used to say

'I say goodbye when I say hello..'

And Now-

How lucky(?)(!) am i that I can say

Hello

When

i say

Goodbye.

My love of my life

Mijo mio

My baby

How lucky i am

To have him-

He has Already(!)

Taught. Me:

Sometimes:

You must let go to gain;

You must give to get;

You must do what is best for

You....

And everything else

Will

F

A

L

L

..into place.

How. Lucky. i am.....

That I have my chance

To be

Everything,

i want to be

Could be...

Even

just what i am.

i am lucky,

That

nine months

ago

I got my fresh start.

I got my new life.

And I

Never Thought

I'd say this(......!)

but...

I can Only Go Up....

From: Here.

To: there, Here, near, Far, anywhere

i am lucky.

To everyone that has helped me and been (and still IS) a support to me. Thank you. I wouldn't be where I am without every single one of you. I am lucky, I am blessed. I refuse to disappoint you.

I refuse to disappoint. Myself.

Bad Teacher

It has now been seven months since I moved from Colorado.

And it has now been three days since I just returned from my first visit back to my home state.

I am watching Enough. The third movie I have watched now since getting back.

The first movie I watched was Dumb & Dumber..... apart from hearing it mentioned from a few different sources, my mom and dad got it for me on blu-ray. Watching it, it wasn't how I remembered it, which actually was kind of shocking. I'm not used to movies not being how I remember them. After pondering it, I guess this is a good sign, since I did want to change my lifestyle. And the fact I now see things differently.... It made me glad it wasn't the way I remembered.

The second movie I watched was Bad Teacher. I would have watched it with Charmane, but stupid me, spaced that, "Oh! duh, Katalin! Nobody but you has a blu-ray player!" So, I just had to wait to watch it upon getting back here too. I enjoyed it, it made me laugh at the irony life plays on you when you realize that what you want changes when you change as a person.

And now here I am watching Enough with Nana and Papa. It's a good movie. And while I could blog right now, I actually have to go right now and call Charmane to say hi.

I'm going to have to start organizing my life, I have actual things to take care of. I will have to MAKE time for blogging. *smile*