Naturally Optimistic

I've been out of the blogging loop this week. I could say I was saving all my "good" ideas for next week when we start NaBloPoMo but that would be lying. I'm recovering from a long weekend of shooting overnight in the rain and cold, finishing up my cold, drinking too much wine on Sunday night and moving - yes, I'm still recovering from moving. Soon i will be back...but now I have to stop my daughter from eating leaves. Oh! and the whole reason I logged on - to let you all know that I just reupped for a subscription to Martha Stewart Living WITH a free year's subscription to Everyday Food. I'm so excited and so dorky that I had to share that with everyone.

Okay - so I'm losing it. Dahlia has stopped sleeping through the night. Due to probably a number of factors 1) teething? maybe...no concrete signs but she's 10+ months old and has no teeth yet so.....maybe; 2) getting part of the family cold? Feeling lousy? perhaps but no other real signs. A runny nose a couple days ago but nothing since; 3) still adjusting to her new room/home? perhaps but it wasn't a problem for the first month so..... ?? I understand that there are growth spurts and phases where this happens...but is killing me is my entire LACK of self discipline when it comes to NOT giving up and bringing her into bed with me. I get to the point in the middle of the night where I can't take it - I can't take sitting up with her and rocking her to when she falls asleep but the moment I set her down she wakes up; listening to her fuss and cry - usually I don't let this go on but last night I tried and she fussed, & cried (a little) and played with her cri...

So, I lost a caddy - well, I didn't LOSE it but I had one for my shoot this weekend, and then I lost it...but then I found another one, so we're okay there. One actor dropped out - but that's okay, we'll manage. I still need to get my budget in line (yikes) and my locations properly nailed down...one is very secure with the City of Duluth and won't be a problem (yay permits!) the other is more tricky and I still haven't come up with a good solution. I'm dreading 2 overnight shoots. I don't get any sleep NOW so I don't imagine it will be that much different (haha) but I'm totally dreading it. I am excited to direct my own thing, but I'm scared as hell and my stomach hurts. Time for some wine.

I have that feeling in the back of my throat. That feeling that I'm getting a cold. ARGH. Steve had it last week, I fear Dahlia's got it too (or close) and now me. Yuck. Donna - you're so right, Zicam works and I'm going to get more after I eat my oatmeal.

Yesterday Dahlia & I went to an ECFE (early childhood family education) class. It was our first one. It's a parent-child class for 6-12 month olds. There were about 6 other kids there - most were 11 or 12 months old, one was 8 months old. Dahlia & the 8 month old were the only two that weren't mobile (I'm not complaining). I think Dahlia enjoyed seeing the other kids. We sat around and played with scarves, talked about eating habits and what the babies *should* be eating right now, learned a couple of signs, sang some and sang some songs. Dahlia actually started CLAPPING at the class! She's never done that before. It was really really cute. Today she's very cranky. I fear that she has a cold. Steve's just getting over one and Dahlia's been SUPER cranky since yesterday afternoon and she has a runny nose (clear but runny). *sigh* I am dreading a cold for her (and me!) because I have a big shoot this weekend - two overnights (ugh). Oh and the other fun ...

Well, almost. NaBloPoMo 2008 will soon be upon us once again. I don't know if I can manage a post a day for 30 days but I will try. It has been interesting the past couple years and this will be my 3rd in a row if I can stick it out. Won't you join us?? Aren't you ALSO insane?

It's official. We now only own one home. WHEW! Economic crisis and all. I'm so glad everything worked out okay. We met the new owner at the closing today and she seems cool. I think she really REALLY loves the house which makes us happy. It'll be interesting to see what changes she makes to the yard - and maybe even to the house. I mentioned that I visit Dustin & Anna (hi Anna!) quite frequently for Stitch & Bitch - she said - 'come on over!' Not that I will, but one day my curiosity may get the best of me. It feels like a big weight has been lifted. Sure we have oodles upon oodles of boxes & crap piles to go through here, but at least we can now focus on HERE instead of worrying about THERE and HERE. Dahlia was a peach at closing - charming everyone, as usual. That girl knows when to turn it on. She'll either be a celebrity or a politician. Ay yi yi!

Ugh, So I have these jeans that I'm wearing today for the first time since winter '07 - I gave up on them shortly before becoming pregnant because I didn't like how they looked, but since I have a hard time getting rid of things that are "maybes" I have kept them. I found them while unpacking and thought - hey! Different jeans, I'll give them a try. And now I remember the real reason why I hate them. Argh. After putting them on and thinking - hey! Not bad...they don't make me look SUPER fat and they are the right length. Why would I ever get rid of them. Because the g.d. zipper WILL NOT STAY UP. Argh. I have already let more cows out of the barn today than I have done in the whole previous year. So annoying.

The photo shoot for Miss 10 Months Old didn't go so well today.... She's been a little uh, crabby as of late.... I'm wondering if she's actually starting to (finally) teethe...? Smiles are like gems! A little hike in Chester seemed to calm her down. Whew!

Found out yesterday that the furnace... had a clogged nozzle! YAHOOO! So they replaced that and cleaned it and we're good to go. That's a $80-100 charge instead of $3-4k (worst case scenario charge). I had calls from my Mom, MIL, realtor all day yesterday asking what was going on. I was happy when I could finally deliver the good news. Whew! Thanks for the positive working furnace vibes! I think they helped!

On Saturday we took Dahlia to her first Farmer's Market. There was so much to see. So many new things. There was beautiful music and quite a selection of fall produce. We ended up with a sack of potatoes, a green pepper, a squash, a dish scrubber thingy and a lovely pumpkin. And we almost ended up with a new kitty...

Spent all day at the old house, pretty much...well we started the day by taking Miss Dahlia up to Grandma B's house and picking up a desk, dresser and a few other things that we had stored there (most fun - my fabric cabinet! Whohoo!). Dahlia spent the day there, thank goodness and we went to work. We packed up all the remaining CRAP (and I mean, crap, really) in the old house and then Steve brought the truck/trailer home and I stayed there and cleaned. How fun. Vacuuming, scrubbing, wiping, getting the baseboards de-dustified, more vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the oven & fridge (two of my most FAVORITE tasks. Blech. and hauling more crap out and into the garage. I left a huge pile of garbage for the garbage man. I hope they love me! haha. Pretty much everything is done - well, there's one box that's too heavy for me in the basement & some hanging coats/costumes which are too high for me. There are two cans of paint brushes in thinner which I don't know what to ...

Ugh, We're still moving stuff out of the old house. My god. I'm so sick of it. Today we were going to get an early start - but didn't. No big surprise there. We got over there and Dahlia who previously was good as gold, was whiny & clingy and wouldn't let us work! I managed to get some of the upstairs vacuumed and the bathroom cleaned but that was about it. We moved a ton of crap out of the basement (a mini-pickup truck's worth) but there's still more. Tomorrow Grandma B is watching Dahlia so we should be able to just get it done quickly. Oh and a FUN note! It was really cold in the house. The thermostat was set at 60 but it was only 59 (felt much colder). So we tried to turn it on...nothing. Steve hit the "reset" button on the furnace...it would run for about 30 seconds and shut off...we tried this a few times, him at the furnace, me at the thermostat...one time he comes flying up the basement stairs and runs out into the yard...apparently the ven...

One (female) should never watch this film while feeling particularly alone, melancholy and drinking wine. *sniff* I am such a sucker and I miss my friends.

I seem to have lost my motivation. I had it earlier...and I got a lot done at work today, but then I went and had a massage and now I can't seem to do a darn thing. I just surf the net aimlessly - look at the piles of crap that I need to put away - the speakers that need to be attached - the toys that need to be picked up..... Ugh. But I play games on Facebook. I check my blog stats & my company's website stats (hey go visit our website people!!). I *think* about all the things I'd like to be doing...occasionally I walk around the house and look at things, then I come and sit back down. I think my body & my brain is telling me that I should just take the night off. Just go to bed early. Grab your book, take out your contacts and lay in bed. So the crap doesn't get put away today - big deal. it's not going anywhwere...plus, I don't want to wake up sleeping Miss Dahlia now do I? *sigh* On another note - I met the fabulous Michelle for a beer last night at...

Corn Chowder from scratch & a cold glass of chardonnay - bring it on!

I just did two loads of laundry - with no soap. Awesome. Sort of defeats the whole purpose of the "high efficiency" thing, eh?

I've been really inspired lately to create. It's been a while...what with moving & packing & all that....I haven't had much time lately to create (yeah, I know I have a creative job - that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about using my hands & getting dirty). I sent off my yarn to my parents house in an attempt to clear the clutter while we were showing our old house. I packed up my fabric and sent it to my mother-in-law's house. My stacks of paper are in boxes currently in the garage and I have a new desk to work on...but it's not here in the house yet. I'm frustrated because I'm so full of creative energy right now. Frustrated because I'm so busy with trying to get the new house in order, the old house in order & keeping a very busy company afloat too. But anyway - I've spent this evening watching the football game, and when that gets boring, I pull our the lap top and have been searching Flickr for inspiration...

Dahlia had her first professional portrait session yesterday. My mom has been not-so-subtly sending me coupons for Penneys for MONTHS now and I have been MEANING to get her in but it just hadn't happened. Yesterday I decided it would. We got dressed up and went to the store and got an appointment for about an hour later. perfect...I ran some errands, Dahlia didn't spit up on herself and we were good. It went okay. She had fallen asleep in the car on the way back there so she wasn't very awake or smiley to start with. In fact smiles were pretty tough to come by (and she's usually pretty smiley). Oh well. We got a couple cute shots in her pumpkin outfit and a couple okay ones in her other outfit. I figure I'll probably be doing this again in a couple months when she is 1 so whatever. This should sate the grandparents need for wallet sized photos for now.

I used to consider myself a writer. That was one of the things I was pretty good at. I wrote my first "novel" in 2nd grade and completed my auto-biography in 3rd grade. I wrote puppet shows and plays and histories of this and that - blahblahblah....I took independent study writing classes throughout high school and was pretty proud of my compilations of work. But then I dated a writer. I dated a writer for a loooooong time and it seemed that there was only room enough for one writer in the house at a time, and it wasn't me. And then something happened...my writing esteem disappeared. I don't know if it just evaporated at once or if it was slowly chipped away but it's gone. So now for work I am writing again. I'm writing a script which I will direct. It's just a short - maybe 10-15 pages and will be maybe....10-12 minutes once it's shot/edited but I'm stressed about it. I had a deadline almost 2 weeks ago which I totally blew because my brain just w...

Tonight we're screening the 1st rough cut of WHITE MAN'S WORLD. Eeek. Weren't we just doing this with GOD ROCKED? I'm anxious & trepidatious to see it....it's not an easy film to watch (although it is a comedy). It dances with racism and points out the absurdities in ignorance, art, relationships, etc. It is meant to push the envelope - and it does & will. We're also organizing an art show to coincide with our film premiere (Nov 14 & 15). It's called TWO WORLDS. Half of the gallery will exhibit "process" photos from Erin McConnell - b/w's documenting our filmmaking process on this endeavor. The other room will exhibit artwork by native artist Kurt Buffalo - he mostly does beadwork (incredible!) but does other things as well...We're going to *hopefully* have a native american musician perform on the opening night (still working on that) and a reading by author Jim Northrup on our closing night. All three artists also 'acted...