Naturally Optimistic

Do you know how sometimes you feel like everything is crumbling around you? Say for instance the film you're getting ready to direct, your directorial debut, mind you, starts to unravel in the 11th hour, actors drop out or come up with schedules that are impossible to work around; technicians have babies (expected but still untimely) or decide to start new businesses and become so stressed they can't think straight let alone create art & collaborate....or locations don't fall into place, things are overlooked, scripts come in at the last second and you feel completely overwhelmed? No, not familiar with that feeling? Cause I can tell you ALL about it. OH! And as an added bonus, you do your daily search for your house that you have for sale on the MLS only to find that IT IS NOT THERE! Not only does it NOT come up when you do a search of the price range...it also does not exist WHEN YOU TYPE IN THE MLS #! Awesome! So with 2 mortgages looming on the horizon, no one even KN...

it should mean YES! Not, yes, um, except if a better offer comes in. Or Yes, until I find out that there's this other thing that I want to be doing instead. When you commit to a project you should either COMMIT or forget about it. I am fed up.

Have you heard of this ? I had never until a couple of weeks ago when my Mom mentioned that we should bury St. Joseph in our yard to help sell our house. Apparently my parents did this (!) when they were selling their house and it worked! (interpret how you will...). So, needless to say, there is a new little plastic statue of a Saint somewhere underground in our yard. Can't hurt, right? So, Dear St. Joseph, Please help us to sell our house so we can move into our new house. We'd love for some nice young family or single person to move into our cute house which we've loved very much and are growing out of. Thanks Me

Do you ever do something that you think is either REALLY REALLY stupid or exactly the right thing? *sigh*

We took Dahlia on her very first camping trip this weekend. Our goal was to be out of the house by 11:30 on Friday morning (we had a showing of our house then)...but we weren't even CLOSE to ready. We (ahem) are slow packers. Instead I ran the errands (liquor store, groceries) and Steve went to fuel up and get an oil change for the truck....5 hours or so later we were on the road! We made reservations at Sawbill Lake Campground in the Superior National Forest, at the end of The Sawbill Trail. It was a lovely campground. We were in the site next to some friends - close enough to hang out, far enough to be alone. Friday night we got everything set up and had a very late dinner. Dahlia was intrigued by the tent and fell asleep almost immediately. That was awesome. Steve & I enjoyed our hot dogs over the fire and a couple beers and the gazillions of stars. Ah heaven. Saturday we were going to take Miss Dahlia canoeing but it was so damn windy. The lake was CHOPPY and that scared ...

I went to MAMA MIA! on Sunday night with my folks. I actually had TWO movies offers that night (unheard of!) - the other one was to see DARK KNIGHT with some friends, which I'm also really wanting to see - but I opted to hang with my folks since that's a rare occurrence. It was fun! The music of course is great. It is a silly story and silly performances, but I really did enjoy it. Meryl Streep is great, as usual. I've never seen the stage version so it was all new to me (well, except the music). My Dad kept humming along, which I thought was very cute. (they have seen the stage version). Pierce Brosnan looks gooooood, but man, he can't sing. Shame, really. I would've done with a few less random SLOW-MO shots (WTF?) and the editing in general I thought was a little hokey, but ah well. I had fun. It could've been because I was finally resting after a ridiculous weekend of work; or that I was happily sitting in a darkened movie theater with the baby tucked into be...

It's official. We're putting our house up for sale. ACK! We have spent the weekend, with my parents' UNBELIEVABLE help finishing up all those projects we've been meaning to get to for months (years?), purging, packing things away, cleaning cleaning cleaning, painting, more painting, playing with the baby, seeing MAMA MIA! and more cleaning and painting. And throwing things away. Whew. It's been a MARATHON. Things are looking really great....now we need some good house selling vibes! I'm not sure how long I can live in this state of perfect neatness! eeeek.

Need I say more? **note to self: not only do you need to pack an extra outfit for your daughter every day, but perhaps an extra one for yourself as well.**

Dahlia turned 7 months old on Monday! Amazing how she has changed from the first days at home.

I'm alone at the office today (Dahlia's visiting Grandma & Auntie Laura) and it is oddly quiet around here. I'm kind of lonely. *sigh*

I didn't even post about the TC premiere of "...and on the 7th day, God Rocked" I must be distracted what with the baby's CT and the house hunting - ay yi yi. My brain is in a million places at once these days. The premiere went great! We had over 200 in attendance and the response was fantastic. Lots of laughing, some clapping during the film, lots of happy smiley people upon the exit of the film. While I know a lot of the people there knew people in the film, it was fun for me as I was selling tickets to barely know ANYONE! :) One story a friend of mine told me yesterday - she missed the premiere due to some other obligation but happened to be on a shuttle bus to Rochester (from Mpls) on Saturday and started chatting with an elderly man on the bus. Turns out this man is the organist at the Heights Theater where we had our showing. He was raving (!) about a film he saw there last week and after talking a bit more, she found out it was our film!! He's a church org...

since Dahlia's head is *normal* (as normal as it will be with two parents like hers!) we've decided to move on to the next BIG decision.......and we'll be waiting for a while on this, and stressed, and it has to do with a domicile or two and ay yi yi just like there's never a good time to have a baby, there's never a good time to move, right? But we're not there yet...just thinking.... *sigh*

Just a quick note to say that Dahlia's CT was PERFECTLY NORMAL today! I will also point out that someone said - well, she's your kid so "normal" is relative. Ha. Ha. Needless to say I'm relieved. Very. And so happy with my sweet little baby. I think she just must have a lot of brains poking through that soft spot...ever so slightly....

I found a wood tick on me last night...while laying in bed...it was on my butt! How it got there I have no idea. I wasn't in the woods, but I live with a forestry dude so I have a pretty good idea...there have been LOTS of ticks in the house this year. YUCK. I despise them. I think they are so incredibly nasty. The one on my butt last night was stuck. He wasn't totally in yet but he was chomping away (apparently) it took forever to remove him which was annoying, unpleasant and a little icky. Sorta killed the mood for the evening (if you know what I'm saying....). Tonight as I was filing some bills (sexy!) I found one crawling on my leg! How is it that I don't even have TIME to go into the woods these days and I'm still finding ticks on me? NOT FAIR!

So we looked at 3 houses last night. We are just starting to look and get an idea of what is out there. I am terrible though about wanting to (usually) buy the first thing I see. Impatient? Maybe. It's all so exciting and scary and such a HUGE pain in the ass. I love looking at houses....I think it's quite fun. When I bought my current house, I mostly looked at houses alone - not very fun. It's much better now to go with Steve. 1st house - the smallest & cheapest we looked at. 3 houses from Chester Park (bonus!). Needs some cosmetic help to be sure - the kitchen is GOD AWFUL, no appliances, carpeting where there should be hardwood, etc. Pluses - beautiful cedar walk in closet in the "master," 4 bedrooms + an extra space that would be great for a computer on the main level, two bathrooms (although one's in the basement), nice front porch, double garage, gas furnace. Minuses - the kitchen is beyond ugly...but we could fix that, gas fireplace (we'd reall...

Dahlia had her 6 month check up yesterday. Here are her stats: Height - 25 1/4" - 18th percentile Weight - 13lbs 14oz - 6th percentile Head Circ - 17 1/4" - 76th percentile. I used to joke about her "big brain" but now she has to go in for a CT scan because her soft spot feels "full." The doctor just wants to get it checked out now instead of waiting but it stresses me out beyond belief. She has to be sedated for the scan which I HATE the idea of on so many levels...and if they find something wrong? Well, I just can barely stand to think about that. Otherwise developmentally she's doing great. She's doing all the things she should, she's growing as she should, even though she's a peanut. She babbles, and can sit up for about 1 second at a time, rolls both ways, makes eye contact & tracks things easily, passes objects from hand to hand, puts EVERYTHING in her mouth and is really very very sweet and such a good baby. Great disposition, lo...

The long weekend has come and gone. *sigh* I wish we had long weekends EVERY weekend. I promise I would not take them for granted! Thursday night Steve & I (and Dahlia) went out for Mexican and then drove by several houses that we're going to look at this week. They always look so much different (better?) in their photos online. *sigh* Ah well, we will look anyway. Thursday evening we sat in the backyard with a lovely fire until all the damn fireworks in the 'hood got too annoying. Friday we lazed around a bit, went for a hike in Chester - Dahlia's first experience in the backpack carrier - she loved it! Then we came home, made rice krispie bars and had a family "nap." Well, "nap" doesn't quite describe it...we laid in our bed, Dahlia in between us and she was kind of spazzy and kicking and very cute. It wasn't exactly restful but it was nice. That night we dropped off Dahlia at "Grandpa Roger's" house and then parked the truck ...

Okay - our neighborhood is OUT. OF. CONTROL. I'm so sick of it. Not only do we have (loud) LOUD fireworks from about Memorial Day til Labor Day, all hours of the day (until 4am and starting again around 7:30am) there is a rental house 3 down from us that always attracts the WORST renters! For a while it was quite obviously a drug house, then things got better but now this summer it's a bunch of punks who LOOOOOOOOVE to party it up and then fight. Last week when Chevra (hi Chevra!) was babysitting there was a STABBING in the alley or in front of our house or SOMEWHERE which was freaky (sorry Chevra), before that I could watch the action from upstairs as it progressed from alley to backyard to street-side, again tonight - same thing. Steve & I just wanted to sit in our backyard and enjoy a few beers but the ruckus from down the block was unbelievable. F-this and F-that - it'll probably be Dahlia's first word. Then the fighting started (as I had predicted). People in t...

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law had their baby early this morning. Little Anders entered the world around 1:49am this morning. Born on the 4th of July! I can't wait to meet my little nephew. :) 7lbs 12oz lots of dark hair Dahlia is very excited to have another cousin!

Let alone to post.... *sigh*