sad sap.

so this week i’ve burst into tears for reasons both big and small and then everything in between. big being things like having to move out of our pretty little first abode by tomorrow (!) and having to pack boxes by myself because dev is frantically working to meet deadlines for our SoulPancake segments. little being things like seeing a flyer for a missing dog and then feeling helpless and forlorn for the rest of the day. the missing dogs of the world definitely got about 30% of my tears this week.

and yes, i know i’m hormonal. and that no one likes moving. and losing a pet is tragic but then i also made some poor decisions that we’re now having to reconcile. and by reconcile i mean, dev works out solutions while i sob into my pillow and then feel bad for exposing my unborn baby to my dramatics.

#1 bad decision of the week: signing a lease for a house i don’t really want to live in.

because the whole month of september was eaten up by pre-production and shooting seven soulpancake episodes, we haven’t had time to look for our next place. so the plan was that we put all our stuff in storage, and move into my uncle’s empty guest house in los feliz until we find a place we want to rent. sensible right?

but suddenly last weekend i determined that there was no way my sanity could handle moving into my uncles house, and then moving AGAIN into a new place. so i decided we had to find a place that weekend. dev and i went to no a bunch of open homes and finally found a place that checked a lot of things off our list: outdoor space, parking, 2+ bedrooms, etc. there were things that we weren’t thrilled about, but i was feeling desperate and just wanted the security of a roof over our heads, so i convinced dev that we should sign the lease. and so we did. and then as soon as the lease was solidified i realized i wasn’t excited at all. in fact, i was having serious regrets. there were all these glaring reasons why this place wasn’t suitable for us that i’d somehow overlooked in my race to find a home. the next morning i woke up with my stomach in knots and to add insult to injury, i received an email about a rental that had just been put on the market that was literally up the street. and in an effort to convince myself that we made the right decision and we’d picked the right place, i went to check out the newly listed apartment, and bad news: it was lovely. sun streaming through the windows, incredible views, parking, lots of outdoor space and located IN this neighborhood that i’ve grown terribly fond of.

so then we had to deal with the fact that we’d signed a lease, and handed over two checks for the 1st month rent and the security deposit which the landlord had already deposited. and now i was telling dev that we had made a bad decision that i wanted to somehow undo.

i collapsed into a ball of stress and dev called the landlord who wasn’t pleased at all and may or may not give our money back.

#2 bad decision of the week: not hiring people to help us move

the move hasn’t even happened yet, but i’m regretting the packing process. putting all your belongings into boxes, sorting it out and figuring out if you even still want/need it is an awful task that i’ve done too many times. every time i pack i wonder 1) how did we accrue so much in such a short time? 2) why do we need any of this? 3) can i just give everything away and start from scratch and then i make a firm resolve that NEXT TIME i will hire someone to do this. someone who is detached from my things and can just pack it up and not spend 7 minutes debating whether a half used roll of wrapping paper should be kept, thrown out, or given to goodwill.

#3 bad decision of the week: trying to wear my pre-pregnancy clothes

no matter how many times i go through this sad dance recently i can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that my expanding belly NO LONGER FITS in about 95% of my wardrobe. the only things i have that still work are a pair of super high-waisted denim shorts, a variety of oversized shirts, and one pair of maternity leggings that ash got me because she could see that a crisis needed to be averted. the time has come to walk the maternity aisles and get new clothes. because quite honestly walking around pant-less in oversized t-shirts isn’t suitable attire when guests come over.

#4 bad decision of the week: setting my hopes on the new place

we applied a few days ago, and haven’t heard anything. and chances are since it’s a great place with loads of features and located in this area that there’s a lot of competition to rent it, so we might not get it. which makes me sad as i’ve already planned out in my head where everything will go, and how i will hold ‘nori’ under the shade of the persimmon tree in the backyard.

and finally, if you want to know how to make my need for order and cleanliness go into meltdown mode, just present me with our current living room situation:

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ten things on a tuesday.

1. to all the people who left comments yesterday, thank you. no matter how much our brains ‘know’ something on a logical level, the heart (or at least mine) works differently. and hearing your advice and hilarity made me feel so much better.

2. we’re in the midst of a habitat hunting dilemma. also known as: i don’t want to make adult decisions anymore. also known as: i’m scarred by crazy landlords. also known as: feeling the pressure of having 3 days to find a new roof over our heads.

3. when we were kids and my organic-whole-foods-only-the-house dad was out of town my mum would get us fish ‘n chips after school. i am very excited to have little rituals with my kids that are just our little ‘secret’.

4. i bought a jar of pickles and i’ve resorted to wearing leggings as pants. basically, i’m a walking cliche of pregnancy.

5. in an ideal world, ashley ludwin would tell people what to wear, and their lives would be infinitely better. she’s a style forecaster like no other.

6. if your children are well-behaved and have manners and you’ve instilled all of this using love, not fear or force, then you are one of my heroes. it’s as simple as that.

7. ever since our friend mar wrote us a very authoritative letter to give to our landlord, he’s left us alone. i think he’s actually gone into hiding. this is why everyone needs at least one bad-ass lawyer friend.

8. when we shop at trader joes dev devours an ENTIRE packet of beef jerky before we get to the check out. it’s become such a ritual that the check out folks expect him to hand over an empty packet to scan. so it’s only fair that my favorite threat these days is that i’m going to raise our children as vegetarians.

9. i have an itch to travel to new york and nashville. i’m thinking december. because let’s be honest, there is something pretty loveable about fireplaces, mittens and snow. especially when you can get your fill and then come back to warm california.

10. a friend emailed me this lovely gibran poem about friendship. this extract really resonated with me:

And let there be no purpose in friendship
save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure
of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth:
and only the unprofitable is caught.

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joy sharers. and joy squashers.

coffee mug note care of devon.

first of all thank you so much for the sweet comments, notes, emails that you’ve sent dev and I about our announcement. we are so excited and yet still in that phase where we wake up in the morning (whenever we please) (and yes, i know this is a luxury we’re going to soon lose), look at each other and then at the space between us and then one of us will exclaim: OMIGOODNESS there will soon be a baby in this spot. an actual baby. OUR child. and then we gaze at the empty space like the baby is already there, and talk about all the things we will do when he arrives. like chew on his cheeks and nibble on his feet and sing nonsensical songs and never get out of bed ever again.

which reminds me, i have no idea how we are going to get any work done when this child arrives. oh yeah, that’s right, i’m importing my mother from australia.

the whole announcement experience was so much fun as we have been wanting to share this news for so long, and it was super convenient that we had an entire soulpancake camera crew at our disposal to shoot our giddy message. but i need to also mention something a little uncomfortable. because that’s what i’m learning to do in the space. talk about the great but also be honest about the not-so-great.

so here it is: there are certain people in your life, who may even feign friendship with you, that refuse to share in your happiness. and this isn’t actually a new realization…but it was quite clear to me with this experience that unfortunately there are those who cannot bring themselves to express/feel/embrace the happiness of others. i guess sharing in another person’s joy is just not part of their mode-of-operation. in the times when i’ve experienced this sort of ‘reaction’ with someone i feel like i know reasonably well, it always feels like it stems from an undercurrent of fear and rivalry. which is both disconcerting and sad.

and as you too may have experienced there are people who will support you, cheer for you, get excited along with you. and there are those, so mired down by their own issues and self-doubt that they cannot meet you in your joy. and in fact, some of those people will even critizize you for being so happy/expressive…and would prefer that you just ‘dial it down’ a notch.

i do not believe that experiencing another person’s joy will rob you of your own. in fact, i think that if our interactions were less fear / competition based and if we truly worked to see each other as part of one big human family, we’d all be happier. if you find yourself feeling resentment/hurt/fear when faced with other people’s good news, i’d strongly suggest you get to the bottom of it, because that’s a very compromised way to use up your hours on this earth.

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letters to our little one.

when dev and i first found out that i was pregnant we decided that while i was in the somewhat fragile early stages, we’d keep the news pretty quiet. which was incredibly hard for both of us to do. one day dev suggested i start writing letters to ‘nori’ (that’s his codename for the baby) so that i could at least have some kind of outlet for my hard-to-contain-excitement. so over the course of the past few months i wrote a few of these letters. this one was written on july 5, just two days after we found out:

*

this will be sitting in the drafts section of my blog for a while. because no matter how excited we are, we’ve decided to hold off from screaming the news about you from the rooftops. so, the only people that know about your existence right now are me, your dad, and your uncle collin – who has been sworn to secrecy.

and what a delicious secret you are to keep.

when we returned from our southeast-asia adventure we were all exhausted. it seemed we were fighting a battle with jetlag and we were definitely the weaker opponent. we struggled to stay awake throughout the day but then at midnight we were all wide-eyed and ready to party. sleep was disjointed and i suddenly had so much compassion for insomniacs and other people awake, not by choice, at the loneliest hours of the night. there’s nothing endearing about 4am. (perhaps it was just an inkling of what was to come). i also noticed that besides the exhaustion i was feeling a bit sea-sick. it’s not like me to have a sensitive stomach or a lack of appetite. but i had both. of course i considered for a fleeting moment that i might be pregnant, but i was more convinced that i had dengue fever, or had picked up some some stomach bug contracted from recklessly brushing my teeth with local water instead of bottled water in cambodia. which reminds me, do yourself a favor and don’t ever look up parasitic worms on YouTube.

(side note: will they even have YouTube by the time you’re old enough to read these posts? will these posts even exist? what will the internet have become? i have visions of holograms and jet packs and ohmygoodness i’m realizing we have no clue what the future holds. and now i’m sufficiently freaked out).

anyway,

after a few days of feeling off-center, your dad bought home a pregnancy test. we were actually on our way to the 4th of july fireworks show at the hollywood bowl with friends so collin was in the kitchen packing a picnic and your dad had gone to the store to get some supplies. in the middle of all the frenzy of getting ready, i skim read the instructions and took the test.

it was positive.

blink. blink. i must stared at that little panel for a minute just to make sure. but there you were, represented as two tiny purple lines.

and in that split second the entire fabric of my world shifted monumentally. because you exist.

i don’t really know how to describe how i felt the next few moments but it was an overwhelming jumble of sheer joy, apprehension, love, wonderment, awe and humility. and then total disbelief.

so much disbelief that i decided i had to tear open pregnancy test number 2. maybe the first was a fraud. maybe i had misread it. maybe i was still asleep and this was all some dream induced by OD’ing on too many mangoes while in asia.

test two presented positive results in seconds. you were definitely in existence.

there are certain moments in life where the feeling you encounter isn’t something you could have ever quite anticipated. the knowledge of your existence was one of those moments for me.

i felt weak at the knees and promptly collapsed onto the bathroom floor. tears of happiness tumbled down my cheeks as i started to absorb the fact that our lives would never.be.the.same.again.

i literally paced our apartment waiting for your dad to get home. i stared at myself in the mirror as if searching to see some physical sign that my entire future had just shifted in a profound way. but there was just a wide-eyed incredulous looking me, staring back. i finally found some peace lying on the bed staring at the ceiling and saying prayers.

finally your dad arrived and even though our ride was waiting outside, and the picnic was packed and all signs pointed to go, i had to share the news of you first. i led your dad into the bedroom and we both stood side by side looking at the two tests. i will never forget the look in your dad’s eyes as he turned to me with a huge smile and engulfed me in a hug. and for seconds, perhaps minutes, we just stood there. holding each other. breathless and so full of happiness as we absorbed the fact that we.are.now.parents.

and i know this sounds strange but as i look out at the world i feel like i’m looking at it through a double lens – mine and yours. i believe souls are created at conception, and the fact that i carry your soul is a responsibility that i’m completely and utterly awestruck by.

we love you so much already little one.

this photo was taken the night we found out we were parents. :)

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oh, and by the way…

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a simple reminder.

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reasons why i’ve been mia. a list:

1. producing the next batch of soulpancake episodes that will be airing oh so soon on a national network (that i cannot yet openly speak about because of contractual obligations), but which is all very exciting and means that devon’s notorious yellow headband and my wonky accent will be invading homes across america in just a few weeks.

2. not sleeping enough. even my cuticles are clamoring for sleep. i’m not joking – they’ve fallen apart. i used to have nice hands. hands of a woman who mostly sits at her computer and reads far too many mommy blogs. but now after two weeks of hauling, lifting, moving, stop-motion-animating, my hands have been torn to shreds.

3. missing my family.

4. feeling like what i do for a living is a bit surreal. yesterday i sat for 3 hours with legos and built a faux city and a crosswalk and animated little lego pedestrians as they scurried about. all of that work will result in about 3 seconds of screen time. the other day i was marching around a park with a leather jacket, and a bow and arrow as tall as i am while waiting to shoot through a 6 foot balloon. the day before i was encouraging strangers to give thank you speech via a five foot microphone in hollywood.

5. missing faraway friends. getting their emails from nashville, paris, london, melbourne, new zealand and wishing i could teleport myself to their sides for a day.

6. trying to find a new abode. we have only nine days to leave our apartment. thanks to number 7 on this list.

7. dealing with our crazy landlord. today he yelled about 1 inch from my face about how i was breaking the law by “making movies at home”. which would be awesome if it was true…but alas, we’re not that exciting. the other day he told me that our “walking” was wearing down the floorboards. i’m guessing we’re not going to get much of our security deposit back.

8. autumn/fall in LA is making me angry. it’s too warm. where is the cool wind? where are the heavy downpours? the changing leaves? how am i supposed to LAYER when it’s 80 degrees outside?

9. i’ve just realized that number 8 isn’t really a reason i’ve been mia. it’s just a vent.

10. this list is deteriorating in it’s thematic structure rather quickly.

11. the good news is production is over, and now the post-production process begins which is much less about getting up at 5am and being on location all day and more about working with editors, color correctors, sound mixers etc. to make our episodes as awesome as we’re all hoping they will be.

12. finally, street art in LA continues to charm me:

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what i’ve been doing of late.

i know i’ve been a bit absent on my blog but my days have been a little bit busy. actually more like, i-haven’t-washed-my-hair-in-over-a-week-and-yes-i-know-that’s-unacceptable-busy.

we’re gearing up for a pretty big soulpancake video shoot so that means my days are comprised of doing things i never imaged i’d be doing.

like finding an archer who feels confident shooting an 8ft helium filled balloon that’s 100 feet in the sky, with a bow and arrow.

and finding someone who will create a giant five foot studio recording microphone (erin cantelo is a life saver).

and figuring out locationscrewrentalsequipmenttimelineseditingscriptscastinsurance. what was that? oh, just my brain busting out of its seams.

so it’s no wonder that lately around midday i find myself floating over to the tv only to flip it on and become thoroughly ABSORBED in the kardashians. there is something about people that go to bed in full makeup that just helps my brain turn off.

in other news, here are just a few things that i found today that i LIKE:

first this divine wooden vespa that just scootered its way out of my dreams:

it is quite feasible that if dev and i keep up our obsession with vintage clocks and typewriters, this wall will one day be mine:

i’m sorry, WHY has no one thought of this before? a table top fireplace? screw candles. this is genius!

you know i just can’t get enough of wooden spoons.

and finally no outfit is really complete these days without some METALLIC GLORY. so in conclusion, i need this sequined collar:

all images sourced from my pinterest which is all sourced from elsewhere so to get to the bottom of where these things are from you have do some clicking. sorry.

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