I have heard this phrase over the last 17 or so years and it has shape shifted for me based on my phase in life…one time no joke a gynecologist said MOVE THAT BUS! conversationally at an ill-timed moment of the exam, being as it usually is said with some oomph at the end. Move THAT BUS!!!! It’s funny now. You can laugh. A sense of humor about life is in my opinion the most valuable skill one can sharpen. It wasn’t as funny in the moment, but shortly thereafter I recalled it almost fondly due to people’s fondness for the show. And you cannot script anything more hilarious than the everyday humor in real life.
These days I use MOVE THAT BUS! as my earliest morning alarm title to remind myself it is worthy of my response for the now rare pre-sunrise travel day (I forget why it is going off in the actual moment and MOVE THAT BUS helps remind me it’s valid alarm and I am not dreaming it.) After EMHE ended, I was turning alarms off and late for work a few times rationally thinking “it’s waaaay too early to be up” as in my mind was having full mental breaks from that day's reality in my compromised state. Very weird for me - but I was protecting myself from continuing that 24/7 pattern. Note to self: future blog post on my bizzaro sleeping habits from years of sleeping in hotel rooms. Otherwise I try to rise with my own rhythm, when I am allowed the luxury. You know, like farmers for centuries did with the sunrise and the whole world is likely capable of without the dependence of our smart devices.
Before I was a part of the show, I fully romanticized Extreme Makeover: Home Edition like most civilian folks tend to do. It was TV home renovation with a fairytale ending, how could you not love it?! As I sat on the floor of my LA apartment sobbing my heart out through Vardon family episode in 2004, the episode changed my life.
Not long before, I made the call to leave Texas after working the broadcast news circuit for 3 years (keeping odd hours, never knowing a 9-5 job.) I set myself up early for industry life and long hours. After the start of my first post-college job, I woke (on Tuesday, my day off) to the Columbine shootings coverage alone in my living room. And I watched all day in horror with the rest of the country. A year later in Dallas, I cried covering the collapse of the Texas A&M bonfire (at a 24/7 news station) as was at the station when the clock struck midnight during Y2K.
After watching the twin towers fall on 9/11 from WB39 news station in Houston, my heart broke alongside the rest of America. Fraught to alter my current trajectory, I decided I wanted to cultivate happiness though my work… I wanted to lift myself and people up though TV/film. The plan was in motion to move to LA and work in my then idea of “fiction entertainment” as I didn’t have luck breaking into the Austin film scene. Reality TV was not much of a genre yet - and even now, a genre I do not totally claim as it fosters TV sensationalism I never was or will be on board with.
I did not know where the root of this desire would take me (even after studying every episode of Trading Spaces like it was already my job.) I set off with a goal to work for the WB, HBO or PBS documentaries. My parents went with me to LA to make sure I was safely settled in…a much different experience than people who move to LA alone to discover or reinvent themselves. Juanita and Charles are not your typical parents, as anyone who has met them knows.
A HARD year and a half after my cross-country move to work in sunnier side of television, I sat on the floor of my second LA apartment sobbing my face off with an electric lighting bolt of understanding of Extreme Makeover. I had worked with Michael Maloney in 2003 (just before Extreme began) on S1 of Clean House and had recognized fully (and been in awe of) his larger than life talent and design abilities.
I put it all together through those tears…I wanted to work on Extreme since it first aired, but I didn’t know I was actually going to until that moment and SAID I was. Then and there, I vowed I would too work alongside him on the show. I put it out into the universe. And it manifested. That was 2004.
Between setting foot in LA to starting Extreme, I ate food from the 99 cents store, was extra with Central Casting (ER, Felicity, Gilmore Girls, Angel) worked often as the whole Art Dept on home reno and food shows, and did other industry gig type work including photo shoots. I memorized the Thomas Guide, got my bearnings of greater LA and educated myself on the studio system. In 2005, I took a financial risk and bought the first full frame Canon EOS 5D. For 6 months, Rod and I shot headshots on weekends while I worked construction payroll on the show Bones. I wasn’t union, so that’s as close to a studio lot job as it got for me. Rod and I had a BLAST being creative together and learned so much about ourselves, and the ups and downs of starting a business. Future blog post: The union and why it wasn not on my path.
Worming my way into my interview after a happenstance run at a Ty Pennginton event, and finding out they were hiring (thank you Courtney MacGregor for your intel + Rhonda for inviting me to the event), I held my own and also held my breath for the entire month it took Karin to call me. (I was clearly not their first choice.) In May of 2007, I started working on the Extreme, just a few months after my cat Abby has passed. Abby was 19 and her passing was in a lot of ways the catapult for my heroine’s journey into serious adulthood. My furry tie to my 12-year-old self was gone. Future blog post: Same girl, different cats....
I spent five fast seasons with the show. It fleeeeew by. Many, many more stories to be told, but for later blog entries. So many stories. So many lessons.
Extreme taught me so much about life, other people, limits, loving your coworkers like your own family, what being human was, forgiveness, and what a really talented and creative group of people can achieve. My first boss on the show, Denise, was the baddest boss lady I have ever known. She inspired me and the other women on the crew to be fearless – everyone paid close attention to her incredible drive and talent. Our EMHE dream team could make things happen with sheer will - out of desire, teamwork, competition, love, skill and pushing limits further than we previously knew. It was magic.
The original series carved a place in my heart and I will be grateful for that…but I also gave myself over SO fully I almost didn’t come back to myself. Grounding yourself, in all that you do while working at breakneck speed was not as apparent. I tried to take a step back from utter exhaustion during the last season, as I knew it could be the last season and would not last forever…and I was ready for it to end. When I started to feel myself losing grip on my physical and emotional health I was already faaaaaaar down that rabbit hole. When the show was canceled in 2011, in a big room full of very sad people….my first thought over a single tear, was oh! I could have a cat one day again. One year later, I adopted a cat.
It took several years to recover from the 24/7 schedule creative burnout of the show life. My adrenal glands were shot and cortisol levels were in danger of likely hurting me longterm. During the build weeks as design lead on an episode + home, I would sleep maybe 4 hours a night every OTHER night… due to not being able to quiet my mind and being woken up regularly from the night PM with vaild questions. Flight or fight response had become second nature to keeping the long, demanding hours. And this went on each season every 3 weeks for 8-10 months for 5 years. Far from a healthy pattern. I needed a hard reset, and that took unlearning patterns forged in survival mode – both good and bad. Insert photos of glorious cheese plates, half assed comet-type romantic relationships and shared bottles of wine with my elective LA family. Around the time I discovered my cellular chemistry might be turning over with new growth, synapses repairing, and my mind sparking creative thought again, I had a pivotal conversation with Sonja. I told her of my intentions to move home to Texas. She entrusted wisdom only she could give that I will carry with me forever. That was 7 years ago.
In the second half of 2015, I began the first part of the transition back to Texas (after wrapping a series in ATL) and I met Tim just two weeks after that. Neither of us was ready for each other. But that’s how it happens.
7 months later, I (while wrapping S2 of series) I found the ad for my shop in Edom, TX….and rented it. That year I started my design business and shop Cade Republic.
Tim helped me close out my LA life (13 years in the same apt) as I had been subleasing while in ATL…and moved my belongings home January of 2016. It was very emotional to see that empty apartment… and that emptiness stayed with me the year after that. I needed the shift and there was a lot of deep, emotional work involved. It is an ongoing process and if you ignore it, it comes back tenfold.
This new chapter of taking care of myself has taken years to make friends with parts of my well being that was hidden away, silent in hibernation.
I went through some STUFF to get this far, learning to slow my roll and sit with discomfort of slow growth. To celebrate the slow growth and not be afraid of the setbacks. Two steps forward, one back…if I was lucky that was the pace. Many times, three steps back and only one forward.
The better part of year (2017-2018) working on location in Hawaii helped tons with that slow growth. Hawaii is a healing place. You face yourself on an island, everywhere you go there you are. I overcame a childhood fear I had of the power of the ocean and let her in. The ocean is life. I had always admired it, felt benefits from listening to the waves but rarely dove in and swam. It was time to fully dive in. To the ocean, to myself, to everything. I was able to visualize my candle being tall and lit again, whereas before I saw it as burned down by both ends to only ash.
I got a call in early 2019 (after the news broke Discovery bought the rights to the show) and asked, would I like to be a big part of it getting it back on it’s feet? Hell yes!
Less than three months later, I was in LA again. It was a time jump forward and simultaneously a mind blowing retrospective over the next 6months.
(The universe also gifted me with experiencing pregnancy and miscarriage twice. Once after arriving after the drive out to LA and the second after the drive home, almost like oracles or gates to the job itself. I plan to talk about this in depth in a future blog entry.)
Tim was the missing lifeline that I never had while working so hard (and alone) before… I had support akin to what my parents abundantly gave me but now in my partner. This was new and I didn’t really associate this kind of fulfillment with the show. So it was an entirely new experience protecting me. The articulation of how much I needed this to heal myself from my past (and the peaceful consistent feeling of calm I carried as result) doesn’t do it justice. Sure we had many ups and downs. But we stayed by each other’s side even when apart, and that comfort has been a long time coming for us both.
Men always left or found someone else while I was away working, even if I was the one to officially break it off, things had faded away. Before meeting Tim, I felt being a part of a great love and partnership was elusive. Though I was going to continue to try for it. The evidence stacked up that I was almost too unique a person to love and previously no one had been up for the task. It just took finding someone as unique as me…and of course, the right timing to allow being vulnerable enough to let our guards down long enough to fall in love.
Entering the 2020 atmosphere where Extreme Makeover: Home Edition returns, the EMHE collective is stronger, smarter and double grateful for this second chance to work on the best show we have ever worked on. A show we love enough to know NOW with the gift of hindsight, to maintain our own emotional and physical health first over anything else, including our own egos.
Of course, Extreme on HGTV is a different animal and this 2020 world we live in today is far less over the top + more more MORE than the 2000s mentality… and forever homes, classic design, longevity and mindfulness within the EMHE model was always my ultimate wish.
I think we achieved something wonderful and I hope you all enjoy the new season!
Always keeping in mind, Season 10 is built on the blood, sweat, tears of the 200 families, cast, builders and subs, vendors, volunteers and crew who paved the way.
We were gifted with their blessing and the world’s love of the show (and Ty Pennington.)
Denise, we love you.
