I’ve been known to take on too much. For the last 3 years I’ve had school, often more than one job and somewhat of a life. I’m actually lucky I managed to keep that last part in the equation because that’s usually the first to go for extremely busy people.

Earlier this year I had a full time job, a part time job, another part time job, full time course load at school, was making plans to buy my first place while keeping the place I did have in order. All the while I was dreaming of photography. It’s like everything I was doing was backwards. What I really wanted was just out of my reach and what I actually was doing was driving me crazy. Backwards.

When I quit my part time jobs in the Spring I didn’t care about the money anymore. I just wanted peace. When I wrapped up the semester at the same time I vowed to take the summer off and I did! It was amazing. I got out and did as many photo shoots as possible and that turned into a very wonderful part time adventure that’s getting better and better every day.

I have a hard time saying no. I get overbooked, I get overworked, I get overwhelmed. I get is whole lotta stress from saying yes. I’m sure you can give me an, “I hear ya!” for that. This has been happening lately with the day to day and it’s time to refocus (delicious pun!) and snap (mmm, better!) out of it.

I carved the fat out of my life and I have turned what’s left into more stress than its worth. Do…I…crave…chaos? Who does that anyway? More than one of you just put your hand up, didn’t you?

Let’s see if I can’t take my own advice and start living a less stressful life. Here’s a song that makes me happy so I’m going to turn the volume up…

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I thought I’d take the time to introduce Punky. She’s my Boston Terrier and has been my little buddy for over 5 years. She’s pretty much the coolest dog on the planet and I’m not just saying this because she’s my dog (Skidboot may have been cooler — just look him up on Google). She dances when we come home and doesn’t do that annoying jump up on you thing that a lot of small dogs do. She gets excited, but still keeps her cool. She does that head tilt when she recognizes her friends’ names. The bigger the tilt, the more she likes you. She can run 5-6 kilometres with me! You try running that far with short wind pipes. (I love her flat face!) She’ll pull me all the way to the dog park when we jog, no matter which way we start from. When she swims, she sounds like a little 2 stroke motor and looks like an otter. People laugh at her when they hear her swimming and that makes me laugh. She also plays soccer and was famous for a while because of it.

Punky’s YouTube Channel

Here’s some pics of my “Bean Dog” I’ve taken over the past couple years.

Finally! The rain has stopped in Vancouver. All I have to say is I’m glad it hasn’t been cold enough to snow or we’d all be buried in 100 metres of white stuff. On this glorious, magical, sunny day I also wrote an exam for a course I’ve been studying for ages. Alllll about the theory behind group insurance benefits, which is supposed to help me in my day job. We’ll see about that. Fingers crossed I passed!

As if to say, now you can celebrate it’s all over, the clouds vanished and the sun was out full force today. It was beautiful! I haven’t felt the urge to reach for my sunglasses in weeks. Of course they weren’t in my purse because my umbrella has become my accessory of choice. To top it off, I finally get to come back to blogging since I’ve been so wrapped up in studying these past few days. What a great way to start December!

As promised, I’m posting some pictures of my very bestest friend and partner in crime, Trisha. I snapped these on one of our Photography Missions this summer up the hill at Simon Fraser University. She’s tiny but she’s fierce, isn’t she?