Filed under Personal:

A month of dreams


I usually have major issues with sleeping, insomnia and I are very close friends and have spent a lot of time together. I would have thought that moving halfway across the world would have caused me to lose more sleep, and I would be staying awake at night staring at the ceiling. The opposite has happened. I sleep, and I dream. I wish this was a joyous event to be celebrated, but to the contrary, my dreams have left me frustrated and confused because I’ve been dealing with the same subject matter for a whole month.

Being chased or chasing someone/something.

I believe that our dreams is our subconscious dealing with our feelings and our daily life. After two weeks of walking up after being chased I knew something was up, that something wasn’t quite right. The following two weeks changed from dreaming of being chased to me doing the chasing, looking for someone or something, then back to being chased again. A whole month of endless running; it’s quite exhausting!

I have a pretty good idea what is causing my dreams, I’ve just been trying to avoid acknowledging it, but I have to be honest with myself. I have to start over.

I stand before a monstrous, dark and ugly mountain. Restarting my business from scratch. With no social or work network, plus a language barrier on top of everything, leaves me petrified. Many days I want to throw in the towel, give up, and say it’s not worth it. I’m terrifed of putting myself out there and of failing. I’m scared that when I’m trying to communicate why I do what I do and why I’m darn good at, I won’t be understood or I won’t understand them. I hate having the possibility of rejection after all my effort. It’s scary and I’d rather hide.

Hense the whole fleeing while being chased dreams.

Other days I think about knocking on every door, talking to anyone who will listen, or dressing up in some ridiclious outfit and hand out my business card in the market square. I think and dream about what I want from this life and I know that I can achieve it, if given the chance. Those are the days, where I want to conquer, to show these people what I’m made of. Thankfully I’m given a chance.

Hense the chasing and pursing dreams.

Dreams are good indications as to what we’re dealing with and apparently I’m ready to pursue and achieve my dreams, but I’d rather hide. I think I better stop running and do something about it so I can get some proper sleep at night. I’ve been given a chance to restart, may as well use it!

What have your dreams been telling you lately?

What do you want from your life

A hole in the weave of plans, that is what he found, and he put his hand right through it. That is how I felt New Year’s Day when Mister and I were walking along the water, with a Starbucks in hand. He looked at me and said, “what are you going to do with your life”? A hole, he found it, and put his hand right through it.

I am someone who goes with my gut and with the flow, usually without a sound plan. ‘Just see how it goes’ kind of person. Lately I’ve been more  ‘if I want it, I’ve got to go out and get it’ but I do find myself being lazy and waiting for things to come. So when he asked me, “what are you going to do”, I realized my plan had a hole. A huge hole.

I knew what I wanted to do, but I had no plan on how I was going to get there, I just figured one day it would find me in this big universe. Somehow, right, it would?! Highly doubtful. I would probably get passed over. Sad I know.

Since that New Year day, I’ve been really thinking about my plan. How am I going to get from A to B? What steps do I need in place before I can take them? What do I need around me as my support? But most importantly, why am I doing this, what is the purpose? Other then reaching my goal?

And the answer, I need to do it, to prove to myself that I didn’t fail and persevered through it all. That I got the Gold star. So I’m going to put it out in the universe what my goal is. Because if I don’t tell you, how will anyone know?! So….here it goes.


What is your goal? Would you like to share it with the universe, perhaps we can help each other out!

Small Beautiful Daybook

While I get Adley Studio set up here in the Netherlands, there will be less then normal photoshoots being featured, so instead of just having no posts, I’ll be posting random things I find around the web, and things like this, a small beautiful daybook. Idea initially found here, I just tweaked it a little bit.

Outside my window…
the sun is shinning, but it’s deceiving cause it’s about -1 outside.

I am thinking…
about Vancouver, Adley Studio, house projects, and God’s blessings.

I am thankful…
for dreams that come true and a hand to hold while we live them out loud.

What I am learning…
that I need projects to keep me feeling productive. I have a few that I want to get a start on, but can’t quite start yet.

What I am creating…
a home that is representative of both of us.

I am going..
.
to start really working on my new website. Yes, it’s being redone!

I am hearing….
a lot of Lissie today, she’s been playing non stop.

I am reading…
a lot of blogs, and also a book about Why.

Around the house…
there is a lot of sunlight, it feels delightful.

One of my new favourite things….
is evenings spent with Mister enjoying a cups of tea and working side by side.

I am enjoying…
planning travel dates, the thoughts on the future, and convincing Mister we should get a record player.

Plans for the week…
are to create a budget, bake a quiche, and a marketing plan for Adley Studio.

A picture…
stroopwaffles enjoyed during our evening tea.

Woolen coats and heavy scarfs

The sun is shining today, playing against the houses down the street bouncing off one or the other, as if playing hide and seek. You can feel the cheer in the air as people are trying to decide between their dark woolen coats or a lighter spring jackets. Most people aren’t quite ready to trust the sun quite yet and decide to darn a wool coat and a heavy scarf. But it doesn’t matter, the sun is telling us Spring is almost here!

Our new place is pretty big, so while we’re trying to figure out how to heat our house so we don’t leave a large carbon footprint, I’m curled on the window ledge asking for the sun to shine through my window. We’re still setting up our home and I don’t own a kettle yet to keep me warm, so I dream about a hot pot of tea waiting for me in my kitchen.

Life here in the Netherlands is turning out to be wonderful!

House Hunting in Den Bosch

I was hoping I would be more on top of blogging and keep you up to date with everything that’s going on, but sadly I’m too tired at the end of the day to open my laptop and start working. We’ve been running around looking at apartments, checking out our city, and and trying to learn dutch so we can communicate with everyone here. Thankfully everyone knows some English so we’re able to order food and catch the train when needed.

Apartment hunting has been the most entertaining thing I’ve done since moving here. Before we left we chatted with someone who knows quite a few Dutch people and said that people who move from Holland to Canada find our interiors boring and drab, and now, I agree with them. North American’s are too conservative in our decorating, we tend to lean towards the easy and simple solution, the bland beige and brown combo, with no room for colour. Here in Holland it seems to be the opposite, they embrace colour, almost too much colour!


Since we’re from North America we’re not extremely fond off the bright coloured feature walls, but it encourages me to know I don’t have to decorate my house in only beige or grey to make it feel like home, I can let loose and add some lime green if I wanted and it would be okay.

We found an apartment that we love and get possession of it on Saturday. It’s a lovely apartment with lots of natural light and it’s own terrace, but it needs a good clean so until we give it a good rub down, you’ll have to wait to see photos.

Ending things a good way

I’m sitting here in another Starbucks working away at photos and updates for my website, oh and I guess blogging as well. It’s been a whirlwind of a couple of days of meeting with friends to say “see you soon” and making sure we can see everyone before we leave. And it’s tough. Saying a silent good-bye. I don’t say it out loud, but we both know that is what being said. And it’s tough.

So I decided I needed one last work + coffee date. Some sanity before I continued filling out forms, doing my taxes, and boxing away items for some time.

So I sent a text, we coordinated, I switched some things around, and here I am. Sitting in another Starbucks working away, relishing in my last work + coffee date before I leave.

I’ll miss this, and the spontaneous texts. Thanks Jamie, for the awesome coffee date, hope to have one in Europe one day!

Filling up on Vancouver

We live in such a beautiful city and with the snow caped mountains, the grey ocean that is covered in ice in some places, and winter wonderland outside my window it makes it hard to think about leaving. And knowing we only have a few weeks left I’m filling up on Vancouver.

Talking walks around the city.
Visiting my favourite coffee shops.
Walks down the peir.
Visiting my favourite workout wear store, Lululemon.
And lacing our skates to go skating hand in hand with each other on top of a mountain.



Any suggestions of things I should fill up on before leaving?!

Early Christmas

This year’s Christmas was like no other; it was full of emotions and many happy moments! The week of Christmas I wasn’t sure if Mister would be home for Christmas, as he got stuck at the Heathrow Airport due to crazy weather conditions. But he surprised me with an early morning text the day after he was supposed to leave saying he’d be home that afternoon. He also told me to check my email. I could hardly contain my excitement and felt like I was in a daze most of the day waiting for his flight to land.

Finally he walked off the plane, tired and sick, but home. I was so excited to see him it was hard to share him with his family that evening, but I knew they wanted to see him just as much as I did.

That night as we cuddled in bed, we talked and discussed our future. The next morning he made an early morning call back to Europe. The next night, a whole 48 hours after he returned home we signed on the dotted line and made the decision to finally make our dreams come true.

We have talked and discussed since I swear the inception of our relationship of moving to Europe for a couple of years to travel and experience something new. Since Mister was born in Poland we knew we had a huge advantage over the average Canadian wanting to move to Europe, so we sent resume after resume, praying for the right job and the right location would find us. Finally everything fell into place!

We’re moving to south of Amsterdam at the end of January 2011, with plans of traveling over Europe and experiencing the Dutch Culture.

What does this mean for Adley Studio you might be asking. Nothing! I still plan on taking portrait commissions here in Vancouver as well as in Holland (someone holla “Yea International Photographer!). I plan on coming back a few times a year for portrait sessions, shooting boudoir, woman, teens, and children while expanding my business abroad. I’m still working on my first return date, but most likely mid-April to early May for those that want to schedule a session.

We’re super excited about the doors that have opened for us, the possibilities available, and the wonderful adventures and hardships we’re going to face! If you have any questions about how this will effect your past or future sessions, please, feel free to email me! I would love to chat!


Pictures of our new city centre, I can’t wait to explore it!

Christmas Wrapping Paper

As previously stated, I love giving gifts. The whole process, from choosing what to give them, finding it, bringing it home, wrapping it, and then handing it over with anticipation hoping they like it as much as I love giving. I get really excited for Christmas, because you get to give numerous gifts over two days, it’s like two whole days of gift happiness! One of my favourite parts of gift giving is wrapping it.

Every year for Christmas I choose a theme or a look on how I want to wrap the gifts. I usually pick one kind of wrapper paper and wrap all my gifts in the same wrapping. I like to think that if the tag fell off for whatever reason everyone would know who gave the gift. In the past I’ve done the traditional red and green, a horrible mistake with beautiful silver and black glitter wrapping paper (it went EVERYWHERE and was horrible to clean), to blue and silver last year. This year however, I knew exactly what I wanted because I purchased my wrapping paper even before Christmas was said and done in 2009.

I’ve had it tucked in a closet for over a year and I’m so excited I was finally able to use it. I decided to go a little bit organic this year, with a simple frosted silver blue patterned paper, white kraft paper, kraft bags, and lots of twine. The twine was left over from our wedding and the white kraft paper is what I use to wrap client orders. So all I had to figure out was what I was going to use for name tags. I tend to buy a lot of little papers as I travel and wander around the city and picked up these tabs a few years ago. I think, they were for our engagement party, but I’m not too sure.

So, finally everything was decided, and the wrapping commenced. I got to use some sewing skills as I sewed the kraft paper bags closed as I didn’t want to use tissue paper. I had so much fun and love the end result.

What are you doing to wrap your gifts this year, anything fun?!





Boutique Shopping

This past week while Mister has been out of town, I’ve been keeping myself busy with appointments, meeting friends for work/coffee dates, and doing our Christmas shopping. When I was younger I always wondered why my mom did most of the shopping, and now I get it. Buying gifts for other people is the highlight of Christmas, I simply love it.

On Wednesday I went down to the states to pick up some items for work and decided to hang out in Bellingham to see what they had to offer. Now, one thing you have to know, I really dislike shopping in malls. I enjoy shopping outdoors, wandering from one shop to the next and exploring little boutiques as I go, and Bellingham and more than enough to keep me satisfied. Actually, I didn’t want to leave!

I adore little shops, the friendly owners, and the unique goods they offer! I fell in love with so many stores in downtown Bellingham that I scored pretty much every present for the people on my list! I can’t wait to give it to them, I hope they are excited about it as I am!

If you’re planning on going to Bellingham anytime soon, forget BellisFair, Target, or Khol’s head downtown and check out The Paperdoll for some cute paper items, Digs for household items like the pink Christmas tree I found, Ideal for things curated beautifully for a purpose, Penny Lane for vintage kitchen and children accessories, and then head to Fairhaven for some coffee and reading.

Bellingham.jpg

Photos taken with my iPhone and edited with Shakeit.

Days do get better!

I blogged and baked, but didn’t feel a change in my attitude.
I went for a long walk in the dead of the light while the rain beat against my umbrella to look at the Christmas lights and felt refreshed.
When to bed hoping for a bright morning.

I woke up, still felt gloomy.

Decided to take a trip to Fort Langley to walk around the antique mall and stores that make my heart send warm whispers.

And I smiled knowing that days do get better.
antiquekey.jpg

Star screen saver, please save me!

The past couple of days have been difficult, for no reason in particular except that they’ve felt difficult. Not having any reason to pin point to to say I need to fix this to make me feel normal makes me feel horrible; my life is splendid and pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted it to be, I shouldn’t be feeling so down!

Blogging usually makes me feel better, so I’ve been sitting in front of my computer knowing I should blog, but I couldn’t. Opening the screen to my login page made me want to throw up. So I would just sit there staring at the black monitors, wishing that the star screen saver would come on so I would have at least something to stare at. It never did.

So today I decided I’d blog, nothing amazing or happy. Just truth. Some days are difficult. Some days can turn into more then one, for no reason at all. And I know I’ll wake up, hopefully tomorrow, knowing the difficult is gone. That there is beauty in the breakdown.

sydneycarpet.jpgMe at the Sydney Opera House. I like to take photos of my feet while I travel, near or far. I like to think it keeps me grounded.