2011 in Review

This year-in-review post is a little late as we are nearing the end of January now, but better late than never right? Let’s see, 2011 was a pretty big year for me and my family. I think the biggest things that happened are pretty obvious but let’s try to go through things chronologically shall we.

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January 2011
Dave and I announced our engagement. Since Dave proposed on the 30th of December in 2010, we did most of the announcing early in 2011. Our families and closest were informed that day after he proposed, but the world found out through Facebook and this blog in January.

February 2011
This was a big month for me. Not only did I learn that my brother would be having a boy (and I would therefore be getting a nephew), but on February 28, 2011 I officially started Stephanie Beach Photography as a small business. I got a domain name, website host and design and got an official business number from the Province of Ontario. It was an exciting and somewhat scary time for me, but I am very glad I did it.

March 2011
My birthday happens every year, but this year, as I turned 27, I think I might have moved from mid- to late-20s. It is a scary thought, but I think I am getting old!

This was also about the time when I got my own office. An office at work with a four real walls and an actual door. It is still pretty awesome. My own office came with a larger workload and much larger jobs to manage. Though I had shadow managed jobs before, I started working on even larger jobs as a shadow project manager around this time as well.

April 2011
April was the month where Dave and I searched for and purchased our first home. We wouldn’t get possession of it and move in until later, but the exciting purchasing process definitely happened here.

April was also the month where Dave and I joined Goodlife Fitness and signed up for personal trainers. It was (and still is) expensive, but we have been going ever since and I am glad we started and stuck with it.

May 2011
Though it may not seem like much, May 2011 was when I learnt that my 2009 accident had come full circle. An advance green light was installed at the intersection where I was t-boned. It left me with a weird, but satisfied feeling.

May 10, 2011 was the day my baby was brought to me…my Nikon D3s arrived in the mail! It was a wonderful evening and the next few months allowed me the time to really learn the amazing abilities that my full-frame camera has to offer.

June 2011
Dave and I got our house! It was purchased 6 weeks prior to us moving in on June 15, 2011. At the same time, my brother purchased his house (literally we put offers down on the same weekend and ended up closing on the same day). We have been here for over 7 months now and I still love my house! We have done some work on it, mostly painting, organizing and decorating but we are planning more significant updates later on.
July 2011
Jackson Robert was born on July 19, 2011. He was (and still is) adorably perfect and I love him to bits. My only wish is that I had more free time and could go visit him more, perhaps I will plan a trip to go see him in the next couple of weeks.

July was also a big month for my photography business as I shot my first wedding as the sole wedding photographer.

August 2011

As Dave and I had combined our bank accounts when we purchased our house, I had been spending the months following that event making sure all of my automatic payments, etc. had ceased or been transferred from my old account. August was the last of my ‘student plan’ capabilities at BMO and I therefore closed my very first bank account. My mom and I opened my BMO account when I was 12 or so as I had  gotten a paper route. I remember going to South Keys or Meadowlands with Chris to get to a BMO ATM when we were in school and getting a PLoC for when Dave and I bought the Honda Fit (though we didn’t end up using it then). Good memories, but the account wasn’t worth the bank fees. Seriously, why would I pay bank fees?

September 2011
This was the second quiet month for The Great Abyss (and my other blogs too). I was struggling to keep my head above water. To be honest, I still haven’t figured it all out and have been getting more and more comments from friends, family and even clients about how I manage to do everything that is currently sitting on my heaping plate. I could be doing much better if I focused on one job rather than the two official ones I have. I could be organizing my wedding in a much more timely fashion if I so chose. But I have chosen to try and do a great deal right now and I am doing okay at it (in my opinion).

October 2011
October was primarily spent trying to get things straightened out. It was the first time in my life that I knowingly carried a balance on a credit card and ended up having to take money from my personal line of credit to deal with it. This didn’t last long as before the year was done, any debt Dave and I had was taken care of, but it was an uneasy and uncomfortable time for me.

November 2011

Dave and I put chose our venue and put down the deposit, making our wedding date officially September 29, 2012.

November was also the month in which I finished my first conceptual photography series. I am very pleased with how 99 Luftballoons turned out and have received many great comments/reviews from friends, family, classmates and followers on the internet (aka strangers).  The final product and the responses from everyone have inspired me to think of more conceptual ideas and work towards getting them completed. You can view the images on Flickr (link above) and there will be a series of posts on my Photography Blog shortly.

December 2011

After a long search (I may have been looking for all of 2011), Dave and I selected our wedding photographer. We put down the deposit and are very happy with our choice.

December was also the month in which I finished my last course of the Algonquin College Digital Photography program. Though I got my grade in January, the last class was in December. I am very happy to be done with the program and have learnt so much. More to come on this later on my Photography Blog.

And of course, Dec. 30, 2011 marked one year since Dave and I got engaged.

 

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So that was pretty much 2011. Some of the items above are a little forced to be able to get something in each month (you may have noticed). The big ones are obvious as I said before. Announcement of our engagement, birth of my nephew, purchase of our first home and starting my business officially. I started working towards my photographic dreams by starting as a wedding photographer and a conceptual photographer. I also started taking on much larger jobs at work as a project manager and shadow managing on even larger jobs earning myself my own office.

My goals for 2012 are pretty simple. I want to have a great wedding that everyone enjoys; continue advancing my photography business; continue working on my conceptual photography ideas; get closer to achieving my health goals; start my travel goals; and continue to make our home truly our own. I am also looking forward to watching Jackson grow up and really get his own personality.

Way Back Whenesday: THe Fro

 

When we were in first year Dave didn’t really get his hair cut – as matter of fact I don’t know if he got it cut even once throughout that year. We all named it the Fro. At one point we even gave him a fro pick.

Overwhelmed

My life the past month has been more than a little overwhelming. Work has been very hectic, leaving me tired and burnt out by the time the weekend comes.  Laundry, groceries and housework all seem to get put off as long as possible – and those are the things that I actually need to do to keep running on a day to day basis. I feel like I don’t even have time to refuel before Monday comes. I very badly need some time off, at least a week if not more is needed, but I really don’t know if it is at all possible.
My photography is rather active as well. I have had a few clients this year and am trying to wrap up a few things for them before the end of the year. My most recent photography class has been awesome to say the least, but it also needs a lot of time and commitment on my part to ensure everything gets done and done to my standards.
I am quickly running out of time for Christmas. Normally by now I would have almost all of my gifts purchased and the few I still had left I knew of, just needed to arrange or finalize. I haven’t really even started this year – the ones I do know about need a great deal more work and the ones I don’t --- well I really don’t know about them.
As you readers can probably tell, I have been running on fumes in terms of my blog. I set up the features a month in advance and pretty much let the blogs take care of themselves. All I can say about that is thank goodness for scheduled posts or else all my blogs might have been completely barren for the past month or so.
I am getting December’s feature posts ready over the next couple of days and hopefully will be able to find the energy and topics to do some non-feature posts as well. *fingers crossed*

Way Back Whenesday: Glitter Pencils

Even though they covered everything in glitter, everything in my pencil case and my desk, all of my clothes and anything I touched with my hands, I loved glitter pencils – well for a time. I remember when they were the coolest thing and having them was a big deal. I even had to buy them with my own money because my mom said that they weren’t essential school items to have and not very practical either. In hindsight, I agree with her. The actually quality of the pencil was quite poor as was the eraser. But I still had to have them in grade school.
The above photo, found through Google, is actually of glitter pencil crayons rather than pencils and since I do not believe these were available when I was in grade school, I think these impractical school items are still available and probably just as desired now as they were several years ago.

Planning

I am an avid planner. Seriously – I will plan just about anything I can, from a vacation to  a tiny trip to the mall, even my daily routines and mundane events get planned. When I was in school I always used the planners they would give out but when I finished school I figured I didn’t need a formal planner anymore. I had an electronic one in the form of an excel spreadsheet (which acted as a secondary planner while I was in university) that I figured could do for my primary planner.

Recently, I realized that I do in fact need a formal, hard copy planner. I have had so many things going on; dinners with friends and family, photography shoots, classes and work events that I have come dangerously close to double-booking myself. I have even forgotten about upcoming civic holidays a couple times. For my planner, I went the way of Chris’ moleskine and purchased one for myself. It is however the pocket-sized weekly notebook version. In other words, it is much smaller than the one I bought for her and is a slightly different style. The days of each week are on the left hand page and there is a lined page on the right for notes. As I don’t have too many events on each individual day, this works out really well for me as it also feeds my list addiction enabling me to create them near the days I will be needing them.

Another handy feature of this version is that I didn’t have to order it from the American website. I purchased it from Amazon and was therefore able to ship it to my house after using my credit card as compared to last time when I had to ship it to Dave’s parent’s condo in Florida and use their American credit card.

Decade in Review (2000-2009)

I have been alive for over two and a half decades, but it is only this last one that I remember with almost perfect clarity. You see, in the beginning of 1990-1999 I was barely in school and can only remember certain moments, and even those may be contrived from photographs I have seen and stories I have been told. During the last decade though, I was 15 to 25 years old and able to remember everything - though not everything is worth remembering. Below is a listing of personal highlights and a photo of myself from each year in the past decade:

2000 - got my driver's license; house was robbed; finished technology enriched school program;

got first digital camera; became quite active in extra-curricular activities in high school. Below photo taken by me in the hallway of my parent’s room.

2001 - broke up with first serious boyfriend; travelled to Moosonee; took first college course in photography; learned how to develop film photographs; thought of becoming an architect; became co-president in several clubs (and remained until end of high school). Below p

hoto taken either by my friend Alaina or myself. Either way, it is from one of the many nights I spent at Alaina’s. Notice the curly hair – she did it and it likely lasted about 1 hour.

2002 – started using ICQ to talk to pretty much everyone; received SLR camera; learned how to take manual photos; started playing rugby on high school team. Below photograph taken by me while sitting in front of the computer in my parent’s house.

2003 - graduated from high school; started university; met best friend; lived in university residence; lost 25 pounds; stopped drinking alcohol (no real reason); employed at Forwarders' Museum. Below p

hoto taken in my residence room while I was studying chemistry with Justin

2004 - started dating the love of my life; Tyler graduated from university; moved into rented house with friends; mom diagnosed with breast cancer; worked for last time at Forwarders' Museum; failed first course ever. Below p

hoto taken by Dave. This was one of the last days of first year – Dave and I took photos of each other around campus as we were going to be apart for the entire summer.

2005 - failed second course; starting working at City of Ottawa (Eng. Assistant); started budget spreadsheet; lost 20 pounds. Below photograph by me. Taken in my room on Glen after getting my hair cut short. I think there are remnants of the first dye-job I had done (blonde highlights).

2006 - moved in with Dave (in ‘boy house’); started my first blog; saw first Cirque de Soleil show live; learnt how to make bead jewellery. Below p

hoto was taken at my City of Ottawa job - it was a co-worker's birthday.

2007 - Eddy died; stopped receiving money from parents (for rent/bills); went to Chris' cottage for first time; worked at City of Ottawa while finishing up B.Eng; got my iron ring; graduated from university; ended career as professional student (over 19 years spent full-time in school). Below p

hoto was taken by Dave. I am holding my B.Eng degree from Carleton University in my room in the ‘boy house’.

2008 - travelled to England; flew in plane for first time; got my first dSLR camera; moved into rented townhouse with just Dave; got EI for 1 month; had the first job I really hated; got my first real engineering job; started night courses in photography; Tyler got married. Below photo was taken in the London Eye while Chris and I were on travelling there.

2009 - got in a car accident; bought my first car; traveled to Montreal; traveled to Chicago; started my grown-up life. Below photo was taken by Christine Sweeton for a class assignment.
I did it – I remembered a few things from each year AND found a photo of myself from each year (though some were hard to find and most had few options). Now it is on to 2010 (though I realize it has already started). I do not know what the next decade holds for me or those I care about – though I do hope the majority of it is worth writing good things about in 2020.

Mondays

Mondays get a pretty bad wrap. Everyone hates them because the weekend is over and you have to go back to work/school. Though I also dislike Mondays, they happen to be the day of the work week that goes by the fastest.
Most of the morning is spent preparing for or attending the Monday Morning Meeting and then the afternoon catching up on things that I should have done on Friday. My bosses are completely preoccupied doing the same thing, so if I really want to I can slack off or at least slow down. During the evening I have class (for now) and then it is time for bed. Mondays, and their associated badness, fly by!

One Minute Writer # 47

What one piece of advice would you give to someone graduating from a college or university?

Enjoy your free time. Without school or work to tie you down, you can go anywhere and do anything so do it!

Sweet 341

When I moved into residence I was rather nervous. Those 8 months turned out to be some of the greatest of my life and I wouldn't trade them for anything. Suite 341 (deemed Sweet 341 by Chris) was awesome and the people in it were even better.

I checked out XKCD the other day and saw this comic entitled "orbitals", see above. What most intrigued me, besides the completely accurate logic behind it, was that the dorm set up looked almost identical to what Chris, Emily and I had in Glengarry. The only difference is that there appears to be closets for each of the rooms, which we sadly, did not have. In fact, if you take away the closets, put a tv in the one corner across from the couch, and move the main door to the 'top' wall you would have Suite 341. I am not naive to think that no other place would have the same setup, it is just odd to see is all.

25 Random Things About Me

The idea for this post was taken from TwinspirationalRunner - thanks.
I thought I would do a little post about me. It is completely random stuff that you may or may not already know, and hopefully it will be fun to compile.

1. I get anxious when I have to make a phone call. (even moreso when it is work related);
2. I love being good at 'domestic' tasks like cooking, baking and sewing;
3. Fall is my favourite season;
4. I wait until the last minute to do any sort of cleaning;
5. I know how to spell most words, and when I am wrong, my guess was usually pretty close;
6. I absolutely love spreadsheets. If I can put some information into a spreadsheet I will. If I get to design a spreadsheet (and yes it is a design) then my day will be a good one.
7. I have been to many funerals in my life, but the hardest death I ever had to deal with was my family pet - Eddy (Eddy's death made me pose a lot of questions to myself which were very difficult to answer);
8. My weight is a very touchy topic. I want to lose it, but like most overweight people, do not want to put the effort in;
9. As mentioned in a previous post, I love very odd combinations of food like salt and vinegar ships and grapes;
10. I think of myself as an artistic engineer. It is an odd combination, but I am relatively good at math and engineering in general, but also quite good at the arts (photography, general painting and sketching, etc) and I enjoy them both;
11. I like to go into Danier (and other leather stores) and smell the wonderful leather smells;
12. I rarely ever win anything;
13. I am a perpetual learner;
14. I am really good at organizing things. From events to items - if it has to be sorted or organized, I am really good at getting it done;
15. I love buying or getting new stuff - even if I have little to no use for it;
16. I love children's movies - especially Pixar movies;
17. I can handle extremely stressful situations (like a job get screwed up at work), but get extremely flustered and frustrated with the simplest of tasks (like finding my keys);
18. I love answering surveys;
19. Car rides make me sleepy;
20. I have an eye for photography and love most everything about photography in general;
21. I am a very jealous person. I can get jealous about the stupidest and most pointless of things;
22. I have few friends (though the ones I have are good ones) and for the most part, I like it that way;
23. Photography makes me happy;
24. I am almost always early when I need to be someplace new;
25. I think lists are fun.

Landscape Poll

I have been given my first assignment in my current photography course - Night and Day Landscape Photography. We have to take two sets of photographs (night and day) in both a rural and urban setting. The assignment isn't hard, but finding a scene that will look just as good during the day as at night (at the same viewpoint) is proving to be troublesome. So I am wondering if a Cemetery Landscape scene could be considered rural. Please give your opinion on the poll on my photography blog. I need as many opinions as possible as quickly as possible - the assignment is due on the 25th. Thanks everyone.

Google Docs

I used Google Docs when I was in school a fair bit - particularly when I was completing my fourth year project with three other classmates. That report was massive and had to be worked on by all team members at all times. Google Docs enabled us to all have the report open at the same time and be editing together. At the bottom of the shared report, it would state all the other users who had that document open. You would then be able to write away in whatever area you desired. Upon saving the document it would be updated with all the other users information. If there was a conflict between user (ie. two people had made changes in the same location) you would be given the option of which changes to accept. It works in a similar fashion to the shared documents within the new version of Microsoft Office, which is also a handy feature I have become accustomed to at work.

One Minute Writer #19

How much money would you have to win in the lottery for your life to really be changed? How would your life be affected if you won that much?

I am not sure about an exact number as I do not play the lottery game at all but I would think a few million (perhaps 10) would have meleaving this job. In the grand scheme of things, a few million would not be enough to live on for the rest of my life with no worries whatsoever, but it would mean I could follow my dreams a little earlier than I am currently planning. I would probably finish my schooling faster and maybe even enter in a full-time photography program. I would start my own photography business and try to get it running successfully. I would invest in Dave by paying for the helicopter training he is dreaming about and we would likely get own our place (rather than rent). Basically, our lives would just be more comfortable and filled with our dreams.

Vacation

I turned in my first Vacation Request Form at work yesterday for June 3-5.
Dave's younger sister, Jess, is graduating from Trent University on June 3 and we really want to go and support her. I know Dave is very proud of his little sister (as am I of course). We both know how hard it is to finish school no matter what program you are in and Jess was able to do it while working and maintaining her personal life!
After the graduation day, we are planning on going to the Toronto Zoo. We went there about 2 years ago as a side trip after a family event and had a blast - but my camera had camera envy as I was using my little Kodak back then. I want to spend a day there with my new fabulous camera and the zoom lens and quite possibly the tripod as well. I have been to the zoo many times in my life and really like it - the Toronto Zoo takes really good care of their animals and their exhibits are very similar to their natural habitats.

March Madness

March was always pretty crazy in terms of workload when I was in school. In highschool it tended to be when we had our midterms and the first round of large assignments were due. When I got into university it was the end of the winter term and therefore lots of assignments, term projects and tons of studying for exams. It was madness, so much so that my birthday often got overlooked (or at least downplayed) for lack of time and energy (and sanity). My friends wished me happy birthday as did my family and I received gifts of course, but we didn't have any large parties or anything like that. It was partly on my asking so I am not upset or anything like that (just to clarify). When I graduated I thought for sure that I would be able to have a real party or something like that on my birthday. Apparently I was wrong. March is an absolutely crazy time for DST Consulting. Our major client, like most consulting firms in Ottawa, is the government and their fiscal year end it March 31. There are so many projects due and so many starting up with absolutely no time to prepare or complete them let alone think sanely or rationally. I will be celebrating with my friends on my birthday weekend, but once again nothing big will be planned or done as I just won't have the energy from the crazy work schedule. Oh well, I enjoy nice quiet nights with my friends anyway - and at least there will be cake...mmm...cake.

My Birthday Month

March really isn’t my favourite month as it isn’t all that pretty outside; the snow is started to melt and therefore goes that awful dirty grey colour, whatever grass that has revealed itself is parch and brown and there are few animals running about. It is however, my birthday month which makes it pretty wonderful. Chris asked me this weekend (or perhaps last week) what I wanted for my birthday and just like I did when it came to Christmas presents, I drew a complete blank. The things I want are either not things one can buy or way too expensive for anyone to get me other than myself (and even when I get them for myself it takes a lot of thought).
I want to travel and take photographs. I want to no longer be working in a place I don’t really like and I would love to be able to go back to school for photography with the idea of actually being able to make money afterwards (and not work at Wal-Mart or Sears Portrait studios – fine jobs, but not the type of photography I am working towards). I would love for someone to come over and take away a few pounds or magically show me how it is done in a fashion that I understand and am capable of. I want to own a home and be fixing it up (perhaps this is just because I have been watching a lot of HGTV and other such fix-it-up type stations).
As you can see, none of these things really add up to anything someone can get me for my birthday. So I guess I will keep thinking about it and hopefully I will come up with something a tad more feasible for my friends and family.

Perpetual Learner

The dictionary defines the word perpetual as "a feeling, state or quality that never ends or changes". Earlier this evening my Aunt told me that I seemed to be a perpetual learner and I begun to think about this comment.

I have been in school since I was 4 years old, about 20 years in total; 10 years in elementary school (8 years plus both junior and senior kindergarten), 5 years in high school (including OAC) and 4 and a half years in university (mind you I also took two summers worth of courses). I know that when I was not old enough to go to school I would pretend that I was going when my older brother went. I would try and suck as much information from him as I possibly could when he got home - I just couldn't get enough of it. Throughout my 20 years in school, I excelled. Not because I was inherently smart or anything like that, but because I enjoyed doing well. For the most part I enjoyed the schoolwork and what I was learning - though there were a few physics, thermodynamics and fluid courses in there I could have done without.

Now that I have officially graduated and completed the path that we are 'supposed' to take these days (elementary, secondary and post secondary) I have found that I am still hungry for information. I am done - and yet I continue. I have taken so far one term worth (one course) of photography courses at Algonquin College. I loved that first course. It ended mid-December and until today I was not taking any courses - I felt a little deprived. I have been lacking new information. I have come to the realization that I like to learn.

I have a hypothesis for this: I know how to learn. I have essentially been a professional student for about 20 years. I only started to work in the last 5 years of this time frame and even then, only for about 4 months at a time. At any significant point in my life I can pretty much guarantee that I was in school and was learning something. It is a staple in my life and in some weird way, I think it is a comfort.

My life post-graduation has been a little uncertain. I only recently became employed in my field and before this I was very stressed and generally concerned about never being able to find something. Throughout that time, I would surf the net and research certificate programs for different fields such as photography or web-design, etc. I would plan out the path I may or may not want to take to achieve the program requirements and try and figure out every aspect of that process (costing, timing, etc). It gave me some weird feeling of security to know that I could always go back to school. Perhaps this is why so many people get masters and PhDs in many areas - learning is enjoyable and comforting for them in a similar way that it is to me.

I am currently on the road to obtaining a Certificate in Digital Photography. I do not believe I will stop there - whether the future courses lead to more certificates or not, I do not know, but I believe I will keep trying to find new ways to learn.

Blog Plug

As I am sure you know by now, I am taking a photography course at night at Algonquin College. It has been really great so far and I am so happy that I decided to take it. I am definitely going to look into taking more too, I already know it! Anyway, I will be posting about this class on my photography blog and I hope you will venture over there to learn all about it (there are also some tips from things I have learned in the class so far).

Basic Digital Photography

I started my course two weeks ago and have already learned a few things from it - such as what a couple of the advanced buttons do on my camera and how to use the histogram (that's what I am learned in the ways of the histogram!). It is the latter that I am using the most so far as it lets me know right away whether or not my photograph needs more or less exposure - so neat!

The class is scheduled to use the portrait studio, go on at least one field trip and of course, have several assignments. I actually wanted to take this course (if not to take later courses for which this is a prerequisite) so that I could get some assignments and hopefully have to leave my comfort zone to take them. I want to take photos of things I don't normally take. I am thinking of it as shooting outside my 'photo-box'.

B.Eng

My parents came up today and they brought me something I have been waiting a long time for - my degree! I am now an official member of the Carleton Alumni and have my B.Eng in Environmental Engineering - yay! Now I just need to get over to the university bookstore and buy one of the university frames for it - although I already know which one I want since I bought my brother's there a couple years ago and got him the one I want to get myself. I am so excited about finally having it in my hands.