Folks, can you believe that tonight marks the end of November? The end. Done. November 2009, good-bye. December 2009 is rolling into town at midnight tonight... DECEMBERRR!!! Which means January 2010 is coming. February will be bringing the Winter Olympics to Vancouver... which just blows my mind. When our city won the 2010 Olympic bid in 2003, I was a month shy of thirteen years old. Everybody was all excited about these amazing world events coming to Canada, coming to Vancouver. You know where my head was? It was up in the clouds:

"In Feburary 2010, I'll be... 19 and a half. 19 and a HALF! Wow. I'll be graduated high school. I'll be in University... or art school. Studying business or graphic design. Writing short stories and novels on the side. Probably have a very good-looking, hot boyfriend. I'll definitely still be living at home. I wonder if my hair will still be dyed dark red... I wonder if I will have gained a whole bunch of weight by then, or lost even more?"

Scary: the thoughts of a 13-year old girl. I'm not in University. I went for 3 months. I studied Business. I still LOVE graphic design and me oh my, I could watch somebody design for hours. I don't claim to be any good at it but i'd love to learn. I still like to write. But I choose to do it on my blog rather than in a story. No hot boyfriend (I must have thought that when girls turned eighteen there were ten wonderful men around to choose from immediately?) -- I am still living at home. My hair is pretty much twice as long and blonde. Not red. I chose to not stress about weight but to enjoy good food and to run often.

Isn't it silly the thoughts we think sometimes? We're just so silly. Hold the phone, I'm just so silly. I'll let you admit your silliness on your own, I won't force it upon you. I think the same thoughts about another six years from now. Twenty-five! That's a nice even age. What will I be doing? Where will I be traveling? Who will I be with? Will I still live at home? (Haha! Sorry, Mom, I don't think so.) Fellow dreamers, tell me: do you ever stop and think these thoughts? I can't be the only one.

I dream and feel all moody and wonderful when it rains. It's been raining a lot lately. A lot equals about twenty-five out of the thirty days in November. Hence this post. To wrap it up, here are some photos from a torrential down pour we witnessed in Hawaii a few weeks ago. Loved every minute of it. :)

In my business as of late, I've been making a conscious decision to move away from family/kids portraiture and more towards a specialization in couples/engagement/weddings. I've found my niche, and what I love to do and I hope to become an expert in the one area... rather than scattering all over the place! However, that being said... there are some families I just can't say "No" to. No matter how hard I try. Families I love to capture. The Laderoutes are such a family. They've graced the blog a couple of times and I simply adore capturing them: their shoots always turn out to be some of my favourites. You can see their last year's family shoot with some stunning fall colours HERE, and Paul & Shawna's recent 7-Years-Married shoot HERE.

We met up for a half-hour the other day in Fort Langley (gosh, how I love Fort Langley!) and shot like crazy to see what we could find for their Christmas card. I think it was a great success. Jacob (the oldest) and Cole (the youngest) are getting so big, it's just crazy. Can you believe their argyle sweaters? My brand colours! Woo! Represent! Shawna is a great stylist. ;)

My favourite shot of all four of 'em.

I love my car. But you couldn't tell that by looking at it. The other day I was trying to fit into the garage and scraped my right side against the door... whoops. It's often dented from my Dad's car that parks beside it. I kinda speed up and slow down pretty fast and use a lot of gas when I drive. And sometimes I forget to get oil changes for a year. Okay, I just did that once. All things I'm working on, I promise: not proud of 'em! ;) Last week I was in the States and a car hit me in a parkade. Dang! I was fine, and the damage isn't massive, but I'm sure it'll be a couple of thousand.

Comment on this image

To cheer my poor neglected--and now damaged car up--I decided to give it a little TLC today. All I've heard for weeks from my mother is, "Jamie. Your car is dirty and for goodness sakes it SMELLS." Pshh. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, motherrrrr.

There were countless surprises in store. Did you know you can have a pair of high heels, a bag of leftover halloween candy--I found a mini-package of skittles. ate them one by one, threw the rest of the candy out while I continued cleaning--fifty CDs, three boxes of kleenex, a blanket, a lightstand, two car seat covers, two umbrellas, seven waterbottles, a windshield scraper for when it snows (been in there since last January I guess?!) and a SOFTBALL glove in your car without even knowing? Yeah. I didn't. Now I do. P.S. The last time I played softball was seven years ago.. and we didn't own this car. I'm quite embarrassed.

A few random other things that are making me happy today.
Earrings. $1.99 Value Village in Langley. Love that store.