I've been sitting here most of the morning with my laptop open on my bare legs staring out the window towards the mountains and the ocean wondering if I should write this. Then I realized I should, I should write how I feel in this moment to remember where I came from and how I'm feeling.

My chest is tight and my breath is shallow that I find myself sighing every few minutes to try and settle myself. It's the feeling of being anxious and nervous, and as I search inward to find out why I realize it's nothing I can change. Because it is change that is coming that is making me anxious. I've been longing for this change for quite some time and am always excited at the prospect of it. But now the longing is slowly becoming a reality and I can feel the tides changing, the season making room for the other.

As I take another deep breath, I have to remind myself that I want this, that I want to move forward. I must move both feet forward and make room for the change at hand.

My chest is tight and my breath is shallow, and even though I find myself sighing every few minutes to try and settle myself I know eventually it will pass and the change will come.

I like honesty, truthfulness, and logic; it's one of my favorite combination of emotions! So I'm going to be honest with you...I jumped head first into this, with maybe a pair of baby wings attached to me hoping to goodness they'd help me fly!

Between 2006 and 2007 I had a few friends at the time who were professional photographers and I would recommend blogs or locations that I saw during my outings. I faithfully followed photographers like Jasmine Star as well as my friends because I was inspired by every single photograph they took. The emotions they were able to capture and stir inside of me made me eat up every single blog post they wrote.

The summer of 2008 I purchased a used Canon 30D camera for Mister for his birthday and I was so excited to give it to him! I threw a joint family birthday party and we sang him Happy Birthday while I brought out the ice cream cake and a big box wrapped and decorated. He ripped the wrapping off and was so surprised that I had purchased something that was way out of our gift budget - but I knew he would love it and I was so excited to watch him learn how to use it!

I never dreamed I would pick up his camera, the thing was huge and black; it was very intimidating, but eventually I wanted to learn all the different settings. So we would sit at home and walk around downtown and go over the different settings of the camera, what aperture was, how to expose correctly, how to decide which ISO setting to use, and the difference between RAW and JPEG. I have a note book full of notes that I took trying to soak it all it.

Again I jumped in head first, I didn't want to learn what the Program setting on the camera did, nope, I wanted to learn how to use Manual first. Try and wrap your head around that one when you're just learning about ISO. Let me tell you, the first rounds of photographs...SUCKED! But I was determined!

Later that summer Mister and I took a trip down the Oregon Coast before he switched jobs as our final vacation that year, and this is when I could feel my feet reaching the edge of the ledge. We passed by all these beautiful locations that I wanted to photograph. But I didn't want to photograph landscapes, I wanted someone IN it to photograph. I wanted to capture the same kind of emotions that I had been inspired by the photographs of my friends. I had had enough of passing by these beautiful locations when I told Mister to turn the car around and head towards a red barn that I had seen. I wanted to capture it, and he was going to be my model.

Over that week I learned how to shoot my model back lit and fell in love with the sun. I shot in the wide open sun, at night, at dawn and dusk, in a moving car, out on the water - everywhere. And Mister was my model. At one point I could feel his enthusiasm for being my model dwindling so I told him I was going to ask my windsurfing instructor to be my model. As cute as she was, he didn't want her to suffer in front of my camera so he sucked it up some more while I played with my settings and asked him "Just 2 more?!".

When we got home from our vacation, I was hooked and knew exactly what I wanted to do. A few weeks later I headed to the Small Business centre and applied for a business name and did all the paper work so that I had everything in order. A few weeks after that I set up my blogsite specializing in Children and Adley Studio was born. I jumped head first into this, with maybe a pair of baby wings attached to me hoping to goodness they'd help me fly! Thank goodness those baby wings sure flutter fast!

These are my brand new letterpress business cards! I LOOOOOVE them and love handing them out to people! They are double sided with my information on the front and then my logo repeated in a beautiful pattern on the back. They were designed and printed through Adrienne from Dingbat Press, and I would recommend her to anyone!

It's been on my mind for a long time, constantly there...lingering, knocking, persisting, never letting up. I would try and push it aside telling myself that I couldn't do it, that I'm not smart/knowledgeable/cool/old enough, that I wasn't the right person. But it was persistent pushing even harder against my heart telling me I should, that I must! Eventually I knew I would have to give in. One night I wept. Wept my tears of fear and soaked Mister's shoulder, he had no idea what was going on. I was sobbing so hard I could hardly formulate a sentence beyond "I just.." sob "I don't know if...." sob "I want to but..." sob. He eventually pulled me back and said "I believe in you, that you can succeed in anything you put your mind to, but you just have to do it". Even after crying about it I still didn't even know if I had the courage to really pursue it.

This past weekend while lying in the snow and staring at the winter wonderland that God created, I knew, I could and I would! Without sobbing this time, I told Adam and formulated an actual sentence, actually, more like a monologue, and told him my dreams and what I wanted to do! And once again he smiled and said "I believe you can do it, you have it in you and I think it's a great idea, you just have to do it"!

So hear I am, putting it out there and putting all my fears aside and going for it!

 I'd like to meet up with 4-5 women (any age) who have been possibly thinking of starting something new (whether its a business, a hobby, a lifestyle change...anything!) and would like to meet up once every two weeks to talk, encourage each other, and inspire to be. Be greater, to be who we were created to be, to be the best version of ourselves!

I'm scared that this is going to fall flat on it's face, but I'd rather say I tried then just hide it inside and not do anything at all. So, if you're interested, send me an email and let me know what you're thinking of doing and which days/evenings you're free and I'll set something up for us all to meet within the next two weeks!

These are the last few pictures of my recent from Alanna + Stephanie from the country shoot. These two, even if they didn't know it, encouraged me to put myself out there and ask if you'd like to meet up. :)

The past couple of days have been an eye opener for me - and it's been great to feel like my dreams and plans are coming into focus. You see, I've always been a dreamer and probably always will be! Sometimes it drives me a little nuts being the dreamer that I am, cause one day I'll wake up and I think about opening a little shop that sells all my favorite items (cause then I'd get all my favorite items as a write off and everyone else can enjoy them too!), or the next day I wake up and think that being a graphic designer would be cool, then the next day I think that being a photographer is even cooler. Thankfully being a photographer has stuck around a whole lot longer then the days of dreaming of walking the tightrope in the circus as my profession (I'm not kidding, I used to try and walk across my mom's clothes line!).

So, I wanted to start writing about my journey about finding my way. About the days where I feel a little lost, the days where I jump up and down in my office chair cause I love the images I'm staring at, and about the days where I drive home with a smile on my face cause I feel like I've just made a new life long friend. I want to share with you about my journey as a dreamer, cause I believe many of us are dreamers and don't have their life plan figured out, and I wanted you to know, you're not alone! I still sometimes dream about what it'd be like to be a parade float designer (I was about 8 years old when I decided I'd do that!). So follow along on my journey, I'd love to have some company!

This is a self portrait of myself called "Home away from Home". The concept behind it: I've always been a dreamer and when I was younger I would build forts for myself and tuck myself in there dreaming about all the things I wanted to do and places I'd see. This is the older version of myself doing those things I've dreamed of doing but now dreaming of home, so I created something that reminded me of home - my fort.