stress free summer

ever realize that although summer is our time off, our vacation, our time to reenergize, it is mostly spent being busier than we are during the year? time is divided into working (gotta pay that tuition) doing stuff at home like cleaning and all that, trying to have a social life, and then maybe if time permits and the weather gods are smiling that day, squeeze in a trip to the beach. i long for the lazy summer boredom of elementary school days. the summer seemed so much longer, even though it was half as long. you had no plans, and the biggest drama was that the dickie-dee truck went down your friend's street and not yours. 


that is the kind of summer i set out to have this year, and it is exactly what i needed. by the end of  the school year, i was burnt out. i needed to get away and recharge. i took a break from everything. no blogs, no advertising, no keeping up with everything as it was happening. i just stopped. and it was fantastic! i did work from may until july at the yacht club full time, but i was outside by the water all day so it was lovely. then i went home and got ready for a two week roadtrip around nova scotia with my best friend and talented photographer, jess deeks (jessicadeeks.com).


with the car packed up, boogie boards and photography equipment in tow, we hit the road to halifax at 3am on july 12th. we made it there in one day, a 17 hour drive but it was actually pretty easy. we stayed with her great aunt who coincidentally lives about a 2 min drive from my dad! what a small world. we had lunch with the gang from chester + co, where i interned last summer, shopped around and then hit the road again! we drove north east with lawrencetown being our first stop, and you know what that means: surfing! we continued up to cape breton, then back down through pugwash (heeheee) and down to the south shore, hitting yarmouth, lunenburg and all those lovely towns, all the while setting up and taking portraits of cool people we met along the way. back to halifax for a day or two to sleep in a real bed after 'roughing it' in a two person pop up tent haha and then back home to ottawa we went! 


side note: i had tried to set up a portfolio review with shawn king from extreme group (they have an office in hali) while i was there, but the timing just didn't work out... i was tres bummed out, but hey everything happens for a reason right?! 

our route!

now, if you guys have ever had the privilege of travelling with a photographer, you will know that you basically don't even need to bring a camera, as they will be doing most of that for you. i think i ended up taking maaaybe 100 photos, because jess always had her point and shoot out, so i just stole all of her pics! which are awesome. to see the portraits she did (and she wrote a bit about each person/place we were when we took them) check out her blog jessicadeeks.blogspot.com there is also a video she made of the trip which is sooo great and the background music is "don't stop" by foster the people. aka basically our soundtrack for the whole trip. foster the people on repeat. 

that is just a small sampling of the about 400 pictures i have from our trip. all photos copyright jessica deeks. check out her blog for more photos! 

it was an absolutely amazing trip! we had sort of a plan/route we were going to take, but we had all the time in the world and didn't care if we made changes to it. such a free feeling to just be able to get up and go wherever and whenever you wanted. nova scotia is so beautiful, i'm lucky to have been able to go there and spend a lot of time there in my life so far! check it out if you have the chance :) next stop: west coast!!! 

we got home the last week of july, and thats when the chilling started. the adventure was over and now it was time to relax! i spent all of august reading, sleeping in till 11, hanging out with my cat tiger, growing tomatoes, spying on deer in my backyard, watching countless episodes of how i met your mother, and perfecting my recipe for homemade iced tea. it was the best.

i got back to toronto two days ago feeling very happy to be here! i'm stoked, creativity re-amped, ready to go. i still get super scared when i think omg i'm in 4th year and in four months i will be an intern, but it's more a excited scared than a 'watching scary movie home alone at midnight' kind of scared haha portfolio show on november 14th btw so that's the countdown date waaaaah!!!

now i'm sitting here, on labour day, with the last first day of school EVER looming in front of me, two days away. it is a weird feeling, since basically all i've ever done is be in school. definitely not ready to be a grownup and have a 'real job'. stress. i'm just going to take this year one day at a time and see what happens, because i can't get stressed over things i have no control over! zennnnn. breathe in, breathe out. ok, good to go. bring it on fourth year! 

now i'm looking forward to seeing all my classmates who i've missed terribly over the summer, going back to all my toronto 'spots', and .... sweater weather whooo! cozy and cuddly. hope everyone enjoys the long weekend (i have tuesdays off, so it's an extra long weekend for me!) and kicks butt on the first day back at school! 

stay stress free peeps :)

soph