… and why I’ve been a bit remiss with my blog posting…

Aside: Snapknot is hosting a contest where you can win a Canon 5D Mark III or a D800. These are $3500 camera bodies. You should enter now!

I don’t know what the weather feels like where you are living, but fall has arrived in Vancouver. Sunny days, crisp (ok, often cool) weather, and leaves that are a-changing. And I don’t really know what happened. I feel like just yesterday we were on a plane from Buenos Aires, moving back to Vancouver after four years away. I turn around and exactly five months have gone by in a flash. A flash people!

I’ve photographed 10 amazing weddings so far this year and have second shot 3 in August. I’ve photographed a ton of engagement sessions, family sessions, and baby sessions. I took a 2 week long trip to California where I partied with some girlfriends, attended an amazing workshop, and did the world’s best engagement session in San Francisco. The hubs and I travelled to Edmonton for 10 days where we didn’t work as hard as we should have, but we did have an amazing time with family and friends (especially at the cabin).

I’ve worked my butt off transforming our weirdly painted little rented house into a home; acquiring pieces mostly from craigslist (sometimes from the street) and I’m so excited about where it’s going. Just last week the in-laws came to visit and spent two whole days getting rid of the awful paint and border in the bathroom and the super stressful red in the bedroom. Then I finished up the living room and now our home is a beautiful, bright, soft white that (as my mother-in-law says) just lends itself to a hundred year old house. This is a not-so-great-quality-instagram-teaser. I need to give you a better tour!

Outside of photography and travel and diy projects and painting: I started a company with the hubs and our friend Justin. We’re building a piece of Canadian tax filing software called Simpletax and are taking on Turbotax and UFile next tax season. We want to make it easier (and more user friendly) for Canadians to file their own tax returns. So if you are a resident in Canada, keep us in mind. Even if you think doing your own taxes is too complicated, you should give us a try—it’s easier than you think. Discount codes will abound early next year!

In our business, the hubs is doing the front end UI and running our marketing strategy and being our unofficial CEO; Justin is doing the (gigantic) back end and the linking of the user interface to the back end; and I am being the tax brain and general business manager. As the tax brain, I’m in charge of codifying all ~100 forms related to Canadian tax returns. This means I spend hours and hours a day at my (now awesome DIYed barnwood) desk codifying Canadian personal tax returns. This also means I had to learn javascript (which wasn’t that hard since I know VBA and basic programming conventions) and totally helped move me towards my 30-before-30 web goal. Woohoo! This also means that I know a heck of a lot about personal tax and tax policy.

We’re so close to being able to actually use our software for the first time and it is an incredibly exciting time. We’re developing a really cool user experience that I’m SO excited about. (And yes, I realize that I just said I’m so excited about tax software. I know… I’m a big dork.) Our biggest fear is that people won’t know about us and won’t use our product. If even just a teensy tiny percentage of the market uses our product we’ll call year one a success and have taken a successful first step towards the life that we are trying to live!

So. I’ve been busy. It’s been awesome.

September we’re doing healthy month. Dry September started for us on the 5th (and will continue for me until the 29th when I’m going for dinner with my girlfriends at Les Faux Bourgouis and am clearly going to enjoy wine with my delicious french meal). We’re also trying to get out to play tennis lots, I need to get back on the yoga train, and I’m hoping that this is the month where I can actually start running again.

So. Hopefully healthy month can counteract 1) the summer, and 2) the hours and hours of desk-sitting in my future this month.

And with that, I best get back to work! Any exciting things in your future?