A Snapshot of Life in Georgetown

Hi there friends,

Where am I, how am I, and what have I been up to? Great questions; let’s take them one at a time!

I’m currently living in Georgetown, Ontario, and I’m doing wonderfully! I've been here for five or six weeks—I think—living with an old friend of my parents. Her name is Sarah (she has a blog too), and she's the single mother of adorable, two-and-half-year-old Katie.

I came here for two reasons. I needed a place to stay, and Sarah needed help with Katie while she juggled working from home. It seemed like a perfect fit and so far it has been. I finished school at His Hill during my first week under Sarah’s roof. Then, this past week, I started an online photography class through Udemy, courtesy of my wonderful mother. Life, since moving here, has been fun, sweet, and adventurous.

Most days start with sitting down to breakfast together. Then, Katie and I go off and hang out so that Sarah can get in some work or alone time. We enjoy playing in the backyard, going for walks almost every day, drawing on the sidewalk with chalk, playing doctor, blowing bubbles, and watching cartoons. We then have lunch, all three of us together, before Katie goes down for a nap. This is when Sarah and I get to do some work.

Recently, for me, “work” means my online photography course, reading, and studying the Bible. When Katie wakes up, we often do things as a group of three—things like playing in the backyard or going to a relative’s pool. Either that or Katie and Sarah will have a mother-daughter afternoon. We have dinner together and then play a bit more. Then it’s bath time and bedtime for Katie. The evenings usually find me relaxing—watching Netflix, calling friends, or reading.

Let me tell you a bit more about my photography classes. It's a self-paced course, and I’ve been taking it slowly. The best time for me to work on it is when Katie is napping in the afternoon. But that’s also the best time for me to do my devotions and blogging. So I juggle them all during this time. I’ve been making a bit of progress on most days.

So far, I’ve completed about 3 of 33 sections. These include assignments, which I’ve been thoroughly enjoying. For these assignments, students critique each other’s photos. As well as being self-paced, you can work through the sections in the order you like. It has supplementary resources that you can download and keep for future reference. The videos are easy for beginners to understand but also thorough. The course has advanced sections for those wanting to go deeper. All that is to say that I would recommend it! The photos in this post have all been taken since I started the course.

Because I’ve been learning so much from my photography classes, I’ve been taking so many more photos. I’m eager to put what I’ve learned into practice. I’ve learned about exposure and how to properly use the manual mode on my camera (I have a Canon Rebel T5i). Before this, I always used an automatic mode because “manual” sounded daunting, and it took me too long to set up a shot. But now that I understand shutter speed, ISO, and aperture so much better, I can set up a shot way faster, and it takes much less trial and error to get a good, well-exposed shot. It took me some time to get the hang of it, but with practice, it’s easier and so much fun.

I’ve been wanting to get a remote for my camera for a while, but I didn’t want to spend $50 on it. So when I was on Amazon one day and spotted a basic one for $10, I jumped at the opportunity. We live close to the Amazon warehouse, so we often get packages sooner than expected. I got my remote, for example, within three days! I played with it by myself in the backyard first, and the next day I introduced it to Katie. She already enjoyed taking photos with the self-timer, but she loved the button even more.

Our interactions look like this. I set up the shot for her or even hold the camera. She runs to stand somewhere in the shot and presses the button. Then she giggles and runs back to the camera to see the photo she took. She does this gleefully over and over and over and over. Some of the photos are tummy shots or out of focus (my fault), but some turn out great! The button has two modes. One takes the photo right away, and the other is a two-second delay, which gives you time to press the button then drop the remote or shove it in your pocket before it takes the photo. This will be fun to experiment with as time goes on.

There’s a snapshot of how life is going right now. It’s full of the lively Katie and of adventures as our funny little family. I’m working on my passion, growing, and pursuing God and life.

I hope you’re doing well during this odd season. I pray that you’re using this time that God has given us for good!

Until next time, my friends,

Darcy-Rea