rough

so you may have noticed that i haven't had any time to blog lately...or maybe you haven't noticed because you have far better things to do than read my blog and i can't blame you for that ;) haha!  but i usually try to blog a couple times a week and i have been totally slacking. SO! i feel like i should do some explaining.....

the past 2.5 weeks have been ROUGH... but also very beautiful in the midst of the roughness. so let me start at the beginning...

a couple weeks ago, we decided to upgrade our phones because my phone basically had to be plugged up the entire day. worst battery ever. so! in order to make 100% sure that all my photos were not only backed up to the cloud, i wanted them backed up to my computer/external hard drive. well... my computer needed to be updated for me to do that. so i updated my 5 year old computer. after the update, it stopped importing my photos. i had just had a big shoot at blackberry farm and my photos would NOT import. i took the money i had set aside for a puppy and went the next day and bought a new computer. i wrote it off as God telling me it just wasn't the right timing for a puppy.

not a week later, i was taking the last picture at a shoot and my shutter completely died. the mirrors stopped moving. it was bad. but THANKFULLY, it was at the end of the shoot and not the beginning. first thing the next day i ran to a local camera shop and asked if it was fixable. he took the lens off, looked in and said "oh this is really bad. worst case scenario. you had 5 things break at the same time. its the equivalent of totaled." i was in a total panic since i have shoots everyday this month except for 3 days. i was able to rent a camera and quickly ordered a camera from b&h. i ALWAYS buy from b&h, they're my go to. i had the camera overnighted and i'll be damned if the thing didn't come in broken. the hotshoe was smashed! it looked like it had been dropped. no need to panic, i'll just call b&h and they will let me swap it right? i google the number and go to call them.......

THEY'RE CLOSED FOR THREE DAYS.

i can't make this shit up. b&h is closed more than the banks. if i lived in NYC i'd be working at b&h. now i'm panicking because i'm afraid they will think i have used it in those 3 days and broken it. i had a literal panic attack, it felt like bricks on my chest and i could barely breathe. by the grace of God himself, i was able to rent the camera for another week until i could get this settled. 

so in the midst of all this, i get a little cold. nothing major but i start taking tylenol cold ("the blue juice" as cal calls it) at night. i had forgotten that the last time i got a hemorrhaging ulcer was when i was taking the blue juice. well..... after a couple days in bed and horrible pain, nausea, no appetite, etc...i've realized the ulcer is back. i don't know if it was the stress from these past two weeks, or the blue juice, or just the combo of it all. needless to say, i've ditched the blue juice. 

so here i am, waiting RIGHT by the front door for the new camera to arrive. if this one comes in broken, someone better come over here and save me. b&h was apologetic about sending the broken camera and was somewhat fast about getting me a new one (i'm not even going to get into THAT story.)

i said these weeks had been rough but also beautiful. so let me show you the beauty..... have you guys seen the great smoky mountains lately!? UNREAL. we were able to spend some time at blackberry farm these past couple of weeks and it totally helped me get my sanity back. there's just something in the air there. i can't express how special it is. we had a great day as a family last sunday and an amazing girls dinner last night!! shoutout to katy for keeping the kids so i could go and thanks to kreis for having us! 

last night got even better when i found out i had been voted runner up in city view's best of the best as best photographer in knoxville among SO many super talented photographers. certainly don't feel like i deserve to be in a category with them so THANK YOU to those of you that voted for me. it was such a wonderful surprise during such a hard two weeks. 

hope everyone has a great weekend! 

xoxo-

hannah