whew, it has been a crazy few weeks.

1.  i have survived 3 weeks without child care and trying to work with a 6 year old and a 1 year old as my “assistants”.  i am happy to report that eliza and ryder and i are all happy and settling into our new schedules.  liza is LOVING first grade, ryder is having so much fun with his new friends and teachers at school, and i finally feel like i can get more accomplished in a day than just getting dressed!

2. i had a complete technology hex vexing me for a few weeks.   we were without communication to the outside world for over 3 weeks!  first, we had lightning zap our satellite internet.  there were so many troubles and charges to repair our dish through hughes net that i canceled my service.  i had to find a new internet provider to support my uploading and downloading habit out here in the boonies and finally settled on verizon wireless.  during this change i also could not use my iphone from home because, alas, i do not have cell phone service at my house!  i just posted on facebook that if you really needed me to send a carrier pigeon or send a smoke signal!

then on top of all of this my mac book went down.  luckily i had 150 days left in my extended apple care plan, but i had to bring her (my computer) in to the apple store two times (one time i was there with a 1 year old, a 5 year old and a 6 year old for 2 hours!  yeah, that was fun!).  ultimately, they had to send my baby off to the mac doctor and i got almost a completely new computer back.  however, i was told that time machine would save all of my applications and files and this was not the case.  it saved my files, but not all of my software.  namely photoshop.  of course, i can no longer find my original copy of photoshop 7, just the upgrades, so $750 bucks later i am now using photoshop 5, yea!  but, the saga continues….i could not download photoshop on my wireless internet provider, so i had to wait until i got the the hotel in montana to finally get photoshop.  i am still working on getting all of the kinks out of my other software, but i finally feel like life is getting back on track which is a good thing because at one point i was fantasizing about going to montana and just walking out into the woods and living like a hermit and completely without technology!

3.  preparing for the busy season.  the good thing about being unable to use my computer or phone was that i was basically unplugged for the 3 weeks that i had the kids at home by myself.  we had a wonderful time just taking it easy.  our lives are so busy and overbooked that i think we all really enjoyed just being home together.  now i am taking a big breath and getting myself ready for a VERY busy season.  i have 6 out of town trips between now and november 7th.  this winter i look forward to some “hermit” time at home hibernating with my family.  hopefully this time i will not need a technology hex to make me slow down and BREATHE!

-sara

here are some serene images that i took on a beautiful hike in rattlesnake park in missoula.  being around all of that big sky and natural beauty really helped get me recharged and ready to go!

a big thank you to all of our clients who are waiting to see their photos.  we appreciate your patience.  ; )