P.E.A.K OF THE WEEK
sorry for the skip last week! i was traveling and then we had family in town and tried to spend as much time as possible with them!
i’ve been spending lots of time outside getting our backyard and woods summer ready! also, spring cleaning the house and getting my shit together lolol.
P LANE ANXIETY
wooooof. if you follow me on instagram, you know i was having MAJOR anxiety about flying last week. i had to go to destin to shoot a wedding and i almost had a full blown anxiety attack about it. i *actually* considered driving - and it’s a 24 hour drive - lololol.
anyway, i asked on IG for y’all to give your encouragement and tips for overcoming flight anxiety and a lot of you said you wanted to see the answers too, so i’m sharing here!
get a window seat - this definitely always helps me! when there’s turbulence i like to be able to look outside and see that the plane isn’t going down lol
download your favorite podcasts, tv shows, music, or book! i always have a few entertaining, trashy, guilty pleasure reality tv episodes saved!
medication. hahahaha. so many of you said anxiety meds. or the natural version - ashwaganda!
breathing exercises / meditation. there are so many ways to do this, but when i start to panic and need to re-regulate my breath, a therapist gave me the 4-7-8 method. breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 7, breathe out for 8. this always helps!
make sure you have a full stomach! if i am hungry or thirsty, my anxiety gets so much worse! i treated myself to mcdonalds before my flight because i just wanted to have a full belly!
alcohol lol. listen.. i know it shouldn’t be a bandaid for problems but…… i treated myself to a white claw and the flight attendant actually bought me a second one! it helped okay… it really did lol.
reminding yourself of the facts. the things like… the plane is in jello. planes are made to stay in the sky. pilots go through extensive training. there are several safety measures in place before every flight and so many back ups for an emergency.
all that being said, i made it. i shot my wedding one day and then had a free day to myself. here’s a small snapshot of my trip! i definitely missed the mountains, but a quick little beach trip was nice i guess HAHA.
E MOTIONAL
if you follow me on instagram or tiktok, you’ve probably seen my series of building a trail on our property. if not - we’ve been building a trail on our property lol.
we rent a lovely house on ten acres and the landlord couldn’t care less about what we do around here hahaha. so we’ve been carving out our very own trail loop in our backyard!!!
i documented the whole process on social media - most recent tiktok linked here and instagram reel linked here. it was SO rewarding and fun. we ended up making a loop that’s about 0.6 miles roundtrip (feels farther lol) and we also have a little offshoot to an overlook with a cool rock and a viewpoint of mt. evans!
i cannot even begin to explain how grateful i am every day that we live here. i feel so freaking lucky.
the last step was creating trail signs! i got some wood from home depot and wood burned named onto the pieces and nailed them into posts or trees! you can watch that here on tiktok or here on instagram.
we still have more to do like leveling out parts of the trail, pulling weeds, trimming trees, etc. then we also plan to extend it and add another part or two and just have a whole trail system!!! but for now, lily’s loop is done!
yes, we named it after our miniature pinscher - rightfully so. i’m so emo about this because we got lily back in 2015 when we lived in an apartment in st. louis missouri. i wish i could go back and tell that little puppy that in 10 years, she’d be living in the mountains in colorado, have her own backyard, and have a trail named after her. BRB SOBBINGGGGGG.
this dog has been through 4 different apartments with me and has just been my absolute best friend for the last 10 years. she’s also the reason i go outside so much - because i want to give HER a good life. so it only felt fitting to name this loop after her. and yes i’ve cried about it like 5 times.
A VIAN UPDATE
it’s officially been about 2 weeks with our bird!!! are you sick of hearing about him yet? hahahaha.
i was nervous about getting a bird because i’ve never had one. i know how to take care of dogs, but a bird has been a new learning curve lol. however, we’re finally settle in and have our routine with him now!
it’s been so much fun to have an extra little buddy in the house! he’s actually sleeping on my shoulder as i type this lol. we’re trying to balance him having alone time with also bonding with us, but we’re really having fun snuggling with him hahaha. every night before we go to sleep we bring him into bed with us and there’s nothing he loves more than squeezing in between our neck and a pillow!
he also went to the park for the first time last week! michael put him on a harness and went for a little hike and it was the funniest thing lol.
K INDNESS
for those of you who are new here - i’m a full time wedding and portrait photographer! i try not to talk about it much here because i want to keep it separate, but i do want to offer something to this audience this week!
$350 off a photoshoot!
my usual session price is $675 for a one hour session. i want to offer to YOU GUYS ONLY - a one hour session for only $325! you’ll receive a minimum of 60 edited photos delivered within 3 weeks with printing rights. this could be a session for yourself, you and your partner, family photos, etc!
reply to this email or comment on the post to claim! you just need to book the session between may 28th and july 1st and it needs to be within an hour of denver, colorado!
xx, hayley