Seattle.

First of all, the book comes out today. Yay yay yay!

Here is the link :: http://tinyurl.com/anniesbook

[By the way, that’s the link that I implore you to share with your social media world. Thanks.]

Thanks again to Westbow Press. I could not have done this without them. Literally.

Now.

Let’s talk about Seattle.

It was marvelous. It started out Wednesday night with my emotional gas tank on totes empty- which is quite inconvenient when you are meeting tons of new people early Thursday and are supposed to be super helpful to your boss, Jeremy Cowart.

Which. By the way. Jeremy taught photography classes for 2 full days at creativeLIVE and he. nailed. it. I mean, I’m telling y’all, I’ve never been more proud to be his friend / employee / adopted family member / nanny / catch-all.

But I was exhausted- more than I have ever been. I prayed to God, saying “please help me. Really. I think I’m in big trouble here.”

Then I slept for 12 hours. So that was nice. A true answer to prayer. And it made Friday and Saturday way more awesome.

Help Portrait was also a super super great time. The only embarrassing moment, I now present to you. Let’s call it “When Annie Didn’t Know She Was Talking To A Famous Girl”.

Sheesh. Right? Sheesh.

And you won’t be surprised to know these things:

1. I cried. Twice. First when I was talking with our coordinator from Florida and the second time at the very end of the day, when I had just a minute to look in the camera and tell the crew in the booth, the producer, and the cameraman that I think they are some of the most wonderful humans I know. [More on that in a minute.] I mean, I had an in-ear monitor where they talked to me all day- talk in my ear for nine hours and I’m gonna be loyal to you for the rest of my days.

2. I loved every.minute.of.it. The skyping with Help Portrait peeps that I already knew via email, working with the creativeLIVE team, talking into a camera all the livelong day. I had the best seat in the Help Portrait house for sure. Anybody wanna give me a TV hosting job? Cause I might love it.

It was a great time.

The weather in Seattle was perfect- actually warmer there than in Nashville!

But the real win, the over-the-moon part, was for sure the people. Chase Jarvis, the photographer who runs this creativeLIVE thang, is a great guy and I loved spending time with him, his wife, and his team. I can’t start naming them, I would leave someone out and feel just awful. But from the top guys, to the crew, to the producer, to the chat hosts, I was blown away by the kindness and friendship that bloomed in such a short amount of time.

Seriously. Here’s what. Seattle was a total last minute thing [as in, decided Monday night, ticket purchased Tuesday morning, flight Wednesday afternoon]. I went because Jeremy needed help. I didn’t go to make new friends. I didn’t go expecting to enjoy the company or feel inspired as an artist. I just went.

And it ended up being beautiful.

I can’t adequately express what Seattle meant. For some reason, it hit every key on my emotional keyboard. And maybe I still don’t get it.

But I know that I was lucky to be there.

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