Please HELP! References for developer who can work with High End!!

I bought this theme because it was affordable and very close in functionality to what I am envisioning for my site. I THOUGHT I could customize it myself but ran into nothing but problems when I tried. I spent hours online with my hosting company and just got burned out and discouraged right out of the gate. I have not found the documentation for the theme or help videos near enough to help me make this theme what I want. Even something that seems simple to me, like changing the width of the blog summaries in the grid of my home page (so the pictures are portrait instead of horizontal), seems to require messing with code – which I don’t do. I’m shocked at how difficult I’ve found working with this theme and WP to be.

I’ve let this sit for months now and recently decided to hire someone, but even there I’ve realized that’s a whole project in and of itself to find the right person for the job – which actually begins with me doing more research to even understand what to look for in this person. I’m exhausted and frustrated at all the prep I’ve done for my blog, just to get stuck here.

I would GREATLY appreciate some direction or referrals to a talented and reliable WP developer who can help me show what this theme can do on my blog. I really don’t want to have to toss it and go with something basic.

Thank you.