thanks Esmi, after further googling I found that this on the wordpress help section:
The White Screen of Death: A Plugin is causing compatibility issues. If you can access the Administration Screens try deactivating all of your Plugins and then reactivating them one by one. If you are unable to access your Screens, log in to your website via FTP. Locate the folder wp-content/plugins and rename the Plugin folder plugins_old. This will deactivate all of your Plugins.
I followed these instructions and now my site is back up and running! thank god, have been losing my marbles
