My life feels pretty chaotic right now. As the days rapidly approach my cross-country move and my book release, I feel like my to-do list is growing instead of shrinking.
While my husband spent several days out in California juggling work with meeting work crews (yes, multiple) to prepare our new home for the move, I took advantage of some unbooked days to sneak away to the mountains. I headed for a place that is the calm, the peace, the still beauty that I need when life feels too crazy to manage.
This is one of my favorite places on earth, and I’ll be seeing a lot less of it in the coming months. But for now, I’m grateful for the refuge it offers. This place makes me feel small, a great reminder that the problems I’m facing are small in the grander mechanism of the world’s workings.
I had hoped to share more pictures with you, but my laptop and the wireless internet decided to have a knockdown, drag-out fight mid-post. One of the “charms” of escaping the chaos of my regular life is an unreliable internet connection, I suppose.
Where do you go when you need to find calm in the midst of the chaos?
The Flourishing Tree 
NC mountains
Me, too — kindred spirits!
In general, outside. Specifically, my garden.
And that, my friend, is just one of the reasons we’re such good friends!
Some places – Oakwood cemetery, my back porch, Third Place coffee shop. There are more…
Sometimes there’s no better place than your own back porch. I love Third Place — one of the places I’ll miss most. I’ve spent many hours there drinking coffee, eating their delicious food and working on a book. I haven’t spent much time wandering Oakwood, but I find cemeteries in general peaceful places to roam.