Finding Innate Beauty while Strolling thru My Hood

Sometimes it takes the simplest of life forms to find peace and sanctity through the chaos.

I feel very blessed to live in Montana. I haven't always lived here, but serendipity brought me to the great Rockies and I haven't looked back since.

It's much slower out here than the west coast where I was raised. But the fundamentals are the same. Work, gym, school, raising kids, laundry, chores, errands, budgeting, friends, entertainment, grooming sleep. It takes a lot of effort to be a decent human being, I mean, a lot of effort! And you all know this.

So today, while my laundry was in the dryer, my daughter and I took a stroll around our little tiny Montana town and found some wonderful things that really zenned out our day.

We came across a few trees that were literally swarming with bees, mainly wasps and hornets. Upon closer inspection we discovered a hornet that we had never seen before. It is actually a bald-face hornet that can be found in the Rockies. What an intriguing little creature!

We also found a red squirrel with HUGE nuts eating a nuts!

The best was when we spotted these gorgeous roses; we don't see many roses in Montana as they take a lot of care to grow out here. So we actually stopped and smelled the roses. It was wonderful.

We also stopped in an empty catholic church that was dark and cool. It was so peaceful.

Who knew that we would have discovered these things and let our chi flow by taking 20 minutes out of our day, in between laundry and grocery shopping and such.

When is the last time you took a break from life to stop and smell the roses?