I had an incredibly busy October month with a business trip to Los Angeles, coming home to ten days of three guys painting our house, my computer freezing then dying on me, and finally now – some peace! Wait, should I write that and risk jinxing myself? J

Despite this hectic month, on a few occasions I was able to formulate some chapters for my next book. Yes, book number 13 is just around the corner – maybe a little further than that, but it’s closer to publication now than it was yesterday. How on earth did I write in this – how should I describe the messy situation in an elegant fashion? Well, to save time, I just won’t. But I will say that accidentally finding little sanctuaries here and there had a lot to do with it.

My favorite sanctuary is the one in this picture (note: the black around my nails is ink not dirt). I found this place after dropping off my daughter to her first recreational class, located in an unfamiliar town. I asked the receptionist, “Is there a library or café nearby where I can hang out until the class ends?”

“Library?” he said. “There’s one a few blocks down, right past the cemetery.”

I drove to a library I’d never been to before. There, I stumbled upon a beautiful garden where I sat on a bench under the sun and wrote to my heart’s content while squirrels chased each other, birds chirped, and ants busily went to and fro doing I don’t know what. The end result was a rough draft of Chapter 8 of my upcoming book.

While I’m leaving the name of the library a mystery, I described it my book chapter well enough that possibly one of patrons might recognize it. Not that it matters. There are little treasures and sanctuaries on every corner of our streets, waiting for us to discover and utilize them. What little sanctuary is calling for you to visit it and use it to create and inspire?