Asheville, NC Getaway

Hello, everyone, and happy New Year! It feels good to dust off the blog and share something new this morning  🙂  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and New Year, and are just loving 2015 so far. 2014 was a crazy year. We worked with so many amazing people, got to go on some awesome trips, and loved the time we got to spend outdoors. We made some big changes in our health (physically, mentally, financially…all of the above!). But if I’m being honest, 2014 was also an exhausting year. We started off 2014 with a lot of stress, and looking back, it set the tone for a lot of our mindset of the year. There was a lot of heartbreak on behalf of friends and family going through rough times. There was not enough time spent intentionally, and far too much wasted on social media. Optimism is not a mindset that comes easy to me. So imagine my surprise when I found myself on New Year’s Eve feeling hopeful and excited about 2015. To look back at all the worry we carried at the beginning of the year in particular, and see how we came through it…there’s nothing else to say than that God is good.

For several weeks Chris and I had been planning to getaway for a short “business retreat” in January. Just to get outside our normal routine, dream, and plan for the year. Finally, on the Friday before we planned to leave on Wednesday we found the perfect place in Asheville! We booked an adorable cottage on AirBnB (I am now addicted), gathered up a couple books for inspiration reading, and prepared to get. stuff. done. I know it’s early in the year, but I’m just going to go ahead and call it that this may be the best decision we’ve made all year  😉  The cottage was so relaxing, which I didn’t even realize how much we needed. The books we picked out (Make it Happen by Lara Casey for me, and The Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau for him) knew what we needed before we even did. We turned our phones on airplane mode, and greatly limited social media. And while we did get stuff done, we mostly spent time reflecting, talking about our fears, talking about our hopes, reconnecting, and getting to know each other again after such a busy few months. Figuring out what it looks like to choose purpose over perfection, and letting go of the “shoulds” (Thanks, Lara Casey!). We went for walks, and ate bagel sandwiches. And it was awesome.

Book, notebook, and french press coffee. Pretty much Chris’s happy place!

Not entirely sure why my phone was in this photo haha. I think I had just taken a picture with it.

Fun fact: Chris is an excellent cook.

We had dinner one night at West Asheville Lounge and Kitchen. Food was great, and the vibe was just the perfect amount of chill! And they had a local hard cider on tap which was pretty much the selling point for me haha. But, West Asheville reminds me a bit of East Nashville–hip, but maybe a bit sketchy in areas at night. We were just having that conversation when we saw this shirt in the window of a store haha.

So many windows and so much natural light in the cottage <3

We stopped at Farm Burger for lunch on our way out of town. SO GOOD. Highly recommend!

We decided to take the “scenic route” home, and though we would drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a bit. Then we were foiled by a Road Closed sign. Tried to pick it up again a little later, and ran into the same thing. So we detoured through Cherokee, NC, and went up into the Great Smoky Mountains. The weather was gorgeous, sunny and upper 50s, so we thought it would be a good day to try to make it up Clingman’s Dome (we’ve started up the trail, which is paved and only 0.8 miles long, twice. We’ve yet to make it to the top, for various reasons haha). But as we get up into the Smokys, there’s snow on the ground and as we got ready to turn on the road up to Clingman’s Dome….Road Closed. But some day we will finish that trail! We stopped to check out some crazy ice formations before heading back down the mountain then finally home.

I highly recommend making the time to getaway–even if it’s just to your own living room! Give yourself space to be still, and recharge. Forget about the to do list for a few days (goodness knows mine is still 12 miles long), and re-focus on what really matters.

Happy 2015, friends! Can’t wait to see what adventures we all get into this year!