I have just spent a week alone in my apartment in what is best described as total hibernation. It was incredible.

I know that saying that likely conjures an image of me laying in bed all day, watching soap operas or other crappy tv, eating junk food and just generally being lazy. It was actually the total opposite. Okay, I did get more than enough sleep – sleep was, in fact, one of my most focused goals of the week – but it was more closely aligned with circadian rhythm than a party all night, sleep all day kind of pattern.

My other big goal was re-righting my eating habits. We’d thought we’d hit the jackpot with a two week window for moving – and, mostly, we still feel that way – but, it did prolong some of the inevitable and more hairy parts of the . Most notably, that came in the food department. When I told Kevin that for the month of April we would only eat food we made at home, my statement was met with a resounding and enthusiastic “YESSSSSSSSSS.” We’d been relying on restaurant bought food to get us through a schedule of working our day jobs and our side hustles and moving and maintaining all the other parts of our lives and, man, it was getting old. So, I spent the week referencing and channelling Ella Woodward, Angela Liddon and Joy McCarthy because as much as my naturopath might recommend I do something different and as much as I might try to make her happy, vegan is my comfort zone and when I feel my best on the whole.

So, when I wasn’t getting as much sleep as I could and researching, preparing and eating whole, clean foods, I was, of course, tackling the move. The people who lived here before us weren’t what you’d call thorough when it came to cleaning up after themselves so that took some sorting out and, though that is not my forte (seriously!) I did it anyway. I had to sort out all new appliances and I made a conscious effort to take my time in setting everything up in our new space. I wanted to choose the perfect – or at least one of the better – places for our things and decide the most convenient spots to store everything. In our new apartment, we have the luxury of almost twice as much space as we’d grown used to and I wanted to take advantage of that as best we could. Being able to tackle all that at my own pace made it an almost enjoyable undertaking – it was even kind of meditative.

My hibernation (or how a serious introvert vacations): During the mornings, I took long luxurious baths while reading. During the days, I set up our new home with care. During the evenings, I wrote, then read more.

(In case you’re wondering where Kevin fit into all of this, he was away at a conference all week.)

I finally broke my hibernation when I met a friend to watch the Gonzaga game yesterday. And, then today, we woke up and it was like spring!

Here are a few of my favourite things from last week.

I started using this Turmeric Ginger Tea recipe every morning. It’s delicious either way, but I prefer it with a splash of almond milk.

Danielle LaPorte has a new book – White Hot Truth – coming out on May 16th, but I snuck into the Launch Team and got started early. This is a lot of what I read and reread all week. Check this link to download a free chapter, join the free White Hot Truth book club, pre-order the book (and then download the audio book TODAY when you do!) or check out some videos. Like this one.

After the new season of Grace and Frankie was made available on Netflix and my mom and I exchanged all caps text messages confirming that, I swore I wasn’t going to watch it all at once. So, I only watched the first nine out of thirteen episodes. So fantastic.

I read this post by Cait Flanders called A Home is Meant to Be Lived In, Not Looked At and I gave it an internal three cheers. We were moving at the same time and had commiserated about it a little in the thick of it. After the (literal) heavy lifting was done, I was excited to see she’d written about her experience. I’ve never been hung up on having a style of decor and I’ve never been apologetic about that, but it’s nice to hear for once that I’m not alone. It’s a great piece in which she tackles the idea of creating a home, how it is a work in progress and, along the same lines as the title, includes the tweetable, “Your home doesn’t need to be ready to have its picture taken.”

So, I’m not going to share pictures of my new home. … But here is what I will share: stories about what happens in this home. The friends who come to visit. The things we do. The memories we make. And the adventures we go on, when we walk out and lock the door behind us. That is what life is all about.

I turned to sleep and clean eating to help me rest after the stress of moving. What do you do to find balance in times of turmoil? What have you read, eaten, made, drank, watched, loved lately?