It rained a little last night. When I got up this morning to feed the animals and make the coffee the air was moist, cool, and clean, and I could see in the faint pre-dawn light ten thousand little puddles resting on every surface outside. And even though we’d slept through the rain, I could still hear its echo in the droplets that were popping in the soil as they fell from the canopies of our trees. It was a magical moment, and fortunately for me I wasn’t on the clock, so there was no reason not to just stop and breathe it in.“Just stop and breathe it in,” has become a kind of mantra for me. I’m a fairly contemplative guy so it probably always has been a priority, but I’m getting better at it all the time.Last night the last thing Tina and were doing before bed was booking flights and rental cars and accommodations for a trip we’re making in the Fall. We plan to take the first couple of weeks in October and spend it driving around Vermont in a pick-up truck—hiking through the woods as the leaves change color, drinking hot cider, canoeing on glassy ponds, wandering through picturesque New England villages and everything else one could and should do when visiting to ground zero of Autumn in America.I was thinking about those plans as I stood breathing in that magical moment this morning in my own backyard, and in a moment of great gratitude and appreciation I couldn’t help but say to myself, “Well, Vermont will have to raise the bar pretty high to beat this.”Today I am grateful for both the ability to travel to beautiful places and to live in a beautiful place, but mostly for living in a beautiful place and learning to take the time to just stop and breathe it in. And I’m proud of Tina and I for the life we’ve chosen that makes appreciating the beauty around us a daily priority. I would encourage anyone looking to improve their life in significant ways not to worry about whether you can afford to travel to distant places, but rather to work harder at breathing in this place. Big events are lovely, but big events do not make a beautiful life. Life is always hidden in the power of the small, the simple, the close at hand. God truly is in the details. The masters of this life are those who’ve learned to stop and breathe them in. Those who make the little things the most important things.The writer Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.”It bears repeating …How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.My day is off to a good start. I hope yours is too. It’s Spring. The rain has past. The clouds have given way to soft, warm sunlight. Magic is all around you. If you want it inside you then you’ll need to stop and breathe it in. I hope you do. Because I believe it’s just about the only truly lasting way to build yourself a beautiful life.