From House to Home

My first houseguest was my cousin Chris, who came to visit mid August. She was here a week after the movers came, and the house was still pretty stacked with boxes. A new sleeper sofa had just arrived, and I cleaned and stocked the guest bathroom--I wanted her to be as comfortable as possible, under the circumstances. Chris helped me pack in NY, so I didn't want us to have a full-on 'work weekend.' Aside from hanging some big, heavy pieces, buying some rugs and putting together some furniture...we explored the city a bit and celebrated my birthday.

Scroll forward 7 weeks. After Charlotte, Cousin Chris logged trips to Spain, Mexico and points in the Northeast. Being Type A must run in the family.

Over those 7 weeks, I was pretty tied to the house, but I did dip down to Savannah for a fast weekend. I'm happy to report I'm 99% done with wrangling the house--plumbing, electric, paint, wallpaper, carpet, media all plugged in, pix hung, furniture all in place. The office is pretty organized and so is the garage. I have just a handful of boxes left, and to put stuff away in the master closet. I've been working steadily and this house really feels like my home!

My sister Leslie came to visit from NY with our friend Dianne this past weekend. I was ready for houseguests, excited to share my home and to have them see where I live! They totally "get" why I'm here--they loved it! Front porches, pretty roads, meeting my nice neighbors, Greenway walks, shopping, lunch, dinner, brunch. They arrived on the 11:30pm flight Friday night, so we had to pack a lot into 1.5 days.

We were home from the airport at 12:30am, and we'd all been up since early Friday morning. Before everyone crashed into sleep...we had a yummy snack. Dianne brought me an unusual hostess gift, that thankfully did not interest the TSA at LaGuardia Airport. A homemade carrot bread baked into a coffee can! I did not go all paparazzi at that late hour, so these pix are from the next morning...after we'd already eaten half.

The bread puffed up over the top of the can.

The rings are built-in slicing guides!

Moist and dee-lish. Thanks, Dianne! This was the perfect start to a wonderful weekend.