Homegrown House

My good friend, Janet Wong, has a new book coming out this summer, and on the Creating Connections blog, she asked, "How do you turn a house into a home?"

I loved that question since I've newly returned to my old house and needed to turn it into a new home. First off, my girlfriends came over to SWAK (sealed with a kiss)-paint the entry. Every brush stroke bristled with their love. And then the day after my sister finished her grad school finals, she came over...to paint, too. Despite test exhaustion, she powered on for two days straight, spending two nights over--driven by virtual direct infusions of caffeine and her mission to give me a fresh start.

It's amazing how color can completely alter the feeling of a space. And moving furniture. And changing up my enormous stacks of books, which, let's face it, are the ultimate accessories. Books warm up every room.

And finally...one of my friends in Shanghai, Stacey, gave me a tiny bottle of holy water from the fountain at the Fatima Shrine in Portugal. So today, we power cleaned our house. And then blessed our HOME. Every single room. The perimeter. The backyard. And the front.

Today I am thankful for having a HOME filled with joy and many, many blessings and the promise of future happiness.