A Savannah Southern Belle Returns... Home...

Why yes, it's sweet iced tea all year long here...in about every restaurant...

...and Savannah River sea-salt breezes blowing non-stop...

...and beautiful parks n' squares n' tucked-away gardens all about town...

...and Leopold's icecream my parents used to eat as teenagers on date nights...

...and returning to worship at the church my ancestors helped build...

It's official...James and I moved into a darling carriage house in the Victorian District of Savannah last weekend and are already so enjoying our new home and...my return home!

I can't begin to express how wonderful it is to be in a city where around almost every turn in-town and out on the nearby islands there's a pleasant memory waiting from my childhood, teenage years, college years and ongoing adulthood years. Both sides of my family have been around these parts for generations, my two sets of grandparents were best friends and I still have a bevvy of aunts, uncles, cousins to the 'enth degree living here so my own adulthood return to become a resident in the historic district this month feels, well, completely natural.

I pass by, just minutes from our carriage house, the Presbyterian church where my great-grandfather was the minister and a few blocks over is another church which earlier ancestors funded its building and where our various family members have attended generation after generation. I shop at the Cottage Shop just down from our place where, during my debutante season, many little gifts from family and family friends were awaiting pickup. I bop around Daffin Park where my one of my grandfathers used to walk us little grandkids over to from his house for hours of play. I eat in the Olde Pink House restaurant which one of my ancestors built for his wife as a home back in the 1700's then my grandfather used as his business office almost 200 years later before selling it and where my mother and I had our last meal together in Savannah many years ago. I look into the glittering jewelry cases of Levy's Jewelers feeling my grandmothers by my side and I remember Broughton Street when it was filled with wig shops back in the 1970's. I grocery shop where we'd stop into from time to time if on this side of town and on the other side of town, I work in not only the very first mall I grew-up going to but also the very first major department store I ever experienced! Shopping for school, church and party dresses with my mother began at Lad n' Lassie and then moved over to Fines when I got old enough and of course we also purchased at the mall as well. Sunday lunches at the Oglethorpe Club, long afternoons being obnoxious kids bumming around the pools at the Savannah Yacht Club and joy-riding my uncle's boats off of Tybee Island with my older brother and our equally-young cousins....and so forth n' so on and on... so many, many wonderful Savannah-living memories!

Already we're making more good memories, James and I, with living here all of, oh a week ;)

Life is indeed circular in so many ways, God is indeed good and family is indeed a tie that binds! We may not be here forever but for now, returning to Savannah with my husband, my career and my heart full of gratefulness as to how life can wonderously change...wow, it"s amazing!

Coming Up in the Next Post: "Carriage House Living...Savannah Stylin'"