When Your Best Friend Comes To Stay

.

There are some friendships that simply pick up right where they left off, no matter how much time or distance has passed. My lifelong friend came to spend (almost) a week with me, and somehow those five days felt like a little gift from another time. We antiqued, drank lots of coffee, took long walks around the farm, and sat on the porch talking well into the night. Every morning we watched the sun rise from the porch… and then watched it set in the evening. We reminisced about raising our kids together, laughed over old memories, cried over hard ones, and treasured every bit of being together. Nothing about the week was particularly complicated—and maybe that’s what made it so special. Just two best girlfriends enjoying the kind of friendship that feels like coming home.

.

Today I want to share a few of the highlights with you, in hopes that you can enjoy them right along with us and perhaps enter in to a little bit of the sweetness of our time together.

.

.

Sunset the first evening after Luanne arrived! Our house is on the top of a nice steep Tennessee hilltop and the sunsets are so amazing!

.

.

Luanne snapped this of me and it’s the perfect representation of how I felt the whole week…. relaxed, loving the time together and porch sitting at its absolute best!

.

.

We exchanged gifts… just little things that made us think of each other. I made Luanne a few things and ordered this fun hat from a friend of mine to gift to her, and she’s adorable in it! She brought me a few special treasures. One is a book I think I will write about soon!

.

.

Early morning walks on the farm trails and picking flowers in the flower garden. It’s always the most favorite thing to do on our farm.

.

.

Selfie in the antique store! We had such fun going through our local antique stores as well as a few in a neighboring town.

.

.

Probably the best thing though was that Luanne brought an old, tattered, falling apart vintage quilt. And we cut it out and turned it into….

.

.

A quilt coat!!!!! Isn’t it so gorgeous?! Luanne had been wanting to make one and I’ve made a few so we jumped right into it on day one!

.

.

We spent a lot of time in my sewing studio and loved every bit of it! We made the quilt coat, played with fabric scraps… I “forced” Luanne to go through all my Poppie Cotton scraps and we put together some nice packs for her to take home.

.

.

And slow stitching. I pulled all my sweet vintage bits of fabrics and put together a little kit for each of us. I didn’t get far on mine… but got a start at least!

.

.

Luanne with my sweet husband… he’s always been the best sport about our friendship: girlfriend trips together, HOURS on the phone day and night and all the things we’ve done together in 45 years of friendship!

.

.

Luanne taught me how to make homemade yogurt that tasted incredible with my homemade granola! The yogurt was so good that I think it will be my weekly chore from here on out! (Do you make homemade yogurt?)

.

.

Early morning in the flower garden making bouquets for our roadside stand!

.

.

Luanne… sitting in the guest bedroom before she and I head to the airport. She was just saying her final goodbyes to “her” bedroom!!!

.

.AA

As I look back on our week together, I’m reminded that the sweetest memories are often made in the simplest ways. And I’m so very, very thankful for this precious friendship… and that it means as much to me today as it did in the very beginning. God knew we would need either other.

.

Until our gravel roads cross again… so long.

Dori