I was able to go HOME this weekend, my real home, and that would be Cairo, Ga.  That little south Ga town is about 20 miles north of Tallahassee, Fl.   Yes that is South GA!  I left Cairo about 18 years ago, and have only gone back to visit, a handful of times.  We were thrilled when the ARMY gave us FL as an option for us to move to, because I was so homesick and ready to be close to Home.   It is true, you can take the girl out of the south, but you can’t take the south out of the girl!  I have been missing my southern roots, including sweet tea, riding down dirt roads, hearing the words ya’ll and fixin’ to,  getting eat up by chiggers, hanging at the local Walmart to socialize with all my hometown friends, and the fine dining experience at the local Mr. Chick!!

My youngest nephew, Zach, graduated from High School on Friday, YAY ZACH!!  so my whole family came to celebrate!  What a great family weekend we had!  We have not all been able to spend a weekend together in quite some time.  It was nice to have my parents, sister and brother in law, my 3 nephews, 2 nieces, and the most special guest of all, Tristan, my great nephew, who deserves his own very special post because he is our miracle baby, yes a true miracle!

Here is Tristan, isn’t he just the cutest batman ever!!

My sister, the graduate, Zach, and brother in law

Caleb and ZachBrandon, Teri, Zach, and Caleb

And all the 2012 CHS graduates!  Congratulations to all of you!

I have several “must do’s” while visiting Cairo, and one of them is eating at the local mom and pop’s fried chicken joint, Mr. Chick.  I was doubled blessed this time, we ate there twice in one weekend!!  I love some Mr. Chick, especially that fried chicken breast sandwich that has the BONE in it!  My family gives me grief but as my mama says, that bone makes it taste so much better!  And their sweet tea is the best sweet tea in the South!  Not only is it the best fried chicken in Georgia, it is the best place to go and hang (other than Walmart) to see old friends!  

(Hey Chick, I forgot to take a picture of that chicken breast sandwich, how about sending me one so I can post it and you are welcome for that free ad!  or you can always share this blog to your facebook page! that would be great-HA!)

So if you ever go down to that neck of the woods, you got to stop by

Mr. Chick

1125 Us-84 E, Cairo, GA 39828,

and tell ‘em I sent ya!

Lucky me, my sister had just had her home painted and was wanting me to help her with some home decor ideas!  WHAT!!  I jumped at the chance and quickly jumped into home decorator mode!  I think we did a great job, just recreating and decorating by rearranging her furniture and using home decor accessories that she already had.  We ran out of time but here are some of the pictures of what it looked like before and after.  It is still a work in progress, I left her with some great home decorating ideas on how to finish the space and, I think it will look great once she gets it finished!  Sorry for the poor quality photos, photographer was not listed on my job description in ABOUT ME!  But I admit, I must get better! HA!

We did a switcharoo with the cabinet and bookcase (pictured above) from the back wall, and switched them with a smaller cabinet (pictured below) that was on the back wall in the dining room.  The dining room wall is quite large so the 2 cabinets balanced it out while the smaller cabinet was the perfect balance for the smaller wall in the family room.  Here is a picture of the after, we added the home decor accessories to the top, including a large vase with tall greenery, we needed this to be tall because of the high ceiling.   She plans to get a chair and ottoman to group with the small cabinet to balance out that wall.

Think SCALE!! Her house is an open floor plan, so the dining room is still part of the family room.

Here are the 2 cabinets that we moved to the dining room.   We added some of her home decor accessories to them.  The room is not green!  That is just my photography skills or should I say, lack of!

She even added a beautiful green silk runner on the table,  and candle holders, but of course I forgot to take a picture!

Once she adds some home accessories for detail to the top of both cabinets and some wall decor accessories, it will be just beautifu!  That big wall was the perfect spot for these 2 large cabinets, they balance out the large room and LONG wall and she loves it!

We then pulled the sofa off the back wall, added a side table on both ends, and a buffet to the back wall.  Once again, the size of the side tables was important,  one side of the sofa has a lot of open space so we used a larger end table, the other side of the sofa had small space so we chose a small, narrow table to keep it from hugging the wall and looking cramped!

This arrangement of furniture made the room feel a lot more comfortable, cozy and inviting.  And I just love the throw pillows!  We found them at Target.  Once we get the perfect wall art hung, it will be a very pretty, balanced room!.  As you can tell, it has a very high ceiling and BIG wall, her wall art and home decor accessories have to be BIG to balance out that space.  We will just tweak this space until it is the right scale for that large wall.  We will also change the other accessories on the buffet once the art is hung on the wall.    This was temporary, it was Zach’s living shrine that he loved.  We will also hang curtain panels to the window, I think we should go light, she has a lot of dark wood tones, (including hardwood floors in the future), and this room needs to be light!  Scale and balance are very important when decorating a space.   You don’t want a large space to swallow your decor, all you will see is SPACE and your decor will just kind of get lost in that space!  An example of this is the above picture if it was left this way!  And you sure don’t want to over do a small space with large decor.  That would be like gaining weight and trying to wear your smaller clothes.   I think that should have left a great visual in your head for maintaining proportion!

My sister chose Benjamin Moore, Edge comb Gray as the paint color.  It is a very light gray and the contrast looks great with the dark wood!  I can’t wait to see the room when it is completely finished!

It was a great weekend, going home seems to fill an empty space in my heart.  Small towns  and family are one of a kind!  Cairo is a special place to me, some of my most special friendships were made in Cairo.  I have so many great memories (and some I would rather forget), but I am very grateful to call it home.  I miss those good ‘ole days and  Southern living!

Life is Good!

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