The View from St Francis Cottage - A Chattanooga Bed and Breakfast: May 2018

SFC FIRST ANNIVERSARY – April 14, 2018

& Upcoming EVENTS

We completed our first year of innkeeping at St Francis Cottage on Saturday, April 14, 2018 – Hooray!! A million thanks to all of our incredible guests who have made Year One a HUGE success. We feel like we have been able to take a year-long tour, getting to know many parts of the United States and world through conversations with very amazing people who have graciously shared their lives with us. How cool is THAT, to have explored the world without leaving Chattanooga! Thanks to all the people who have entered our doors, we have grown, learned, and expanded our frontiers. We appreciate each and every suggestion that we’ve received this past year to make St Francis Cottage a better place to visit, and we hope and pray that Year Two will cause us to become better people and stewards of this little corner of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Our first guests, Chuck and Linda Hanus from Orlando, Florida, have returned three times with their incredibly fun “babies.” Unfortunately, their beloved Chihuahua, Taco, passed away this last year, so upon their arrival in March, we were able to meet Domino, and visit again with Bella and Lilly. We were overwhelmed upon receiving this gorgeous flower arrangement from Chuck and Linda helping us celebrate our first anniversary:

A VISIT WITH TERESA AND JOAN

Our anniversary celebration extended into the next week with the arrival of Teresa Moore, from Saint Louis, and Joan Alsworth Bacon, from Los Angeles. Wallace and I have known Teresa and Joan for almost 45 years, since the mid-70’s in Houston when we all lived in Christian Community at Church of the Redeemer (Episcopal) through the Diocese of Texas. Teresa moved from Houston to Saint Louis in 2014, and Joan moved to Los Angeles with husband, John, in 1982 after they were married in Colorado. Unfortunately, Joan lost John two years ago after a tragic accident, so this has been a difficult season for her. Teresa serenaded us on her dulcimer as we sat around the fireplace catching up with one another.

Joan spent some of her time sharing her skills as a painter after being inspired by the garden area at SFC. A print of this painting will hang at the Cottage.

Teresa had graced us, early on, with her fabulous needlepoint skills creating the cottage using thousands of artful stitches.

OUR SECOND BLOG REVIEW!

In mid-April we were blessed with a writer spending time with us and producing our second travel review. Tabi Upton graced us with her ever present smile and encouraging energy during a short exploratory stay. Tabi is a lady of many talents! She spends time as an on-air personality for 88.9, Moody Radio in Chattanooga. She also continues her career of many years as a counselor, speaker, and writer. Before returning to Chattanooga, she spent three and a half years working abroad as a mental health contractor. For 12 years, her column, “Mind Matters,” ran in The Chattanooga Times-Free Press newspaper. Adding to her amazing repertoire, Morning Candle is a published collection of some of her favorite essays.

Tabi spent a couple of nights with us in March. During that stay, she and a group of women spent an evening with us, using SFC as a place of mentoring, rest, and inspiration for aspiring writers. We found the diversity of talent among the writers quite remarkable. Later, after reading Tabi's blog, we were humbled and amazed at what she had to say about her visit with us at the Cottage. Click HERE to read the blog. Thank you, Tabi!

We were pleasantly surprised to have Rob and Jennifer Junk visit us on their way back from Florida to Cincinnati. Jennifer happened to mention dōTERRA essential oils, which immediately grabbed my attention since Wallace had been suffering from prolonged sinus headaches with the arrival of spring pollen. Thankfully, Jennifer is a total expert on all essential oils and is also a superb teacher to an essential oil novice like me. Jennifer patiently walked me through the dōTERRA products, and we readily signed up for our first order at the end of March. Within two weeks we had offered the use of our dōTERRA diffuser and Breathe oils to guests who were experiencing the pain of high pollen counts in our area. Thank you, Jennifer! If anyone is interested, please contact me for Jennifer’s information, and she will hook you up with dōTERRA's top-quality products! This is not a commercial and we are not selling them, but we have been quite impressed with these products.

SPRING BREAK WITH THE FAM

We were elated to have six days with our daughter Hannah, son-in-law Phil from Winnipeg, Manitoba, grandgirls Grace and Amelia, and our foster grandsons, Jayvin and Jersey, who we met for the first time. We enjoyed every minute as the girls ran back-and-forth from our home to the B&B, and we helped out as much as we could with little Jayvin and Jersey. Our only complaint is that the time passed way too quickly.