Return normalized path.  If path is not user-expandable or
    absolute, treat it relative to relative_to

def normalize_path(path, relative_to=os.getcwd()):

    """Return normalized path.  If path is not user-expandable or
    absolute, treat it relative to relative_to"""

    path = os.path.expanduser(os.path.normpath(path))

    if os.path.isabs(path):
        return path
    else:
        return join(relative_to, path)