Do You See What I See

Sometimes I wonder if people see the same things I see. I see hearts everywhere and now I am seeing happy faces. The other day I was walking with my friend Shelly as she gave me a ride to the Temple. We were walking up to the gate of the Temple when on the ground I saw this heart in the sidewalk. Shelly said oh that is a really good one so I knew that she too could see it clearly. The words in the title of this blog where used as a title to a song about the star that was the sign given in the heavens of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. Being able to have a spiritual eye or witness of him is more important to me than anything else that I could observe in life. I love seeing hearts but I believe that all things testify of Heavenly Father and of Jesus Christ and the love they have for us. Every little heart reminds me of this.

I lost my Grandma Heart

This is my cute little granddaughter Lacy Jo. The Jo part of her name she gets from me, proud grandma. My daughter Jenny sent me these pictures several days ago but I was having a hard time thinking of a message to go with the heart shaped stain on her shirt. Then just last Saturday Jenny and I went to a boutique to do some Christmas shopping along with her 3 children. I took Lacy by the hand and told her that she needed to stay with me so she wouldn't get lost and that I would be responsible for her. Well you know how things like that go. After entering the very crowded boutique Lacy quickly disappeared. It turns out that she went into each of the vender's rooms to ask if they had seen her Grandma because she was lost. When Jenny and I realized that Lacy was not with us we split up and went in different directions looking for her. I went outside and Jenny stayed in. After a while of not finding her I went back inside to find Lacy and a woman standing with Jenny but the extremely helpful women was not going to give Lacy up to Jenny. Jenny said you've go to hear this. The kind lady was calling out for Lacy's grandma when Jenny found them. Jenny said, "I am her mother" to which Lacy replied, "she's not my grandma." It cracked me up. In Lacy's mind she was not the problem she was not lost, her grandma was lost and Jenny was not the find she was looking for. When I finally showed up the helpful lady turned Lacy over to me and all was well. So how does that heart shaped stain fit into all of this? Well, I guess it really doesn't, I'm just glad that Jenny's reputation wasn't stained by her having to whip out her phone and show the lady pictures of Lacy to prove her ownership and then have the lady think Jenny was some crazy stalker taking pictures of random children claiming them to be her own. All's well that end well. Phew!

Cross section of a Heart

When you look at the cross section of something you can really view it carefully. When I look at this heart, cut from the branch of a tree, I can tell, how old it is by the number of rings in it and that it has a small crack in it. My husband and I are like this slice right now. Our years together are in the numbers and we have a few cracks to prove it. Despite the gray hair and the wrinkles we really are not that bad off. I think of the book, “The Enchanted Cottage” and how the couple that lived there saw each other. They were far from perfect, but they saw each other as beautiful and perfect for each other. When the world looked at them they did not see them that way. I had a friend that said he had received some criticism for his relationship with his wife. His response was, “too bad, it works for us.” That is how I feel too, sometime no one else understand why and relationship might work just as long as it works, it's good.

Onion Heart

Personally, I love onions. Growing up I don't think I had a single meal without onions somewhere in the meal. My grandmother told me once, "It just wasn't dinner without onions." My mother was absolutely meticulous about cutting onions. When she would put them in potato salad she cut them so fine that every bite of salad was assured a wonderful, even, and generous amount of onion flavor. As a young single women it was so important to me to marry a man that liked onions that one time I made an entire meal with onions in every dish for a boy I was dating just to see how he would react. He was so polite but needless to say, I'm glad that I married the onion lover that I did. I had a friend once say if you are too busy doing other things and have neglected dinner, before your family gets home just cut up an onion and quickly get it frying, then when they walk in the door and smell the onion cooking they will think dinner is on it's way.

Olive Tree Hearts

It seems that the olive tree is the best at creating this phenomenon. Today it struck me, the Savior suffered for us in the Garden of Gethsemane. The garden was one of Olive trees. The greatest love and offering ever made for us was given in a Olive garden. So each time I see an Olive tree with the symbol of a heart I think I will always think of that great sacrifice.

Consumed Heart

This heart is just almost being consumed by it's surroundings. It is deep in the soil around it, it has little rocks on it's top and sides and even on one side they are creeping up to the point of almost over taking that side. I find that sometimes my life is the same way. I absolutely love my family and grand kids and I want them around me and hugging me and loving all over me. I want to do the same to them, but everyone once in a while I feel like I am being consumed. I guess we just have to be as solid as rock but also be willing to yield to the forces around us too. Being a parent and a grandparent "isn't easy but it is worth it." And that is what I said!

Paint Heart

So I'm painting my office. I am so excited! I just love it. My desire started a while back when Samuel kept turning his computer monitor away from the sun so he could see his screen. I knew it needed to be fixed but I wasn't sure what to do exactly. Well to make a long story short (it involves the need for new desks that could go onto a different wall, blah blah, blah) I won a beautiful painting on a cruise and I decided to use it as my color pallet to go with the new desk. The colors of the painting are very similar to my Latin Guest room and so our home office is now on it's way to becoming our second Latin room. I began painting today and as I was doing so I found that I had painted myself a heart in a corner. It was quite by accident and so I quickly located my camera and captured it. I love the deep slate blue color that we chose to paint the room. I love being creative and expressing my love for fun intense colors. I love that Samuel supports and trusts me and wants me to express myself. I love that we have been able to find such great deals to accomplish the things that we want to do. So today I would say that "Love" equals Thankful!

Thankful Heart

Thankfully it is only a small spot of a heart in this potato. I took this picture a couple of years ago while visiting Chantal's family for Thanksgiving. Our whole family packed up and went to San Diego so that we could all be together for Thanksgiving. Chantal was expecting Susan and was way too pregnant to travel. I loved that we were able to make the trip, I loved the weather, I loved the fantastic food, I loved the visit, I loved the extended family company, I love the little spot of love that that Thanksgiving experience has left in my heart. I look forward to this years Thanksgiving season and I am happy to give thanks again to my Heavenly Father who has made it all possible.