All Of My Heart....

I was cutting hearts out of wood  to get ready for my 'Hearts in Flight' class tomorrow when I said something that struck me super hard.

Molly and Lilly came out and asked if they could have one of my hearts to paint.  I responded by saying, 'These are for class, girls.  You can have my leftover hearts.'

Now I heard myself say this and saw the girls smile, nod and walk away.....fairly happy at the thought of getting the leftover hearts.  But something in me cringed.  Because what I REALLY heard myself say was,

'You girls can have what's leftover of my heart.'

And I think that's exactly what I'm guilty of so often.  Running a household, running a business, teaching classes, dreaming up and scheduling new classes, working on my own artwork.........that's what I seem to spend most of my time doing.

Leftovers.  That's what my family gets so often.

But.........

Today, the girls and I had a lovely afternoon.  I usually shuffle them home so fast from school so I can have my afternoon cup of coffee while laying on the couch for 30 minutes reading a magazine.  Mommy time.

But, today, the girls asked if I would walk from the gallery, pick them up from school and then walk back to the gallery.  'Sure!', I heard myself say.  Hmmm....that's not like me.

So I power walked the half mile from Sanctuary to CSD and we slowly.....and I mean slowly......walked from school.  And I decided that I would not hurry.  We would just amble along and enjoy the day.  I would enjoy my girls and, hopefully, they would enjoy me.

And this is what we did.....

We stopped at the park.  Both girls picked me flowers.   That's them up ahead.

We picked up a friend at the park and stopped to play with a puppy on Main Street.

This puppy REALLY liked Molly.

A little Easter browsing at 'Cat's on Main'.

A pit stop at Sanctuary of Davidson to catch a breath and..........

..... to watch the lovely Jane Vanselous do a little knitting while she held down the gallery fort.

We headed over to the Bradford farm for fresh food and ended up making friends with chickens (on the right!)

Handsome devil.

The girls enjoyed flavored honey sticks......and a bit of showboating.

Another breather on the farmhouse porch.  Still sucking down some honey!

We got a tutorial from a totally awesome blacksmith who makes everything from old railroad stakes. 

And we met his funny dog who is howling right now at the blacksmiths' gloves laying on the block.  The dog later took off with one.  Super funny.

Girls....thanks for sharing your sweetness with me.  You have my heart.  ALL of it.