199 Hello, I love you

Happy Love Thursday!

191 He thinks, ethereal

oh, to be so adored!

Happy Love Thursday!

179 Love Thursday

I interrupt my slow re-capping of Spring Break Events to bring you this ... It is once again Love Thursday. The weeks just fly by! Please check out Chookooloonks , the originator of this idea. As she says, this is all about "the idea of being able to find love in unexpected places."

On Tuesday, my ShutterBuddy and I went downtown to take some pics. Candy is a photography student and her assignment this week was to shoot "urban" areas. She invited me along, and of course I GLADLY went! We were on the hunt for graffiti (you will see those pics later) and such.

While photographing some urban art, I turned around and saw a heart! Upon closer inspection it resembled a devil more than a heart, but that is a lesson we have all learned in love. And how fitting that it was caused by a wound. An amputation, a lopped limb. There are several wounds in my own heart, most formed when someone has been lopped out of my life.

We find love and beauty where we can.

Sometimes we take pictures to hold it tight.

I hold it always in my heart ....

Happy Love Thursday to you all!!

171 Recommitment

Lately, I have allowed myself to focus on the bad things. I have let all the little things get to me, just needling away at my happiness. I refuse to do it anymore. I will be happy in MY life. I will be happy with it, not as it exists now, but as it shall exist when I fully embrace it. I will look for LOVE and BEAUTY in my surroundings, in my family. I will pull my friends closer instead of pushing them away. I will laugh and joke, not with derision but with JOY! I will make my world beautiful. When I allow myself to let the petty, trivial problems just float on by. When I don't let the more serious problems sink into my heart, to fester and explode. When I allow myself to be MYSELF!

I am not perfect. I have many many MANY flaws. But, I also have redeeming traits. Surely I do. I will nurture those abilities that make me happy. I will make my house a HOME filled with love and laughter. I will be a person that I can love.

Speaking of love. I have not posted a Love Thursday pic in awhile, so here is the most fitting. There has to be some cliche thing I could say about "cracks that make the heart stronger" or blah blah blah. Mainly, I just love the pic ...

120 Love Thursday

Love Thursday is a weekly posting of, you guessed it, images of LOVE! Yeah, sneaky huh?!?!

This is from a blog I read regularly, Chookaloonks ---

Well, Love Thursday is back. Here's how it works:
A few years ago, I was enthralled by a simple photograph that my friend Irene had posted on her blog -- a simple heart-shaped leaf, with the caption "love is (really) all around, and so the feeling grows." I noticed that she was right: images and other signs of love appear everywhere, if only you look.
And so, here on Chookooloonks, I (re)launch a weekly tradition: on Thursdays, I invite you to share your own links to images or stories of love here in the comments section. I hope you will. It's wonderful seeing how much love there is in the world.

So, back to me :) I have never posted a picture before, but I took this one last week and it seems to fit right in.

The Love Thursday Post 11/20/08

And here is my picture ...

Who doesn't LOVE a heart-shaped leaf?? And of course, I thought I should play with it a little, give it a little love :)