When I was a little girl I never could understand why my mother lit up every time I came home with something I’d made her.  I have never been able to draw but I do think I have at least always put colors together well.  As I got older I remember being particularly proud of a macaroni shelled jewelry box I’d made.  She lovingly kept my clay ash trays (it was the ’70’s) even though she never smoked a day in her life.  I always wished I could have bought her something “real” and “nice” in my eyes.  Now that I am a mother I cherish the surprise presents I am being presented with proudly.  I bought this cool frame that opens so displayed works of art can be rotated but kept safely under glass.  Today as I was at the farrier’s getting my hooves smoothed (AKA the nail salon) I was greeted triumphantly by one beaming little four year old after she ran in looking for me saying, “Mommy!  Mommy!”  Holding her piece of paper up as far as her little arms would reach, she grinned back at me as I saw a slightly blurred image of her, given I was overcome with joy.  Such a simple thing — crayon scribbles.  And yet they are priceless to me; one of a kind masterpieces each and every one.  Novelist Margaret Wolfe Hungerford is generally credited with the saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”  I am collecting a house full of beautiful originals and I could not be more blessed or more proud.  I hope she thinks I’m beautiful, too.