I remember the first vinyl album I ever bought. It was Donovan’s Greatest Hits. It included great songs like Colours, Catch the Wind and Jennifer Juniper. I played that album over and over until well worn and a couple of scratches made songs skip a few words. To this day, when I hear any of the songs played in pristine condition, I miss the skips that I came to associate with the songs and my youth. I am still obsessive with music. When I find a new artist I like or when a new album is released, I play it over and over again until I drive everyone around me to distraction.

Also, almost any large crafting or decorating project I’ve ever worked on has an artist or album associated with it. 1980s… stenciling my living room… Billy Joel’s Innocent Man. 1990s… painting and preparing my preschool for opening… Joshua Kadison’s Painted Desert Serenade… and my latest musical immersion… Katy Perry’s One of the Boys. For the rest of my life, whenever I hear a song from the album, I’ll think of Sassy Green paint, and my "perky" period of decorating 🙂

The album Painted Desert Serenade, (the preparing the preschool album 🙂 featured the song…

Beautiful In My Eyes 

You’re my peace of mind in this crazy world.
You’re everything I’ve tried to find, your love is a pearl.
You’re my Mona Lisa, you’re my rainbow skies,
and my only prayer is that you realize
you’ll always be beautiful in my eyes.

The world will turn and the seasons will change,
and all the lessons we will learn will be beautiful and strange.
We’ll have our fill of tears, our share of sighs.
And my only prayer is that you realize
you’ll always be beautiful in my eyes.

You will always be beautiful in my eyes.
And the passing years will show
that you will always grow ever more beautiful in my eyes.

When there are lines upon my face from a lifetime of smiles,
and when the time comes to embrace for one long last while,
we can laugh about how time really flies.
We won’t say goodbye ’cause true love never dies.
You’ll always be beautiful in my eyes.

You will always be beautiful in my eyes.
And the passing years will show
that you will always grow ever more beautiful in my eyes.
The passing years will show that you will always grow
ever more beautiful in my eyes.

I love the song for many reasons, but my favorite line EVER, from any song I’ve ever heard is…

(When) there are lines upon my face from a lifetime of smiles.

Twenty years ago, as I listened to the song I thought, I want to live my life in such a way that years from now I’ll be able to say… there are lines upon my face from a lifetime of smiles.

When I look in the mirror now, I see a few wrinkles around the eyes and lips, but they are most pronounced when I smile 🙂 Life IS good, and it has been filled with smiles. I always want to keep that thought close to my heart, so I wrote in on a freshly painted wall! (I love the faith Tim puts in my decorating decisions!) I love how it turned out, and I love the constant reminder to myself and everyone that enters our house, to embrace all the good and goodness life has to offer!

Tomorrow I’ll share how I went about getting the phrase on the wall 🙂 Have a lovely day and work on those wrinkles 😉