The last week or two I've alluded to some rumblings going on. Like Old Faithful, these are the seismic sensations I get when I know I'm getting close to something inside. It usually erupts and a new layer gets opened up and I get to play emotional archeologist. It's amazing what I find inside. You'd think after all the years I've spent excavating my mind and heart and soul I'd be done by now. But, alas...outer space is NOT the final frontier. Inner space is.

I've been old twice. The first time was when my second marriage was failing and I couldn't stem its inevitable demise. I was ancient at 46. The second time was when I suddenly became a widow at 59. I was too old to be single and too young to be old.

I sank into grief. I wandered down the dark hallways of my mind...wondering if I'd ever find myself again. Would I ever feel joy? Would I ever laugh? Would I ever feel like...me? Eventually...little by little...the fog lifted and I caught glimpses of her...that carefree girl who threw her head back and laughed large. That wonderful, wacky woman who saw the fun in everything. She was in there. I just had to coax her out...like a stray cat who has gone too many years without the kind touch of humanity.

If you're like me, you did at least one paint-by-number picture when you were growing up. I remember looking at those teeny-tiny cups of paint and this fairly good sized canvas and thinking there was no way I'd have enough. The brush they gave you was woefully inadequate...a cheap plastic thing with loose hairs that painted a swath way too big for those tiny spaces. I usually resorted to using toothpicks to try to fill in the blanks and gave up long before the painting was completed. The whole concept seemed so artificial...as if it were somehow possible to create a Rembrandt-esque masterpiece by filling in the blanks.

As we discussed yesterday, the ability to set goals can be severely compromised when you are grieving...actively or otherwise. For some of us, setting goals has never been a particularly honed skill, myself included. But I don't want to find myself drifting aimlessly through life. I believe there is a grand plan...that God knows all He has in store for me for every day of my life. I don't think of setting goals for myself as trying to take the reins. I see it as suiting up and showing up for the game. I look at it as active participation.

Yesterday we touched on ways to ward off the winter blahs. One of the suggestions was to set goals and check items off the lists you create to achieve them. But, how do you set goals? And what do you do when those goals just keep hanging out there like a carrot on a stick? At the end of the first year after Mr. Virgo died, I breathed an audible sigh of relief. Now I could say "He died last year." It gave me a false sense of comfort that it was "almost over" and I was going to get my life back...or some semblance of it. Little did I know the second year was going to be harder because the numbness was gone. And now, here I am, over halfway through the third year and what are my goals? I have no earthly idea!

I don't like it when the time changes. I saw a cartoon posted yesterday on Facebook. A woman is standing in front of the window complaining that it's pitch black outside and she has lost her perception of time. She thinks it's midnight. Her husband calmly tells her it's 5:27. Yeah, that's me. I can easily crawl in a hole and not come out till spring but I've been preparing for this all week. I got my light therapy lamp out and started using it about an hour or two per day. I've walked or hiked 3-4 miles per day, 6 out of the last 7 days. I've hooked up with friends. I've made plans for several outings this week in addition to walking. I got the computer and my manuscript out over the weekend and I've started what I'm surely hoping is the last edit of my two books I've been working on. I avoided buying ice cream. ? Things are looking much better!

I can't believe I haven't talked much about the needlework shop! In early 2001, I was the "Downtown Shop Girl". I covered for the owners of several little shops so they could have a day off during the week. I worked in a couple of clothing stores, a home and giftware shop, and a lingerie shop. It was really fun! I loved the merchandising and contact with customers. After doing that for a year, I was encouraged by family and friends to open a little shop of my own. Obviously, when you're going to head out on an adventure such as this, you go straight to your girlfriends and ask what kind of shop they think the area needs. Well, we were in our 40's, we had little kids, and we were heavy into cross-stitch so....cross-stitch it was and Needles & Pins was born.

I get SAD. I don't FEEL sad, necessarily. But I sure feel Seasonal Affective Disorder when it rears its ugly head. I want to be around lots of people AND I want to be a hermit. I want to go to a party AND I want you to sit next to me and shut up. I want to go out to dinner AND I want to crawl in bed with my iPad and stay there till March. I'm not alone. According to the American Association of Family Physicians, about 4 to 6 percent of people have winter depression. Another 10 to 20 percent may have mild SAD. I have had it for years and I've found it's a little worse here in West Virginia than it was in Colorado...mainly because Colorado has 300+ days of sunshine and West Virginia, ummmm, doesn't. It gets grey and cloudy here and it can last for days...weeks at a time. Yesterday I had to get my therapy light out and sit in front of it for an hour and it really helped. I normally take St. John's Wort daily since Mr. Virgo died. At this time of year, I make extra sure I don't miss a dose.* I also increase my exercise.

Ten years ago today, this handsome man walked into my little needlework shop to meet me and changed my life forever. Mr. Virgo rocked my world...and still does from afar. Tragic that he left so soon, but he will always and forever be 62 and look just like this. What a handsome man! What a blessing God gave us when He crossed our paths. I'll love you for always, handsome man! ❤️

We all need to be encouraged on this road of life. Some have a smooth course. Others fraught with potholes and peril. Some coast merrily along while others struggle up the toughest, steepest roads making the slightest progress. I pray, every single day, over my keyboard. I pray that God will bring me the words He needs me to say and the people who need to hear them. God knows all things. He knows when this writer needs encouragement, as well. He sent Sue to tell me she sends my posts to her ailing husband. He sent me her ailing husband so that I might have the opportunity to minister to him. The enormity of this responsibility is not lost on me and I pray I am worthy of the task. I cannot write God's words. But I can share what the Holy Spirit moves me to say. So, here goes...