Original Artwork to HTV Decal/Cricut Cut File

Twisted Trailer 2020 (Re-uploaded)

LED Sewing Machine Light Strip

Being visually impaired is just one of the obstacles I face when sewing nowadays. I had been thinking of getting one of these light strips for a while. I finally snagged one on Amazon and it has been a real game changer. 

Book Recommendations (Let's Start Something Good!)

These truly are hard times. The world has slowed to a near stop because of the CoVid-19 pandemic. As I am currently stuck in the house, I am trying to use this time wisely. Catching up on some reading is one thing I've been doing a lot more of lately. 

My kids always talk about their childhood memories of me often falling asleep with a book on my face. Hard to believe I hated reading in the early stages of my learning. I'm still a reader, but I do a lot of online reading these days. For me to buy an actual book, it has to mean a lot to me to have it. I will sometimes read the same book several times over, just because it's just that good. 

Here are a couple of book recommendations. Be sure to click on them and have yourself a good read. 

101 Awesome Women Who Changed The World 

A great book for children (girls and boys)! Since a lot of parents have been hurled into the role of teacher, why not teach them about some great women in history. Pictures and short paragraphs about each woman featured in the book make it an easy read for young children. 

Don't Tell Me Not To Ask Why

This is a book for survivors of childhood trauma. Poetry and reflections from a wonderful writer. I was given this book by my daughter. She gets me. 

Between Us Two

My passion for writing will never die, but I haven't been publishing my writings much until recently. Please, go check out my work on Amazon. I have a new short story published and am working on Volume 1 in a series titled Tales From My Childhood. 

Lost My Sense Of Direction

Like a plane flying over a moonlit ocean, I feel I may have lost my way. Over the last four or five months I've become a bit (okay, maybe more than a bit) unhinged. I can't say for sure what caused my undoing. Maybe it's all the new medications I'm taking. Maybe it's the very early stages of menopause. Maybe it could even be that I have hit a sort of mid-life crisis. I feel less than useful most days. I grieve the loss of my hopes and dreams and I just can't lift myself out of the funk that follows me everywhere I go. The person I'm closest to in my life is my beautiful sixteen year old daughter and I fear I will be the cause of her losing out on a life less ordinary. I want to have adventures with her. I want to have my own adventures. I want to send my daughter out into the world to have adventures of her own. 

*Soaring dangerously close to the water*

Why am I so blue? How can I possibly accomplish anything in life now? I'm forty-five, a widow, and my medicine cabinet looks like it belongs to a ninety year old. How did things get this bad? Sometimes I wonder if grief has caused all of the physical ailments I've been dealing with over the last few years. Is it possible that my heart could not handle the strain and so my body decided to take it upon itself to carry the burden? I feel so tired most of the time. 

*Wings tipping - skidding on the surface of the ocean*

It's so lonely here on earth. I want companionship. I want friendships, but at the same time, I just can't deal with people most days. It's not really that I dislike people - they just make me uncomfortable. I can't even explain why being around other human beings makes me a nervous wreck; all I can tell you is that it does. I feel emotionally drained after being in crowds (even small crowds). 

*Radioing ground control for guidance, but no one answers*

I'm trying - I really am. I just can't seem to get my balance back. I don't know what it will take to set me back on course, but I swear, I'm making a desperate effort to get it right. I haven't completely lost my way. I think I just need some time to get my head together. 

*Some turbulence ahead, but the horizon is in sight*

I'll be okay. I'll find my way. 

The Fear Of Everything

You think we're fine, they're fine. Your friend who went through a traumatic event is fine. It's been weeks, months or even years. They have to be fine, right? They're doing every day things like cooking dinner, taking care of their children and going to work. They have to be fine. The pain fades, doesn't it? The heartache goes away, doesn't it? They're fine. They have to be fine. 

They're not fine. They still worry. They still cry. They still feel afraid of life. They're afraid of everything. Nothing will ever be the same. They go so many nights without sleep or with very little sleep. The future they planned is gone. The life they had is dead. The love they depended on left so suddenly. They're just not fine. They aren't strong. They might be a little brave, because they wear the brave face for you. It's not for themselves that they smile and laugh at silly jokes. They do it for you, so that you think they're fine. 

They worry about today, tomorrow and forever. They know now that life is fleeting and it can be snatched away in a split second. They are afraid of living alone. They are afraid of dying unloved. They distance themselves from people, because now - more than ever - intimate relationships of any kind are scary. They can't bare to love and lose again. 

They feel defeated. All of the fight has been drained from their bodies - like blood from a corpse. They feel dead on the inside and dead on the outside. They feel like they're on another planet, hovering above the world below - invisible, untraceable, unlovable. If God loved them so little that He could take away someone they loved so dearly, how could they possibly be worth loving? 

Life is tasteless, odorless, joyless...just plain LESS. This is what it feels like to lose a spouse. I'm not okay. I'm not fine. I'm not doing well. I'm lost.