Yes, I have been missing in action from this blog. The holidays were incredibly painful and absolutely awful for me. My sadness and grief began the day after my last gumbo party. It was my love’s 69th birthday, December 18. I cried the whole day and pretty much through the rest of December and all the way through January.

January has always been a blue month for me, but this one was blue black. It has been 8 months since I lost my sweet man but for some reason the finality of it did not fully hit me until the first day of the first month of the first year living without him.

I have worked on my psyche and mental health now for over a week and today being the last day of January I am happy to announce I’M BACK!

Since sort of being in a holding pattern after his death, I am changing things for the better and for ME. I gave away the couch (where he died) and our bed and bought new ones.  I have been cleaning out every drawer, closet, chest, bookshelf and cabinet. Changing it all up. Rearranging rugs and furniture, too.

I had not been able to even enter Steve’s studio and stay for more than 5 minutes. It was frozen in time with everything just the way he left it. I needed to do something about it.  Luckily, a dear friend came over and took all the rest of the musical gear and is spreading the love by giving it away or selling it dirt cheap. Thanks, sweet Doug. That felt so good and was just the incentive I needed.

I bought a bunch of chalk paint and am going to paint and distress lots of my furniture in all different colors. some I’ll paint as folk art. I am moving my arts and crafts to the studio and bought colorful bins to store them on the many shelves that used to hold musical equipment. I am turning the space into mine. It’s about time.

I still have my days when I sometimes feel hopeless, helpless or question how on earth I can go on without him but they are beginning to be fewer and far between.

I know my dear husband wants this for me so for the rest of my life, ……

I’m staying alive,

DeeDee