Not quite sure what to say....

I haven't blogged since November and many of you who follow me have wondered what happened. First off, I'm okay and thanks for caring.

Second, I'm not quite sure why I stopped blogging. I think part of me wondered if I really was helping anyone. Jeff has been gone for 10 years and I know I can still help others in my situation with advice and comfort, but I wondered if I really said all I could say. I will admit that the 10 year anniversary knocked the wind out of me. I don't date a lot and have no desire to remarry, but I'm happy with the dates I go on and what I've done with my life. Yet, I felt stuck and alone for the first time in a long time. I worked through it and realized that it was okay for me to feel that way and I took baby steps to get back on track.

I still get letters from widows/widowers and I still find people who want to friend me on Facebook (I'm going to start a page for widows/widowers soon so you can all connect with each other instead of just with me). I've tried answering so many, but it's hard to keep up and with three teenagers in the house now, I've had to prioritize my time. If you're reading this and I haven't answered you yet, it's not because I don't care. I simply get so many letters and trying to answer them all can, sadly, become a full-time job at times.

Third, my own personal life got pretty chaotic. My oldest daughter, who many of you remember as only being six years old when Jeff died, is going off to college in August -- COLLEGE! We spent most of the fall and winter filling out college and scholarship applications, dealing with SATs, and me working my butt off on a few new books I have coming out so I could pay for it all. My son plays in five (count 'em) bands in and after school and my oldest is working now, so I think I have a new part-time job as a taxi driver.

I'm doing my best to figure this all out. I almost stopped for good, but I felt that wasn't fair to me or to you. I'm also trying to figure out what I could do differently to make this blog important to everyone. Please be patient with me. In the meantime, CNN ran an article today about finding others who are grieving (not necessarily just widows/widowers) online. You might find a new site that can help you:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/26/grieving.online/index.html?hpt=Sbin

If you're interested in friending me on Facebook, please do so and most importantly let me know you're one of the widows/widowers from this blog, but I won't respond until I have that group set up and all of you can talk to each other. I'm also thinking of getting back to the dating site I once set up for widows/widowers. If you're interested in either, let me know. As for the cruise I talked about some time ago, I am still considering it. It's taken time for me to look into it and get it organized and time has been a precious commodity to me right now. Again, I'll be in touch about that. And thank you all for being so awesome on this journey.