"Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down." - Kobi Yamada

The story of how I got started in business, and the reasons behind my current branding choices.

With all of our knowledge, I wonder if we have lost the basic skills required for survival in the real world? Does technology create simplicity, or destroy it?

In a way, every day, every moment sine June 3, 2015 has been a "first" in this first year since I went from being merely a parent of four boys or an adoptive parent to a bereaved parent. Every day, there are things that trigger my tears. Some of them are quite small and seemingly insignificant--but even something that might seem small to others can leave my heart weighed down by stones too heavy to lift for most of the day.

Now, all I see is the slow fade
When you look at me, who do you see?

In life, every day brings something new. It can be a real mixed bag of pleasure or pain, inconvenience or joy. The trick is in being ready to participate.

Ups and downs and throwback photos. My weekly tally.

Are you trapped in the tarry black hole of dwelling on loss? Are you jumping trains trying to hide from it? Or are you figuring out how to keep moving forward with loss as your travelling companion? How to avoid a train wreck on your road to healing, and your dreams.

There is no "one-time thing" when it comes to grief.

When everything extraneous has been stripped from your life by a loss, and you are left naked and broken, sometimes just getting your pants on in the morning is a big deal. But you look for those moments that you see progress, too. Moving forward, whether in small steps, or giant leaps--in the end, that's the only thing I can really ask of myself.

Dear Levi...

I can't tell you how many things this year I wish you could have done with us,  or the things I wanted to show you. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to hold you close or hear your laugh. I can't tell you how broken I feel without you here.

I learned so much from being your mama. And by God's grace, I am learning still,

As a reader, I always thought that the ending was the goal. And it is. But it never occurred to me that it was the well-written middle that actually got me there as inevitably as a cart on a roller coaster track.

If only life had someone writing me out of my "swampy middles."

As predicted in my last post, the last couple of weeks have been pretty hard in the grieving department. There have been pretty bad days. And some okay days.

Today is one of those days when I want to do something, but I can't. Or maybe I am doing something. I'm not sure. But I feel like if I actually did something, then I would stop feeling so sad and angry and scared.

It's been quiet on stage here at Winters' Day In.

But so, so far from quiet backstage.

Are we in control of our destiny? Or is God? And who is to blame when things go wrong?

Over the years, I have often wished I could be one of those people who could just focus on one thing and get really good at it, and was frustrated trying to do that over and over. It's about time I accepted myself just the way I am. Are you like this, too?