I join you tonight from my dad's house in West Palm Beach, in my old bedroom which at some point in the past 15 years transformed into his office.

On the wall above my dad's computer is a collage of photos from the night I graduated high school in 199_. (Insert a year if you wish, but please be nice!!) In the top left corner, there's a shot of me putting my cap on for the first time. Next to that is a photo of my sister pretending (I think/hope!) to pick her nose. On the bottom row, I'm standing with my mom in one picture, and then in between my Grandma (mom's side) and my Grandmother (dad's side). Each of these wonderful women have since passed.

I'm most drawn to the photo of me & my Grandpa, and reflecting on all of the great times we had together. He's a true Southern Gentleman, an eternal optimist, a comedian, an entertainer, an animal lover, a former boxer, a Veteran, an amazing husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, brother, son, uncle, and friend.

Most importantly, undoubtedly he's a man of God, and is now enjoying the grace, mercy and salvation that is extended to us all when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Of that, I am certain. He has been reunited with my Grandma and my mom. He has met his namesake, my son Matthew, and I know the first words from Great-Grandpa to Great Grandson were (in a heavy southern accent) "Gimme some sugar, Son!" Meaning, he wanted a hug and kiss.

As I sat on the plane today, I remembered something I said to my dad on one of the many flights we made when I was a little girl. I must've been about 4 or 5 on this particular trip. Anyway, I looked out the window at the sun rising above the blanket of soft, white, poofy clouds and I said: "Daddy, God sure does have a pretty place up here!" If only I knew how beautiful it truly is, and now Grandpa is enjoying it in a way I can't even begin to imagine right now. (But someday I will!)

Grandpa's funeral is tomorrow, Wednesday, April 22. While we'll be saying our final goodbye to our beloved patriach, our family members & friends who have already passed will be welcoming him HOME, to our Heavenly Father's House.

John 14:1-3
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; Trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (New International Version)
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Ilya discovered his first pile of earthworms yesterday.

Then he he stomped them all in front of me. There are earthworm guts still on my patio. Blech!

Then Norm made spaghetti for dinner.

Then I wanted to throw up.

Guess it's time for me to "mommy up" if I want to survive parenthood!

Seems I left my lunch sitting on the kitchen counter this morning. Nice. This is always a great thing to realize when it’s 11:45am, you’re 11 miles from home, your office is severely short staffed so making a run to go grab it is out of the question, and you’re absolutely STARVING. To add insult to injury, the only option you’re left with is the fast food joint you swore off when you were 10 years old. Why was it sworn off? Because the last time you were there, a dying and very dried up lizard fell out of the potted plant you were sitting under, landed square in the middle of the cheeseburger you were about to take a chomp out of, and made you scream like the little girl you were!! : - ) The memory still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Anyway, desperation led me back to the fast food joint today. Sigh. Before I pulled away from the 2nd drive up window, I peeked in the bag to make sure my order was complete and noticed something was missing. Ketchup…

I realized then that my blog is missing some things as well, okay lots of things. It’s about time for all of you to “catch up” on what’s been going on lately. So now that I’ve got my blogger hat back on, I hope you’ll check back and read about our adventures with Cubby.

We’ve been busy, we’ve had a ton of fun, and we’ve had some challenges, all of which I look forward to sharing with you. For now though, I’m going to enjoy my fries…and my ketchup!

Toodles,
Kar

Title sums it up pretty well. Having trouble focusing on typing (or anything really!) so pls 'scuse any typos here. Will post more in the coming days but wanted to thank everyone for the well wishes, good thoughts & prayers.

Thanks again & hugs
Kar

I haven't mentioned this yet (mainly because I don't really want to think about it), but tomorrow morning I'm heading in to surgery. The surgery itself should be pretty straight forward, maybe a few days to a week of recovery, but the whole anesthesia thing really scares me (and I think Norm, too, since he's seen firsthand the issues I've had with it in the past). I know I've said it, but I just don't deal with with anesthesia at all...

The other not so fun part of tomorrow will be the fasting. I may be very petite, but trust me I am quite capable of packing away the food. I am NPO after midnight tonight but won't head into surgery until around 11:30am or noon tomorrow. Poor me and poor Norm for having to deal with me tomorrow morning lacking caffeine and food! I'm considering gorging myself at 11:30 tonight, but really...that would be no different than what I've been doing since 8pm. So far I've had tiramisu cake & milk, ice tea & goldfish, M&Ms, pretzels, and I'm now considering stealing one of Cubby's strawberry Blue's Clues yogurts. Nice mix, huh?! :-)

Another obvious concern I have is how well Cubby will deal with all of this. I don't know when I'll be able to pick him up again, or rock him to sleep. I don't know how he will react but I do know he won't understand. My fellow adoptive parents will likely understand my concerns about whether or not this will effect attachment in any way. While our attachment journey was shorter than other family's, that isn't to say we didn't have our share of challenges. Cubby & I are at an excellent place right now and it gets better each & every day. I pray this will not have a negative impact and that God will provide me the guidance and strength I need to meet Cubby's needs as well as my own over the next few weeks.

So I'm guessing my recovery time will either keep me totally away from all things Blogger, or will give me more time than ever to get a couple of those posts written that have been nagging me for weeks now. Either way, thanks for stopping by. "See You" on the other side!