A Sad Update

Hello Dear Readers,

My apologies for not blogging lately. I would say that I'm hoping to get back into it, but I just don't think I'll have the time. Back in October I started a full time job and that just takes up all of my time. I do get weekends off, but I've been working really hard on eBay trying to get a handle on the excess stuff I have around here that I want to sell. I haven't been doing much with dolls, but that certainly didn't stop me from buying more. I did keep a running list of how much came in versus how much I sold and the bought side was a lot more than what I got. I will just say I cannot be trusted around Walmart's after clearance Christmas especially when I find out the Harry Potter school uniforms look pretty cute on my Mimi dolls and they had Ginny for 5 dollars. I bought all six they had over the course of two days.

I did think about starting a monthly post where I talk about my top addition to the collection this month, but I can't this month. Despite buying a lot of dolls, I mainly bought them for their shoes, or their bodies, or their clothes. I only bought one doll head to actually join the collection, but he doesn't have a body yet since the one I bought for him, doesn't work. I don't have anything I like better for him so he's been banished to where I keep the other doll heads and who knows if he will ever get a body. I don't even want to admit to myself how long some of those heads have been waiting for bodies.

This post isn't just about me talking about dolls. This month I also lost my Grandfather. He passed away exactly a week ago today. I won't lie, it's been extremely hard for me. He was fine until two weeks ago . He had been having some health related issues in recently year but nothing major but two weeks ago he fell and fractured his arm. He was on the mend and did come home, but a few days later he had a massive heart attack and things went from bad to worse. He hung on for a few days, but started to get worse and on Monday he was gone.

On Friday my family and I went up to Connecticut for the funeral. That was one of the hardest experiences of my life. All of my Aunts and Cousins were there. I'm glad we could all be together at this time, but it was such a sucky situation for why we had to get together. I am very glad we were able to go, but I never want to relive this experience. I barely held it together myself and it's even more heartbreaking seeing everyone you love being in so much pain and not being able to do anything.

My Grandfather is playing the banjo. I never heard him play it, but he still had it.

I am absolutely gutted for my poor Grandmother. We are all rallying around her and she's dealing with it the best she can but my heart is absolutely broken for her. They were married for 68 years since she was 19. I've been working with my mother to think of ways how we can help her. We are at a disadvantage since we are so far away but we are going to work on making more of an effort to call my Grandmother and just keep in touch and we were thinking of things we could send her to help keep her mind off the situation. It's tricky since she's never been a stay at home kind of person, but the things we're thinking of are things to help her at home. She and my Grandfather lived in the same house since 1952, there's a lot of memories that she won't be able to escape from. Right now we're talking about any types of hobbies we can send her supplies for, books we can get her, and movies we can get she would like. 

My Grandparents at their 25th Anniversary. He was not usually so silly in pictures.

It's hard to explain my relationship with my Grandfather. It's been hard to communicate with my Grandfather my entire life since he had massive hearing loss. He had gotten sick as a child and lost a lot of his hearing and as time when on he had some genetic hearing loss. Despite always having a hearing aid, they never found one that was perfect for him. We would talk and when I got older our relationship changed where we did communicate more, he was one if the smartest people I know. He was incredibly mechanically gifted and would come up with amazing solutions to problems. I was talking to my mother about him and I just couldn't come up with words on how to describe him, he was just Grandpa. The best I came up with was he was a consistent, he was just who he was and his presence brought us all comfort. It's hard stating exactly what's changed, but everything has changed.

We weren't able to stay long, and we never went to my Grandmother's house. Part of me wanted to go and get that over with, but part of me just couldn't bear it. It's going to be rough figuring out a new normal. It's going to be rough.

I'm going to miss you Grandpa.