Semi-Kind-of-Break/Hiatus-Type-Thing

 Hi all.

My grandpa passed away last Saturday afternoon and it is killing me to be so far  from family and home right now. I am struggling to function enough to get caught up on comments and such. It's good for me to do this kind of stuff, because it's distracts me for a little while, but if I pause for a moment then I am sobbing again.

My grandpa is everything to me. My biological father was never around, so my grandpa (and three uncles) filled that role. Grandpa and I were best buddies from the start and I don't have a single favorite childhood memory that does not include him.

Summers meant catching fireflies in jars, and scooping up Monarch butterflies in nets for Grandma. It meant rootbeer floats and 'camp meat' when he was grilling (just hot dogs, but theyre always better fresh off the grill), and husking sweet corn outside. It meant family vacations, sitting beside him in the front seat to 'keep him awake' while driving, with my mom and Grandma laughing in the backseat.

Watching him be BopBop (she could not say Grandpa for ages and the name stuck) to Eleanor for twelve years was nothing short of beautiful and I am forever grateful we got that many, though it will never be enough. From the time she was itty bitty, Eleanor was clothed in pink overalls and John Deere t-shirts for visits to the farm. They chased geese and rode the tractor through the empty fields. After, they'd be sitting on the deck, eating peanuts from the shell, swatting flies, and husking corn, just like when I was little.

I was lucky enough to be the first grandchild and have Grandma and Grandpa all to myself for ten years; the countless memories are both a blessing and a curse - making me smile and cry at the same time.

I decided since I have already posted nothing for my fall review challenge, I am not going to bother with it. I will still post easily-queued stuff, like Stacking the Shelves and Tackling the TBR, but I can't focus long enough to finish a review and quite honestly, I don't really want to right now.

Please keep my Grandma in your thoughts. After sixty-six years, she is suddenly without the man she married when she was seventeen and he was nineteen. It's going to be a very hard road for all of us, but her especially.

Thank you,
~Sarah~