Greetings, peeps! I'm back after a hiatus of a month and a half. I want to start by letting you all know how much I have missed this place, and to thank all of you for the outpouring of support--both on the board and via email--that I received over the passing of my grandfather. We had his funeral service a few days after his passing, and towards the end when the officiating clergyman asked the attendees if anyone wanted to say anything, I spoke up and basically issued a public apology to my granddad for all the times I was difficult to deal with for him, and let everyone know that I was glad he was my grandfather despite our often rocky relationship. Family holiday dinners are tough to get through without him right now, as he was such a fun presence there, but we needed to all get together and talk about the loss.

There was even a cute GM at the after-service brunch. One of the attendees, a long-time family friend, has a daughter who is about 10-12 years old. She is petite and very adorable with jet black hair, fair skin with rosy cheeks, and she wore glasses and looked very cute in them. Her mom, who has been through a lot of hardship in her life (I'm very proud of her for getting through it all), told us how thankful she is every day for having this daughter in her life.

But the cuteness was yet to begin. Despite being a sad occasion, this girl brought smiles to my face at the brunch by basically just being her normal tween self, and showing her thrill to be alive every moment. At one point during the brunch services she literally hopped back and forth when accompanying her mom up and down one of the aisles between the tables, being all energetic and (as the AGs' like to say) hyper. It wasn't easy to put a smile on my face that day, but she managed to do that, and I was thankful to the gods for her presence there, even though I had never met her before that day.

I will begin participating here at the board regularly starting today, and will recommence my mod responsibilities as well. I have been incredibly busy, and have realized that it's not going to slow down any, and my time with the community is too important to put aside "until things calm down"--because they won't any time soon! My participation will be intermittent here and there, but I should be back more or less full-time now, barring unexpected busy periods.