Geez, patience is not my virtue

Today was an interesting day for me.  I got together with my dad, stepmother, stepbrother, his wife and their child.  My dad has a friend here who has a house where he always stays when they visit the area since his friend is in another country.  My dad has been trying to buy the house from him at a discounted price since it would be a nice little winter home to get out of the snow of Utah.  So I found the house today and when I walked in, everything seemed familiar somehow.  His particular friend was in Germany when my dad's job was also in Germany, so I figured they went around to some of the same places.  But then, as I'm looking around, everything seemed weird.  I turned to my stepmom and said to her, "Did you guys buy this place?  It looks like all of your stuff in here."  Turns out they did!  So they will be living about five hours from me half of the year!!  I'm really excited.  Although, I have been told not to share this information with my brother and my mother.  That puts me in a weird place, so we'll have to see how that goes.

Speaking of my brother, he dropped a bomb on me yesterday.  He and my dad have not been speaking for about three years.  My dad has made attempts but my brother has been unresponsive.  He told me that he's going to call my dad so that they can get together this weekend.  I have been praying they mend fences.  Of course, everyone has to do it on their own time when they are ready, just as my mother and I had to do.  The only difference with our situation was that it took us 12 years to come together.  I told my brother all along that the pain of that is really indescribable.  I pray that God gives them both courage to be honest with each other about whatever it was that has kept them apart.  I do know God answers prayers, so this one was especially touching.l

While visiting with my family today, spending time with my niece, it felt good to be around them.  My little niece is three and it was the first time meeting her, so she was a little shy with me at first.  That lasted for a good five minutes before we were putting puzzles together, painting, going down slides together and so much more that wore out this girl.  [By the way, Sara, she calls me guppy, too, just like Max ;-) ] All the activity with her just reminded me of how uncomfortable it is being a larger person in the world.  I can't get down on the floor with her and play like I would like to.  Lifting her takes effort after a few times.  Running up and down the stairs in the house was a real pain to my knees.  In fact, I was on the verge of telling my dad and stepmother about my decision to go with the gastric bypass surgery an incredible amount of times today.  I would think to myself, "Is this the moment?  Is this the one??"  Of course, I just posted yesterday about wanting to wait to tell my dad.  Nothing has changed in that regard but I am impatient.  Most of you have probably already figured that part out by now.  I want things when I want them.  I don't like waiting.  I even called the director for Kaiser's Options program to make sure she received my questionnaire.  She called me back letting me know that they have already processed my questionnaire and it is now in the hands of the medical staff to review before then requesting that I move on to the next phase of the process, which is to get a boatload of labwork done.  I could have waited longer for her to contact me, as they said they would do in the beginning, but I wanted to make sure she received everything she needed from me because I want to know if I'm going to be moving forward now.  Oh my goodness Kathy Jean, you must learn patience.  What can I say ... I don't like waiting!