...time runs through your fingers like sand...

...and you don't even realize it.

(you have click on pic)
...once upon a time, all these kids lived here in this house with us. Now, seven are married, three of the girls live in a house in town, and Evelyn stays with Margaret and Adrian during the week. Jonathan has worked full time all summer, comes home on weekends. So four daughters left at home full time, six kids here on weekends. It's almost like having twenty dollars left of a huge Christmas bonus. Where did it go? It was so fun while it lasted.

Not that the ones left at home are a mere pittance, ha. I enjoy them even more, because now I KNOW. I know how time runs through your fingers like sand. I know how the days seem slow but the years fly by. I know that the girl going shopping with me after an appointment will have her own life in a few years, too busy to while away the hours with mama. So I try to listen more, talk less, make each excursion as special as I can.

See, I remember when that girl going out and about with me was Emily. Then Abigail. And especially Mirielle. She was a fellow coupon cutter, and we had tons of fun getting lots of good shampoo and razors for almost nothing.

There were a few of the older ones who went through Making Dinner for the Family phases, too. Emily liked to make versions of chicken soup...Mexican once. Mirielle and Aaron would plan and make some good meals, too. They went to college together, with Mali, and if they ever had a day off together, yes, we would go out and about or on a hike or to lunch.

So yes, kids grow up. We all know this. Why does it make me so sad? Paul dragged out a big Tonka truck for grandson Grant to play with, and oh my goodness, Jonny once delighted in that truck. I saw a pic of Jon at the beach the other day, taken just six years ago, when he was nine years old, not a care in the world, burying himself in the sand. Seeing the smaller, unformed version of the full-grown man/teenager he's become, in such a short time...wow.

Oh, and I don't think I was actually as unorganized as I always thought I was. Seeing Samuel try to keep track of Grant's sippy cup and the baby wipes, his shoes, and his keys and phone...well, that was multiplied by ! for me, and well, no wonder it was challenging!

BTW, Sam is a really good daddy. He would come home from drill, and Grant would do that thing that small children seem to do, which is sort of punish the parent for leaving them all day...he did this by not letting Sam out of his sight, whining for things, ect. He was not like that for me during the day, he was happy and well adjusted. Even though he thrived with me, he still was afraid his dad was going to leave him again once Sam got home, and heaven forbid Sam went down the hall to the bathroom.

Anyway. Can we talk about weight loss? As you all know, I've been struggling with this for YEARS. For many years, I did nothing at all to lose weight. I figured I was hopeless, it seemed insurmountable. I gave birth seventeen times, had a few miscarriages, and well, morning sickness equaled carb consumption for me. I was tired for 25 years, and hardly ever got naps, so a stack of cookies and a cup of coffee did the trick. I ate Cheerios (with sugar), or oatmeal before bed with some of the pregnancies, because I always felt sick and always craved carbs. If living on bagels and cereal made one thin, I would be the thinnest. Except for the ice cream and the chocolate.

So we all know WHY I was fat. Then, when Cam was like two, I went in for a check up, because I had acid reflux so bad, the over the counter meds weren't working anymore...and my blood pressure was creeping up. Prilosec was the doc's answer. I went home and googled the heck out of it, decided it wasn't doing anything but masking the problem, and decided to change my life.

I lost seventy pounds. Menopause happened, and I started Keto...it worked like magic, the debilitating hot flashes went away. Then I strayed from Keto, still dieted, but the weight started creeping back on, little by little. I worked so hard, lost a few, gained a few, and up and up the scale went, whittling my weight loss down...

So a few months ago, I tried again in earnest. I started intermittent fasting. First, I skipped brekky and stopped with all snacking, not even one grape between meals. Then I realized it wasn't that hard to skip lunch too. One meal a day (OMAD).

I lost sixteen pounds. Then Norway, I did stick to this most of the time, but had some chocolate, an ice cream, a whole bag of Smash on the plane (chocolate covered Bugles!).

Anyway. I am still down sixteen pounds, which isn't bad. It's good. It's slow, but I don't get shaky anymore. I don't have that "I have to eat or I'll kill someone" feeling anymore. I eat mostly Keto, no sugar, no bread...but I did have an ear of fresh corn last night, and one small salt potato with this last night:

No, I didn't eat all of it!

I do drink coffee during the day, and am trying to drink it black until the afternoon, then I'll have a cup with half and half, when it's almost time for dinner.

But, Friday night, some of us went out for ice cream. Normally I just pay and am fine with not having any (this statement is a huge lie. I do pay, but I am not FINE, ha!). But Friday night, I decided that I had been really good lately, and it was close enough to my eating window, an ice cream would not kill me. Plus, the guy in front of me ordered a maple walnut in a waffle cone, and that thing was HUGE. So after the kids ordered, I ordered a SMALL pumpkin pie ice cream cone.

This ice cream was not small. It was two huge scoops, plus the cone was filled, not one of those skimpy ice-cream-on-top-of-the-cone rip-offs. It was pleasantly fragrant, pieces of pie crust immersed throughout the ice cream, it was good. But. I felt absolutely horrible afterward. No, not guilty horrible, physically horrible. I felt nauseous. So this is a good thing. I don't want to feel like that ever. ever. ever. again.

If I ever want ice cream badly, I will request a tiny baby cone.

And if you know me at all, this is a mammoth change.

I have always been all about Bigger is Better, when it comes to ice cream.

Anyway. Yesterday I did have brekky. It's okay to change it up a bit sometimes. Paul made scrambled eggs. He diced the green peppers and red onions into tiny cubes, and carmelized them in butter before adding the eggs, which he whipped up with cream. We had some sausages, too.

So I have committed to do intermittent fasting, mostly Keto, until Christmas. No quitting, even if the results seem bleak. I will take a few breaks for wine tastings though...because after all, time runs through your fingers like sand, and you DO have to live.