Graduations, the gain-loss cycle begins again, etc.

After much anticipation, a Baccalaureate, a High School Graduation and an 8th Grade "Graduation" happened this month.

The Baccalaureate was essentially a church service, with the graduate sitting with his/her family. It was fine. The Graduation was really nicely done. Because the school Kate attended was so small, the graduation could be personalized for each student. A baby picture was shown alongside the senior picture of each graduate as they crossed the stage. Additionally, a paragraph about each student had been written by the Fine Arts teacher and it was lovely to hear about the qualities and idiosyncrasies of each senior. After they all crossed the stage, each graduate came out to the audience and gave their parents each a rose. It was beautiful.

After being given my rose from my Graduate!

Congrats to Kate!

With her proud brothers.

Chris' 8th Grade Graduation was also really nice. The band played two songs,  there was a slide show, and four students gave a speech, one of whom was Chris. He did an amazing job. His manner was relaxed, his delivery confident. It was nice to get the opportunity to see him do some public speaking and to do so well. Again, very nicely done.

Trey had his Fifth Grade picnic today and will have his "Fifth Grade Closing Ceremony" on Friday. After that, no more elementary school! No, you won't catch me crying. He is ready to move up to middle school and I am more than ready to have children in the same place and on the same school calendar for the first time in years.

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Well, I'm back in the saddle again. So far I've lost 9 pounds- the same nine pounds I've lost about, oh, a hundred times before. What can you do, just give up? So I find myself here again. Overall it is going well- today was the first day that I just felt like I was dissatisfied and jonesing for something. I did resist though and instead made several meals that I can reach for when I feel hungry and want to eat something.

Weight loss is just hard. Eureka, right? By that I mean that if you are trying to stop with cigarettes, or alcohol, or drugs- you can be helped by not having them in your environment at all. But you can't just stop having food around. You can modify what you have around, to be sure, but in a household with other people, the exposure is just there whether you like it or not. Just today I was faced with chips, soda, doughnuts (my own fault- they were at a meeting and I brought one home for each of the kids. Did not touch them myself though. Give me a freaking medal, I earned it.)  Just stuff like that.

Anyone with me? Facing the same kind of challenges?

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So Kate's been under the weather for the past couple of months. For a while we thought she was just tired from her mission trip, or from AP exams and homework, or stressed about picking a college.. you know- the usual suspects. Lately, though, she has found herself feeling sick to her stomach inexplicably and suddenly, or feeling suddenly very tired or like she might pass out. She's also not felt like eating much. So last Monday I took her the Doctor for a complete check up and from there we went on to a complete battery of blood tests. They drew six vials from the girl!  The good news is that her blood counts and most everything they checked looked awesome. The Dr kept saying, "We never see a vitamin D level this good! We hardly ever get cholesterol readings this low!" So that was heartening. What it did show, however, is that Kate apparently had mono some time ago (maybe around the beginning of April?) and while the "acute" phase has passed, her body is still testing in the high range for needing time and rest to recover. (IGg?) So she is on three weeks of generally resting and laying low. Minimal physical activity. This is hard to accomplish with Kate, who likes to keep busy, but we're doing our best!!