tomorrow is the beginning of Advent…

yesterday I sent home Advent calendars for everyone… there was a Starbucks one for my daughter… Kinder Surprise ones for the little boys… a Lindt one for the oldest grandson, and a box of Russian Mints for my son-in-law…

  
usually they have to share so the little boys were very pleased…

I arranged for a friend of my daughter in Ottawa to pick up a fancy Lindt calendar for her…

  
and we also got a Star Wars one for my son-in-law there…

great fun to arrange the surprise for her because she sends calendars to a number of people every year… she has been sending them to me since she moved away… I’m still looking for the magnetic covers that go on top of muffin tins that she sent four or five years ago… I put them away very carefully, sigh…

this year the little boys got a parcel in the mail from her so they will have chocolate and another treat each day…

  
on Saturday the youngest helped fill up the drawers in my reindeer calendar with chocolate raisins… this year I won’t be having any of these, so when they come over on the weekends they will share all of the days that have passed… one in particular is very large, so they are already anticipating opening up that one, lol…

last year I got a lovely collection of different sized boxes, which I managed to save and remember where they were… they were picked up on Saturday and I am hoping that the Advent fairy comes by tonight with the collection of filled boxes…

a friend recently asked how I was managing my new food regime… and wondering what I was missing most… as I thought about it I realized that I’m not really missing anything… I still have chocolate, just much less often, and in smaller amounts… I eat everything, but try to plan the not-so-good items a bit farther apart than previously and in smaller quantities… the biggest change I have made is to plan my meals out the day before… this helps me keep on track and I don’t get surprised with a meal arriving and I haven’t got any idea, so make poor choices… and finally I eat lots of vegetables at every meal… most days it works great… now and then, not so much…

I don’t want to take drugs for diabetes if I can possibly manage it, so that really encourages me to eat well and get on that treadmill or take a walk every day…