Purple and blue potpourri… ummm why candle holders full of purple and blue potpourri? Because the candles never sat straight in them, and because purple and blue are my favourite colours, and I couldn’t think of a suitable title for tonight’s blog! I have one of the candle holders in here, and there’s another in my bathroom. They’re a bit like giant, short stemmed wine glasses, and they do look lovely when the fat white candles you’re supposed to put in them sit flat against the bottom of the bowl part – but they look kinda weird, when the candles sit at a somewhat jaunty angle… I’ve been very busy with Rift all today – I only got things all finished and ready to roll tonight at about 5 o’clock. You see, I’ve been helping a friend learn how to play Rift. He’s never played an MMO before, so everything is very new and a bit strange – especially the jargon, short-cut expressions (for want of a better term!), and the acronyms, which one tends to take for granted when one has been playing these sorts of games for over ten years. I’ve come to realise that it’s almost as hard trying to explain them as it is to learn them – so it’s been a bit tough for both of us – and also for my poor, long suffering husband who has to put up with my – sometimes stupid, sometimes obscure, and often vaguely technical – questions, which I then have to turn around and translate into lay terms for our friend (and often failing rather badly, I fear!) when he’d much rather be watching a couple of Star Trek Enterprise episodes with me 🙂 Ah well, I was helping out last night, and using the “youngest” of my girls, Gingerlilly, and I kept thinking that I just didn’t like her. Dunno why – *shrug* – I just didn’t…This morning I resolved to do something about it, so I re-created her – slightly differently – on another shard, and began the task of getting her up to level 15 so that I could transfer her to Laethys, our “main” shard. This took a while, and I died twice attempting to get my (almost mandatory for me!) “Merchant of Death” title (well, I was only Level 11, and Reed Bellows, the person you have to kill to get the title, was Level 15, so it’s not really surprising that I got killed… twice…) But as I said, I re-created her somewhat differently, with a Warlock, Necromancer, Dominator build, and by the time I died the second time I must have hit Mr. Bellows with enough DoTs (Damage over Time spells) to knock him off, too, because when I resurrected I was told that I now had the right to the title “Merchant of Death”, so I must have killed him! (unless the game just felt sorry for me and decided to let me use it, for all the trouble dying that I’d had… but I doubt it…) Anyway, to level 15 I managed to get, the Shard Shuffle was performed, and the new and improved Gingerlilly arrived on Laethys, all ready to go this evening. The other Gingerlilly ended up on a very minor shard, reserved for characters that I don’t really want to kill off, but don’t really want to use, either, so… “No Gingerlillys were harmed in the making of the new and improved Gingerlilly!” Tonight’s training session went a lot better than last night’s, and while there is still a lot of ground to be covered (like learning how to open our inventory), I do think our friend is coming along very nicely – it’s only about the fourth or fifth time he’s played, and we’re not playing long sessions (yet, anyway! 😉 ) Oh, I almost forgot – remember I told you how Jademoss, my level 65 girl, maxed out in both Outfitting and Armorsmithing? Well today I got Wyntercat, my level 60 Alchemist, Runecrafter and Artificer up to 450/450 (i.e. maxed out!) in Alchemy. There is now no Potion, Tonic, or Explosive that she cannot make! (takes deep breath) Now comes Runecrafting, and then Artificing. I’ll probably do those tomorrow! 😉

Weigh-in this morning was a bit of a surprise! Well, alright then, a lot of a surprise! I went down, from 108.4kg to 107.9kg (it did say 107.8kg the first time – I rather think I preferred that, but…) I weighed myself twice more, and both times it said (wobble, wobble) 107.8…(for a split second, then, wobble, wobble again) 107.9kg!, so… I guess it was… borderline. Still, I’ll rebound tomorrow, I bet! Back to the 108kg zone. I hope not, but I probably will… Still, it’s obvious that the 107kg zone is within reach… 🙂

And that’s about all that’s happened here today – but something exciting is bound to happen tomorrow, so tune in again tomorrow night and find out what sort of adventures I’ve been up to, sitting here, tappity, tap-tapping away on my keyboard… Will my weight have gone up? Or like an old cracked LP record, become stuck in the 107.9kg track? Perhaps I might even have gone down! That would be wonderful (if a little over optimistic!) news… So G’night, seeyall here tomorrow night – ciao, all! 🙂