‘Tis the second day of Autumn, and as you can see, the little Header icon has changed to… er… an Autumn symbol! (quelle surprise!) Also, in honour of Autumn, I’ve changed my nail polish colour from a dark and brooding blue-black (Willow Byron Bay “Bonsoir” which, I might add, doesn’t look nearly as dark in their ad for it! The ad looks like a midnight sky lit up with starlight – in reality it looked more as though I’d painted my nails with thick, blue-black ink! A friend actually thought it was black!) So my nails are now a lovely Autumn-y gold! Actually, that’s not the reason I changed nail polish colours, I was going to change it to the gold anyway (it’s my new Willow Byron Bay “Sundance” which was next on my list to try) but it sounded good when I thought of it (well, I thought it sounded good, anyway!) Next week I’ll try out the luscious ripe, red raspberry, “Torakina” 🙂 My nails almost look as though they’ve been gilded (as in properly gilded, with real gold leaf!) Enough about my nails already! I was looking forward to seeing my favourite eldest daughter today – I haven’t been able to see her since the lift went out of commission on February 9th, but she rang this morning to say she wouldn’t be coming. She’d been in hospital overnight with chest pains and she just wanted to sleep. According to the tests they did at the hospital, she hadn’t had, and wasn’t in the process of having, (another) heart attack, and that it was probably just stress and anxiety (she’s already had one minor heart attack, so every little chest twinge starts off the worry and anxiety alarm bells) So it’s a worry. I wish I could find a way to get her to seriously start losing weight – I was 134kg when I started this diet, and she’s quite a bit bigger than that. She’s only 43 years old, and I feel quite helpless to do anything for her. Maybe this little “fright” will jolt her into action, but I really don’t feel terribly optimistic about it – and she won’t even contemplate my VLCD* 😦 I must be a bit weird, I think (no, actually I know I’m weird!) I’m eating approximately 750 calories (3138 kilojoules) a day, and I haven’t felt in the least bit hungry, all the way through this diet! I’m dropping around about a kilo a week, and if she could do that, she’d be a lot healthier – I know I am – and it might just save her life.
So anyway, after I’d had my hair done, I started fossicking around for Chinese symbols for the seasons. I already had Winter (my symbol), and now I have Autumn, Spring and Summer as well! 🙂 I plan on putting a different one up in the header each time the seasons change, with perhaps a special zodiac sign for the Birthday week of family and friends. After I’d made those, it was back to Rift again, and I worked on Persha (getting her up another level and a half) until just after lunch, when I went and started on my nails. By the time the second coat of the nail polish was dry, it was time for my afternoon Stair Walk, so I wasn’t able to get back to Rift again today. I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow – himself is taking my favourite eldest daughter to see her Cardiologist tomorrow afternoon – I’ll be very interested to hear what he has to say! (probably something along the lines of “Lose some damn weight, woman!”, or words to that effect! I hope so, anyway!) so it looks like the coast is clear for me to do a bit of serious Rifting – I recorded last Thursday’s “Survivor: Worlds Apart”, and watched it yesterday. It’s an interesting premise – the eighteen contestants have been divided up into three groups of six, based on their positions/jobs and outlook on life, called respectively “White Collar”, “Blue Collar”, and “No Collar”. The “White Collar” team are exactly that – high executive type jobs. The “Blue Collars” are all manual type workers, and the “No Collars” are people without permanent employment – f’rinstance, one’s a coconut vendor, one’s a law student, one’s a trainee hairdresser (I think) – and as usual, their aim is to out-wit, out-play, and out-last everyone else, to win one million dollars. In the first immunity challence the teams had to scramble through an obstacle course. In the middle were three large boxes, all tied up with string, or chains with padlocks. The teams had the option of using keys to unlock the padlocks, or to untie all the knots in the strings. They all chose the keys and padlocks… for the first 2 minutes – but the hassle of finding which key out of a big bunch of keys unlocked a particular padlock – and they were all different – was simply too time consuming! It didn’t take long before, once again, all three teams switched to undoing the knotted strings. “White Collar” were quite a way ahead of the others. Once they got their boxes unlocked, they found a ladder inside – they were to use this ladder to help them get over the next part of the obstacle course, and then to reach one of a set of three bags containing puzzle pieces. The trick was for the team to hold the ladder upright while one person climbed up to get one of the three bags. One bag held 5 pieces, and formed a fairly simple jigsaw. One held 10 pieces of a more complicated and very visual type jigsaw, and the last bag held 50 square pieces which formed a very easy verbal and colour co-ordinated jigsaw. “Blue Collar” and “No Collar” both chose the 10 piece puzzle, “White Collar” (who were still ahead) chose… the one with 50 pieces! In the end, it was “No Collar” who won immunity, with “Blue Collar” winning second place. “White Collar” had to turn up to Tribal Council that night, and had one of their team voted out. And then they were five… It’ll be interesting to see what happens next week, with their first “reward” challenge, and their second “immunity” challenge!
Weigh-in this morning. Well, no need for the third Stair Walk just yet – I only went down one point, to 101.3kg, but still, it was down! It’ll most likely be “the same”, or up, tomorrow, and I do foresee a third Stair Walk on my horizon… Maybe tomorrow – maybe the day after… but I’m sure it’ll come to that 
So look in again tomorrow night – see what’s been happening here at chez nous – will my gold nail polish have lasted? The jury’s still out on that one – one nail is still a little… sticky feeling? I’ll see how it goes over night… And what about Rift? Will I actually get poor, neglected Persha up to level 20 tomorrow? I should… shame on me if I don’t! Then there’s the question of what my weight decided to do – will I have been up and down those stairs three times, or only twice? Hopefully there’ll be some good news about my favourite eldest daughter’s health scare, and no doubt there’ll be lots of other things for me to brighten your evening with! So until this time tomorrow night, bee good, drive carefully, and… stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂
*VLCD = Very Low Calorie Diet
My Word! 