Winter’s log, earthdate 201504.02

Well, I have to say that I started out writing this, still laughing… You see the blog title, “Winter’s log, earthdate 201504.02”? Well, I don’t go and type that in every evening, I have it on a “scratch pad” (Notepad, actually), and just scrape, copy, and paste, then change either one, or both of the date figures at the end. Well, I scraped, copied, and pasted, and thought “Huh?!” Because the date (the “02” part) was correct, but… I hadn’t changed it! Had the program done it on its own? C’mon, Word Press isn’t that clever! So how was it… and then the penny dropped. The date on the “scratch pad” had been saved on the second of March – 201503.02. What I had to change, this time, was the month, making it 201504.02. Which reminds me – I’d better change the “03” on the “scratch pad” to “04”, so that I don’t make the same mistake tomorrow night! Done… Actually, today was a fairly busy day – I did go out, and went to all the places I wanted to go to (however we didn’t find a nice rug shoppe – we didn’t even find a not nice one!) But I did get to Office Works (I love going to Office Works! I can nearly always find something nice there that I haven’t got, but think that I could possibly need, if I tried hard enough! 🙂 ) and almost got blown inside out by the wind on my way inside… but I did find my clipboard that’ll stand up by itself, and not only does it stand up, it also has a white board on the other side! So now, when the tissues run out (or whatever!) I don’t have to write a reminder to myself that we “need more tissues” on a piece of paper – which invariably gets lost – I can turn the clipboard around and write it on the white board, where it’ll stay under my nose until I get the replacement tissues 🙂 I also got a very nice little “phone holder” for the bathroom, in (fake) leather, with (fake) brass corners on the bottom of it. It’s not really a phone holder, it’s actually a pen and pencil holder come desk caddy, with an “X” shaped insert to divide pens from pencils etc. The insert comes out in two pieces, so I can leave one piece in, dividing the caddy diagonally in half, and I can put scissors and nail files in one half, and the phone in the other half. But… why do I need a phone holder in the bathroom? I hear you ask…  Well, because I have a cordless phone in the bathroom that doesn’t have a charging cradle, so the phone has to stand there, precariously balanced on its end, and it just doesn’t look terribly secure. Appliance cords make it wobble, it gets in the way, and I just wanted to put it in something reasonably secure that didn’t look too utilitarian or ugly. Then I braved the wind again, got back in the car, and we went off to our next port of call – Box Hill Central. Boy, has it changed since I was last there! Needless to say, we got lost… It turned out that we were in the wrong building, so, back out into the wind again (I really don’t know why I bothered to comb my hair before we left home this morning!), and we muddled our way into t’other building – I say “muddled our way”, because neither of us could remember where the entrance was! I’d been told that the place we were looking for – called “Pets Carnival“, by the way 😉 was upstairs – we “couldn’t miss it!”. As it turned out, we didn’t miss it, because it had a great big red sign on the closed doors saying “Back in 5 minutes”. As it was almost lunch time, we made our way to the food court almost exactly opposite and had lunch. Once again, I’d thoughtfully brought one of my Optifast bars with me (Cappuccino this time!) Himself had a savoury muffin and a (real, hot liquid and frothed milk) cappuccino, and I had a long black with a small jug of skinny milk, from Muffin Break. When we’d finished lunch, the Pets Carnival doors were still advertising that they’d be “back in five minutes”, so we sat and chatted and twiddled our thumbs, and eventually, after about 40 minutes, the five minutes was up, and the doors finally opened. They really did have a lot of very interesting cat caves – I’ve actually seen most of them on Etsy, but it was very good to be able to see the actual article, “in the flesh”, so to speak. We got a few ideas from there actually, but didn’t buy anything – however, I did get two new long sleeved, warm jumpers in Harris Scarfe, which was close by. After Box Hill Central we went up to The Glen – I had to take two tops that I’d bought only a week or so ago, back to My Size… they were already too big, and I hadn’t even worn them! (well, I tried them on this morning, and they were too big – just as well I hadn’t taken their labels off!) I changed them over for size “S” (small), which, I believe is supposed to be a size 18. I’m just trying to remember back to when I was at school… I think I was about a size 14 around about then (I was a lot taller then – 5’7″ in bare feet – now I’m barely 5’1″ 😦 ) but I don’t think I’ve been size 18 since I was in my mid twenties! I’m shrinking! I’m shrinking! 🙂 both height-wise, and width-wise, it seems! 🙂 While I was in My Size, one of the ladies there said how great my hair looked, and what a fantastic colour it was… which pleased me greatly… and then she went and spoilt the nice compliment by saying that it reminded her of a lolly-pop waiting to be licked, or something! I had to laugh, though! Talk about a back handed compliment! 😀

All in all, it was a Good Day Out, but we didn’t get back until after half past three! I’d missed my pre-lunch Stair Walk again, but only because I wasn’t here to do it – so I raced upstairs, shed my shoes, grabbed my “prop-the-door-open” book, my “save-my-skin” fingerless glove, and the house keys, and raced off to the fire escape. I got back from my better-late-than-never pre-lunch Stair Walk just after 4 o’clock… so I had half to three quarters of an hour to relax and have a well deserved cup of coffee before I was due to go on my evening Stair Walk. Needless to say, after my evening Stair Walk I retired to the lounge room and read until dinner – which was late, because once again Himself was out playing Taxi Driver for my favourite eldest daughter, because her husband was still on his way home from work, and she had a late doctor’s appointment.

Weigh-in this morning. Much better than I expected, especially considering that I’m two days into those rotten fluid retaining pills – I went down to 96.8kg – one point down on yesterday. Only one point… still, it’s better than going up, or staying the same… But I’ll probably be up again tomorrow, or the same – just you wait and see!

And that, gentle readers, brings me to the end of today’s exciting episode of “Winter’s Tales” – stay tuned tomorrow night, for the next installment of the Tall Tales and True, of the legendary Winter – stories that will not in any way be “detrimental to any beneficial use” (I heard that phrase on the news tonight, and I just couldn’t let it slip – I think they were talking about some sort of water pollution at the time, but all that went right out of my head when I heard that phrase – I just had to weave it into my blog, somehow – it’s so bad and nonsensical that it really deserves to be recorded for posterity!) Indeed, this time tomorrow night, you shall receive answers to questions you haven’t even thought to ask yet! Questions like: Did the new tops fit? What about the jumpers? Why did we want to look at interesting cat caves in Box Hill Central, and, Did my weight go up or down or stay the same? Have I written on my new whiteboard that’s on the back of my “stand-up” clip board? All shall be revealed this time tomorrow night! However, until then, bee good, don’t smoke behind the bike shed, but above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂