Tuesday… well, as bad luck would have it, my favourite eldest daughter didn’t come over today, after all 😦 she wasn’t feeling all that crash hot (well, she has changed her diet rather drastically!) and decided that maybe she’ll come over tomorrow, after her class finishes (at noon) So I thought “right! I’ll start working on my background ideas for the blog, and do a little Rifting with Addain, and… and…” – well, you know how your mind sometimes runs away with you… 🙂 Anyway, would you like the good news first, or the bad? Very well then, the good news… I did work out how to use my own backgrounds, and they look really nice! It’s very easy, really… The bad news part of that is that the header on this particular Theme is soooo narrow (from top to bottom – or, from bottom to top – whichever!) that it’s extremely difficult to fit anything legible into the space you’re given… (as you’ll see from the current header, it seems somewhat… cramped?) but wait! I know you want more (bad news)! 😉 I created a nice gray, marbled, seamless pattern, which I used as the background of the header image, as well as the background of the blog theme. I use them all the time. I used them in the stationary I used to make, and the web sets that I gave away for fee. No seams, any-which-where! Except here. I tried the background and header together on about 20 different Themes here to see if they behaved differently, depending on which themes you used them on. Well, they did, and they didn’t. Some Themes coped better with the combination than others, but in the end, none of them really worked to my “standard” (even a small hint of visibility between the background and the header is totally unacceptable to my mind – I dunno – maybe I’m just too much of a perfectionist or something – *shrug* but that’s the way I work) I know what the problem is – it’s what I was grizzling about last night, with different Themes changing the aspect ratio of graphics to a larger or lesser extent. Unfortunately, other than buying out Word Press and hiring a programmer who knows what s/he’s doing, I just don’t know how to fix it. So I seem to be at an impasse… Oh well, never mind, I don’t have to use a marble background – I can use a canvas one (and I dare! I double dare! any junction line to show its ugly little face in one of those! (so there! *pokes tongue out at Themes in general, and this one in particular!*) 😉 ) So the personal background and header will just have to wait a bit, I think… But I will do it 🙂 The canvas “trick” should sort things out… 😉
The rest of my time today I frittered away in Telara, waiting, not terribly patiently, for the caravan carrying Reed Bellows to arrive. He’s the guy you have to kill to claim the title “Merchant of Death”, which is a “must have” for all my characters. I hung around, and hung around, and magically transported myself from shard to shard to see if he’d arrived on one of them, instead. He hadn’t. So I went Artifact prospecting, and found quite a few, while I was waiting for Mr. Bellows. He eventually turned up close to lunchtime, so I killed him, claimed my title, and transported home to Sanctum. I wonder why there isn’t an equivalent Achievement and Title over in Silverwood? You could easily be excused for thinking that the Defiants get all the fun things to do… 
I got Addain up to level 14, just by “exploring”new areas, and by killing lots of things while I was waiting – I also managed to level up my three “skills” (Butchering, Foraging, and Mining) so now I can move into other areas where the rocks are harder, and the plants and animals are harder to pick or skin 😉 I might do a bit more Rifting tomorrow morning before my favourite eldest daughter arrives – it’d be nice if I could get Addain up to level 20 tomorrow… (but I’m not holding my breath!)
This morning, on my before breakfast Stair Walk, I remembered (hallelujah! she actually remembered to do something that she said she’d do, for a change!) to go and explore the strange steps from the Ground floor, and where they went. It’s quite spooky down there, you know – it’s like clean dungeons (well, cleaner than you’d expect a dark, dank, dungeon to be, anyway) Mind you, it’s neither dark, nor dank – but you feel as though it could easily become so, and even the softest whispers send back sibilant echoes… *shudder* Anyway, I boldly went down the three steps to the next little landing. then there were another two steps down, and I could see a door further down on my left, which himself informs me is the door into the car park. To the right of the little landing that leads to the door into the car park, there’s also another, longish flight of stairs which I believe lead to the lobby that opens on to the street that runs behind our apartment block. Mystery solved? I guess so… but I’m still not too sure why people in the car park don’t bump their heads on the ceiling of the floor above… it just looks… too low…
Weigh-in this morning. Things were a teeny- weeny little bit more encouraging – I went down a whole, whopping big… one point. I was so excited, I almost jumped up and down on the scales! No, not really, but – wow! A whole one point! After three days of being the same, it was almost like a miracle! of sorts…. *sigh* – and I start those ruddy, wretched fluid retention pills on Friday… 😦 Then I only have May and June, plus about a fortnight – 75 days – to get below 86kg! About 10 weeks… and at approximately a kilo a week, I should be able to get there, but not if I spend too much time muddling around on the same [*censored*] weight! Grrr! 93.7kg this morning – one point down on yesterday’s (and the day before, and the day before that again!) 93.8kg
So, that was my day… a bit of good, a bit of bad, and a teeny-tiny ray of hope in the weight department. I’m not really sure what’s happening tomorrow – more of the same, I suppose, if my favourite eldest daughter doesn’t come over – though I did half promise myself that I’d do my nails on Wednesday (tomorrow) I’m thinking that as my nails got so terribly dry – almost to the point of splitting lengthwise – that perhaps I should go and ask them at Inglot if a base coat under the nail polish would help preserve the nails and keep them from getting so dry… I dunno… depends on whether we go out tomorrow or not. I’d also like to try a little bit of independence for a change – going across the road by myself. Someone would have to open the door for me to get out – and open it again to let me get back in (the doors weren’t designed with the disabled in mind!) and I’m quite jittery at the thought of getting across the road in a wheelchair – but other people do it and survive the running of the gauntlet – I expect I should be able to do likewise *brave little smile* Anyway, whatever happens, or doesn’t happen tomorrow, rest assured that there’ll be lots more news, grizzles, long, convoluted, and involved explanations of some of the more arcane aspects of graphics and Rifting, plus other interesting bits of trivia waiting here to amuse you all tomorrow night. 🙂 However, the time has come for me to once more bid you a fond adieu – and to remind you all to bee good, don’t walk on the grass, and above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 