Well, this is another fine pickle I’ve gotten myself into! Not only have I got The Great Dreaded and Humiliating Photo Shoot tomorrow, I’ve also managed to talk myself into making up a weekly Optifast Meal Menu Plan for my favourite eldest daughter. And it has to be finished and emailed off to her tonight, otherwise she says she doesn’t know what she’s going to eat tomorrow! Me and my big mouth! 😉 Ah well – she’s a good girl, and new to this Optifast diet-thingy – I guess I can make her up a weeks worth of meals and then she can mix ‘n match from there. It’s just a matter of adding up calorie values, and converting them to kilojoules. If anything is going to throw my calculations out of whack it’ll be the fact that breakfasts have to be quick and easy, because she has to race off early to uni, and ditto with her lunches, because lunch time is when she’s usually in transit. Hmmm… An Optifast milkshake for breakfast. Package up 14 almonds for morning tea. An Optifast bar for lunch, one medium-sized carrot (raw) for afternoon tea, then one of the Optifast soups for dinner. She can make up some diet jellies for “dessert” after dinner, and because she’s not having the fiber from breakfast cereal, she can have three prunes sometime during the day as well. The trouble is, the carrot is on the Optifast “Free” list, so it doesn’t have a designated calorie value – I’m going to have to work that one out by Julian (he’s a very good calculator, don’tcha know! 😉 ) The dinner soups can be alternated with one of the Lean Cuisines listed on the Optifast site, and I might be able to talk her into eating breakfast cereal on weekends, when she doesn’t have to race off to catch the bus. So, there I am – finished all that – now I just have to make it look all neat and tidy in a Word table, add the calorie and kilojoule value to each component, and add the whole lot up at the end. Now all I have to worry about is that wretched photo shoot tomorrow. We’re supposed to be there between three and three thirty, but they said we could go in earlier, at one thirty, instead – that way we’d be able to see the photos tomorrow, instead of having to go all the way up to Ringwood again, later in the week. I keep telling myself “This time tomorrow evening will come!”, but it’s not calming me down any more than it did when I used to say it on my way to the dentist! I wish I could go to bed tonight and not wake up until Wednesday morning! But I’ll have to get up early tomorrow, cos I’ve got to fit my Stair Walk in before I wash my hair and get ready, and then find the time to fit in another Stair Walk before we actually leave. I dunno when we’re going to have lunch – I think I’ll just put an Optifast bar in my handbag, and eat it there… I’ll tell Julian to make himself a sandwich that he can take with him, tomorrow morning.

I wish it was Wednesday…

My favourite eldest daughter and I watched three or four new episodes of “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD” after lunch – apparently there are still a few problems getting episodes of “Person of Interest”, and “The 100” – and now “Orphan Black” is back, so we have to start looking for episodes of that, as well! Good fun 🙂 I mean, it’s all so far-fetched – you really do have to suspend common sense and physics for the duration – but hey! Surely nobody really thinks that things like that could happen, do they? It’s a bit of fun escapism – which does the soul good, every now and then 🙂 When himself left to drive Lee home, I went with them as far as the lift, and then headed off to the fire escape for my evening Stair Walk – it really does save me a lot of time if I get this blog started early! Besides, I’ve just bought myself a new Big Fish Solitaire game, “The Far Kingdoms: Age of Solitaire”, for the vast and exorbitant sum of $7.30! It’s a bit corny, but the solitaire game itself it fairly good – if you’re the type who gets bored easily, and you need something to take your mind off things for a while, it’s worth a “free – try before you buy” look at for thirty minutes.

Weigh-in this morning. Was pretty good, for a change! I went down 3 points to 94.2kg – which means, I suppose, that unless I manage to worry another couple of points off, thanks to the [censored] photo shoot tomorrow, I’ll probably be back at 94.5kg in the morning! I hope not, but one never knows one’s luck in this body…

So, there it is – not a terribly exciting day – as it turns out, I didn’t go out looking for tops to wear, I looked in the My Size and the Autograph online catalogues, and wrote the style number and size down for Julian and Lee to pick up (well, when else was I going to get a chance to collect from, and re-set my Minions today?! 😉 ) I got two – one purple (my favourite colour! 🙂 ) with a black swirly rose design on it, and black sort-of patch pockets (it’s really rather “dressy”!), and another one, in purple (well – it’s really more of a “magenta“) black, and gray horizontal stripes, and buttons from the neck down to just below the bust line – I think it’s what they’re calling “smart casual” these days. And, I completely forgot that I also have a beautiful long-sleeved black velvet top – which is very much “party” wear – so I’ll take that with me too! (mind you, I haven’t tried the two new ones on yet, but they’re size “S” (small!) the same as the black velvet one, and I know that that one fits me, so these should too… they’re all made by the same company, anyway!) I think three different tops and two different pairs of slacks should be sufficient for any photo shoot! (Oh! I wish it was this time tomorrow night!) Anyway, as soon as I get home tomorrow afternoon/evening, and I’ve done my Stair Walk, I’ll tantalize you all first, by telling you all sorts of other trivial news, like what my weight was in the morning, and lots of other stuff like that. Then (and only then!) will I tell you all about the photo shoot, what the photos are like, and if they look any good (but I doubt it! I do not photograph well – I always look as though I’m about to burst into tears or something! ) Anyone want a copy, if they do (by some miracle, or Photoshop magic) turn out alright? No? 🙂 I thought not! I don’t blame you – I don’t want them either – I’m only doing this for Julian! 🙂 So until this time tomorrow night – please try to contain your impatience, and remember to… bee good, don’t eat too many carrots – they turn your skin a funny orange colour, and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

This morning we started our Rifting a little later than we’d planned – my favourite eldest daughter rang me with an Optifast problem. She’s a lot more overweight than I was when I stated this diet last August, and she’s (finally!) accepted the fact that if she doesn’t do something about her weight, she might not be around much longer. She’s already been getting some chest pains (though after a grueling series of tests, heart disease has been ruled out, thank heavens!) and she has quite a bit of trouble with her joints – she gets exhausted walking more than a house block. Her husband was recently diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, which he’s holding in check with a healthier diet, and there’s the worry that she might develop Diabetes too (it runs on both sides of both sides of our family) Anyway, she’s decided to take a leaf out of my book and use Optifast to kick-start her weight loss – but because people (including her husband, who should know better!) gave her real chocolate Easter Eggs over Easter, instead of prettily dyed hard-boiled ones, of course they had to be “disposed of” before she could start dieting. She ate her last chocolate Easter Egg this morning – the diet starts “officially” with tomorrow’s breakfast. The problem that she rang me about this morning was that she couldn’t work out the Optifast site’s menu planner – it didn’t seem to work properly. I had pretty much the same problem, when I started getting everything set up for my diet last year. Besides, I didn’t like the way that they had what I considered to be “silly” things, or badly thought out meals, like a big bowl of stir fried vegetables for morning tea, or a curried something-or-other for afternoon tea. I just felt it was all wrong. So what I did (and which I will explain to her in greater detail tomorrow morning when she comes over) – what I did was count the calories that Optifast allocated to each meal and snack, and then worked out from their fruit and vegetable chart, what I could substitute for those weird choices for so-called “snacks” (and from the pictures provided, didn’t even look vaguely appetizing!) In the end, the “personalised” menu that I made up had quite a few calories less than the more “official” (and gross sounding!) Optifast one, but was still balanced and nutritious – I took it along to my doctor to see what she thought of it, and she OK’d it as “sensible and well thought out”. I can see though why the Optifast site recommends that you follow their diet under the supervision of a Medical Practitioner – it would be too easy to “mix and match” your own version (like I did, but without the moderation of Medical advice) but overdo the Milkshakes and Desserts, and neglect things like fibre and vitamins. I see my doctor about once every two months, for a chat, a catch-up, and a blood pressure check. She also makes sure I get regular blood tests, too, and as she’s also Lee’s doctor, I know Dr. B. will pull Lee up if she’s not doing things properly – as will I! 🙂

So, we entered Dusken a little later than we’d planned, and when Julian grizzled a bit, I said “Well, we’ll just have to fight faster!” I don’t know if we fought any faster, but I know we sure fought harder! At one stage we came across one of my most hated types of Rift – Hell Bugs, with lots of (terribly phallic looking) tower thingies – I think they’re called ‘Blast Pods’, or something, which keep stunning you. Himself had the bright idea of “Hey! Let’s close this Rift, shall we?” – to which I think I muttered something along the lies of “*sob* we’re all going to die! *sob*” – and in we plunged! Well, miraculously, we didn’t die! Not even once! We came very close to dying though, and we both had to use Feign Death a fair bit – I ran away a lot, too, and came back again when the Bugs stopped chasing me. In the end, we did manage to close the wretched Rift, on our own, too – but we left Hell Bug Rifts and Invasions strictly alone after that! 🙂 They’re tough sods, those Hell Bugs… (*shakes head grimly*) We actually finished Pelladane, the first (more-or-less baby and training) area in Dusken, today – and have moved into the next area along, Seratos. It’s quite a large area and will probably take us a couple of weeks to complete (well, we very seldom play during the week – we mainly only play on Sundays!) We were both very pleased with our progress so far – we actually went up two whole levels! Which is really quite remarkable, seeing that when you get to about level 48 or so, leveling  up really starts to  s-l-o-w  d-o-w-n  a whole lot! And when you’re handing in completed quests, but can hardly see the experience bar move – well, it can be very discouraging, leveling up so slowly, so it’s not surprising that we’re so pleased that we went up two levels! 🙂 We’re both level 52 now… Only 13 more levels to go! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Was boring! I stayed the same – 94.5kg …again! Well, at least it wasn’t up, which is something – I suppose that’ll happen tomorrow morning (*glum look*) I’d better not go up too much though – I’m out of “dates” room on the (graph) page before, and I haven’t allowed for anything higher (heavier) than a “.5kg” on the current page.  If the worst comes to the worst (and let’s face it – this is me we’re talking about – and my weight is likely to skyrocket on me, just to be mean, and to make me feel  miserable!) I’ll just have to tear the page out and make another chart, allowing for heavier weights…

Is it dinner time already?! – just as well I’ve already done my evening Stair Walk! 🙂 Back later… (tick-tock, tick-tock) It’s now later, and I’m back! 🙂 We’ve just finished watching Game of Thrones, Season 4, Episode 2 – Thank goodness! Nasty little King Joffrey is finally… no more 🙂 Great books, extremely well done series by HBO – I just hope I don’t die of old age before George R. R. Martin finishes the damn series! (I hope he doesn’t die of old age before he finishes the damn series!) And so another day draws slowly towards a close… Tomorrow my favourite eldest daughter will be coming over – little does she know that she’s going to have to assist me in purchasing something… suitable… for this (very scary) photo shoot on Tuesday… I wonder if I should do my nails? They’re still a little bit too short to look good though… What sort of top should I be looking for? (forget dresses! I don’t wear dresses, my ankles are too deformed…) I’m not looking forward to Tuesday, I can tell you! Oh, I know! I might wake up with a migraine on Tuesday morning, mightn’t I?! What a shame! I’d have to miss the photo shoot! Wouldn’t that be awful! Just kidding, but I’m really not looking forward to it… Tomorrow after lunch will probably be taken up with watching episodes of either “Person of Interest”, and/or “The 100” – it shouldn’t take me too long to find a “smart casual” or “evening” top for Tuesday – if I go with Julian to pick Lee up, we can stop at The Glen on the way home – there’s a My Size as well as an Autograph there – I reckon we should be home before lunch time. And so… that’s about it from me for tonight  – I’ll let you know tomorrow night what I manage to procure in the way of a semi-glamorous top 🙂 and if you happen to hear what sounds like a cave full of bats fluttering around, don’t worry, it’ll only the kaleidoscope* of butterflies in my stomach, at the thought of the photo shoot. I’ll also fill you in on the major events of the day, and what we watched in the afternoon – I’ll probably even let you all know what my weight did, or didn’t do to me! So until this time tomorrow night – bee good, make sure you mend the hole in the butterfly net, and above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*I didn’t know what a large number of butterflies was called, so I looked it up: What is a group of butterflies called? a Kaleidoscope. Also known as a swarm, rabble or flutter.

Well, didn’t the day start out miserably this morning! I liked it though! Lovely grey skies, cold, but not freezing – nice wintry weather! 🙂 When we woke up, it was pouring with rain – not nice “going out in it” weather at all! Still, this is Melbourne! Don’t like the weather? Give it a few minutes, and it’ll change… or so they say 🙂 However by the time we’d made our morning ablutions, I’d been on my pre-breakfast Stair Walk, and we’d broken our fast, it was still raining. So we didn’t go rug hunting today, after all! Instead we made a shopping list, and himself braved the (still nasty) weather and went over the road to do the shopping – and to have a hair cut – he was looking decidedly… er… like a Plushie toy! (there you go, dear 🙂 I didn’t say that word that you don’t like! You know the one, “fluffy“! 😉 ) In hindsight, I probably should have gone out this morning – goodness know when we’ll be able to go rug hunting now! Tomorrow’s Sunday, and our day for walloping nasty creatures in Dusken, so tomorrow’s out… Monday, my favourite eldest daughter is coming over – after I go shopping for some suitable clothes… because…. Tuesday is the day we have our photos taken – you remember, we got the nice gift-type voucher for a photo shoot from our Vets? Yes, well, it’s some time on Tuesday – but they haven’t contacted us to tell us what time to arrive yet. Apparently I’m to turn up with no makeup on, and my hair freshly washed but not styled in any way – their makeup artists and (I presume) hairdresser will do all of that (why am I getting the sudden urge to flee the country?! Rio sounds good – maybe we could go there?!) I hate having my photo taken at the best of times (because I’m horribly UN-photogenic! I look hideous in all photos, I kid you not!…), and trusting a complete stranger to do my makeup? All of a sudden, I’m just a teeny bit terrified! 😦 The reason for the new clothes? They also said to bring a couple of changes of clothing with us – for different “looks” – and all I have are casual tops (most of which are now miles too big for me!) and a few pairs of slacks (also a little on the large side!) I should get something a bit more dressy… which will be a gross waste of money because I’ll never wear it again – we don’t “do” dressy type places… So it’ll be Wednesday before we can even consider looking for rugs… Oh well, we’ve lived without a rug in the lounge room for |< this >| long – I guess we can wait another couple of days! 🙂

While himself was out in the weather doing the shopping, I was having a ball creating “Wardrobe Sets” on Rift! This new way of handling gear and items of clothing is really good! In the past, if you looked at what some other character was wearing and thought: “Hey! That’s cool! I’d like to wear something like that!”, you’d have to go off to the Auction House (or the Rift Shop – but more usually the Auction House) and try to buy an identical item of clothing. Now, just as in “real life”, there are (believe it or not!) “Fashion” trends in Rift. Certain items of clothing (or weapons) become popular, and everyone starts wanting them… and everyone who can make that item – or can go and “farm” for it if it’s a “drop” (an item that “drops” from a certain type of creature which you can kill) does so – and even if that item would normally be worth only a few pieces of silver, because it’s become popular, the sellers can, and do, ask exorbitant prices for these items… and get them! Just like in real life! 🙂 If it’s popular, it’ll sell – never mind the price! But that’s not all! If you had more than one character, and you wanted both of them to wear that item, you’d have to buy two of them! You could only wear what you had on you, or in your bank! Now, however, only one character has to have the item (on them, or in their bank) and that item is automatically “copied” into a sort of “clothing pool”  – a “clothing pool” that’s shared between anyone on your account, regardless of shard! All of a sudden you can find yourself with hundreds of different outfits that you can mix and match and re-colour to your heart’s content! You can even add prettier, or more impressive weapons to the Wardrobe, regardless of whether your Class can even use it! If it’ll go in the “weapon slot” in the Wardrobe, you’ll look as though you’re using it (you won’t be, of course, you’ll still be using your “regular” weapon – it’ll just look like you’re using this really fancy-schmantzy sword, when you can really only use a staff!) Cool stuff! 🙂 I set all my characters on Hailol up this morning with two Wardrobe “sets” each, and I was half way through doing all my Laethys characters when I stopped to start writing this! (plus, I was getting a bit bored… even though I’d only been doing it for three or so hours 😉 ) I did do a bit of work on my Bookmarks wallpaper – it’s coming along slowly, and it’ll be really fantastic when it’s finished, but… you can’t really hurry these things along, y’know?

Weigh-in this morning. Maybe things are starting to settle down again – this morning was quite pleasing – down to 94.5kg – two points down on yesterday. I had to draw up another graph sheet! The “.5” mark was on the bottom line, so I’ve had to go over the page. Mind you, if I go up again tomorrow I’ll have to stay on the same page, but I’m all squished up in the bottom right hand corner of the page! I have only two more days marked off along the bottom – tomorrow (Sunday), and Monday – then I’ll have to go onto the next page, willy-nilly! 🙂 I hope I don’t go up though! I’ve started the new page at the 94.5kg mark!

So that was my day today – there’s not a hoot on TV tonight that’s worth watching, but himself brought me home a little present this morning 🙂 Season four of “Game of Thrones”! Hopefully we can watch an episode or two of that tonight (that, or a series that my favourite eldest daughter has lent us – an American version of Sherlock Holmes, called “Elementary” – with a (*gasp! shock! horror!*) female Dr. Watson!) I’m dying to see both of them! I’ll let you know what we watched, and what we thought of it/them/whatever! 🙂 So drop in again tomorrow night for a review of “Game of Thrones”, Season 4, Episode 1 (and maybe 2), and/or “Elementary” (Season 1, Episode 1) You’ll also get to hear how himself and I got on in our Rifting in Dusken, and whether we died or not (hopefully, “not”!) If I’m feeling particularly generous, I might even tell you how my weight went! 😉 (Down, preferably! 🙂 ) So until then, please bee good, try not to drip water on the floor, and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

What??! It’s the end of the week, already??! But… but… it was Monday, only a couple of days ago, surely?! Where did the week go! *sigh* Oh well, I must have been too busy to notice it… Today was a lot better all round – we went over to Shoppingtown to have my Warfarin test – the results have just been SMS’d to us – seems my INR* is creeping back to where it should be, in order to prevent my blood clotting too readily (the cause of my two bouts of multiple blood clots in both lungs) and I’m to continue on my current dosage of rat poison (Warfarin – it thins your blood, which is exactly how rat poison works) My next test isn’t until May 15th, which means I’m doing well at the moment.  I also had a chance to have a good play around with all the new “cosmetic toys” in Rift  – and I had a look in the Shop for the new 30, and 36 slot bags! Fergit it, Freddie! The cost of those bags makes the new fangled Dye Buckets wot I bought for 16200 Credits yesterday look cheap and tawdry! (er…and I’m not going to tell you how much it cost in real $$ to buy those Credits, either! Let’s just say, as my maternal Grandmother and her sister used to say: “It cost a lot of money!”) and anyway, you can only buy the bigger, 36 slot “Crafting” bag with special, extremely difficult to get, and hard to make Craft rewards. Nah… I think I’ll give those two a miss for the moment! When I make my first million platinum on the Auction House, then I’ll buy… one… Our cleaning lady arrived at about 11.30am, and sat and chatted on about how good my hair colour was, and how different I looked (having lost a bit of weight in the month since she saw me last) I got exactly the same reaction from the blood test lady, and from one of the guys over in the Valet parking area across the road (I like using the Valet Parking facilities – it’s clean, it’s quiet, it’s uncluttered, and you don’t have to drive, bumper to bumper, around the parking lot a few times, waiting for someone to pull out so that you can grab what is probably the most inconvenient parking space in the whole of the Shoppingtown parking area! In the Valet area, you pull up, get your bits and pieces out of the car, and walk off – the guys there park the car for you, and it’s all quick, clean, and efficient. It costs about $12 to park there, but it’s true value for money, I reckon) Anyway, I haven’t seen one of the guys there for yonks – but he was there today, and gushed on about how different I looked (and how nice my hair colour is! I hope you’re reading this, Josh!) and how much weight I’ve lost… which is all well and good, I pointed out to him, but I still have another 24 kilos to lose! There’s got to be some sort of moral to all that, you know, how you feel proud, and good about yourself, because you’ve accomplished something – and then you think of how much further you still have to go, and with a mental screech of brakes, it sort of pulls you back down to earth again with a painful “crash (tinkle tinkle)” *sigh* Still, this time next year will come! I should be through with this diet before the end of the year, hopefully (“should” being the operative word there!) Just think! I’ll be able to have some Christmas Dinner this year! 🙂

After lunch, I started doing a bit of work on my Bookmarks wallpaper… it’s not working out quite the way I wanted it to, or expected it to, either – it seems to have taken on a life of its own, and is insisting on going its own way… surprisingly well! It’s… very different – what else can I say? It’s (probably a bit like me, actually!) extravagant, flamboyant, eccentric… slightly paranoid, definitely neurotic… but nice, in an overblown sort of way 🙂 I can’t wait to see what it’ll be like when it’s finished! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Much more pleasing! Down three points to 94.7kg – but don’t worry, I’ll probably go back up again tomorrow… However, I’m happy to report that finally… finally… I can see a difference in my stomach and thighs. I’m definitely thinner, and about two dress sizes less than I was when I first met Julian, back in 1986. Up until now, I’ve looked at myself in the mirror and thought (to myself) “I can’t see any difference – I still look like a blimp!” Now, I look and think “Oh look! My legs are actually beginning to look thin(ish)!” Mind you, without the clothes to hold everything in and make me look “neat”, I really do look pretty horrendous – lots of loose skin, looking like raggy-daggy, badly hung drapes… I feel that there are going to be a few tummy, thigh, and arm “tucks” in the future! (and a face lift! Don’t forget the face lift!) 😉

So there it is – “My Day, by Winter Thyme!” – a somewhat better day than I’ve been having, anyway. Let’s see what the future brings… Tomorrow, I believe we’re going rug shopping. I said to himself, “Where?”, to which he replied, somewhat impatiently, “Well, we’ll have to look, won’t we!” – so I guess that’s my next job – researching rug shops online! (Why do I always have to get the “fun” jobs!) I also have my letter writing to do – I think. Yesterday was an extremely difficult day – I’m not sure where to go from here. Sort of “Full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes!” (actually, the correct quote is “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”, but why quibble?) So, from rugs, to writing, to… looking for antique restorers. And Optometrists. Himself and I both need to have our eyes tested again – I can hardly see the screen, with these so-called “computer glasses”, and he’s in the same boat. Over the years we’ve been to just about every Optometrist over the road, and a few elsewhere, but they always seem to get it wrong! I mean, they test your eyes, one at a time, and try to get each one right, individually. But does anyone look at things with only one eye at a time? I don’t! However, if I do close one eye and look at the screen, after a second or so everything comes into focus, and I can see the screen. Then, if I close that eye and look at the screen with the other one, the same thing happens – and I can see the screen fairly well. But… if I open both eyes and look at the screen – bingo! Everything’s blurry! So looking for a good Optometrist, and looking for a good antique restorer is somewhat like buying a pig in a poke. You just don’t know what you’re going to get, which can sometimes turn out to be an expensive business! Anyway, tune in again tomorrow night, and see if we’ve managed to find a suitable rug for the lounge room. Look for news on my upcoming Bookmarks wallpaper, and what my weight decided to do to surprise me this time! There’ll be lots of news for everyone tomorrow night, so don’t miss out! But until then, please continue to bee good, “watch out for that tree!”, and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*INR = International Normalised Ratio (the rate at which one’s blood clots)

Quite an exciting day all round, today! 🙂 Last night as I was starting to finish off with Rift, sorting out and re-setting my Minions, a small and polite message flashed up in the middle of my screen, informing me that the server was coming down for an upgrade, in 10 minutes, and to please get somewhere safe – the server was expected to be down for three hours. WoW! Shades of, anyway… 🙂 When we were part of the World of Warcraft stable, a player who went by the name of “Oxhorn” used to write many humorous songs about the lives of different characters in the game, all sung to well known tunes. One of our favourites was set to the tune of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”, and told of the miseries of being in the middle of a miss-matched group, trying (unsuccessfully) to run a Raid. The end of the chorus stated “And the thing that makes us frown, is that the server’s coming down…. in just fifteen” – well, I guess you just had to have been there, but it was the sort of catchcry that every WoW player knew, dreaded, and sighed glumly over (mainly because nothing worked properly for a few days after a big upgrade, until all the “bugs” were ironed out!) Well, it appears that Rift is no different! No mere “patch” this! This was a gigantic upgrade – 5 Gb worth! And yes, there were a few hiccups today (and no doubt there’ll be some tomorrow too – it was a very big upgrade!) As far as I can see, so far, they’re mainly cosmetic changes – the other, more mechanical game “tweeks” are not likely to affect Julian and me. There are new, larger bags both for sale from the Rift Shop, and as “recepies” from the Outfitter Trainer, to the point where I can see a lot more people paying to add another Skill to their list, in order to pick up Outfitting – just so that they can make these (much!) bigger bags! *gloom* More bad news for the Auction House… The most interesting changes were made to the Wardrobe. Sometimes the “really great armor” that you’re wearing looks pretty crappy, and of course, everyone likes to look as pretty, as decorative, as imposing, or as strong – as possible, so we were given “Wardrobes”, where we could hide our pretty crappy looking but strong, durable and magical armor under a costume. Anything from fancy-schmantzy voluminous robes, right down to fairy costumes. And we could change the colour of both proper gear, and costumes, by buying various colour dyes! Now, they’ve added weapons to the Wardrobe, so that you can disguise your weapons to look more bad-ass, or more dainty – whichever floats your boat! All good stuff! Mind you, the new “cache” of “special” dyes costs a Pope and an Emperor’s ransom, at 16200 Credits – but – it’s a once off, they’re Account Bound (everyone on your account gets them), and you can use them as much as you like and they never run out! Of course, there was more to the upgrade than just the Wardrobe stuff, but I simply haven’t had the time to look into them today. I didn’t even get a chance to work on any of my graphics! 😦

The other exciting thing that happened today was that our new coffee table arrived this morning! 🙂 It’s not as big as I thought it was going to be (I was expecting it to be “squarer” for some reason) but it’s really nice, and I like it – it looks a better size in the room (especially without a rug – the floor looks big and bare without one!) than the old one. Speaking of which, Julian was going to start removing the tiles from the old table – we had intended having the tiles made into three wall plaques, or hangings, while the rest of the old table was destined for the tip. Instead of the tiles being loose under the glass table top, as we had thought, we found that… someone (probably my father, actually) had glued them onto the wood. Two of them are already broken, one rather badly (and equally as badly “repaired“! Probably not by my father, in this case!) I do want to have the two broken tiles properly “restored”, and we do have to have them taken off the wood so that they can be properly framed in three lots of six – Julian thinks we could take the whole table top to a picture framer, but picture framers don’t do tile restorations, and I think the tiles would look… not good… in a coffee table sized frame hanging on the wall! No, they have to go to a restorer, if I can find one – and how do you know if they’re any good anyway? My mother once sent an antique ceramic seagull off to a “restorer” because it had a crack down its back. They had it for months, and when we got it back, it looked worse than it had when we sent it off! It’s a shame I don’t remember the name of that restorer, so I could be sure not to take the tiles there! (actually, they’re probably not in business anymore – if the work they did on the seagull was an example of their “expertise”! Good! So that means I don’t have to worry about “accidentally” taking the tiles there! 😉 ) Now, the only things left to do in the lounge room are… get a rug for the floor, get the curtains changed, clean the black marks off the wall where one of the paintings fell down years ago, and double wall off the section of window opposite the television, so that we have some hanging space! Nearrrly finito! 😉 Poor Flipper nearly had a fit when the delivery men man-handled the new coffee table into the lounge room this morning – she’d been sound asleep in her cat cave on the couch, and all of a sudden there was a lot of loud noise, clomping feet, strange men, and an extremely large box! Julian had to scoop up a terrified, horrified, squirming cat, convinced that Armageddon had come – and bundle her off down to the safety of the Den 🙂 Poor little girl! She’s deliberately ignoring the new coffee table now! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Not nice. I wish my body would decide whether it was supposed to be losing weight, or gaining weight! I went up a point to 95.0kg! Not! Happy! Jan! Who knows what it’ll decide to do tomorrow morning – probably go back up to 99kg! 😦

Tomorrow I’m off for my Warfarin test again – I was supposed to go today, but I was feeling distinctly off-colour last night – everything ached horribly, my head felt stuffy, and my nose couldn’t decide whether to run, or remain blocked up. We decided that perhaps I shouldn’t go out today, so I didn’t. I’ll have the blood test tomorrow… and I’ll be able to tell you tomorrow night if they’ve decided to increase my dose of rat poison or not 🙂 (I call it “rat poison”, because that’s basically what it is! True!) Our cleaning lady will be here tomorrow, which will be good – the place is looking decidedly “unkempt”, but it’ll also mean that I won’t get as much of a chance to do anything meaningful tomorrow, as she’ll want to talk (at least while she talks, I don’t have to! 😉 ) Anyway, that’s about it from me for tonight – drop by again tomorrow night and find out if my rat poison dose has been changed, whether or not Flipper has decided to acknowledge the new coffee table, and whether my body has finally managed to work out that it’s supposed to be losing weight, not gaining it! So, gentle readers, until this time tomorrow night, bee good, please pass the mustard, and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

And now it’s Wednesday. Wednesdays are good, as far as Rift is concerned – on Wednesday nights we get two Patron’s gifts, instead of  just the one nightly bag of goodies, which usually consists of one Artifact (which I immediately pass on to my two main receivers of Artifacts, Satai on Hailol, and Jademoss on Laethys) and a couple of useless (to me, anyway) tokens towards the obtaining of better PVP gear. What is PVP, you ask? It stands for “Player Versus Player”, and it’s where some very strange players don’t think that it’s fun enough to run around bashing computer generated monsters, and getting experience, earning platinum, and gaining Reputation by doing so… Oh, dear me no! They think it’s much more fun to run around bashing each other to pieces, and getting experience, earning platinum, and gaining Notoriety by doing so. There is a dedicated shard, just for PVP players, called Seastone, but anyone can turn their PVP flag on whenever they like and whichever shard they’re on, but it’s usually regarded as a bit…. uncouth. So anyway, that’s what’s usually in the “nightly” Patron’s gift box. The weekly Patron’s gift box is usually just a little bit more exciting. In that, we generally get a piece of either blue or magenta gear (much, and much, much better enhancements than “normal” gear, respectively) which is “Bound To Account”, so if you don’t want or need it, you can pass it along to another one of your characters, who might appreciate it a bit more than you didn’t 🙂 There’s also a special key, which can be used to open extremely rare and hard to come by “Locked Boxes”, but in all the years I’ve been playing Rift, and with all the hundreds of characters that I have, I’ve only ever found a Locked Box…. once! I think Julian’s found one twice…They are, as I said, extremely rare – and yet here we are, being given keys for them, once a week! – go figure! 🙂 The third item in the weekly gift is…. a chest. No, not one of the exotically rare “Locked Boxes”, a locked chest, or crate. Trion make a big deal about how you could get the current, fancy Mount out of it, or Dimension keys, or a new Pet…. or… or… something fabulous, anyway! The most noteworthy item I’ve ever received out of one of those chests has been a Soulbound (so that I couldn’t give it to anyone else!) piece of pretty ordinary armor that I wasn’t able to use anyway Julian’s had some interesting finds though – he’s had a couple of nice Mounts, some actually not too bad armor, and I think he got a rather fancy Mace out of a chest at one stage, too…. So there is good gear to be had from the chests – it’s just that sour grapes me never seems to! 😉 These little presents are doled out from the Rift store after nine o’clock at night, so this morning I just Rifted. Chrysanthemum could have finished off in Stonefield last night, but it was dark, and there were Rifts all over the place – and I didn’t much like my chances of completing the quest under those conditions. There’s this great big giant of a Titan, who looks like a vastly overgrown Darth Vader (complete with the black, Darth Vader helmet, too!) that you have to locate, and then “lure” him in front of some magical cannons which will weaken him enough so that you can finish him off. I much prefer to do it in daylight, so that I can keep an eye on roaming mobs, and I also prefer it if there are no Rifts pouring out all sorts of nasties that you really don’t want, or have the time to have to deal with, when you’re busy playing Delilah to a gigantic Darth Vader! So I did that this morning instead 🙂 I was then supposed to go on to Scarlet Gorge, but I really don’t like it very much – I always get lost, and I’m not terribly fond of the end Rift that you have to close. The only other choice I had was Iron Pine Peak, and I don’t really like that place, either! It’s always snowing! It’s always snowing so hard that half the time I can’t find my own cursor amongst the snow flakes! However, it was a change from Scarlet Gorge, so I went there. Well, actually I spent quite a long time trying to find out how to get there, without having to go through Scarlet Gorge. After wasting more than half an hour on Google looking for a way in, the forums (plural) consensus was that you do have to run right through Scarlet Gorge, through the Guardian settlement in the north, dodge all the guards on the way to the rickety wooden elevator, ride up it, accelerate your Mount hard, and just bowl your way through the Guards at the top, where you can then charge off into Gloamwood, a Guardian occupied territory. It’s a barrel of laughs, if you’re a Guardian, but not quite so much fun if you’re a Defiant. Which I am. This time around.

This afternoon I waded through 94 pages of Brusheezy Photoshop brushes, looking for swirly brushes for my Bookmarks wallpaper. The styles were just not cooperating, and I was starting to wonder if it wasn’t the styles that were the problem, but the shape of the element (in this case, a font) that I was using… I finally got through all 94 pages about an hour and a half ago – and ended up not having enough time to play around with my new brushes I had just acquired, so I’ll have to leave that until tomorrow. I’ll let you know how they go… 🙂

Weigh-in this morning… Pretty good, actually – well, a start, anyway. Down two points to 94.9kg. I need to get down below 90kg by July 21st, and I fear that time is running out! Perhaps I should graft that fourth Stair Walk in on the way back to the Den after watching TV in the evenings… I’d jump up and down, but I don’t want to damage the building (or give any of the older denizens a heart attack!) but I gotta get rind of more than 4kg, in 97 days! Please wish me luck! 🙂

So, I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow – I’ll probably be doing what I seem to be doing every day – Rifting in the morning, graphic-ing in the afternoon, with a bit of letter writing in between – though next week, I might switch it around, and graphic in the morning, and Rift in the afternoons, but still with the bit of letter writing in between – just for a change! 🙂 I was looking at my fingernails a few minutes ago – you know, I just might be able to get away with painting them next week! Wouldn’t that be cool! 🙂 It can’t be that long since I last did them, but it feels like months! Anyhoo, tomorrow it’ll be Rifting, Writing, and Graphic-ing – same old, same old. I sure hope my weight continues to drop! Oh, I forgot to mention! I did manage to get myself to Iron Pine Peak this morning – just as well I have an extra fast Mount though! I squeaked through, made my way to the elevator, went up it to all the snow, talked to the guy up there who gives you your first quests… and an Invasion Event started! The first thing I did on Iron Pine Peak was die! Three times! Looking at my Soul Tree (where I put my experience points!) to see if I’d done anything wrong, I couldn’t believe that I’d made such a stupid, fundamental mistake as to not give myself Feign Death as soon as I possibly could! I usually sacrifice Crowd Control abilities for a stronger pet, and Feign Death! Arrrggghh! That shall be rectified first thing tomorrow morning! Time for my evening Stair Walk – back shortly… Ecco mi! Sono ritornato! 🙂  (Here I am! I’m back! 🙂 ) Now, where was I? Oh yes (*dark look*) That was a truly unforgivable mistake on my part! I think I was so intent on getting a very nice Crowd Control ability that I lost sight of the really important things about being a Warlock-Necromancer Mage! Being able to Play Possum! Oh well, we live and learn! 🙂 (but I should have known better!) Anyway, drop by again tomorrow night – see if I’ve shed any more weight (or gone back up again!), and if I’ve managed to fix the problem with my Soul Tree! Hopefully I’ll have managed to get somewhere with these new Photoshop brushes that I picked up today (preliminary tests look… interesting?) and with a lot of luck, I might even have managed to incorporate them into my blog theme (but don’t count on it! 🙂 ) And that’s about it from me for tonight – all that’s left for me to do now is to tell you all: Bee good, remember to take the garbage out tonight, and, above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

“Another day, another dollar”, so the old saying goes… yes, another dollar out of your wallet! Today my “Pay As You Go” Tax installment letter arrived, along with another rather large envelope from our solicitors, which looks equally as intimidating, simply because of the size of the envelope (the contents of which will probably involve some sort of payment, from us, to them, as usual) Don’t you all just love Tax Time (NOT!) And to heap insult on injury (to our hip pocket nerve), the water bill for our Glen Waverley place, in which my favourite eldest daughter and her husband reside, has also arrived. *sigh* I guess it’s getting close to “that time of the year” again. Still, as my mother always used to say facetiously at Tax time, “Well, at least I have the money to pay it!” 🙂 This morning, once again, himself had to play Taxi Driver for my favourite eldest daughter. She couldn’t come over yesterday because she had a uni assignment due in tomorrow (Wednesday) that she had to work on (and she only just finished it off this morning! Which was just as well, because…) she had a dental appointment in Balwyn this morning, which was why Julian was needed – she could have gone there and back by Public Transport, but she had to be home early, because their cleaners were coming (which was why she couldn’t come over today) so I haven’t seen my favourite eldest daughter for two whole weeks! 😦 I haven’t seen my favourite youngest daughter for the same amount of time either, but at least she has a good excuse… she works! 🙂 (though I suppose that going to uni is a good excuse too 😉 ) Ah! I’ve just been told that my Tax has been paid! That’s good – we usually like to get our Tax paid as soon as we receive the notice – we don’t want to run the risk of forgetting it (because we know that Mr. Taxman won’t!) So what did I do this morning… let’s see….

The Guild Bank on Hailol is down to (*gasp! shock! horror!*) double figures, which is most definitely not good – but these days, things just aren’t selling anymore on the Auction House, what with all the materials that those wretched Minions bring in! For instance, a very common low-level “flower” used in the making of health potions, Grieveblossom, used to sell on the Auction House at around 1 gold 50 silver a flower. The Vendor price (in order to keep the shard economy working properly, all prices are, or should be, based on the Vendor price – supposedly the minimum price you could sell at) The Vendor price for Grieveblossom is 4 silver, so if all else fails, you can go to your nearest Vendor (basically any NPC* who sells stuff) and sell your Grieveblossom to them for 4 silver per flower. Naturally, you would expect to get quite a bit more for them on the Auction House…. before Minions were introduced, that is. Minions bring in cheap, low level goods of every type and description, in their tons! The Auction House is simply flooded with them – and quite frankly, the economy is failing! No-one can make any money to buy “better gear” with – those who make the “better gear” can’t sell it – and because they can’t sell their “better gear”, they can’t make any more “better gear” because they can’t afford the materials with which to make it! It’s a nightmare, but typical of Governments, real ones or virtual ones, the world over. They meddle with the economy, and all of a sudden people find themselves going to Hell in a hand basket, because they don’t have enough money to catch a train and take the scenic route! You know how much some stupid and desperate people were selling their Grieveblossom for on the Auction House this morning? 1 (one) silver! They could have sold them at 4 silver per blossom to the Vendor standing just across the lane from the Auction House, but no… they were trying to sell them for 1 silver each – 3 silvers less than the Vendor price! And guess what?! No-one was buying! Everyone’s Minions are bringing them in more of these sorts of things than they can use… and that’s why I had to sell four stacks (one stack = 99 items) of Grieveblossom to the nice Vendor man standing right across the way from the nice Auction man! And it’s the same with just about everything. Nothing is selling. Yeah, so I spent most of the morning putting all my stacks, and Bind On Equip** gear back on the Auction House… for the third (or is it the fourth? I fergit!) time… As I said… the economy is totally wrecked.

This afternoon I worked on my new Bookmarks wallpaper idea… I tell you, those ruddy styles are starting to give me a headache! I haven’t really progressed much further with the project, but what I have managed to get done does look nice… I suppose there are ways of putting photos and such up on one’s blog? I’m not sure how – I guess I’ll just have to look into it… (Ahhh! I just spotted a roll-up window to the right of the page – it says “Format” on the top, and then there’s a list of things below it – the bottom most one of which is labeled “Image”, so I suppose that might have something to do with it! I’ll have a look later…)

Weigh-in this morning. Was weird! I got on the scales, and they said 95.3kg. exactly the same as yesterday – I was bitterly disappointed – I was so hoping to go down… so I hopped off, and hopped back on again. No cheating, but this time it read 95.1kg. Under himself’s watchful eyes, I again hopped off, and hopped back on, No cheating, and it still said 95.1kg, so we settled for that! 🙂 Himself has a strange problem with his scales – he can get on and off them, three or four times in a row, and register a different weight each time – the weights he ends up with can vary by up to half a kilo at a time (example: 85.8kg, 85.1kg, 86.4kg, and 84.6kg, all in the space of about 2 minutes!) in other words, much more than a person should or would be able to vary, in such a small space of time. I wonder if his scales need new batteries?

So here I am – it’s almost time for my evening “Walkies” 🙂 Please feel free to drop by again tomorrow night, to find out how many items of mine sold over night on the Auction House (probably none!) and how many other stacks of non-sellables (thanks to the Minions!) I had to sell at Vendor prices… See if I’ve made any progress with the Bookmarks wallpaper and those pesky little styles… and what happened when I hopped on the scales in the morning. I seem to be doing an awful lot of writing these days – not only this blog, but nightly installments to emails, which I send off every day or so – just as well my fingernails are filed down so much (but only another week or so and I should be able to get back to my pretty nail polishes! 🙂 ) So that’s about it from me for tonight – I look forward to seeing you all here again tomorrow night – but until then, bee good, Watch out! You’ll spill the coffee! – but above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

* NPC =  Non Player Character – a character who is not being played by a real person – a scripted part of the game
** Bind On Equip = Once you use it, in any way, shape, or form, it becomes “bound” to you – this means that you can no longer sell it for a profit on the Auction House, you can only sell it to a Vendor, or to make other materials from it by destroying it.

Mondays are always interesting days – the beginning of the week, the beginning of – who knows what may follow? 🙂 Unfortunately, this particular Monday wasn’t one of those “who knows what lies in store?” days, it was another one of those dull, boring, “ho-hum, what’ll I do today” sort of days. I wasn’t having my hair done, and nothing else exciting was happening, so, guess what I did do? Yup, you got it in one! I Rifted! What else does a bored housewife do on a dull day? I also mucked around a bit with my new Bookmarks wallpaper – a lovely, wintry, grey, marbled background – in keeping with my favourite season, and my current mood. It’s quite interesting, creating styles (used in Photoshop, a “style” is a preset comprised of several different effects to “cover” and change the appearance of your text or image(s) with a single mouse click) in pewters, steel, and silver. These days, gold styles are fairly easy to create, but well do I remember my early years in graphics, striving to create a “real” gold colour and texture, before the days of layers and styles! Talk about the ‘Agony and the Ecstasy’! These days, a passable gold colour is pretty easy to replicate – it’s not quite so easy to create a decent silver or pewter colour from scratch, and get the highlights “just right”! Still, I think I did passably well… I’ll let you know when I finish the project, and, if it’s good enough, I might even (attempt to) introduce the pewter theme on the blog. The thing is, you create a style to work the way you want, and look the way you want, on a particular element (either text or image) that is a certain size, and a certain shape, or in the case of text, a certain font. In other words, you “tailor fit” that style to that element. When you translate that style to something else – a different size or shape image, or a different font, it quite often looks completely different – nothing at all like the original – so you have to tinker with it, and adjust it here, there, and somewhere else. Sometimes you succeed in getting it to look like the “original” on the new element (that’s called a “fluke” 😉 ) sometimes you don’t, and all you can do is fling up your hands in despair and start again from scratch. And sometimes, very occasionally, you’ll create something a lot better than the original (and that’s called “serendipity”! 🙂 ) And you can bet your bottom dollar that the “better than the original” one won’t work properly on any other element than the one you created it for! My style folder is overflowing with different versions of the same style, created by yours truly, with each one only working properly on one particular element that I’ve never needed to use since! But it’s fun 🙂

After lunch today himself and I hit the Dusken road again, and made it to level 50! This used to be a Really Big Deal, back in the days when levels were capped at 50, but even today it’s a worthy Milestone to reach – it’s a Rite of Passage from “childhood” (spotty faced adolescent quester) to “adult” (big, strong, mature, wise and confident quester) There’s even a special “Ceremony”, called a “Chronicle” to mark the Grand Occasion, where you go back to your home city, everyone jumps up and down, clapping and cheering you, they’ve got a great big party laid out for you in the town square, and you have bestowed upon you some spiffy new abilities, etc., etc… And then (da-dada-daaaa!) the light dims, and just like in Sleeping Beauty, the Wicked Witch that you forgot to invite to the party appears with her evil pet dragons (no, the Witch’s name is not Daenerys!) – she gives an evil cackle, and sets them loose! “Eat them, my pretties!”, she screams (she doesn’t really – that was just a theatrical effect I put in) You have to defeat them all, and you have to do it solo – no groups or teams allowed! But you don’t have to do that part, and that’s where we usually leave the “Chronicle”. We went back to Dusken, did another couple of quests, and called it a day! 🙂 Good fun, especially not having to do the Chronicle end bit! 😉 (yes, I’m a devout coward!)

Weigh-in this morning. I knew that going down so far in one foul swoop yesterday wasn’t a good idea, but would my body listen to me? Well, it never has before, so why should it have started yesterday? I did go up – only one point, to 95.3kg – but it was up, and not down, so I’m not pleased… The thing is though, the really big bounce up will probably come tomorrow morning. So again, I’m not looking forward to getting on the scales!

I should be seeing my favourite eldest daughter tomorrow, but she’s not coming because their cleaners will be there 😦 so I won’t see her until next week. I’ve spent an awful lot of time today writing – not this blog, but letters… I was still writing this afternoon before we started Rifting, and I looked up to say something to himself, and only a little squeak came out! My throat has been feeling sort of thick and phlegmy for the past few days, and my nose has been very runny – I just put it down to a bit of Hay Fever, but when only a squeak came out this afternoon, I realised I’d lost my voice. Flipper likes to parade around meowing from time to time, and I always meow right back at her – she seems to both like, and expect it. This morning she was meowling, as usual, and I tried to echo her – but I couldn’t quite get the right pitch. Do you know, she then “ran me through” a series of differently pitched meows, none of which I could match, and she gave an annoyed little “meeouw”, as if to say “I give up!” and stalked off, disgruntled. Well, that’s what I felt this afternoon – speaking “normally”, I kept fading in and out – with more “outs” than “ins”! And the louder I tried to talk, the squeakier I got. I’ve only lost my voice once before, when the kids were little more than toddlers – they thought it was hilarious! Mummy couldn’t yell at them! 🙂 Trying to tell them “Be quiet! It’s not funny!” came out more as a squeaky whisper Julian thought it was funny too, this afternoon! *pout* Luckily, my voice seems to be fairly much back to normal tonight – I hope it stays like that, too! 🙂 I don’t like not being able to complain! 😉 So, anyway, that was my day that was – not much more to tell you, except to tell you to call in again tomorrow night, and I’ll tell you how the graphics are going, what’s happening in the wonderful land of Telara, and if my weight has bounced up over the 95kg mark (it had better not have!) So until then, bee good, don’t have that second slice of chocolate cake. and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, here it is, the Sunday after the Saturday before… the only real difference is that himself and I started off in Telara, and ended up in Dusken! After we both turned level 49 on Ember Isle, we found that the Lycini ambassador in Meridian was only too happy to send us off to fight in either Dusken or Brevane – so we went… to Dusken 🙂 First, though, we had to establish a base of operations (so to speak) closer to the two areas because Meridian, although being the Capital city of the Defiants, only has Skill Trainers who can train up to level 300 (Masters level) in all the skills – to train up to a higher level (Grand Master and Savant) you need to go to Tempest Bay, the jumping off point for Dusken and Brevane. So, I’d just reached 300 in Foraging, and was sitting on 280 in Butchering – and himself was getting very close to 300 in both Mining and Butchering, so we took ourselves off to Tempest Bay and “Hearthed” ourselves there (“Hearthed” – a left-over term from our days playing World of Warcraft, where using a magic stone to transport you back to your point of origin was called “Hearthing” – I think it stems from the old-fashioned term for your dwelling place –  your “hearth and home”) Then we went back to the Lycini ambassador in Meridian, said that we were ready to do our bit for – er – King and Country? I don’t think there is a “king” anywhere in the game?! There is a Queen, but she doesn’t really figure in the game much – it’s really very non-political, despite all of the different factions competing for your services! We arrived in the Kingdom of Pelladane (so! I guess there must be a king there somewhere, after all! The Queen was standing around giving orders when we arrived, too! 🙂 ) and we got our first taste of Dusken flora and fauna. I was quite surprised! The mobs there were all level 50 – the mobs we’d just been dealing with on Ember Isle were level 52, and level 52 Elites! Mind you, this is the Dusken “starting out, please don’t feed our wildlife your fingers and heads” area – we know from experience that they’ll get tougher! We played until about 5 o’clock, then went back to Tempest Bay and dusted down. I did a few editing bits to a long(ish) email that I’m writing to my friend, and messed around with a new idea for my Bookmarks page, and then went off for my evening Stair Walk (which reminds me – where’s my cup of coffee?!) All in all, it was a good day rampaging through the tropical wilds of Ember Isle, and frolicking on the beaches at Ferric Harbor. We did die a couple of times on Ember Isle, when we stupidly decided to vanquish a small Invasion force on our own. Normally it’s a mere bagatelle, and the two of us can polish them off with no trouble. This, unfortunately, was an Invasion force made up of level 52 Elites, which fact we didn’t realise until it was far too late, and they were killing us very quickly indeed! Himself went down first – I still hadn’t realised that they were Elites – but things were going from “worse” to “dire”, and I was lucky enough to find my “Feign Death” (playing possum) hot key, just in the nick of time. I was what is technically called “slivered” – that is, I had a teeny “sliver” of life left in me. Later on, I wasn’t so lucky! We’d managed to get ourselves a little too close to another Elite Invasion force, and unfortunately they noticed us and set upon us with wild abandon. I’d moved my “Feign Death” hot key to a “more easily reached in a hurry” one, so I pressed it, and confidently collapsed at the feet of the Invasion Boss, going “Aaarrggghh!”, and spurting blood most realistically! (I was quite proud of my performance! I reckon they should give me an Oscar! 😉 ) But you see, the whole trick to “Playing Possum” successfully is to lie absolutely still! You freeze! You hold your breath! You’re supposed to look dead! And what did I do? I swiveled around to see which way they were going, and promptly stood up! Do you think they noticed me? The “Feign Death” function has a cool down cycle, and you can’t press it again for a few seconds… Oh, they noticed me alright! I was dead “dead” before I could say “Oh bother“!! I was not impressed with myself! 🙂 Ah well, these things do happen from time to time… One thing that I had forgotten, though, was just how s-l-o-w the haul from level 45 to level 50 is! We were lucky to go up a level today…

Weigh-in this morning. Well, it was spectacular, that’s fer sure! I went from 95.7kg to 95.2kg! Five points! That’s a very big drop! And though very gratifying, I really wish that it hadn’t (been such a big drop) I’d much rather go down in increments of two… or even one point – the more you go down in one er… lot (or whatever) the more you’re – not just likely to, but certain-sure to – bounce back up again the next day, and/or the day after that! Now I don’t want to get on the scales in the morning – I bet I’ll have bounced back to around something like 95.8kg again! 😦

And as for tomorrow, well… I’m not having my hair done this week – I’m going to have to rough it on my own for a while, I’m afraid, so it looks like more of my usual fare. Stair Walks, Rift, and graphics – same old, same old. If I can work up the enthusiasm to research rug shops, we may go out on Tuesday looking for a rug for the lounge room. It’d be good to get it before the coffee table arrives on Thursday – it’s always a headache trying to put a large rug down under existing furniture – and it won’t be as easy to move this new coffee table around as the old coffee table was… I mean, is… The old coffee table has eighteen? (I think there are 18?) Sienese tiles set out under the glass. I’m pretty sure they’re just loose under the glass, otherwise Mum wouldn’t have been able to crack one when she dropped something heavy on the table. Anyway, the table is rather dilapidated and scruffy (and it’s not very big, which is why I wanted a new one) but the tiles I most definitely must keep. They came out from Italy with us when I was five and a half years old (no, I won’t tell you what year it was! 😉 ) and they represent all of the contrade (small territorial districts) from in and around Siena, in Tuscany (where we’re from) The Palio is a very famous bare back horse race, held twice a year in the central square in Siena. The race has its roots in medieval times and I actually got to see it, in all its finery – one of my cousins was actually chosen to be one of the flag bearers 🙂 Anyway, that’s why I absolutely have to keep those tiles – I want to have them framed in three plaques, to hang on the wall we don’t have yet. I know if you visit the link above, you’ll read that there are 17 contrade – our last tile is a different, it looks like a rhino, or something… And on that somewhat contentious note, I shall bid you all a fond “buona notte” until tomorrow night, with a stern admonishment to bee good, don’t squash that loaf of bread, and above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Today’s a sort of “Red Letter Day” for me, I suppose – I deleted my Facebook account. And, I might add, it’s not the first time I’ve deleted a Facebook account. Many years ago, when Facebook was young and charming, I refused to join it. I thought it was a gross waste of time, it upset a whole lot of people who probably didn’t deserve to be upset, and in short, I avoided it like the plague. First Julian got himself a Facebook account. Then Lisa, quickly followed by Kate, got accounts. I still refused. I refused for years!  Slowly and steadily, however, even I got sucked in, and I got myself a Facebook account. It was actually pretty boring – I’m not what you’d call a “social butterfly” – the number of friends I have you could count on the fingers of one hand, even if you’d lost a few of them to frostbite! I only logged on now and then anyway – about once a month, if that. Later on, new rules, restrictions, and privacy constraints – which I neither liked nor needed – came into being, and I closed my account in disgust. A couple? Several? years later, I created the “Clara Bennetts” account – and once again, I only logged on maybe once a month – if that. It was basically just to keep up with the kids, though that wasn’t strictly necessary anyway, as (a) we’re a very close-knit family and pretty much stay in constant touch with eachother, and (b) Julian still has his account, and if there’s anything I should know, or photos or links that I might be interested in, he’ll tell me, and I’ll scoot my chair across the room and read over his shoulder. This time though, I doubt very much that I’ll ever get another Facebook account. It does have its good points – I found my fantastic hairdresser, whom I can’t recommend highly enough (you know, he can perform miracles! he can even get my hair to look human!) – thank you Josh! 🙂 I’ve found fascinating sites, and got myself very interested in pigeon genetics, amongst other things, and had many, many wonderful and interesting chats there, which I already miss more than I can possibly say. But as far as I’m concerned, the bad parts outweigh the good parts, and from now on I think I’ll stick to the phone, and/or email, if I want to catch up with someone. I think I’ll change the Facebook link on my Bookmarks page to Brusheezy, which is a really great site for all Photoshop resources – they have really, really good quality Freebies, as well as their Premium section, which, while not “free”, isn’t all that expensive, either. I use it quite a lot (I was there today, for instance, looking for free patterns to use to make Styles with – Styles, I might add, that I used to create that new header you see at the top of the page! 🙂 )

This morning though, I did a fair bit of Rifting – I decided not to advance Asima to level 40 just yet – at the moment I’m working on the new girl, Chrysanthemum – I think I’ll take her to level 40 first… I don’t really know how, or why it happens – but some characters you just seem to have a better connection with than others – which is nonsensical – because they’re all me! How can I like some better than others? I mean, it’s one thing if I have trouble playing a male character – I am, after all, a female – but the other girls? I have the strangest feeling that even with her sitting at level 20, I’m probably going to decide to “re-roll” Asima – and I just don’t know why! (time for my evening Stair Walk – I spent too much time trying to get that wretched header right! grrr! – Back later…) (Back again – I really ought to remember to time myself – Himself says I take “about five to six minutes”…) Now, where was I? Oh I remember, talking about liking some characters more than others… Tomorrow, of course, is Sunday, and himself and I will be rollicking and rolling around Telara – Ember Isle, I think? (unless we decide to run some more Dungeons and/or Instances, like we did last time? Hmmm? *sly look*) However, as soon as we get our breadcrumb to Brevane or Dusken, I suggest we head for there. There is method in my madness suggesting that we vacate Ember Isle fairly quickly – I’m thinking of our Foraging, Butchering, and Mining. Ember Isle is largely still “Telaran” topography – pretty much following on from Shimmersand. Brevane and Dusken, however, have a completely new set of mines, animals, and herbage to play with. Once we get our Skill levels high enough to utilise on the new landmasses, I think we ought to go for it. Last time, if I’m not mistaken, we stuck to mostly Brevane, because it had a better “ambiance”, but from looking at Jademoss’s maps, I don’t think we finished it – were we too gung-ho to get to the Water Plane, or something? And I know it’s not as “pretty”, but should we do Dusken this time around? Food for thought… 🙂 This time round though, I want to finish off, and completely map out, both Dusken and Brevane!

Weigh-in this morning was only marginally better than yesterday – down another one point, to 95.7kg. Oh well, only another couple of days, and hopefully those fluid retainers will be completely out of my system (I wonder how long a half-life they have?) I’m starting to get antsy again – I’m taking too long to lose each kilo… Perhaps I will put in that extra Stair Walk on my way back down to the Den after all…. As I always say: “Whatever it takes!”

So… tomorrow we’ll be Rifting, for most of the day – but I can’t tell you anything about that until tomorrow night though 🙂 😉 Oh, and I forgot to tell you! I didn’t go shopping today because first we have to Google some rug shops, and find out exactly where they are…  (yes, I know they’re a dime a dozen – all over the place – but if I don’t look them up first, we’ll end up driving around for hours and not find a single one! Isn’t that the way it usually goes? 😉 ) Secondly, we don’t have to go shopping for a coffee table, after all! Julian still had a photo of the coffee table that went with the entertainment unit and side tables that we got, not that long ago… At the time, he thought that the coffee table was a bit too big, but on second consideration, I decided that it wasn’t too big at all! It was just about the size I’d had in mind.. and so he went in and ordered one this morning. It’ll be delivered on Thursday morning. It’s not on casters, but it’s got good, solid legs that we should be able to bung some on easily enough… I’m rather glad that I didn’t have to go out shopping today – I just wasn’t in the mood for it. I hope I’m not coming down with something – me not wanting to go out shopping borders on pure science fiction! And that’s about it from me for tonight – dew drop inn again tomorrow night to hear about all our adventures – both in, and out of, Telara! 🙂 How many times will we have died? (lots! If we leave Ember Isle and go on to Brevane or Dusken!) Will my weight have gone up or down? Or will it be boringly the same? Will I have researched any rug shops? (probably not! 🙂 ) The answers to all those questions, plus answers to lots of other much more trivial, but none-the-less intriguing questions, will be waiting for you all – right here, on the same (but possibly differently coloured!) blog channel! So until then, once more I shall bid you to bee good, take a walk on the wild side, and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂