Well, here I am, finally – it’s almost a quarter past four, and I should be starting to think about doing my evening walk… I’m exhausted though! Remember I said I had another 38 Dimension boxes to unpack and sort, last night? Well, another two arrived with the Minions this morning! So that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing all day – unpacking [*mumble*] boxes, and trying to squish everything into a bank that has three bag spots left, and which I can’t use. “Why can’t you use them?” I hear you ask. I’m glad you asked! 🙂 It’s simple, really – I can’t afford to unlock the bag spots! The next one is going to cost 43 platinum, and their price increases exponentially… I can’t get the money out of the Guild Bank, either, as I’ve been steadily draining it to find money to buy room for all these Dimension items… Oh dear… I can “shuffle” the Minion Adventure Cards (pick a card – any card – and it’ll tell you what sort of Adventure your Minion(s) will be sent off on, and what sort of goodies he or she is likely to come back with) and so attempt to by-pass the Dimension yielding Adventure Cards, but that, too, costs either platinum or Credits. And I reckon that if I buy any more Credits this month without just cause, our poor, long-suffering Julian will experience much grief and upset over our (real time) bank account, and the money therein bleeding out (not into the grouting, thank heavens! 😉 ) rather rapidly! Poor Rubyfox, our lovely Dimension Damoiselle, has been left with only one empty bag for her shopping expeditions! 😉  In my lunchtime break I got himself to induct the young lady that I had shuffled over to Hailol last night, into the Guild. I was going to bring money over with her, along with her very own water breathing necklace, and the second key to the “Anywhere” Dimension – alas, I had set my heart on bringing her, but she’s only level 22 – and as you can only travel with three times your level in platinum, she was only able to bring sixty six bars of platinum with her 😦 It’ll have to do, and she’ll have to share the water breathing necklace as well! Poor Chrysanthemum! Never mind, she’ll be able to get by… Of course, having decided to bring Chrysanthemum over, I then had two girls with names beginning with “C” – Crystalsong and Chrysanthemum. I couldn’t have that, so Crystalsong is now called Blueonyx. You know, I didn’t know that you can actually get Blue Onyx? I thought it was pretty much a black stone – but you can, and it’s really lovely – apparently it’s one of Leo’s birthstones (July 23 – August 22), and is in high demand (!?!) for resolving confusions, enhancing self-mastery, guidance, absorbing energy, protection from negative forces, and letting go of old beliefs (and I didn’t even know that blue onyx existed before today! Shame on me! I know just about all the other birthstones and their properties…) So there you go – I have a Rift character named after what I thought was a “pretend” stone.

I also worked on my graphics today – putting together/experimenting with new shapes and colours – elements for a different header. It’s not even nearly finished yet – I’ve only just created the Autumn symbol icon – the main frame in the centre is going to be a problem though because the frame doesn’t stretch evenly, so I’m having to improvise by cutting the frame in half, dragging half the frame further out, and then copying a small section of the top leaves, and sticking it on to… where it was copied from. Copying the copy, reversing it, and sticking it on to the other half of the frame – if I copy and paste enough leafy “sprigs” to each side, they’ll meet up in the middle, and I’ll have a long enough frame that isn’t stretched out of proportion. But it’s a headache to do – getting in all close and personal-like, finding the right place to copy a piece of frame so that it’ll look seamless when attached to the piece it’s been copied from – it’s like having to do all “the little fiddly bits around the fjords” (with apologies to Slartibartfast – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) So it’s going to take a while…

Weigh-in this morning was a little more encouraging – thank heavens I took the last of those wretched pills this morning (until next time! *gloom*) – however, I went down to 95.8kg, and I was moderately pleased 🙂 I’ll probably see-saw around a bit until all the fluid retainers are out of my system, but hopefully I’ll start losing a bit more now…

The situation that was causing me so much angst last night has been resolved, I think (hope?) – not as I would have liked, however it was my own impatience and paranoia that made the bed, and now I have to lie in it. Hopefully all is not totally lost, and that time will erode away the sharpest edges of the pain I caused to both of us. ‘Nuff said – we move on.

I think we’re going rug and/or coffee table hunting tomorrow – which’ll be good. I have no idea where to go for rugs – anyone got any suggestions? (polite ones only, please!) I suppose I should start Googling, but I’d rather get this finished… As for coffee tables, I don’t think that the sort I want exists! It should be fairly large… and squarish, rather than rectangular. It has to be on casters, and have (sensible sized) drawers on two sides, almost down to the floor (so there are no coffee table legs visible around the table) and magazine or book “alcoves” on the other two sides…. Oh, and it should be made in something similar to Tasmanian Oak. I have yet to find one, despite a fair amount of searching. I don’t like the ridiculously popular “Retro” look (I grew up with it when it was being called “Modern”, not “Retro”, and I didn’t like it then!), or the scruffy and dilapidated “Distressed” look – “distressed, because it’s on its way to the tip” would be a better description for it! So, we’ll “pound the pavement” (or Google, whichever comes first! 😉 ) and see what we can find. So drop by again tomorrow night, and find out if we saw any suitable rugs – and if we bought one. I doubt very much that we’ll find the coffee table that I want (as I said before – I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist, except in my imagination!) but if we do find it, you’ll be the first to know! 🙂 You’ll also find out what my weight decides to do tomorrow morning – one thing I can tell you for sure, though, is that it’ll either be up, or down, or boringly the same. And that’s about it from me for tonight – so until tomorrow night, bee good, don’t forget to water the house plants, and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Calm down, it’s all right! It’s not a new blog template, it’s exactly the same as it was before – I’ve just changed the colours a little bit. It’ll be all fixed once I’ve finished writing tonight’s episode installment entry! 🙂 I decided that I wanted to see my text in black, on a lighter background for a change – I’m getting tired of the pale coloured text on the darker background. So this is the “black” text, and that’s the “lighter” colour. The header will be fixed – hopefully this evening. And at least I can see my keyboard now that himself has fixed my “glare” problem. You see, I don’t touch-type – I have to look at the keyboard in order to see what I’m typing, and I only look up at the screen at the end of a sentence, or paragraph (whichever comes first) There’s strip lighting at the back of the desk area where I sit, and it was reflecting on the top couple of rows of my keyboard – so that I couldn’t tell the difference between a “T” and a “Y”, or an “E” and an “R”, and I found I was spending more time backspacing and correcting typos than I was actually writing! However, clever little engineer that he is, Julian has rigged up a colour co-ordinated type of curtain, which still lets through the light, but shades the top rows of my keyboard! It’s much more betterer now!! Well, I spent the morning doing what I said I’d do – unpacking boxes of Dimension items and sorting them out. I don’t expect many of you to remember an old ad, many years ago, when the artist, Pro Hart, decides to “paint” a picture in the middle of the lounge room floor, using a cake, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and other various edible, sweet, and sticky substances. The resulting picture of a butterfly (or was it a dragon-fly? It was hard to tell!) wasn’t half bad, actually – it was a shame that it was on the floor, and not on a canvas… and then the cleaning lady comes in, and says, in an Australian version of an Italian accent, “Oh! Mr Hart! what a mess!”* well, that’s exactly what my bank and my bags looked like, after I’d unpacked all those boxes of Dimension items, and sorted them roughly into categories. I’ve done about 50 boxes, I think, but I still have another 38 to go! (I did tell you that it was a mammoth job!) I had a break at lunch time, and then himself decided that he wanted to run some dungeons (they’re called “instances” now, apparently) but because we’re not terribly conversant with these areas, we chose to first try a much lower level of dungeon, in Brevane. I mean, we were level 62 and 65 – we’d be able to knock just about any level 58 Boss down, no problemo, right?! Wrong! Oh, so horribly, woefully wrong! We were almost “one-shotted” (killed with one blow!). We died. A couple of times each. It was embarrassing! (I’m still blushing with shame!) So we turned tail, and ran for our lives… I was totally nonplussed – why were we so abysmally outclassed, when we so clearly out-leveled them? Then himself tells me that it was a five man dungeon! That means that you need at least five people to get through it, with those five people being really experienced dungeon runners, equipped with the best armor and weaponry that platinum can buy – honestly, the two of us never stood an ice block’s chance in hell! So we went off to Ember Isle (only slightly lower level than Brevane), and we did manage to get through that one fairly easily. Then he remembered an instance on Tempest Isle – so we went and tried that… with equally disastrous results! We had to run around in funny robot-like armor that had special in-built weapons that we were to use against a horde of insect like mobs… and I reckon that they were pretty woeful – the “cool down” (the time you have to wait before you can use the weapon again after firing it) on the most important ones was impossibly long, and when you can’t use the weapons provided because you’re waiting for them to become usable again – you die! So we did. Die. A lot. We got out of that one quick smart, too… and that’s where we left it. I think we’re going to have to get much more betterer gear and weapons, before we can have another shot at doing dungeons/instances – whatever they’re calling them this week 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Wasn’t good. I went up one point, to 96.1kg. Tomorrow is my last dose of those wretched tablets – thank goodness! Unfortunately it’s going to take me about three days to get them out of my system – but hopefully the weight should start going down properly after that. “Hopefully” being the key word there! I wasn’t pleased – in fact I burst into tears – not because of the weight gain – that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m pretty fragile emotionally at the moment – I’m having a lot of problems with someone at the moment, and I just don’t know how to handle it anymore. They won’t be honest enough with me to tell me what’s really going on, in fact, they won’t talk to me at all. Julian will tell me I shouldn’t have written that – but I don’t care. I’m hurting, and I don’t care who knows it.

So anyway, it’s five o’clock, and almost time for my evening Stair Walk. Tomorrow’s Friday, the end of the week, and hopefully I’ll find some answers tomorrow night – because I don’t know how much longer I can take this. But life stumbles blindly along, I guess. I’m not sure what’s happening chez nous tomorrow – probably not a lot though. Tonight I’ll try to get the blog header updated, and I’ll probably get on to the last 38 boxes of Dimension items tomorrow morning – if I can find anywhere to store the items… Thinks: I “shuffled” another girl over from Laethys today – and I gave her the second key to the Anywhere Dimension to bring with her. I can unpack the boxes in the Dimension, and put them all down in their groups then and there… that just might work! Hmmm! 🙂 I’ve picked up four Dimension keys from the boxes, too – not wonderful Dimensions that everyone’s breaking their necks to be able to afford, but fairly good ones… which I might make use of – two of the keys are duplicates, so I’ll probably sell one of them – goodness knows, the Guild Bank desperately needs the money!  And that’s about it from me for tonight – but tune in again, and you’ll find the answers to all of your questions (…most of them, anyway… well, would you believe some of them, then?!) right here, tomorrow night! So until then, bee good, don’t forget to brush your teeth, and above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*It was a dragonfly! I actually found the ad, if you’d like to have a look at it 🙂

Another reasonably busy day in Telara this morning. I did get Satai up to level 40 (with a little help from some experience boosting potions – just to hurry the job along a bit 😉 ) because I was in a bit of a rush – I’m determined to get all those Dimension boxes and items finally sorted out, you see. Oh, the apartment Window Washers were here this morning – just as well it wasn’t as wet as it was yesterday! They only do the outside of the windows – they rappel down the outside of the building, washing the windows as they go (they can have that job on their own! I hate heights!) but to do that they have to get onto the roof. I suppose I never gave a thought as to how, or which way they’d get up onto the roof (probably because I never think of the window washers at all, unless himself tells me that “the window washers will be here”, and I make a mental note to myself not to exit the bathroom before I get dressed!) so I suppose that I can be forgiven for being a trifle startled to see strange men with ropes on the fire escape stairs, half way up to the next floor, when I was on my way to my pre-breakfast Stair Walk. I propped open the fire escape door with my book, as usual, and looked up at the men (who hadn’t even noticed me! Hmph!) but I thought – ‘they don’t know I’m here – I hope they don’t see the book propping the door open and decide that it poses a security risk and remove it!’ (highly unlikely! If they hadn’t noticed me, I think they’d be very unlikely to notice a small book propping the door open!) But just to be on the safe side, I called out to them ‘Excuse me! Please don’t move the book holding the door open – I’m exercising on the stairs and if you take it away, I won’t be able to get back inside!” They both jumped (they really hadn’t noticed that I was there!) one of them grunted some sort of confirmatory noise at me, and they got back to their rope sorting, while I, very self-consciously, started down the stairs, counting a lot more quietly than usual, as I went…. I count aloud as I go down (and up) the stairs, first in Italian, then French, and lastly English… because (a) it echos a lot in the stair well, and people are much more likely to realise that someone’s on the stairs, and might need the door-propping-open-book left where it is, and (b) it helps me keep track of which floor I’m on, as none of the floors (both stair and lift side!) display a floor number! The apartment doors have numbers on them, and the first number stands for the floor number, f’rinstance, 502, our apartment, is apartment 2 on the fifth floor, and so on. (I’ve just been for my afternoon Stair Walk – the window washers must still be here, because the stair well lights were on [they’re those “push the button to turn the light on” type – they don’t stay on for long] and there was equipment and ropes sitting on the next landing up…) So I Rifted until I got Satai up to level 40, then took her home and dusted her down. Then I went looking for someone with as few things in their bank as possible – Rubyfox drew the short straw, so she’s “it” – the Dimension Damoiselle – from now on, all things pertaining to Dimensions go to her! (Julian, take note, if you’re ever playing in Hailol!) I’ve started taking the boxes out of the Guild Bank for her to unpack… so far I’ve opened up over twenty boxes, and nothing as yet has been duplicated! These are all smaller and less valuable boxes, and each one held, on average, nine items! (can you see what I’m starting to get worried about?) I’ve had one of Julian’s characters “ferry” over a Dimension key from Laethys for me – the key is for a Dimension called “Anywhere”, and it’s the largest Dimension there is. It’s basically just an enormous flat, sandy plain. No hills, no grass, no trees, no nothing – so you can turn it into any sort of landscape you want. Elizandra, one of my girls on Laethys, can make keys for that Dimension (and in fact can make keys to any Dimension!) and I’m really thinking that I should have brought more than just one key to Anywhere across – I have a sneaking suspicion I’m going to need as many as I can get! Well, Rubyfox is also a Dreamweaver – they make Dimension items, and…. keys! I shall just have to level her up until she can make Anywhere keys! I know I should keep on unpacking the boxes, and I am really curious to know what’s inside the bigger, more valuable boxes… but… knowing me, I’ll probably just grab the next one on the list to level 40, and go back to leveling everyone up 🙂 *sigh*

Weigh-in this morning. A trifle better… though not as good as I would have liked… I went down 2 points to 96.0kg, which was good, but it’s getting to the stage where I’m almost too frightened to get on the scales in the morning, for fear of going up. Yes, I know it’s stupid, and yes I know that weight can fluctuate wildly, and that as long as the general trend is downwards, it doesn’t matter a hill of beans if I go up a little, or a lot. Intellectually, I know all that… but it’s a different matter when one’s standing on the scales and one sees an increase in yesterday’s readings, one’s first impulse is to burst into blubbery tears of disappointment and chagrin! Ah well, let’s see what tomorrow’s weigh-in brings! Hand me my Peril Sensitive Sunglasses, Beulah! 🙂

So that’s where I’m at today – I have no idea what’s happening tomorrow – actually, I do know one thing that’s happening tomorrow! Something I forgot to do today! Ring and book the Podiatrist for sometime next Monday or Tuesday, for Lee and me! I’m quite cross with myself – I meant to ring today… but I clean forgot. However, what to do tomorrow? Rift? (as in leveling the next victim to 40?) Dimensioning? (unpacking more boxes?) Graphic-ing? (experimenting with other colours for the blog) I had a look at my nails this morning, to see if they were long enough to paint yet. They’re not. That stupid thumb nail that kept snagging on everything, is not growing (fast enough), and still snags occasionally on sheer fabric, no matter how much I file it down! My poor neglected bottle of Chrome Violet nail polish continues to sit on the bathroom bench, gazing at me reproachfully with no eyes… Of course, with my nails filed down so severely, typing is a lot quicker and easier! So what you lose on the roundabouts, you gain on the swings? Summat like that, anyhoo! 🙂 Oh, here’s another ‘brain teaser’ for you: “Brothers and sisters have I none! Yet this man’s father is my father’s son!” – who is the speaker talking about? 🙂 And on that note, I shall bid you all to once again drop in tomorrow night and see what’s happening chez nous – will my weight be up, down, or stay boringly the same? Will I have Rifted, or Dimensioned? Have I remembered to book an appointment with the Podiatrist, for Lee and me? And did I abandon all things Telaran, and do some graphic work instead? Find out tomorrow night, right here in this blog! (I can guarantee that you won’t find these things out any cheaper anywhere else! 😉 ) So until then, bee good, stop eating that candy, and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well?! Well!? What do you think of it? My new header, with the seasonal icons on it? Do you like it? Hate it? Don’t give a stuff?! 🙂 Anyway, I’ll still be experimenting with different shapes and styles… so if you don’t like this one, the next one may be more to your liking(s) This morning, because himself had to play Taxi Driver for my favourite eldest daughter once more, I had the morning to myself (for once!) and because I’d been clever enough to do this header last night, I had the whole day (or so I thought) free for Rifting. This morning I spent a lot more time simply questing, and a lot less time getting sidetracked searching for Artifacts and stuff. I got to the last part of Scarlet Gorge (somehow I always get turned around in that zone! I look at the map – yes, I have to go there! so I mark it with an “x”, turn myself around to face the “x”, and take off. Then the next time I look at the map, I’ve mysteriously been turned around and am charging off in the wrong direction! And! It only happens in Scarlet Gorge! Why?!) and finished the zone off when someone who was doing the same quest teamed up with me to kill off a rather nasty Boss and his minions, and close down his Rift (alas, not for good – it’ll be there again for everyone else who comes along to do this quest – but such is the nature of games! 😉 ) I’m now in Scarwood Reach – probably one of my favourite zones in Telara – and Satai is now level 36. Only four more levels to level 40! 🙂 I’m not quite sure who I’ll take up to level 40 next – I’d like it to be one of the two male characters I’ve got, but they’re both Defiant, and so is Satai, and I really like to alternate between Guardian and Defiant when I’m leveling in “batches” like this. When I went out, just before one o’clock, for my pre-lunch Stair Walk, I looked out the window and was quite shocked to see how cold, wet, and miserable it was! It’s reasonably warm here in the Den – the computers and screens stop the temperature from dropping too low, and I hadn’t noticed the creeping cold. The lounge room was quite cold, and poor old Flipper was all huddled up in her “Winter Chalet” (one of the two triangular cat caves we got for her) and which she loves so much that it seems like she never leaves them, except to eat, drink, use her litter box, or to squish in next to Julian for “Daddy Pats”, when he’s sitting in the lounge room with his feet up! I turned the heater on for her, and vowed to grab a scarf for myself when I got back from my Stair Walk. My favourite eldest daughter decided to come over today, after all, so instead of taking her home after her excursion, himself brought her over here instead, and any hopes of a day’s Rifting melted, “like tears in rain“. We spent the afternoon watching episodes of “The 100” because somehow or other, the season 4 episodes of “Person of Interest” were sort of muddled up with the same episode number as those of season 3 (season 4, episode 14, turned out to be season 3, episode 14, and so on). We’re not quite sure how that happened, but we’re not going to be able to watch any more of “Person of Interest” until we get it sorted out *cry* which is a rotten shame because it’s a really good show…. and I wanna know what happens next!

I’m not sure what we’re doing tomorrow – what I do know is that if the weather’s anything like it is today, I won’t be going any further than the fire escape stairs! Hopefully I’ll be able to get Satai up to level 40, and be able to start on the next one… actually, I’ve been thinking… I’m amassing all these boxes full of Dimension goodies, the boxes all being of different sizes and value, courtesy of my Minions. I have no idea what’s in the boxes, and no two boxes will contain the same items – but each box can contain anywhere between six and seventeen Dimension items… (it reminds me of the old Nursery Rhyme: “As I was going to St. Ives”*) I really, really need to unpack those boxes, sort out the unpacked Dimension items, and put them all… I dunno!… somewhere! Now that I’ve reached a particular Loyalty Level, all of my characters received (amongst other goodies) a 36 slot bag.  What I’m thinking I’m going to have to do is empty out someone’s bank as well as their bags – either selling everything, and/or passing whatever I can to other characters to “mind for me”, via the in-game mailbox. Items can sit in your inbound mail for up to 29 days before the game will delete it, opened or unopened. And if you don’t open it, when you’re ready, you can “return to sender”, free of charge! I’m not sure what the maximum number of items a mail box can hold is, but I think it’s quite a lot – and I have twelve characters… (plus Julian’s – though if they’re “bound to account” items they  can only be sent to someone on my game account) Anyway, it’s going to be a truly mammoth task – which is why I just keep putting it off, and putting it off… and, of course, the more I keep putting it off, the bigger and more massive the job becomes… Perhaps I’ll think about getting onto it next week! (read: “next year“!)

Weigh-in this morning… was… horrible! Terrible! It was worse than “horrible”, or “terrible”! 😦 Well, I was expecting to bounce back up, after such a massive loss (seven points!) – I figured… 95.8kg?… 95.9kg?… I’d thought that at 95.5kg I’d be far enough down into the 95kg zone to not bounce back up into the 96kg zone again. Boy! Was I wrong! I went back to where I was the day before yesterday. The weight I’d sat on for two whole days! (Saturday and Sunday) Yes, that’s right! I went back up to 96.2kg!  [please insert a very long string of extremely rude words here!] I was not pleased… I will be even less pleased if I’m still sitting on the same weight again tomorrow! I’ll keep you posted…

Anyway, that’s about it from me for today – call back again tomorrow night – see what I’ve decided to do about the Dimension boxes 😉 and what my weight has decided to do to me! (hopefully nothing too nasty!) I’m wondering if I should add on another, fourth, Stair Walk, around 9.30pm, on my way back down to the Den. After that not terribly pleasant surprise this morning, it looks like I’m going to have to do something to start things moving again. Oh well, at least I’m only on those wretched pills for another three days – and then it’ll take me about another three days for my body to come out of its “fluid retaining state” Actually, what I think I really need is another long and invigorating shopping trip – maybe look for a rug for the lounge room floor, or a coffee table… or both – only not if the weather’s going to be as wet as it was today! So it looks like I’ll have a lot to tell you all about tomorrow night, but until then, please bee good, drive extra carefully in this wet weather, remember to change into something warm and dry if you’ve been out in the rain – and above all, stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*The Old Nursery Rhyme (or Riddle) goes like this: “As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks, every sack held seven cats. Every cat had seven kits! Kits, cats, sacks and wives, how many were there going to St. Ives?”
The answer to the riddle: Only one person was going to St. Ives! The narrator. The text says “As I was going to St. Ives” – but it’s not revealed where the multi-wived man was going with all those sacks of cats and kits! 😉

Well, here it is, another Monday. Doesn’t matter that it’s a Public Holiday, it’s still a Monday, and therefore to be hated and despised (that’s the Garfield in me talking – take no notice! 😉 ) In actual fact, I like Mondays (I get my hair done on Mondays! It makes me feel good, and I start to look semi-human again! 🙂 ) The beginning of a new week – who knows what might happen? Who knows where you might go, or who you might meet. Of course, it could all be horrible – you could fall down the stairs and break both arms and both legs at the same time, or meet up with your worst enemy at a function where you’d be forced (obviously against your will!) to be pleasant, if not nice, to them (Oh, the shame of it all!) But on the other hand, you might win the lottery! (please Mrs. Goldstein! Will you come half way to meet me, and buy a ticket?! *) or you might find the most perfect pair of shoes you ever set eyes on (or foot into) at a 75% off Sale. Beginnings are exciting – endings? I don’t like endings… depending on exactly what is ending, that is. Anyway, it’s the beginning of the week, I had my hair done, and I’ve thought of a new way to incorporate my season icon(s) into the blog header, now that I’ve started using the frames around the text. I don’t have time to start work on them tonight, but I can hardly wait to try it out tomorrow morning. It’s a shame I didn’t think of it until just before my evening Stair Walk (wot I’ve just come back from) because I wouldn’t have spent so much time Rifting today, I would have been… “designing“! 🙂 On the down side of today (why does there always be a down side to most things? It’s not fair!) I found that due to various extraneous circumstances, I wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with a friend as I had done in the past. We’ll still be able to correspond, but not for as long, or as often as I’d like. I shall miss them a lot… 😦

After lunch, himself and I had a couple of hours Rifting together. We’ve both reached level 48, and have finally been able to get to Ember Isle! How long we’ll stay there I have no idea, because we’ve already been given our “breadcrumb” quest to Dusken and Brevane… How to explain it… ummm… OK. A long time ago, in a mythical land called Telara, you could really only live and quest until you were about (level) 50. Then you were expected to either go fossicking in deep, dank, dungeons, or go Raiding, or, to live on through your successors… But the Programming and Game Writing ghods of Telara took pity on the people living there, and created for them a sort of Island Paradise, called Ember Isle. It was a beautiful island, full of majestic trees, scenic mountains, gushing waterfalls – a true paradise – except for the fact that it was populated by a lot of nasty mobs who just wanted to spoil things for everyone who went there. So the Programming and Game Writing ghods decreed that any adventurers willing to go there and slay these nasty, blood thirsty mobs, would be given the chance to reach the ripe old age (level) of 52! Time passed, and the adventurers who went to Ember Isle found that they very quickly tired of their new “paradise”. Well, it was only a very small island, and once you’d been around it three or four times, it all started to get a bit boring. Well, the Programming and Game Writing ghods had anticipated this, of course, and had been secretly working on… not one… not two… but three new islands for these adventurers to go to! Two larger islands, one called Dusken, and the other Brevane. There was a third, smaller island, called Tempest Bay, to act as a Capital City (incorporating an extremely busy Banking and Auctioning centre, and Skill training in all areas, from Fishing and Survival, to Runecrafting, and more!) for all the adventurers heading off to Dusken or Brevane. In these brand new areas, adventurers could reach the truly giddy heights of (level) 60! Later, these same Programming and Game Writing ghods created yet another new area, where you could reach the pinnacle of success, at (level) 65 – but that’s a story for another night! 😉 So there you are. People became too bored with tiny Ember Isle, and it’s largely a forgotten zone now – most people skip it altogether and go straight on to Dusken or Brevane once they reach level 50 – and as yet, I’m not sure what we’ll do…

Weigh-in this morning was a real eye-opener! I weighed myself three times, just to be sure the two of us, Julian and I, really were seeing what we thought we were seeing – but the scales didn’t even waver once – they just went straight to…. (drum roll, please!) 95.5kg! I tell you, the scales were quite insistent! That’s a drop of over half a kilo! Seven (7) points, to be precise! This has put me in a state of great agitation! – from a drop that big, I know I’m going to have to suffer a bounce back… this is expected, and assumed to be “normal”. However, at 95.5kg, is the bounce back going to be big enough to bounce me back into the 96kg zone, or, at 95.5kg, am I already far enough into the 95kg zone to remain in it?! I sure hope so! I still can’t quite believe I lost so much – overnight! Perhaps I should eat a very small Hot Cross Bun, with just a smidgen of butter, more often! (only kidding! I had a normal breakfast this morning…) I think I’ll almost be too scared to get on the scales tomorrow morning – because I’ll find that today’s weigh-in was, after all, just a dream, and instead of being 95.5kg, I’ll really be back at something like 96.8kg, or something 😦

And that was my start of the week! 🙂 How was yours? 🙂 Tomorrow can’t come fast enough! As I said earlier, I’m absolutely itching to try out my idea for a framed header, which will incorporate my season icons (and where applicable, appropriate zodiac signs for those having a birthday that month!) So there’s really not much more to tell you, except to remind you to drop by again tomorrow night, and find out how I went with my framed header and season signs idea – in fact, if it works out, you might even see the blog wearing one of them – so take a good look at what’s there now – because you might not see it again! 😉 You’ll also find out what happened at my morning weigh-in – did I bounce back up? By how much? Or did I stay the same (boring!) or… did a major miracle occur, and did I go down again? Whatever – I’m sure there’ll be lots of other news and tidbits  with which to regale you all 🙂 So until tomorrow night, please try to bee good, don’t throw balls in the house (you might break a window!), and above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

* Very old Jewish joke… If you want me to tell it to you, just ask… (it’s a little long to print here… 😉 )

Happy Easter, everyone! 🙂 Hop-fully, the Easter Bunny brought you all lots of yummy eggs, and just as hopefully, everyone remembered the real reason behind Easter. And it’s also Pesach (Passover) – so because all of the three Spring-time celebrations coincide this year, there’s something for everyone to to enjoy and think about – Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns, the crucifixion and the resurrection, and “the passing over” (hence Passover) of the Hebrew homes by the Angel of Death, when all the first-born in Egypt were killed. I hope you all had a happy and relaxing day with friends and relatives! 🙂

Well, the place wasn’t totally devoid of chocolate this year – my favourite youngest daughter, Kate, somehow managed to miss out on the “No Chocolate Gifts Allowed” directive, and brought Easter Eggs for Lisa, Neale, and Julian – but because of my diet, she brought a lovely “Candle in a Cup” from Dusk, for me! 🙂 It smells beautiful, and is called “Silk”. Lisa and Neale gave us a small, fluffy white rabbit (which is unusual for them – they usually go for plushie toys!) and they gave Kate and Terry the same rabbit, only brown, and “shiny” (apparently it looks shiny when held under certain lights) We gave the kids their usual gift ($$), and a small memento to put on their already overcrowded shelves. The roast lamb was – according to a unanimous vote – “delicious” (it didn’t smell too awful, either! 😉 ) and although he cooked quite a large roast (“because cold roast lamb goes so well in sandwiches!” quipped Julian) there was virtually not enough left to make even half a sandwich! Of course the roast was accompanied by roast potatoes, roast pumpkin, and green beans, with mint sauce, and a home made salad, to refresh the palate. No gravy – no-one wanted any. I had an extremely nice Optifast Berry Crunch bar, and quite a lot of mineral water (it should have been a Cappuccino bar today, because I’d had a Berry Crunch one for lunch yesterday, but I didn’t say anything because the Berry Crunch ones are my favourite, and what the hey! It’s Easter! 😉 ) Dessert, for everyone but myself, was a white chocolate cheese cake. It was in a box, and it was quite comical when Julian opened the box to take it out, but just stood there, looking into the box, saying plaintively “But I ordered the small one!” They’d either given him the wrong box (in which case I’m sure some other poor family was looking into their box and saying, equally as plaintively, “But I ordered the large one!”) or the shop people were feeling extra generous because it’s Easter (or maybe because they’d just run out of small ones?) Who knows! Anyway, everyone gobbled their pieces of cake most enthusiastically – however, I think it was probably terribly rich. because neither Lisa not Terry could finish theirs (Neale gallantly consumed the rest of Lisa’s for her!) Kate and Terry took some roast lamb and some cake home with them, Lisa and Neale didn’t, and I fear that the rest of the cake will be consigned to the rubbish bin. Shame – it looked nice, and although I’m not a big fan of white chocolate (it just doesn’t taste chocolatey to me!) I’d have liked to try it, if I could have… Which I couldn’t… Can’t… But just wait until next year! Chocolate eggs will be consumed! Cake will be eaten! Roast lamb, roast potato, roast pumpkin, and green beans will all be munched with gusto! (actually, I’m not too fond of mint sauce – I would have preferred the gravy!) All in moderation, of course! I do not want to have to start this weight-loss business all over again! Once is quite enough, thank you, and I have no intention of going back to the way I was. Ever.

This morning, after my morning Stair Walk, and breakfast, of a very small Hot Cross Bun, with just a hint of butter on it, I actually had time to check my Auctions, and manage my Minions, as well as create, finish, and put up, not one, but two new blog headers! I changed the headers over again just after the kids had left (it’s the one you’re seeing now – I had to move the framed part about half an inch to the right, because it wasn’t sitting in the centre of the blog text) And now that all of that is done, I’m sitting here writing this – I’m finding that writing in the evenings takes far too long – by the time I look things up, research something I’ve said (or am about to say! I don’t just write off the top of my head, you know!) look up spellings, preview, edit, proofread, and save the draft, I seldom finish before eleven thirty, whether I spend time in Rift or on Facebook before I start writing or not. In Rift, our daily Patron’s “gift” doesn’t become available until just after eleven o’clock, and more often than not, I have to leave it until the morning to collect it – and Minions – some of their “adventures” take eight hours, others ten hours – and you really should sort through all of their findings and re-set them, so that you’ll have another lot to process in another eight to ten hours. It usually works out well – re-set around eleven at night, and they’re ready for collection and re-setting again in the morning… But if I don’t have time, or forget, it all gets out of sync and I get annoyed, out of sorts, and grumpy. Anyway, from now on, I’m going to be writing in the afternoons – before my evening Stair Walk. Which I really should be getting ready to go on, now! (*guilty look*) Oh well, we’re all about an hour out today because Daylight Saving ended this morning at 3.00am (I hope you all remembered to set your clocks and watches back an hour?! 🙂 )

Weigh-in this morning. Well, it was probably better than I deserve, considering the very small Hot Cross Bun, with just a hint of butter on it, that I had for breakfast on Good Friday, and the fact that I’m on those fluid retaining pills… I stayed the same, at 96.2kg. Let’s see what happens tomorrow – I have drunk a lot of mineral water today, and those [censored!] pills are probably going to grab hold of all that mineral water, and soak it all up into my tissues, so I might just erupt over the 96kg line, and back into the 97kg zone 😦 I don’t think I’m looking forward to getting on those scales tomorrow…

So anyway, drop in again tomorrow night – see what news and hot goss will be to hand! 🙂 And no, I didn’t lick the knife that cut the white chocolate cheesecake into slices today, not even very carefully! However, who knows what the morrow may bring! There’s sure to be something here for everyone to find of interest or amusement! And hopefully, it’ll all be good! 🙂 So until tomorrow night, bee good, please help yourself to a slice of that white chocolate cheese cake before it gets permanently disposed of, and above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Following a conversation I had earlier this afternoon, tonight’s blog might seem a little bit introspective… I’m pondering the reasons for people asking each other questions… I mean, I know there are lots of reasons people ask questions – f’rinstance, you could be asking someone for directions, or asking a shop assistant if a certain item is in stock, or asking the waiter what the Fish of the Day is in a restaurant. However, I’m talking about the sort of questions people ask eachother in their personal lives, and why they ask them. Here’s a second sort of f’rinstance: when you’re interested in a subject, and would like to know more about it, there are two ways you can go about it. You can Google it, and research it online, or, if you know someone, or know of someone involved in that subject, you could ask them – depending on how well you knew them, of course. If you knew the person you were asking fairly well, you would expect them to be only too happy to answer you, and to point you in the right direction to learn more if they didn’t, wouldn’t you. And if they were busy, or wanted to go and do something else, rather than talk to you, you’d expect them to say something along the lines of: “look, not right now – I have to go and wash my hair” (or whatever) “remind me tomorrow (or next week, or next year), and I’ll fill you in then.” Well, as I said, if you know them fairly well, you’ll realise that they don’t want to talk to you right now, so you take the hint and say “Oh! OK, we’ll get together for coffee next week sometime, OK?” and you both go your separate ways until both of you have the time and the inclination to sit down and have a chat, and that’s perfectly normal and alright – you both know where you stand, and you can feel comfortable about it.  And now here’s yet another f’instance – Julian does this a lot (in fact almost all the time!) , and it annoys the hell out of me. It goes like this: himself comes in through the front door “I’ve just been talking to our neighbour, Oodles McSwish* – poor guy’s having a rough trot – his daughter’s run off with milkman’s niece and the cat ran away last week and hasn’t come home yet” “Really?!” says me “How’s he coping with it all?” “I don’t know,” Julian replies “I didn’t ask him.” “Why not?” says me in total astonishment “Because if he’d wanted me to know, he would have told me..” says Julian. I just look at him. Most people I know, don’t want to burden other people with their problems – on the other hand, I do, I tell everyone who’ll listen if I’m feeling miserable, or sick, or tired – or whatever! But then, I’m not “most” people, am I? – however most people don’t. The thing is though, that they really do want to talk about it – they need to talk about it, in fact. I’m sure you’ve all felt like it from time to time – sometimes you just need to vent. To rant and rave and yell and jump up and down and cry – but of course, unless you’re me, you can’t do that uninvited; someone needs to offer these people a chance to “vent their spleen” by saying to them “do you want to talk about it?”. Sometimes you only need to indicate your willingness to listen, and out it’ll all pour. ‘If they wanted you to know, they’d have told you?’ Hell would have to freeze over before most people would unburden themselves to someone else, uninvited! The main thing to bear in mind though, is that these types of questions and responses occur between friends! and they occur because friends are interested in eachother, in eachother’s well being, and in eachother’s hobbies and/or interests. If you weren’t interested in those aspects on their lives, you wouldn’t be their friend would you – you’d just be an “acquaintance“, with no thought or interest in them apart from immediate transactions. Personally, I’d prefer a friend to tell me to shut up and go away if I was irritating them (and I don’t blame them – I irritate a lot of people – it’s in my job description!), rather than wait until they were about to explode with annoyance, and then tell me – in my not so humble opinion, that’s really hurtful to both sides… Having said that, I can also truthfully say that I don’t give a damn if friends hurt me – I’ll still forgive and love them because they’re my friends – and that’s what makes the difference between a friend, and “just an acquaintance!”. Oh, and please feel free to ask questions! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. If only the rest of the day had gone so well! 🙂 Well, I didn’t go up, as I expected to, and I didn’t stay the same, as my second guess would have been – I went down, four whole points, to 96.2kg! I think I can feel relatively safe there – I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to suddenly errupt back into the 97kg zone from 96.2kg… (if I do, it’ll probably be because of that very small, toasted, Hot Cross Bun, with only a smidgen of butter on it, wot I had for breakfast yesterday, anyway, and there’s only one more day of Easter left, and therefore only one more very small, toasted, Hot Cross Bun, with just a smidgen of butter on it, for me to eat… so any weight that I might put on will only be “temporary”) Uhhh… and I had a “normal” breakfast this morning… 🙂

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, and the kids will be over, it’ll also be the very first Easter Sunday in my entire life, that hasn’t been “Chocolate Coated”! No Easter Eggs this year, for anybody!! (well, we will get a small one for our cleaning lady, cos she loves chocolate too) But quite frankly, I’m not missing all those chocolaty delights that used to be the main (commercial) raison d’être for Easter – that made Easter, Easter! I get my “chocolate fix” every day – my bars are choc-coated – and that’s enough for me. I am sorry to be missing out on the roast lamb with all the trimmings tomorrow, and the white chocolate cheese cake that himself got for dessert, but this diet isn’t forever – next Easter will come, and I rather think that this year we’ll be starting a new “Family Tradition” – Chocolate-Free Easters! 🙂 (mind you, if anyone does give me an Easter Egg next year, it won’t be wasted – I will eat it! 😉 ) So drop by again this time tomorrow night, and find out how our Easter Sunday went, and please feel free to send in comments about your own – we’d love to hear from you! What will my weight do tomorrow, with that very small, toasted, Hot Cross Bun (with only a smidgen of butter on it) for my breakfast (ackshally, that probably won’t show up on the scales until Monday or Tuesday!) Will there be chocolate in the house tomorrow, despite what I just said, above? Will I just look at the White Chocolate Cheesecake, or will I lick the knife that cuts it?! (hopefully without cutting my tongue, as I did once before when I was a small child – I licked the knife Mum had been icing a chocolate cake with, and cut my tongue rather badly (but we had lino, not tiles, so the blood didn’t get into the grouting!) My tongue didn’t stop bleeding for ages and ages, despite sucking on ice blocks… so let that be a lesson to you all! – don’t lick sharp knives! I speak from experience!) Anyway, until tomorrow night, please… bee good, don’t eat too much chocolate tomorrow, and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

 * Oodles McSwish – not his real name!

So, it’s Good Friday – the beginning of Easter… I actually had a small, toasted Hot Cross Bun, with just a smidge of butter, for breakfast this morning! Himself worked out all the relevant kilojoule bits and pieces, and worked out that it was only about 70 calories (293 kilojoules) over my normal breakfast, and quite a bit less than the morning or afternoon tea (which were 314 kilojoules) that I should have been having, but haven’t, for the last four or five months. So… it’s sort of like I said “I think I’ll have morning tea this morning!” – Why do I feel as though I need to justify that extra 293 kilojoules! Let’s see what the scales say tomorrow morning! I’m having a normal breakfast tomorrow, but I’ll be having another, very small, Warm Angry Rabbit on Sunday morning.

This morning I did a bit of serious Rifting. Satai is now level 26 and almost half way through Stonefield – doing rather well, actually, and I’ve decided that all of the Artifacts collected via Minions, or by other characters, as it becomes their turn to level up, will be sent on to Satai. As she’s the reason that Hailol was populated in the first place, it seems only right that she should get the Artifacts… and one single character stands a much better chance of collecting a full Artifact set, than many characters only getting a few Artifacts per set. Full sets can net you some very nice prizes, from Mounts, to Armor and Costume Armor, to various enhancements – in other words, well worth collecting for! This afternoon himself and I played a bit of Rift together – we only played for about an hour, but I think we accomplished quite a lot in that time (we found the next Porticulum, too! They don’t show up on the map until you’ve “discovered” them…) We may play again tomorrow afternoon, because we won’t be able to on Sunday, what with Easter Sunday Lunch, and the kids over and all… Roast Lamb with all the trimmings, and some sort of cake for dessert… I’ll have to make do with a small Hot Cross Bun and a smidge of butter for breakfast, and my usual Optifast bar for lunch. It’ll be… (thinks…) Berry Crunch? According to my calculations, anyway – it’s actually my favourite, though I do like the Cappuccino one too 🙂

I seem to be alternating between Rift and Graphics – I also did a fair bit of graphic work today too – Out of all those frame and corner fonts that I downloaded the other day, most of them are too big to use successfully as header frames – I only get 1194 x 200 pixels to work with (that’s about 31.5cm x 5.3cm, in lay person’s terms) so there ain’t much room to mess around in! But there are quite a few long, skinny frames (height-wise) amongst them. I really can’t see that they’d be much use to anyone, really, they’re just too narrow (about 1/2 an inch high?) though I suppose you could use them for one line descriptions under a picture or something? Anyway, I’ve discovered that if I duplicate the image, and flip the duplicate upside down, then join the two together in the middle and erase the centre line, I get quite a respectable sized header frame! Next, if I select the centre part, insert a new layer under the frame, then fill the selection with a contrasting colour on that new layer, it looks really good! (you do this on the layer below, so that any rough lines in the selection (“jaggies”) are hidden under the outline of the frame above it) I’m working on one at the moment – I’ll put it up as soon as I can decide on the colour(s) to make the text in the middle. As I said, I’ve got one almost ready, but I still have about another fifteen to play with – I could do a new header every night for a fortnight! Wouldn’t that be fun! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Surprisingly good, considering everything! Down two points to 96.6kg! Don’t worry though – it’ll be up again tomorrow! I’d like to get a bit lower still, before I consider myself “safe” in the 96kg zone… However, what with the fluid retaining pills, and the Hot Cross Bun that I had for breakfast this morning, I shudder to think what I’ll see when I stand on the scales tomorrow morning!

So tune in again this time tomorrow night, and see if the Easter Bunny has dropped a few extra kilos onto my scales for me! And who knows? If you’re really lucky, you might find yourselves greeted by a new, much fancier and ornate blog header! I have a small problem to solve, too – you know I told you that I got my stand-up clip board – the one with the white board on the back? Yes, well I don’t know where to put it. I have all of my desk arranged “just so”, and I really don’t have room… I could move the tissues, but where to? so that I can still reach them easily… I could move the prescription filing box, but once again – where to, so that its still going to be within easy reach? Decisions, decisions! I don’t know! At the moment the clip board is sitting right where the breakfast goes in the morning. I need a bigger desk! 😦 I’ll let you know tomorrow night if I manage to sort it all out 🙂 In the meantime, there’s not much more to tell you, and in all honesty, I’d like to see if I can get that header finished, and up tonight! So without further ado, I shall admonish you all to bee good, behave yourselves, but above all else…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

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! 🙂

Well, Happy April Fool’s Day (or what’s left of it, anyway!) Did any of you get caught out in a “Fool” today? Himself managed to catch me out, just after midnight this morning – I said it was already April 1st, and he said no it wasn’t. So what did I do? I looked at the clock, and became probably the very first April Fool of the day! So there you go – even the Great Madam Winter, who Sees all, Knows all, can get caught out by her cruel and mean husband 😉 I know I said I wanted to get out of the house today, but he talked me out of it – said it was going to be hot today, and that it would be better to go out tomorrow, instead (I think he was more worried about the bank balance than he was about the heat, and my comfort! 😉 ) However, I will be going out tomorrow – and I have a specific place in mind that I want to go to (two places, actually!) I positively must go to Office Works – there are a couple of things I want to look for there (one being a clipboard that will stand up by itself, like a photo frame) and I’d like to go back and visit one of my old haunts… Box Hill Central. I haven’t been there in years, and yet when we lived just off Station Street in Burwood, I used to be up there so often that the thought occurred to me that I should really just pitch a tent in the car park… But our cleaning lady raves on about how wonderful it is, and I heard on the grape-vine that there’s a shop upstairs that sells very interesting and unusual “cat caves”. We bought a slightly Swiss Chalet shaped cat cave for Flipper, because she’s old and was feeling the cold, and she absolutely loves it! She was really funny when we first put it on the couch for her! We moved her old basket off and put the new one in its place. She was curled up asleep on a forgotten towel down at the other end of the couch. We stood back to see what would happen…. she hadn’t noticed? All of a sudden, her head popped up, and she stared and stared at the new cat cave. She got up, walked gingerly over and stared at it some more. We made encouraging-type noises. She poked her head, and then her shoulders into the cave, and had a good sniff. Then she turned around and went back to her towel, to think it over… but she kept staring at this new… “thing” that her basket seemed to have turned into. She got up again, marched over, and repeated her earlier performance, then went back to her towel – this obviously needed a lot more thinking about! About twenty minutes or so later, she got up, marched firmly up to the new cat cave, and walked in and curled up in it – I wonder if she thought it was just her old basket that had grown a roof? Anyway, we got her another one today, to put in the Den – she’s so happy in her new cat cave that the only time she comes down to the Den now is when she wants a snack from her bowl of pussy biscuits (kibble!) that we keep down here. She used to spend at least half her time down here (the computers and screens keep the room fairly warm) and she used to sleep in here most nights – but she seems to have totally abandoned the Den for the warm and cosy comfort of her cat cave in the lounge room (and strangely enough, she doesn’t seem to have even noticed the new sofa bed in the spare room. Cats can be very strange – especially very elderly ones!) We haven’t put the new cat cave in here yet – we don’t know where to put it! If we put it on the chair where her old basket is, she won’t be able to get into it properly. The one in the lounge room is sitting on the couch, with the opening facing towards the middle of the couch – making it easy for her to jump onto the couch first, and walk into the cat cave. If we put the new cat cave on the chair in here, she’d have to jump directly into the entrance to the cat cave. With a younger and less arthritic cat, this wouldn’t pose a problem – but she’s 20 years old and very stiff in her joints. She occasionally goes to jump somewhere and falls, because she can’t quite make the distance any more, and we’re always on the look out in case she injures herself. So, not only would she have to jump straight into the entrance to the cat cave, the chair, being an ex-computer chair, swivels. She could hurt herself badly if she jumped, missed the opening, and the chair swiveled – so we’re not sure where to put the new cave. It can’t go directly on the floor (too draughty), so we need something to raise it up a bit – and I’ve just thought of the perfect thing to get! One of those smaller dog beds that looks like a miniature trampoline (it’s not a trampoline, it just looks like one! She wouldn’t bounce off it if she jumped onto it!) one of those would do the trick! They sit about six or seven inches off the floor, are firm enough to hold a small to medium-sized dog without sagging, so she’d be able to jump up onto that, and then swagger into her cat cave. We must have a look at some tomorrow (as well as the interesting sounding cat caves up at Box Hill Central!) So, lots to do and look at tomorrow – there used to be a very nice rug place up there, too – I wonder if it’s still there?

I did play a bit of Rift today – got Satai up to level 23 and into Stonefield (the next zone on from Freemarch, the starting area) I played until just after lunch, when I went and did some more graphics work. I’ve found a very nice two-fish line drawing that I can “colour in” (so to speak) I’ve done a part of it, but oh boy, is it fiddly! Once upon a time I would have thought nothing of spending hours and hours (quite literally!) zoomed in to the maximum, selecting areas, one pixel at a time, to colour and style. I started on the two fishes this afternoon, and the parts that I’ve done do look really stunning… but it took me two and a half hours to select and process just two fish bodies, and one fish eye. I still have the tails, fins, and another eye to do, before I have to move on to the even more complicated water weeds and water “eddies”! Still, I think I will do it – finish it off – it’s really going to look fantastic when it’s finished! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Really pleasing… I don’t for a minute think that I’ll stay at this weight for more than 24 hours – I’m sure to go back up again, especially as I started on those wretched pills this morning… but I was down to 96.9kg. Perhaps I should push myself to that fourth level… though I think I’ll just do the three level Stair Walks for now… until I build up a bit more stamina…

So that was the day that was – call in tomorrow night and find out how our shopping expotition went! Will there be any money left in the bank account? Will Flipper have a new cat cave down here in the Den, and will it be sitting on a doggie bed! Is there a rug shoppe at Box Hill Central, and if so, did we find a suitable rug for the lounge room? What will my weight have done? Will it have gone back up because of those ‘orrible pills, or will it be down? Or the same? At the moment, I don’t know, but I will tomorrow, and I can assure you that all your questions will be answered, this time tomorrow night, in all of my usual meticulous and detailed descriptive fashion (or, why use five words when twenty will do quite nicely! 😉 ) So until then, bee good, don’t eat too much sugar, and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂