Winter’s log, earthdate 201505.31

So, I’m starting extra late this evening – I wanted to get this background and header finished first, plus create an extra header for tomorrow, because tomorrow is the beginning of Winter 🙂 my favourite season! 🙂 What do you think of this template? I mean the style, layout, etc., not necessarily the graphics… I may have to adjust the font size though – what it’s showing in the editing window is absolutely teeny-weeny! It’s almost impossible to select and edit individual words – there’s hardly anything to “grab hold of”, if you know what I mean! Uno momento… ahh… that’s a bit better – I made the text a bit bigger… does it look any better from your end? I hope so…

Well today, as you all know, was our day to go romping through Dusken… Brevane… or wherever. We did make it to level 60 – by cheating just a little bit – we both took a Transcendent experience booster potion (the biggest one you can get, at premium prices!) to augment the 50% experience bonus we’d be getting this weekend – we had thought that the extra 50% would have been enough on its own, but alas, by the time you get up to level 59, no matter how many quests you hand in, or how many Carnage quests you complete, that lil’ ol’ experience bar of yours hardly seems to move at all! So we each took a potion, and started killing everything in sight. We even went so far as to pick up any and all “daily” quests (which we usually studiously ignore!) anything that would bring in experience! And we did it! We made level 60, and still had about 45 minutes of our two-hour potions left over, which I can assure you, we didn’t waste! 😉 We even got ourselves to The Plane of Water (not my favourite place to be, I’m afraid!) Remember how I once said that I had difficulties with three dimensions? Well, when swimming around in “virtual” water, I can’t tell how far away I am from things – I can’t adjust my height in the water, or work out the right direction to head off into. I even have trouble following Julian – if I take my eyes off him for even one second, and he gets out of my immediate line of vision, I can’t find him – even if he’s right next to me – if he’s a little higher, or a little  lower than me. I mean, I can see the little blue dot on my mini-map that indicates where he is, but as I said – if he’s above me, or below me, he might as well be on Mars! I think I’m what’s technically called “spatially challenged” I have the same trouble with the wheelchair, too – I don’t know where the wheels are, so I usually crash into doorways and furniture, which is not a good look, especially when you’re trying to maneuver your way around a shop full of delicate ornaments! It’s funny though, I never had that sort of problem when I was driving the car (except when I was reversing. I really had no idea which way the car was going to go when I was reversing, so I tried not to do it too often…) but I was everyone’s “taxi” for more years than I care to remember! I drove Bulletin Board members home after “Gatherings”, I drove the kids to school, ballet classes, and horse riding lessons. I drove everywhere, all the time, and in all those years, the only two accidents I was ever involved in was when I was run into by someone speeding in the wet, and almost obliterated by a drunk going through a red light. Of course, I’m not going to tell you that I did my fair share of speeding, and driving when I might have had a glass of wine or three – you’ll just have to wonder whether I did or not 😉 but those were the only two accidents I ever had, and I was never the cause of an accident, either. Anyway, the point of all of that was that I can’t tell where I am, either in the virtual waters of Rift, or in my wheelchair – anything else, like a car, and I’m fine…. maybe I just have a “thing” about being underwater, or subconsciously frustrated because I have to use a wheelchair, and it’s psychological? I dunno…

So, where was I? Oh yes, finishing off a cup of coffee before rushing off for my evening Stair Walk and dinner… Back later! 😉

+————————–+ * Dinner & Television Break * +————————–+

 Right! 🙂 Back again… Well, we made level 60, and we didn’t die! We’re now floundering around in The Plane of Water, and I’ve finally (after a lot of mucking around after our experience booster potions ran out) managed to get my Foraging skills up to par, so all’s well that ends well. Tomorrow Julian has an appointment with the Podiatrist, so see about some sort of orthotic that will help heal the tendon in his ankle, and I plan on working on either Incantessa or Addain – I’ve been neglecting them quite shamelessly lately. I also have to get my nose stuck into Domain again to look for more houses. So far we’ve been concentrating on the Doncaster/Templestowe area and the surrounding suburbs – but there’s nothing to stop us looking further afield towards either Mount Waverley or Glen Waverley, Wheeler’s Hill, Balwyn, Kew…. or even around the Ivanhoe areas. We had a brief look at Camberwell, Malvern, Armadale and Glen Iris, but the places we found in Camberwell were ridiculously expensive, considering that most of them were pretty old weatherboards, no matter how beautifully they’d been re-decorated inside, and Malvern and Glen Iris weren’t much better! There’s one thing I do know though 🙂 The houses won’t come looking for us – we’re going to have to go looking for them, if Julian wants us to be in our new house before Christmas! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. It seems that steep driveways are the way to go, after all! I went down maybe a bit too much though, especially considering that I’ll be starting on those horrid fluid retaining pills again tomorrow… I weighed in at 89.1kg this morning – four points down – hopefully I won’t bounce straight back up again – but I probably will…

So it’s back to work again tomorrow morning – juggling house hunting and Rift, mostly, and we also have a bit of financial shuffling, though that’s mainly himself’s domain. At the moment we have the blinds in the Den here at “half mast”, so that we can look out at the terribly weather – I’m glad we’re not out in it, and I hope that all of you out there are driving very carefully! That’s one thing that Julian is going to have to learn to live with again when we move into a house – taking the rubbish bins out on cold wet nights! 🙂 He’s been a bit spoilt since we moved in here – all he has to do is mooch along to the Rubbish Room and shove the bags down the rubbish chute! When we were in our old Burwood place, Julian had to take the rubbish bins out on a night very similar to tonight. He took a picture of himself out there, with the hood of his parka pulled up and tied tightly under his chin. His face is wet, there’s a drop of water hanging from his nose, and he looks thoroughly miserable! 🙂 I’m sure he’s looking forward to next winter, in a house… 😉 (was that mean of me, dear, to remind you of that, or was that mean of me? 😉 ) As far as I know, my favourite eldest daughter will be over on Tuesday, but I gather that she’s now lost over twelve kilos, which is really, really wonderful! 🙂 However, drop in again tomorrow night for all the news you don’t want to miss out on, like whether my weight shot back up, or stayed down… and whether I found anything in the way of prospective homes or not, and also what the Podiatrist had to say about himself’s ankle, so until then, bee good, drive carefully and keep warm tonight, but above all…. please stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂