Phew! I’m quite exhausted after a busy day in The Plane of Water! We both died once – I can’t even remember who it was we were fighting, now – but I know I’d had to quaff down a Healing Potion, but Julian had been killed first, and was still on his way back (from being dead) so I ended up dying too! Why on earth didn’t I just Feign Death? I could have… I should have… but I just didn’t think of it – until now, long after the fact! We actually got a late start with our Rifting today – my favourite youngest daughter rang me to let me know that her mother-in-law was in hospital, and not doing well at all. She’s always been a fairly heavy smoker, and has been in and out of hospitals for the past few years with emphysema problems. Now, one of her lungs has collapsed, and she’s back in hospital again. She’s been intubated (basically, a tube is inserted into the bronchial passages to remove blockages and to allow air into the lungs) but unfortunately it wasn’t successful, and the hospital doesn’t want to repeat the process in case it causes further damage. Her oxygen level is only 50% (it should be close to 100% – and even when I had the multiple clots in both lungs my oxygen levels never fell below 75% (I think it’s now around 98%)) So not only is the prognosis extremely poor, but the oxygen starvation has been causing her to hallucinate.  Not good all round… On the other hand, Julian’s mother seemed a little better this afternoon, so… swings and roundabouts, I guess… Getting back to Rift, as I said, we had a bit of a late start, so neither of us went up a level – Julian is about two bubbles away, and I’m slightly less than one bubble from leveling (for those unfamiliar with gaming terms, nearly all experience bars are divided into small sections, commonly called a “bubble”. They’re used to describe how far away one is from “dinging”, or going up to the next experience level) At one point Julian asked me if I thought we should take an experience enhancing potion, in order to level up more quickly, to which I replied “to what end?” He had to concede my point – yes, we could level up more quickly, but why? So that we can get to level 65 faster, and roll new characters, so that we could start playing all over again from scratch? Much better to take the slow route and enjoy what we’re doing, rather than rushing off to do all the boring little “baby” quests, all over again! 😉 We finished off around five o’clock, and I started writing this almost before I’d logged out – I still have to do my evening Stair Walk, too, so I’m not expecting to get this finished before dinner time – sorry! 🙂

Although we forgot to go to Office Works yesterday, I decided to do a bit of “de-cluttering”, in my bathroom anyway (I use the en-suite, Julian uses the main bathroom, that way neither of us is dodging the other person’s bathroom accoutrements) I didn’t have a box to put anything in, so I basically tidied everything off the vanity unit into the cupboard underneath, apart from the Dyson heating/cooling fan, the squirty soaps and hand lotion, my jewellery box, perfume, and tissue box. Tomorrow I believe we’ll be leaving early(ish) for Office Works, to get some boxes (probably those sturdy Document boxes, plus some longer, more rectangular boxes, if such animals exist!) …and a pencil sharpener! It might be worth our while to call in at Howard’s Storage World for boxes and/or packing containers – they’ll be more expensive that Office Works, but they might have a larger, and perhaps sturdier, range. It cain’t hoit to look, anyway! And besides! Howard’s Storage World is right next door to the nice furniture store where we got our coffee table and entertainment unit from – and as we’ll also be furniture hunting, we can kill two birds with the one brick, so to speak! 😉 I think we should begin our furniture hunt tomorrow anyway, because we’ll be meeting up with Carmen early on Tuesday morning to discuss sales plans and Open For Inspection dates; my favourite eldest daughter will be over on Wednesday – I think, and I have a hairdressing appointment on Thursday afternoon – so that doesn’t leave much of the week for furniture hunting! I know that settlement date isn’t until August 20th, but I think we’re going to find the time flying past at a great rate of knots, and it’s not just the furniture hunting we’re facing, it’s also deciding on what we’re taking and what we’re selling, de-cluttering everywhere, and devising the means for quickly and efficiently boxing up stuff that we need on a daily basis, but need to store “off site” during Open For Inspection hours. I also want to go through stuff that I don’t want the Removalists to be boxing up for us – if we’re not keeping something, it ain’t comin’ with us! ….Walkies time…. Back later….

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

Here I am, back again – walked, fed, televisioned, and ready to go 🙂 Where was I? Oh yes, not wanting to take stuff with us that we’re not going to keep. Last time we moved, back in 2007, when we moved in here, we had the Removalists pack everything for us, and unpack everything for us at this end. Well, what with one thing and another, the move started late, and the unpacking wasn’t finished at the end of the day. We told them to forget it and go home – it was late; we could take it from there… Well, we found quite a lot of broken things, quite a lot of unimportant and what’s more, unbreakable things, well and truly over-wrapped, and a lot of highly breakable and fragile things with scarcely a scrap of paper around them – but the most amazing thing of all was that they’d very carefully and tenderly wrapped up and packed a smelly and overflowing ashtray! I no longer smoked, but friends of ours did, and that one full ashtray had been overlooked in all the chaos of moving. Instead of emptying it first, or better still, asking us if we really wanted all those smelly old butts and ashes, the Removalists had simply … wrapped it up, ashes and all, and very carefully packed it for us. That will not be happening again! Actually, there were a lot of lessons to be learned from that move – probably one of the most important being that if you’re going to be having other people packing and unpacking for you, do your research first! Decide, and know, where you want everything to go! If it’s ornaments in a glass case, take photos first of how you want them put back! Decide beforehand which kitchen drawer you want the tea towels put in – silly, simple little things like that.Too many times the Removalists would say to us “Where do you want us to put this?” Well, we didn’t know – we hadn’t given it a second thought! So we’d end up saying something along the lines of “Oh! Umm! Put it over there!” and then days later we’d have to move everything all over again because we hadn’t thought to look around the new place beforehand, to decide where we wanted things… Come settlement day, I don’t know about Julian, but I’m going to be breaking my neck to move in – but you know what? We won’t be moving in on settlement day, on settlement day we’ll go over with an electric jug, a jar of Nescafe, some skinny milk, and a couple of cups, and we’ll toast our new house, and walk around it, and start deciding where we want the Removalists to put things! We’ll even take a roll of labels, and label places and things! This time we’ll take our time, and do it properly, even if it means that we don’t move in for… a couple of minutes? 😉 I’d like to believe all of that last part, but the phrase “Famous last words!” springs to mind…. 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Tomorrow, definitely tomorrow, the Big Bounce Back is coming! I went down another three points this morning, from 84.6kg to 84.3kg. On Wednesday I go back on the fluid retaining pills. I’d like to go down another couple of points before then, but…. The Big Bounce Back will strike – probably tomorrow!

And that just about brings me to the end of tonight’s blog… I’ve already filled you in on the weekly plans – subject to change without notice, as usual! As I often used to say to people, “I’m one of the most organised and thorough people you’re ever likely to find… but then the cat will throw up on the kid’s homework, or the car will get a flat tyre on the only day of the year that I’m not running early, and all my careful planning and organisation go flying out the window! It’s not my fault!” So, there it is. We’ll either go looking for furniture tomorrow, or not… as the Gremlins see fit! Drop by again tomorrow night though, and see what did transpire… did my weight bounce back up, as I predicted it might? Did we remember to go to Office Works? (and did I get my pencil sharpener?!) And did we indeed go looking at furniture, and see anything that we deemed worthy of our new home? 🙂 Find out tomorrow night! Until then, though, please continue to bee good, remember to enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and discover they were the big things, don’t forget to drive carefully, take care of yourselves, and to keep warm, but most importantly… don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂