*The house photos and floor plan are now online on the “As Seen On…” page! Enjoy! 🙂

Ladies and gentlemen…. we have a Lemon Tree!

That’s “lemon tree“, as in the plant that grows in one’s back yard, not “lemon” as in something that’s not quite right! And seeing as we now have a back yard, it’s only fitting that it should have a lemon tree in it, with lots of big lemons on it 🙂 That’s right, we bought the Vermont South property this afternoon – settlement in sixty days 🙂

For some unknown reason, we’d both thought that the Auction was to have been at 11.30 this morning, but to be on the safe side last night, Julian not only looked it up on the ‘net, but he SMS’d the Agent as well. No, the Auction was at 2.30 this afternoon – open for viewing at two, Auction at two thirty. We arrived around ten to two and sat in the car and read until the house was opened up, when we dutifully trooped in, and I said a mournful “goodbye” to the place. I was so positive that we wouldn’t stand a chance of getting it – so many people had turned up – and one didn’t know who was a sticky-beak, and who was a potential bidder! I really didn’t know who to look daggers at! 😉 Anyway, the Agent came and spoke to us, and then this other guy came up and started chatting to us – he turned out to be the Auctioneer, possibly sent over to sound us out by the Agent (whose name was also Julian!) Two thirty arrived, and everyone traipsed out to stand around in the freezing cold while the Auctioneer went through his “audience warm up” and spiel – I leant against the letter box and tucked my hands under my armpits in a vain effort to keep my fingers from dropping off the ends of my hands like icicles. There were an awful lot of people there for the Auction – Julian reckons about 80, but it might have been more – on the nature strips, the road, in other people’s gardens… everywhere! Once the Auction itself got underway, no one was willing to make the first bid – in the end, the Auctioneer had to start off the bidding with a “Vendor bid”! Still no-one said anything! All those people, and no bidders? I couldn’t believe it! Finally Julian put in a bid, and again… not a single counter bid! There were a couple of people across the road being “jollied along” by the Agents, and they finally put in a teeny increase on our bid. More haranguing from the Auctioneer: what a wonderful property it was, this, that, and the other… you don’t want to miss out… etc., etc., and Julian put in another bid, putting the ball back in our court. The people across the road were pretty much badgered into making another, very feeble bid, which the Auctioneer didn’t accept – instead he put in his second “Vendor bid” (from memory, he was allowed two) Again! No response from the crowd! Our bid still stood. The Auctioneer and his henchpeople went inside to talk to the Vendors. I was incredulous! That wonderful property! All those people standing around in the freezing cold, and no-one seriously bidding except us? Unbelievable! The Auctioneer came back, kept the Auction going for a few more minutes for a completely unresponsive crowd, and because it had failed to reach its Reserve price, finally passed the property in. As the last bidders, we were entitled to go in and “negotiate” with the Vendors, so in we went again – I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t think of anything to say! We were settled in one of the lounge rooms (there are two “lounge rooms”, plus a family room) while the vendors conferred with the Agents in the kitchen. The Agent came back with a price. We “negotiated”. The Agent went back to the Vendors, and came back with another price. Julian was sitting there like a stone statue with a bad smell under its nose. The Agent started appealing to me! I said “Don’t ask me! He’s the one negotiating this!” (my) Julian said “Yes, but she’s the boss!”, to which I said something along the lines of “I. Am. The. Boss. Of. You!” [which is a direct quote from one of the many “Zork” games! – “Zork Grand Inquisitor”, actually] and making a “handing over” gesture, indicated that it was “back to you, darling (*big winning smile*)” After quite a longish pause, Julian the Agent, like Oliver Twist, started pleading for “just a little more”, until (my) Julian snarled (he really should be on the stage you know!) “alright…$XXX… and don’t ask for any more!” Julian the Agent went bustling off to the Vendors again… and came back with a great big smile, saying “Congratulations! You have the house!” (or words to that effect – I really can’t remember, I was so stunned!) And then we sat there and signed heaps of papers for a while – Mr. Vendor then came in with an enormous grin on his face and shook our hands, and that was it! We’d bought ourselves a lemon tree… in a back yard… with a house attached to it! 🙂

Back in the car, (my) Julian could drop the stern, tough negotiator image and become himself again (thank heavens!) We got the house for a good price – had the Auction gone differently, we would have gone a little higher, but things turning out as they did, we’ve largely negated the Stamp Duty that we’d budgeted for. Settlement date is August 20th, so now I suppose we start slowly packing things up, and shopping for furniture – the new house has a lot more rooms than this place, so we’ll need furniture for all the extra rooms – plus a nice sturdy outdoor setting and one of those gas patio warmer thingies. We’re going to need bookcases (we’ll probably wait until we move and then have them “made to measure” in the room(s) that I have earmarked for a “library” and an “office”) rugs, another lounge suite… beds… and a tumble dryer (we’ll leave this one here for whoever buys the apartment) So… lots of things to sort out, think of, and do! I’ll see if I can get Julian to grab the house photos off the ‘net before they’re pulled down, and scan the floor plan, so that I can give you a “preview” of our new home! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I guess it just goes to show what worry can do for weight loss – either that, or I have cancer – but I went down five points – half a kilo – overnight! From 86.3kg to 85.8kg. I know I’m going to bounce back from that massive drop – all I can do is hope and pray that I don’t bounce back too much!

So here I sit… hardly daring to believe that everything turned out as it did today! From the number of people who turned up for the Auction, to the almost total lack of bidders – it’s almost as though it had all been arranged before hand, and today was just a “staged event” to make it look like a “genuine” Auction! Everyone knows that I’m the original “Luck Child”, but this time I seem to have surpassed myself! I hope I don’t wake up in a few minutes to find myself sitting in the car outside the property, and that it’s all been a dream – that the Auction will be starting in half an hour, so we’d better get out of the car and take our places by the letterbox! That would just be too cruel!

And that’s about it from me for tonight – now we have to let all the other Agents we’ve been talking to know that we’ve bought a property and won’t be needing their services or suggestions any more – but that’s Monday’s job! Tomorrow, I think we’ll probably be happily romping through the coral reefs and underwater world that is The Plane of Water, whilst wondering which room in the new house we’ll turn into “Flipper’s Fabulous Folly” 🙂 Drop by again tomorrow night for all the latest news on how much my weight bounced back up, how many times we died, or came close to dying, in? on? The Plane of Water, and about our fabulous new purchase (I’m sure I’ve forgotten heaps of things I meant to tell you about it, but have forgotten in all the excitement!) – as I said, I’ll try to get the floor plans on-line, and some interior photos. But until then, I shall simply remind you all to bee good, remember that the average person thinks s/he isn’t (better look in the mirror when you remember that! 😉 ) and don’t forget to keep warm, drive carefully, and take care of yourselves… but above all… remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

 

Here I go again – another blog entry, another blog header! What do you all think of this one? I feel that perhaps the two “boxes” (for want of a better word!) on each side need to be further apart – that is, I feel that there should be more space between the top and bottom “boxes” – what do all of you think? Opinions, please! (as long as they’re polite! 😉 ) Here’s a bit of doggerel I made up on the spur of the moment, so if it doesn’t rhyme properly, it’s because it was a rush job! 😉

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“The Fateful Eve” (by Winter, with apologies to Clement C. Moore)

T’was the night before Auction, and all through the house, Winter was pacing, as quiet as a mouse. Julian sat – at his computer he stared – by this time tomorrow he’d know if he’ dared, to bid lots of money to buy a fine house, and if all the finances would still balance out. The house, it was big and had lots of rooms, they’d need lots of chattels to furnish it out! The fridge, would it fit? And the rug for the floor? If they had to buy too much they’d end up quite poor! But the house was so nice, with much storage space, and a tiny small garden, with enough room to grace the vegetable garden he’d promised to make. And so as they ponder, on this Fateful Eve, we’ll leave you to wonder just what they’d achieve! 😉

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This time tomorrow night we’ll know if we were successful in our endeavours to buy Vermont South. I am so nervous about it, I feel like pacing like a demented mongoose! However, I spent the day graphic-ing and Rifting, making notes for my other blog (which will not be in chronological order – memories, thoughts, feelings will all be put down as and when they occur to me) and discussing financial matters with Julian – that is, he expounded, and I listened – hopefully some of it will have stayed inside the nice, clean, fluffy, white cotton wool between my ears, where it can keep nice and warm. But mostly I’ve just been “marking time”, waiting for tomorrow. I did get that recalcitrant frame to work in the end – my cheat “short cut” was to copy and paste one of the little “leg” bits that was correct on top of the one I couldn’t get right and “graft it on” (by merging the two layers) and from there it was easy to pick up the right order to get all the lines the right colour. Unfortunately it’s not suitable for use on this blog template – this one insists on magnifying everything  to more than double its size, while still keeping everything in the same position (work that one out, if you dare!) so I have to make everything twice as small in order for it to look right – but if I made the frame small enough to look right on the screen, I wouldn’t have had any room left to put in the text! But I’ll keep the frame handy for the next time I decide to change the template 🙂 (which could be next week, next month, or as soon as this evening! You all know me – never satisfied with the status quo! 😉 )

When we paid our visit to Carmen yesterday, what she was really doing was fishing for us to confirm that she’d get the sale of this place, now that she knows that we intend to bid on the Vermont South place. At this point in time. she (probably) will get the sale of this place, but we’re not going to confirm or deny anything at this point – we especially won’t put anything in writing yet! She’s already told us that she wants to get her “stylist” (read: “interior decorator”) in to set the place up to get the best possible price (and I have to admit – she does do a fantastic job! The houses we’ve seen that she set up look like something from a “Home Beautiful” magazine) But we’ll have to clear out the “clutter” (read: “just about everything!”) and she wants to rent some suitable furniture, rugs, and what-nots, though she wants us to leave lots of books in the bookcases. I told her that if we’re successful tomorrow (but I’ll bet we’re not!) that we’d probably start slowly packing anyway – implying, but not going so far as to actually say it – that she’d be able to start re-decorating our home soon-ish, rather than later-ish. Of course, first we have to buy the house! We’ll need to buy a lot of extra furniture, too – Vermont South has a lot more rooms that we do here… so I’m thinking of pinching “borrowing” Carmen’s “stylist” for a week or two and picking her brains as to what we ought to put where… IF we get the place… and if we don’t, “The ‘C’ House” is up for Auction next Saturday (tomorrow week)

Weigh-in this morning. I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this! I went down another three points this morning – that’s down six points in two days! It’s too much! I’ll re-bound for sure! I don’t want to do that! I’ve gone from 86.9kg on Wednesday 17th, to 86.3kg today – Friday 19th! I wish I was losing the weight a bit slower, even though I am in a real hurry to get down as far as possible before July 21st, which is when I see Dr. Y. again. Watch me tomorrow morning! A big, important day, and I’ll probably bounce back up a whole kilo, break out in spots, and get hives! *scowl*

Does anyone know what food, or vitamins, or whatever, is good for fingernails? And cuticles? My nails are terribly soft, but they’re still brittle enough to flake or peel off – I lost half a little fingernail this morning for apparently no reason – I was getting dressed and all of a sudden my nail caught in my jumper, and I looked down and it had half torn off! I use a nail conditioning cream every night, and I use one of those special nail oil thingies, but frankly, I think they’re what’s making my cuticles hard and tough (why do I think this? Because I’m topsy-turvy! You give me something to make me sleep, it wakes me up and makes me jumpy! Lipstick – the more “moisturising” it’s supposed to be, the more it dries my lips out to the point that by the end of the day my lips are actually peeling! That’s why!) So if anyone knows of something that might help, I’d be ever so grateful! 🙂

So, what’s happening tomorrow, apart from us going to bid on the Vermont South property? I’m not quite sure! Probably not much – I expect that until the Auction is over we’ll be wandering around in a nervous daze (well, I probably will – Julian, however, has to keep his wits about him so I hope he doesn’t!) and afterwards we’ll either be celebrating, or having long, deep and meaningful discussions as to how and why we failed to get it. Please, everyone cross your fingers for us tomorrow morning, and wish us luck! Hopefully I’ll have good news tomorrow night – and even if I don’t, it’s not all bad (says she, trying very hard to be positive, but not really succeeding all that well!)  there’s still “The ‘C’ House” the following week… So call in again tomorrow night – find out if my weight did rebound or not, and if I broke out in spots, or got hives! And more importantly, find out if we have a new home! However, until tomorrow night, please try to bee good, remember that every choice we make has the potential to change our lives forever, so choose carefully! Don’t forget to drive carefully, look after yourselves, and to keep warm… but most importantly… don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Oh dear! I’m starting a lot later than usual, but that’s because we’ve just come back from having yet another look at Vermont South, which was Open For Inspection between 5.00 and 5.30pm. Of course, as soon as we got back, I shed my shoes and fled to the Fire Escape for my evening Stair Walk – and because I’ve only just sat down and started to write, I don’t expect to finish this before… er… very late tonight. 🙂

As you know, we had an appointment with the delightful Carmen at 10.00am this morning, and as I predicted, it was largely a waste of time – more to her benefit than ours. Never mind, at least she managed to confirm our Auction strategies, in a somewhat convoluted and round-about manner. We seemed to be there for hours, but in reality it was only about 40 minutes – I think it’s just the way she keeps talking all the time. Anyway, when we left her office, we went on to have a look at another place in Doncaster East, in Applegum Grove (isn’t that a lovely name for a street? 🙂 ) It was a very nice little house – 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, etc… Charmingly furnished, it had a lovely “feel” to it, you know what I mean? Some houses can feel distant and cold to you, and some, like this one, make you feel warm and welcomed. I felt that the rooms were a little on the small side, though that could have been due to the fact that there was quite a lot of furniture everywhere, and that the bedrooms all had big, bulky, high-standing beds in them. There were what looked like “reasonable” stairs going down to the garage/storage area, which Julian said was quite big. There was also a third toilet and a small kitchenette down there, which Julian wondered about, but I pointed out to him that there was a swimming pool right outside, so it was probably sensible to have a toilet close by, as well as somewhere to make snacks and a cup of coffee (or tea) I should, perhaps, have tried the stairs, but I couldn’t be bothered this time – they looked easy enough to negotiate, with only a small “turn” in them, right at the top, so I left it at that. There was a beautiful veranda-deck around three sides of the house – lovely and wide, with lots of shade for the summer months. The bathrooms left a lot to be desired though, and the showers were teeny-weeny and coffin-y, with little or no room to enlarge them without knocking down walls, which was a shame. However, it was nice enough for us to put it on our current “short list” of three – with Vermont South being at the top of the list, followed by “The ‘C’ House”, and then this one, Applegum, third. While we were there the Valuer we’d sent out to Vermont South rang us with his report, which pleased Julian because it was pretty much spot on with what he’d thought that the house was worth. Then we came home, had some lunch, and Julian went off to pick up his orthotics, which he now has to wear in his shoes for ever and ever, if he doesn’t want to injure his ankle again.

I frittered the afternoon away fiddling with a graphics “problem” frame – it’s a nice enough frame, but not all that great – actually it started out as a “corner” dingbat/decoration, but I wanted to make it into a three sided frame, which meant that I had to devise a means of chopping out a section of the top “bar” and making it repeat seamlessly. That was the easy bit! *sigh* It has sort-of gaps between parts of it, and the lines weren’t straight, so I set out to straighten them out… but I must have been tired, or something, because I kept getting “lost” in the detail – it’s quite a big frame, and has different shades of the same colour along all the lines, and when you’re zoomed in as far as you can, well, as I said, I kept getting “lost”. I’ll try again tomorrow..

Now, however, it’s that time of the evening again… 😉 Back soon…

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

Right, back again! 🙂 We did end up going to see Vermont South again this evening. It was freezing cold – the poor little Agent standing guard outside was almost frozen stiff, and for a while there I thought that we were going to be the only ones turning up! I wish! The place was open between 5.00 and 5.30pm – we turned up at around 2 minutes to 5, and we had the house to ourselves until about 5.20pm or so when a couple with what seemed like about 50 million children turned up 😦 I hope they’re not too interested in the place…. Still, we had a look at things like bathroom taps (very important items, bathroom taps!) and whether we’d make the little front room Julian’s office, and which room we’d make the computer room/Den… *sigh* Julian is very optimistic about our chances on Saturday – I’ve very pessimistic. I don’t really think we stand much of a chance – but still, there’s always “The ‘C’ House”, if we do miss out (which I think we will) I hate waiting… 😦

Weigh-in this morning. “Too much! too much!”, she cried! I went down 3 points, from 86.9kg to 86.6kg. Three points… I’ll probably re-bound tomorrow morning… You know, I should have clambered down those ruddy stairs at Applegum this morning… I wish I had, now!

I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow – I know Julian will be very busy number crunching and constructing money flow-charts and things – I suppose that I’ll be busy trying to sort out that frame – which to tell you the honest truth, isn’t really worth all the work I’m putting into it – as I said earlier, it’s nice enough, but it’s not that nice! I know I can make better… but that’s me. I start on a project and I’ll stick with it and get it done, if it kills me – whether it’s worth it or not. Speaking of sticking with things whether they’re worth it or not, I must get back to my writing blog thingy wot I started a few days ago. I knew that if I left it too long, I’d get cold feet and not want to continue with it, but this time I’m determined. The story of my life will be told – one way or another – it’s far too strange and incredible not to! 😉 We’ll see what happens tomorrow… I may spend some time with the frame and some writing, or Rifting. I did try a pattern on the header here today – just experimentally – no text on it, just to see how it would turn out “magnified”. I was quite pleasantly surprised! I made the squiggly-swirls as small as I possibly could, then I sharpened it, and tried it out. Yes, the squiggly-swirls got quite a lot bigger, but I didn’t think they looked too big, and the colours miraculously didn’t get muddied! Next time I’ll try a pattern without so much contrast in the two colours I use – I think that might turn out even betterer! (I’ve just had a “Eureka!” moment – I’ve suddenly thought of a way I can “cheat” with the frame I’m in the middle of modifying and make it work! 🙂 ) (well, it’s not really a “cheat”, it’s a “short-cut“! 😛 ) Looks like I’ll be trying both of those ideas out tomorrow! 🙂 Anything to stop me fretting about Saturday morning…

Anyway, that’s about it from me for tonight – wish me luck with my two graphical adventures – who knows? You might be looking at both of them tomorrow night! 🙂 And I will try to get a bit of writing done, too – I promise! Hopefully all the numbers will crunch in the right direction – we were talking about how much this move is going to cost us after dinner, and there’s an amazing amount of financial things to take into consideration, from Sales Tax to Capital Appreciation, domestic utilities and internet re-connections, removals, Agent fees (when we sell this place) – the list seems endless! But we’ll be our own bosses, our own king and queen in our own castle, no more Body Corporate to kowtow to! And also no more just walking over the road to drop off the Dry Cleaning, or picking up a litre of milk that didn’t get added to the shopping list.. swings and roundabouts, advantages and disadvantages… So… drop by again tomorrow night and find out all the latest – will my weight swing back wildly after a massive drop of three whole points? Will Julian have crunched the numbers into tasty byte size pieces? And will I have tamed the recalcitrant frame and pattern, or been carted off with a nervous breakdown due to the impending Auction? The answers will all be here waiting for you tomorrow night 😉 But until then, I trust that you’ll all continue to bee good, remember that a happy loser is far better than an arrogant winner, and don’t forget to wear clean, dry socks, drive carefully, and to take good care of yourselves… but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Are these colours too bright? I can change it back again if it is… let me know! Well, once again I’m starting late again – Julian left to take my favourite eldest daughter home about ten minutes ago, so I walked them to the lift and then continued on for my evening Stair Walk. It’s been a good but fairly quiet day, and Lee’s told me to put the April Photos online ASAP, so (fanfare, please!)… here they are! 🙂 I’ll also post them on the “As Seen On…” page when I’ve finished here. As I said yesterday, Julian looks good in all of them, and for once in a photo-shoot, I even look vaguely human for a change! When I looked at the bottom left hand one, I thought “Good grief! I almost look like my mother!” – I think it’s more the facial expression though, rather than the actual physical features – or maybe more like a “nostalgic memory” of my mother… I dunno… but out of my photos, that’s my favourite – I feel I’m showing too many teeth in the others…

Anyway, I sorted out my Minions this morning, then started experimenting with some Art Deco Fonts and Brushes wot I’d downloaded. What you see on the header are two of them – I let Lee chose which font to use, seeing as she’d suggested the theme in the first place (and she got her $20 for her pains! 🙂 ) I was still experimenting with things when she arrived this morning, so I let her choose the font, then I showed her what happens with the size of graphical elements on this template. Again, I had to pull down the size of the text a couple of notches so that it didn’t look like something that even Mr Magoo would have been able to see! I’m pondering how to get a pattern incorporated into the header without it looking stupidly out of proportion… I think the answer lies in making the pattern as small and as fiddly as possible – maybe by shrinking the image itself – that might work! I’ll try that later. I like to use patterns because they sort-of break up the colour a bit, and make it less intense (though I think that’s what Lee had in mind when she suggested an Art Deco theme – the colours they (mostly) used were very intense!) Once I had this online and looking reasonable, we retired to the lounge room, and I left Lee to read while I did my midday Stair Walk. When I got back we watched several episodes of “The 100” – now I think there’s only one more episode before the end of the season! “Bother!” said Pooh, when he saw Piglet watching the second last episode… We also watched an episode of “Orphan Black”, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen an episode of that particular show where so many people died gruesomely and violently, some shot, some with their throats cut, and one was tortured to death by being whipped with the plug end of an electrical power cord! “who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (with apologies to Lady Macbeth and Shakespeare*) All in all, it was a “bloody” good afternoon, and I’m looking forward to more of the same next week – not that I’m a violent sort of person, mind you! 😉

Julian is back from dropping my favourite eldest daughter back home, and he’s heard back from the Valuer we sent out to Vermont South this morning – according to them, we should have our report in the morning (I’m getting sooo nervous!) We have our Auction Strategy Meeting with Carmen in the morning, then we have another house in Doncaster East to go and look at in the afternoon, and, if we do end up going, Vermont South in the evening. Then I only have to live through Friday… Ahhh… himself has just brought me an cup of coffee… I think I need it! Sometimes I find myself wishing that I still smoked… and then I think: “Nah! I’d lose my implants, if I did!”, and I think I’d rather have my implants, than be calm in the face of Auction fever! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Well, I don’t know if it was the extra “floor” of stairs that I climbed up and down so gingerly yesterday, or whether they were simply coincidental, but I went down another two points – from 87.1kg to 86.9kg (two points is OK! Three or more are not!) I have until July 21st to get down as far as I can. That’s (approximately) 30 days from next Saturday. I was losing about a kilo a week – that “week” has stretched a bit, so let’s say I can lose about a kilo every ten days. I should be able to shed another three kilos by July 21st, with should bring me down to about 84kg (but hopefully a bit less!) My end goal weight is 75kg, but I want to get down to 70, so that when I start my “maintenance” diet, I’ll have five kilos to “play with” while I adjust to the new regimen. So if I can get down to 84kg (or less) I’ll have less than 10 kilos to my goal weight. But if I can get down to, say, 80kg by August 18th, that will mean that I’ll have lost 54 kilos in 12 months! Oh, I nearly forgot! I got Julian to measure my height this morning – just for fun, I want to look up my supposed ideal weight according to my BMI. I used to be quite tall – 5’7″ in bare feet. I’m now…. not even five foot one! I’m just a titch over five feet now! My spine has mangled and compacted more than half a foot, with scoliosis and osteoarthritis! The moral of the story? Don’t get old and arthriticky! 😦

Anyway, t’is nearly time for dinner and the news again, so I’ll save this here and return to ramble on at you all a bit later on 🙂

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

Here I am, back again 🙂 I just did a quick BMI weight calculation thingy – according to that, even when I get down to 70kg, I’ll still be bordering on obese, let alone what I’d be at a whopping great 75kg! At 5’0″ (154cm) it tells me that I should weigh 45kg to be a normal, “healthy” weight. I dunno… somehow I don’t think I’d ever want to get down to 45kg, and if I did, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t be a so-called “healthy” weight! So much for the science of the “ideal”, eh?!

We’re going to have a pretty busy day tomorrow, so I don’t expect I’ll get much Rifting or graphic-ing in – but busy or not, it’ll be very interesting. I’m not really sure if our visit to see Carmen tomorrow isn’t going to be a big waste of time – it largely depends on whether we can get her to stick to the subject – she has a great fondness for the sound of her own voice, and does seem to get easily sidetracked listening to it 😉 We’ll see… and of course we’re both very curious as to what the Valuer’s report on Vermont South has to tell us, too! Hopefully it won’t say something like: “This is an amazing property, worth close to 2.5mil, so forget it, Freddie!” The house we’re going to look at seems quite nice – it has a nice floor plan, and of course, the photos of the rooms look great – but then Realty photographers have special lenses and know all the tricks in the book to make rooms look larger than they actually are. When we first looked at photos of the house we went to see yesterday, one of the first things we noticed was that there was a guitar on a stand in the lounge room, but we had to look twice before we realised that it was a guitar – I’d thought it was a weird modern sculpture of a guitar, it had been so distorted and elongated by the lens and angle of the photograph! Anyway, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow night 🙂

And that’s about all I have for you tonight – but rest assured there’ll be lots more to tell you all tomorrow night. Do drop in again to find out what Carmen had to say, what the house in Doncaster East was like, what the Valuer had to say for his twopence worth, and whether we ended up going to a twilight viewing of our Great White Hope in Vermont South or not. Then of course there’ll be all the incidental news, like what happened at my morning weigh-in, whether or not I got any Rifting in, as well as lots of other little bits of trivia. But for now I shall once more exhort you all to bee good, remember to act with a determination not to be turned aside by thoughts of the past and fears of the future, don’t forget to take care of yourselves, drive carefully, and keep warm, but most importantly… remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*Hands up any of you who knew that Macbeth and Duncan were indeed real, historical Kings of Scotland? Read about them here…

My favourite eldest daughter suggested an Art Deco type look, with appropriate colours, so I did 🙂 She’ll collect her $20 when she passes “Go” (as in “go see your mother!”) tomorrow 🙂 I’ve done a dark(ish) “Ox-blood” (no, don’t worry, it’s not bright) coloured background as well, but I thought we could start off with a more “basic neutral” colour first – just to see what it looks like. I quite like it, but creating the header was… weird! Usually, when you make a header when you don’t really trust the dimensions that Word Press gives you, you go for “bigger”, rather than “smaller” – because usually things look too small on the finished product. This was the opposite. Remember how I said that some of the blog templates seemed to magnify (and muddy!) the graphics? This is one of them. The header dimensions are quite large, but I wasn’t sure if the finished header stretched right across the page (it does), or only took up the area immediately above the blog text. So I chose a small font for the quote (Verdana size 14) which in normal text terms is pretty small, and an appropriately large font for the “My Word!” text. It positively loomed at you from the screen – more than double its size! So I took the text down two sizes, and it was only a little on the large side. I think I’ve got it about right, but if it’s still too big or too small, please let me know so that I can adjust it some more – because different browsers display things differently. When I used to make my web sets, I had all the major browsers loaded so that I could make sure that the graphics looked “right” on all of them – some people only made their graphics to display properly on IE – all other browsers were “rubbish”, you see, and IE was the only browser worth designing web sets for! How unprofessional – so having said that, I suppose I really should get all the major browsers loaded onto my machine again so that I can check the way my graphics display on all of them myself, rather than ask you to do it for me! But until I do, umm… would you mind terribly if I asked you to let me know? Thanks 🙂

Well, I’m late again this evening – but it’s not my fault! We had an appointment with the Real Estate Agent to have a look at Chippendale Court at 1.30pm this afternoon, so off we went at around one-ish. We were early, of course – it’s less than two kilometers from here! The Agent was already there, so we went in and had a look around. For some reason or other, I’ve been terribly tired, as in sleepy tired, all day, plus the fact that I’ve had a very runny nose and occasionally, stinging and watery eyes, I think it’s Hay Fever – but I also suspected sinusitis and partially blocked eustachian tubes, because I’ve been waking up slightly headachy, and today I was even more wobbly than I normally am when I’m wearing shoes. Anyway, as soon as we walked in, I noticed that the parquetry floor was pretty slippery – I think they’d waxed it, or polished it, so I was extra careful. It wasn’t a bad house at all – but far too much emphasis had been put on dark-painted “feature walls”. Dark chocolate brown and dark raspberry were the ones I noticed most – both colours that I like, but there was just a bit too much of it. House is split level, sort-of, with everything on the ground floor, but stairs leading down to a rumpus room, the laundry, and an enormous storage area. There are 16 steps down to the rumpus room et al (I counted them!), so going down and up was like doing one floor down and one floor up, here. But the stairs are narrow, steep, dark, and have a rather nasty and difficult to negotiate “bend” in the middle. Even without my shoes on (I can go up stairs with my shoes on, but coming down I have to be barefooted, or I’ll end up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs!) it was quite scary on those stairs! The bedrooms are all a decent size, and all have built-in wardrobes, the bathroom is “serviceable”, but would need re-tiling, as would the en-suite and the kitchen. Apparently at some stage the floor has moved, and nearly all the floor tiles are cracked. The garden is ginormous (something that neither of us needs or wants – we just want enough room for a small veggie garden!) and  boasts two olive trees and a grape vine. There’s also a beautifully made “cubby-house” with a sand-pit behind it, and an Olympic sized jacuzzi! The block is very steep, and is so crowded with trees, shrubs, and “jungle” that I doubt we’d ever need to have the grass mowed! Final verdict? A very nice place (if you don’t mind the parquetry) more storage than even the Vatican could use, and a lovely “English” type garden – but not, unfortunately, what we want for a home.

Weigh-in today. I went down two points, from 87.3kg to 87.1kg. Two points is good! One point is good, too. I can live with that! 🙂 Let’s see what happens tomorrow morning – after all, I did do an “extra floor’s worth” of stairs today! 😉

Oh, this afternoon we picked up our pictures/photos wot we had taken back in April! They’re very nice indeed, and I’ll put them all up for you to see just as soon as Julian shows me how to make an “album” available for public viewing on Flickr! I think they turned out brilliantly! Julian looks really good in all of them, but I was kind-a dreading seeing mine, because I always look terrible in photos – however, miracle of miracles, these ones actually make me look semi-human! 🙂 As well as the beautifully mounted photos, we also got their files on disc, which makes it a lot easier to put them online, rather than trying to scan them, and do it that way… anyway, ’tis almost news and dinner time, so….

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

So, here I am back again. I’ll endeavour to get those photos online for you tomorrow, if possible. My favourite eldest daughter will be over, and no doubt we’ll spend an entertaining afternoon watching “Orphan Black”, if we have any more episodes to watch, or “The 100” – but I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow night. I’m glad we went and saw that house today – after slipping through the gigantic gaps in our current attention span, it’s now one less “candidate” to have to worry about – so we probably won’t be seeing any more houses now until Saturday morning. Vermont South is Open For Inspection again on Thursday night at 5.30pm – Julian thinks there’s very little point in going to see it again before Saturday morning, but I think we should. It would (a) give us a chance to see what it’s like in artificial light (but is that really going to make a difference? Who knows? It might…) and (b) re-affirm our interest in it with the Agents. Personally, I vote we ask Carmen whether she thinks it would be advantageous for us to go, when we have our little pre-Auction War Council with her that morning. And that’s about it from me for tonight – last night’s blog was a real mammoth of a day’s re-cap, so I’m making tonight’s entry a little bit shorter, to make up for all the reading you had to do last night 🙂 Don’t forget to let me know if the new header is alright, or if it needs adjusting, and do drop by again tomorrow night to see what we’ve all been up to! I believe we have a Valuer going through Vermont South tomorrow morning – heaven forbid that we should pay more than the house is worth! 😉 The April photos should hopefully be online by then, and they are worth having a look at. I’ll be able to tell you whether walking nervously (no, walking is the wrong word! “inching” works much more betterer!) …I’ll be able to tell you whether nervously inching my way up and down the equivalent of an extra floor today at Chippendale has increased my weight loss, and also whether I’ve chewed enough of my nails off (waiting for Saturday!) to make me any lighter! So never fear, there’ll be lots to entertain you here tomorrow – but until then, do try to bee good, remember that in the presence of a positive attitude and enthusiasm, anything becomes possible, and don’t forget to drive carefully, keep warm, and take care of yourselves… but above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, here I am, starting at a somewhat more reasonable time, for once. What do you think of the new background and header? I’m sorry I can’t say that I like the colours – as I think I said once before, I don’t really “do” greens (or pinks either, for that matter, and definitely not pinks and greens together! I did try that once, and it was a miserable failure!) But I was getting sooo sick and tired of all the blues, mauves, purples, and greys that I always seem to use – aren’t you?! I wish they’d invent a new colour… I should have a competition – $20 to the person who suggests a new colour scheme for the blog that doesn’t involve soft blues, mauves, purples, or greys! No, really! I mean it! Leave me a comment with your colour choice, and you’ll not only get your colour, you’ll get your $20.00, too! How can you possibly lose? 😉 Ya gotta be init to winit!

The header you’re looking at today was freshly made this morning, out of a “panel” font (usually used for making buttons and decorative titles on some web sites, back in the days when “pretty pretty” was all the rage, especially on “navigating” buttons! It’s quite an old font…) I just duplicated it, turned one panel upside down, removed the two dividing lines, and stuck them together. More or less. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but I think the end result was worth the hard work. So far I’ve made nine frames (this one’s #9!) and I reckon, probably the best one. If one of you suggests a new colour for me, I might incorporate one of the other frames for the new header… Oh, and if any of you want any graphic-ing done – wallpapers, or whatever – let me know, and I’ll make you one – gratis! (and free, too!) No, I’m not being generous, I’m being bored silly. I can’t go on making frames for headers for the rest of my life, and I can’t sit and play Rift for the rest of my life, either – and no matter what character I play, or how many new characters I create, it’s getting to the stage where I know all the quests to level 50 so well that I could do them in my sleep, with both hands tied behind my back, both my eyes closed (because I’m asleep, remember? 😉 ) and pushing the mouse around the desk with my nose! I’d knit, or crochet, and make “granny squares” for a rug, but I can no longer hold knitting needles or a crochet hook for long enough to make anything useful (osteoarthritis – Warning! Don’t get old and arthriticky! I can absolutely guarantee that you won’t like it!) and I’m already Amazon‘s favourite customer, I buy so many books from them (Kindle e-books, which are usually pretty cheap, but even so, I’m still one of their favourite customers!) anyway, you’d be doing me a favour if you gave me something to create graphically.

I did go house hunting again this morning – I only managed to find nine places that were worth sending on to himself for his judgement – he hasn’t finished going through the list yet, but so far has only found two worth going to look at (there may be more when he finishes the list) These are all in the Doncaster/Templestowe area – I haven’t looked further afield yet… I will if I really have to, but… I really have a secret reason for not wanting to go too far from where we are… Hairdressers! I had a really, really good hairdresser – he used to own a salon over the road – “Urban Soul” (it’s changed hands and its name twice that I know of since he sold it!) – and he was really good. He sold that business (the rent was too high, and he didn’t like having to dance to Westfield’s tune!) and went to work in South Yarra! Our whole family followed him to South Yarra, even though it was a real pain to get to – we all went to him for years, and then… 😦 he packed up and went home to Hungary, to help his father who owns (owned?) several hairdressing salons in Budapest. We were all very upset to see him go… he was not only a good hairdresser, he was a nice bloke, too So I shopped around and eventually found another hair stylist, who was, if anything, even better than Andreas, but then, for reasons I still don’t know or understand, we weren’t able to have him anymore… Anyway, I’m now going to Oscar Oscar over the road, and we all seem to be getting on pretty well – they seem to be a nice bunch over there, and have done a reasonable job for us so far. And the long and short of it is – I’ll be [censored] damned, if I’m going to lose yet another good Hairdresser for any reason, let alone because we moved too far away! (*blows raspberry at screen*)

Weigh-in this morning. I’m trepidated! I stayed the same… 87.3kg again. Is this the beginning of a big bounce back? Is it because I went down 3 points instead of one or two, the day before yesterday? Who knows… but I’m almost too scared to get on the scales tomorrow… 😦

There was one place on the list of houses this morning that we want to see – it’s not the first time that I’ve included this particular house in our list of possibles – but we always seem to miss going to look at it. Julian’s trying to get the Agent to take us through some time tomorrow – it’s also up for Auction next Saturday, along with Vermont South (different Agents though!) which doesn’t leave us much time to see it and decide if we like it more than “The Water Feature House”. If you’re thinking that we’ve changed our minds about “The ‘C’ House”, we haven’t – that Auction isn’t until the following Saturday, so it’s still on the horizon if we miss out on Vermont South, or this other one whose street name I can’t remember. It’s really strange – it looks lovely from the outside, it’s a 5 bedroom, 2 bathroom house, lots of storage, a decent floor plan, and yet I can’t remember the name of the street it’s in (where I can remember most of the other ones!) and we’ve “forgotten” to go and have a look at it, three times! It’s almost as if the “powers that be” don’t want us to see it!

So tomorrow Julian has to play Taxi Driver for my favourite eldest daughter again, I have a Hairdressing appointment around 4-ish, and we might be able to go and have a look at Chippendale Court (I went and looked it up!) at some stage. Julian and I discussed Auctions and strategies this morning – we’re indeed very different people! I’d handle things a lot differently… He’s worried about getting the finances wrong, I’m worried that he might jeopardise our chances, if he gets the Agents and/or Auctioneer offside… All this waiting is nerve wracking! I just wish it was this time next week! 🙂 I was just thinking: back when I was a little girl, I used to say “I can’t wait for….” whatever – Christmas, Birthday, Easter – you name it, to the extent that my mother used to say to me, very impatiently, “Well, what are you going to do instead!” That usually shut me up for a while, while I pondered this imponderable… 🙂 My favourite eldest daughter will be over on Wednesday, Thursday morning we have a meeting with Carmen about Auctions, and Auction strategies, etc., and on Thursday evening, around 5 – 5.30pm, Vermont South is Open For Inspection for the last time before the Auction. I suspect we may be taking a tape measure along this time, and I’ll be bringing a notebook and a pen, to take notes! As far as I know, Friday is free for me to sit and chew my nails down to the quick! You know, in all my life, I’ve never bitten my nails – but this Friday I just might make an exception! And that’s really about it from me for tonight – don’t forget to let me know if you want any wallpapers made, or graphics created from your favourite poster/photo/picture, or what colour you think my next blog template should be! There’s $20.00 in it for you, if you do! 🙂 “Help me, Obi Wan Readers, you’re my only hope! (for using a colour other than soft blue, mauve, purple or grey for the blog graphics!)” Do call back again tomorrow night to find out if we did get to see the Chippendale Court place, or if we missed out yet again, and also to find out if my weight stayed the same for another day, or if it went up (as I suspect it will!) There’ll be lots of other bits and pieces to fill you all in on too, so don’t miss out! 🙂 But, until tomorrow night, do try to bee good, understand that achievers are not born talented, they just possess the ‘I can do it’ attitude, and remember to look after yourselves, keep warm, and to drive carefully – but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*There’s another update on the “As Seen On…” page that I put online this morning, as soon as I saw it. It’s well worth a look-in! 🙂

Sunday in? on? The Plane of Water – well, sometimes it was “in”, and sometimes it was “on”… so take your pick! 😉 Actually, it was mostly “on”, and it all went rather well – I only died once, and Julian didn’t die at all. It was a pretty nasty quest we were on – we had to kill “x” number of this’s, “x” number of that’s…. and two (only two!) of these round floating balls of sheer and utter evil malevolence, each one of which had a trio of fiery, two-headed hound-lizards (well, that’s what they looked like, anyway) to protect them – not that they needed protecting, they were doing a very good job of that all by themselves! Anyway, we’ve done this quest once before, however we failed to remember exactly how we handled it last time, and what strategies we used. It was a no-brainer, really, and we should have known this anyway – pick off the support mongrels and roaming patrols before going for the really nasty one – it’s basic, for goodness sake! So what did we do? We just waded right in with all guns – er, sorry, staves – blazing… and what happened to us? We both had to “Feign Death” several times, I eventually got killed, and I heard Julian’s “very close to death” heart-beat sound quite a few times! (that “very close to death” heart-beat sound means “Take a healing potion NOW, or die!“) However, although I died, I died a hero! er… heroine! I could have run away, and I could have “Feigned Death”, but running away out of their reach doesn’t solve anything – you still have to go back and kill them if you want to move on with the game. Best to “Feign Death”, try and sneak away to heal yourself, or if that’s not possible, resign yourself to dying – it doesn’t last long! 😉 Unfortunately, this re-sets the creature’s health bar, and you have to start killing it again from scratch! This was our second “Big Ball of Evil” that we were killing, and it was slivered! Almost dead! My pet was biting its ankles for all he was worth, and I was using a spell called “Soul Purge”, which drains the enemy’s health and vitality, and feeds it back into your pet, so that it can keep on biting their ankles. You can kill high level creatures with Soul Purge, but it takes quite a long time. You have to weigh up your choices – “do I sit here zapping him with Soul Purge while my pet finishes him off slowly, or do I let my pet take his chances, and hit the evil one with something more substantial?” – bearing in mind that all this time, Mr. Evil One is busily zapping me with every nasty spell and weapon in his arsenal! I chose to Soul Purge (Come on! he was slivered! He couldn’t last much longer, could he?) Unfortunately, he could, and he did! I was pretty slivered too, but I thought “if I can only hold on a bit longer…” Well, I killed him in the end, but I died from my wounds, too. Oh well, “Say la Vee”, as the French say – or perhaps that should be “Say la morte!”? 😉 So we ran around, completing and handing in quests, and Carnage quests, by the dozen… and our experience bar sort-of quivered a little bit, every now and then. Leveling up past level 60 is slower that an ancient and decrepit snail, limping into a head wind! I think I have two and 3/4 bubbles left to ding level 62, and Julian’s not even that far along (I spend more in the Rift Shop, which bumps my Loyalty level up and I get extra perks – like leveling up faster… and riding faster (which I wish I didn’t – I keep running into walls, and riding off cliffs!)) But a good day was had by all – we had a lot of fun, and we even managed to score some semi-decent gear in quest rewards! 🙂 Hmm… I was about to say “Roll on next Sunday!”, but then I thought… It’s Auction Day for the Vermont South place next Saturday – and on Sunday, we’ll either be too damn miserable to want to play Rift – all we’ll probably want to do is just sit around feeling miserable and sorry for ourselves…or we’ll be ecstatically happy, jumping around – too busy to play Rift, as we’ll be planning on what extra furniture we’re going to need (it’s a very big house! Lots of rooms, plus the entertainment deck!) what we’re going to pack, and when, and how soon we should put this place on the market! But I’m going to say it anyway – “Roll on next Sunday!” – as long as it’s going to be a happy one! 😉

I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow – I think we’ll be getting back to house hunting (just in case!) Julian has a small amount of work to do around the place – we have remote switches on some of our lighting – f’rinstance, my desk lighting is on a remote switch – click one button on the remote control, and all the lights go on, or turn off. But those switches are around ten years old now, and they’re starting to stick a little – we do have new ones, but Julian still has to crawl around on the floor, changing them over. He’s also going to have a look at another mailer for me – I don’t trust Thunderbird any more, and I really don’t like The Bat (it’s far too “utilitarian” for me, if you know what I mean 😉 ) so I’ve found another one that’s supposed to be very good – it’s called Mailbird (v2.0) but I want Julian to vet it for me first (so that he can’t blame me if it contains a virus or some sort of malware 😉 ) It comes with a thirty day “Free to Try” version, and if it’s suitable, and I like it, I don’t mind paying for it. I’m also quite busy at the moment with these new frames I’ve been creating, adjustable, so that unless it’s a very narrow header (height-wise!) I should be able to use them on any blog header. They’re quite fun to make, too – even if they are very fiddly!…. 🙂

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

Well, I didn’t really think that I’d get this finished before dinner 🙂 But that’s what happens when I start late…

Weigh-in this morning. A drop of three points took me from 87.6kg to 87.3kg – I hope I don’t pay the price tomorrow with a bounce back! I much preferred it when I was only dropping one point a day (why is the caps Lock key so ruddy close to the “A” key! Grrr! I keep hitting it by mistake!) Still, all I can do is…. weight and see what happens…

I just checked with himself before – yes, it is back to house hunting again tomorrow. What fun! I would like to get some Rifting in as well, though, and maybe make a few more frames, and work on some patterns… the trouble is, there just aren’t enough hours in the day! My favourite eldest daughter will be over on Wednesday this week, because I have a Hairdressing appointment on Tuesday afternoon. I have to admit though, I’m getting quite anxious about this coming weekend and the Auction on Saturday – it’s almost like “treading water”, waiting to see what’ll happen. It’s all very well to understand intellectually that whatever happens, happens, and it’s not really going to be such a very big deal if we don’t get the house – we’ll just keep on looking – it’s not the only nice house for sale – but it’s a bit like Christmas when you’re a child – you know that everything will be great! fantastic! You’ll get your presents from Father Christmas, and not a lump of reindeer poo if you’ve been naughty, as your parents keep threatening – but still there’s that anticipation, that feeling of “what if?” Believing that everything will be as you hope it will be, but not quite believing enough to not be anxious – you know what I mean? Yeah, I’m silly, I know… but… I do wish it was this time next week! And with that admission of childlike hope and belief versus anxiety, I’ll remind you all to call back again tomorrow night to catch up on all our antics and adventures 🙂 Who knows? I might find a much nicer house than Vermont South in my searchings tomorrow! (well, it’s possible!) I might miraculously drop right down to my goal weight of 70kg overnight! (boy! Don’t I wish!) We might win Tattslotto! (except that we don’t have a ticket) Who knows what’s just around the corner! 🙂 But unfortunately you’ll have to wait until this time tomorrow night to find out! 🙂 Until then, though, bee good, let your eyes be mirrors in which others see their most beautiful selves reflected, remember to always keep warm, drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*There’s another update on the “As Seen On…” page tonight – from Bored Panda…all I can say is…. “Oh dear! What were we thinking!”

What a very interesting day! We had to be off early this morning, to get to the Vermont South “Water Feature House” by 11.00am for the “Open For Inspection”. There weren’t as many people as one might have expected, this last Saturday before next week’s Auction – I’m not sure if this is a good, or a bad sign! Hopefully good… Anyway, we went around the house, as one does, and this time Julian didn’t scowl at me when I opened cupboard doors and turned on the kitchen tap to test the water pressure (which seemed fine – maybe a bit better than ours here (which wouldn’t be too hard, come to think of it!)) With a sly look, I turned to the fridge, and put out my hand as though to open the fridge door, raising one eyebrow at Julian, as though to say “shall I?? 😉 ” 🙂 He did scowl then – “don’t you dare!”, he growled – but he knew I was only teasing 🙂

As you walk through the front door, there’s a good sized room to the right, with wooden slatted shutter-type window coverings that was set up as a “home office”. To the left there are three reasonably sized bedrooms, a separate toilet, and a decent sized bathroom with a bath, a double vanity unit (two sinks) and a decent sized shower. Then you move out of the bedroom area, where you face a short corridor that leads into the double garage (it’s a big double garage, too – we’d have no trouble getting the Merc and the Lexus in there, plus there’d probably be room to park (and charge!) my wheelchair) However, turning left into the entry area from the bedrooms, you come to the master bedroom on the left, and a sitting room type room on the right. The master bedroom has a very big separate walk in wardrobe, which is next to the en-suite. There’s a big double door space into the en-suite – but… no door! The bed would sit facing the open door into the en-suite, which, though we’re no prudes by any stretch of the imagination, we found a little… uncomfortable. There are a few things that I do not want to see Julian doing, and a few things that he doesn’t want to see me doing, so I think we’ll install a sliding door there (if we manage to buy the place, that is!) Then there’s a very nice sized laundry, with plenty of cupboard space, and a lovely, clear beveled glass door leading outside to a nicely finished “pebble mix” path to the back yard. I know that pebble mix is largely passé these days, but all the paths are done out in this creamy-oatmeal coloured pebble mix, and it does seem to suit the place… Then the entry area opens out into the kitchen and “living” areas – the kitchen has an island bench with a double bowl sink in it, dividing it from the meals and family area. Along the outside wall there’s a Bosch gas “aga” type stove – well, that’s what Julian called it – I’d just call it “a big stove with the hot plates on top and the oven underneath” – but I suppose it’s easier to say (and write!) “aga”. There are plenty of very nicely finished cupboards, though I’m not sure if the fridge space would accommodate our rather large fridge without “some adjustments” – we should have taken a measuring tape – though I hardly think that the fridge not fitting in the space provided would be a deal breaker, if it came to that… Anyway, the place is Open For Inspection again on Thursday, if we do want to go trotting back with the tape measure.. In front of the sink/island bench is the meals area – a very generous sized meals area, and beyond that is the family lounge/sit and watch television on the biggest screen you can get/relaxing area. There’s yet another large room off to the right of the kitchen which would make an ideal “Den” or “computer room”, that overlooks the decked and roofed outdoor entertainment area, which is huge! This outdoor entertainment area also has clear, as well as opaque, pull down blinds around two sides, so that if you really have to be outside, you can shut out the weather! (it’s almost as though it was made for me!) In the back “yard” (for want to a better term!) and behind the large double garage is a medium-sized shed, painted nicely in blue and white, and with a very nicely constructed wall of bamboo (fake, I think!) facing the rest of the outside area. There’s a garden bed along the back and side fence – just enough for the extant lemon tree, a small veggie garden (he promised!), and maybe a small herb garden. There’s some grass in the middle – nicely manicured, though a little on the dry side of “well watered”, and everything is surrounded by these nice, creamy-oatmeal coloured pebble mix paths. The “Water Feature” outside the front door is a big – perhaps about 4 feet tall?… coloured concrete? stone? I dunno – “urn thingy”, standing in a small square pool of water (which actually has one small red and white fish lurking in its murky waters!) The pump was going both times we’ve been there – probably to impress the prospective buyers, and water bubbles out of the top of this “urn thingy”, runs down its sides, and back into the little pool, to be pumped back up to the top again.

And that’s what we’ll be bidding on next Saturday! Please, everyone, cross your fingers for us next Saturday! 🙂

Then we went on to watch a couple of Auctions in progress. Julian’s terribly nervous about this whole business – he’s so afraid he’ll muck something up! I know he won’t, but he won’t believe me 🙂 It is actually a little fraught – neither of us have ever been involved in an house Auction before, but this time the week after next will come, and we’ll either have the house, or we won’t 🙂 And we’ll either be penniless paupers, or we won’t – but we’ll survive! To the Auctions, Batman!…

The first one was a 3 bedroom unit in Mount Waverley – part of a small “retirement” enclave. I didn’t go in to look around, but Julian did. He said it was very nice – “impressive” was the way he put it – but we weren’t there to appraise the house, we were there to observe how Auctions work. The house was Open For Inspection for half an hour before the Auction started – the Auctioneer strode out of the house ringing a large hand bell, to announce the start of the sale. First of all he has to announce to everyone what’s happening, what the terms and conditions are, and how the Auction works – a sort of a “three strikes and it’s yours”, type of deal. Bidding was slow to start off with, and although a lot of people were interested – in fact very interested – no-one seemed too keen on paying what the Vendors wanted for it. It was eventually “passed in” at about 1.2 million, without even reaching its reserve price.The person who’d put in the last bid offered was invited inside to “negotiate” directly with the Vendors.

The second Auction that we watched was in the Glen Waverley/Wheelers Hill area – not too far from where we used to live. Once again, I didn’t go through the house, though Julian did. The Auction started off in much the same way – the Auctioneer comes out ringing a large hand bell, and explains all the ins and outs, and terms and conditions. Bidding was patchy – but the difference with this firm was that they had people working the crowds, talking and jollying along those who were bidding, and doing their best to pit one against the other (which is of course, part of their job – to get the best possible price for their client, the Vendor!) A very young Asian chap and his girlfriend arrived late, so he was escorted inside to pick up the necessary paperwork. In the end, there were just two bidders left – the young Asian chap, and another guy. Every time the second guy put in a bid, the young Asian chap would up him by one thousand. The second guy would then raise the bid by two or three thousand, probably thinking, as I know I was, that this young Asian “kid” was far too young to have that sort of money – but no, every single time the second guy put in a bid, this kid up’d him by one thousand. It was like watching a game of tennis! Second bloke was on my left – young Asian kid was standing in the middle of the road on my right (I was in the car!) Your head would swivel when one made a bid – the swivel back again as soon as they had, knowing that the other one would counter. In the end, the young Asian kid got the house for $878,000 (is that right? eight hundred and seventy eight thousand?) and I was pleased – I’d been barracking for him from the beginning, after he stuck his finger in the air and said, with a very small smile, “and one thousand!” 🙂

Then we came home, I ripped off my shoes and went for my Stair Walk, and had a most welcome cup of coffee when I got back. Now it’s almost time for me to go on my evening Stair Walk, and I’ve really been rattling on long enough – your brains are probably numb by now! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I went down another one point to 87.6kg. I tell you, I’d much rather go down in one point increments than slide a long way all at once and then have to bounce back!

Well, tomorrow is Sunday, and we’ll be splashing around Goboro Reef in the Plane of Water – I’ll fill you all in on that tomorrow night! Monday looks like being back to house hunting again – just in case we’re not successful next Saturday (and of course, there’s always “The ‘C’ House” which is being Auctioned the following Saturday!) I’ve been busy working on making adjustable frames for future headers, and I have been re-instated on the Facebook page I couldn’t get to for the last couple of days – thank you, my friend! 🙂 And now, before this blog qualifies as a stand-alone volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, I’ll remind you all to call back again tomorrow night to catch up on all our doin’s in the ruins of Goboro Reef, what my weight did next, and all sorts of interesting tidbits! Until then, however, bee good, remember to focus on what’s right in your world instead of what’s wrong, don’t forget to keep warm, drive carefully (especially when it’s foggy!), and look after yourselves… but above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*There’s an update on the “As Seen On…” page – copied from the little Cat Calendar on my desk – I thought it was sweet 🙂

Well, I’ve had to give in and make the font big enough to see to edit properly… I’ll switch it back just before I Publish it (actually, if anything, I’ve made it too big now! Arrggghhh! Why does writing a simple little blog have to be so fraught!) Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, changing the font sizes backwards and forwards! We had a relatively peaceful day today – Julian did some Body Corporate work this morning, and I Rifted. I created another character this morning – I wasn’t terribly happy with one of the two girls I’d rolled the other day on Laethys, and I knew that feeling as dis-satisfied with her as I did, she wasn’t going to last long in Telara… so I preemptively rolled a new one. This girl’s a Mathosian (i.e. a human) a Mage, and her name is Fyrecat. She’ll replace Darkruby, the High Elf Mage that I created about two days ago. Actually, I might even blow both of them away, and roll the two of them into one – so to speak. I like the name “Darkruby”, but I’m getting a little tired of High Elves… and I’m not really happy playing a Dwarf, so that leaves me with a choice of… well, only one choice, really – Mathosian! But I’ll call her “Darkruby” (unless I can come up with a name I like better in the meantime!) Of course, what usually happens is that I create a character, stuff around for half an hour or so trying to find her a decent name that isn’t already taken, finally settle on a name that I only sort-of like, but that I can live with, name her, and start playing with her. As sure as apples aren’t oranges, within two or three hours I’ll suddenly think of a fantastic name, take a risk that I’ll be able to use it, delete my almost “mint condition” Mage, and create a new one… only to find that the fantastic name I’d thought of is already in use, so I have to either think of a different way of spelling it, finding another new name, or going back to the one I’d used on the recently deleted character. So, playing Rift isn’t easy, you know! It’s not all fun and games and romping through Telara slaying monsters! It’s a lot of hard work – creating characters, finding novel and innovative names for them, kitting them up in their new clothes and getting them ready for their first day of picking up quests and completing them! 😉

Anyway, that’s what I did this morning. Well, for part of the morning. Our cleaning lady arrived and wanted to have a chat (at great length!) so I only got as far as half way through the starting area with Fyrecat before it was lunchtime. After lunch, and a cup of tea, I went off for my Stair Walk, and when I came back I switched into graphic mode. I started out trying to make a new and much brighter background tile – seeing that a certain person, who I thought was my friend, doesn’t seem to be reading the blog anymore (plus they seem to have banned me from their Facebook page – which was not only unkind, but terribly childish and petty. I hadn’t even corresponded with them for a couple of weeks!) (of course, they might even be dead, and some kind relative or other has closed down their Facebook site – how the [censored] hell would I know?) anyway, seeing as I don’t have to be careful about using bright colours that they’d said hurt their eyes, I thought I might switch back to the yellows and reds. However, while I was making a frame for a new header, I thought “If I’m going to stick with this template,” (but which I probably won’t – you know me! 😉 ) “I should probably make up a whole series of them – with adjustable frames, so that I can use them on other templates if I want to!” 🙂 Brilliant thinking, Winter! So that’s what I did this afternoon. It annoys me though, that there are people who make really nice brushes, and fonts, but do really sloppy work, so that lines not only aren’t straight, but seem to wander this way and that, with no rhyme nor reason… With a brush, you can generally “hide” mistakes like that by erasing bits of it here and there, but with a font, all I can so is zoom in, and straighten out the lines, pixel by pixel – second guessing what the creator of the font had in mind when they first made it. It took me all afternoon to create just one single frame successfully – I’d spent about an hour on another one that was just too badly mangled to straighten out, and I had to ditch it. It was a shame, too, as it was a very nice Art Nouveau type of frame. Ah well…

Julian has been swotting up on “The Language, Customs, and Etiquette of House Auctions”, ready for tomorrow morning 🙂 The Vermont South place (i.e. “The Water Feature House”) is Open For Inspection tomorrow morning at 11am, and after that, there are two Auctions in the area – one by the same people who are selling “The ‘C’ House” – that we’re going to watch (and presumably learn from!) though I might wait in the car during the second one… dunno, yet… I’m looking forward to seeing “The Water Feature House” again – and make an assessment of how much work (if any!) has to be done on it to make it habitable (for us!), compared to “The ‘C’ House”. All in all, it promises to be a very interesting day, and there’ll be heaps to tell you all tomorrow night! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Despite all the running around yesterday, I only dropped one point this morning 😦 A bit disappointing that it was only one point (two points would have been nice!) but it was certainly much more betterer than the massive four point drop of yesterday! We’ll see how I go tomorrow morning… I’m well and truly overdue for a bounce-back…

We got the results of my Warfarin test late last night – my INR level continues to sit stubbornly at 1.9 – it should be somewhere between 2.0 and 3.0 for me to avoid the risk of embolisms – so they’ve upped my dosage to 3mg of Warfarin per day, every day, and I’m to have another test in a fortnight. I shall cross my fingers…

Anyway, that’s about it from me for tonight, but do drop in again tomorrow night, as there’ll be lots of stuff to fill you all in on (let’s just hope we don’t make a mistake at the Auctions and end up buying a house by mistake! 😉 ) Yes, there’ll be “The Water Feature House” to tell you about, and the Auctions, and what we learnt (if anything) from them… whether my weight went up, or down… or stayed the same. Sunday, of course, will be our “Wading Through Coral Groves” day in The Plane of Water. It’s summer time “over there”, and so the Summer Festivities have started – lots of special quests to do, and lots of special goodies to win, but being the anti-social curmudgeons that we are, we tend to avoid all these Seasonal Celebrations. Of course, we don’t mind if we “accidentally” find ourselves involved in one of those festive quests and just happen to win something nice, nor do we throw out any seasonal tokens that our Minions find under bushes and other questionable places which they then decide to bring home to “Mummy” and “Daddy” – these tokens can be saved up from year to year, and used to purchase pretty new mounts, or pets, or clothing, so it seems a shame to waste them… *innocent, angelic smile* So that’s it, gentle readers, until tomorrow night. Do try to bee good, remember that the more you plan, the less time you have time to enjoy yourself, and don’t forget to keep warm, to drive carefully, and look after yourselves… but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Oh dear, I’ve done it again… picked a template whose editing font is too small – you just about need a microscope to see it The trouble is, I really like the template, and I spent quite a bit of time constructing the opals for the header! I’ll see how it goes – I might just have to bite the bullet and change the font size while I’m writing and editing, and then change it back just before I put the blog online *sigh* Why can’t everything be as perfect as I am?! 😉 *snort*

So… what happened today.. Lemee see… Not much this morning – we went up to have a chat with the Bank Manager, and to get all the necessary papers ready for whatever eventuates in this mad, mad, house hunt 🙂 then we came home, picked up the dry cleaning that we’d forgotten to take with us when we went out to see the Bank Manager, and had a cup of coffee. “The ‘C’ House” was Open For Inspection between 12.00 and 12.30pm – we actually checked three times this time around – we didn’t want to miss out again! 😉 We arrived pretty much on time, to find the place absolutely swarming with prospective buyers. With a grin, I muttered ‘sotto voce’, to the Real Estate Agent standing watching everyone like a hawk “What are all these people doing, traipsing through my house!” to which he replied, also ‘sotto voce’ “I know what you mean! Dreadful, isn’t it” – we both laughed 🙂 So, once more we paraded around looking at everything – there is a bit of work to be done on the place… A new kitchen, for starters… The stove top is very unusual – it only has four cooking surfaces – two electric hot plates, and two gas burners! Julian and I have never seen a stove top like it – they’re usually either electric hot plates, or gas burners… Whatever! Four cooking elements are simply not enough, no matter how good your microwave and oven are! The bathrooms would probably have to be redone, too – the en-suite has a large spa bath in it, and a bidet – neither of which looks as though they’ve had much use, and they’d get even less than that from us! This place had a bidet in the en-suite, too – Mum always said that she used it as a foot bath, but I think she was only kidding (at least, I hope she was!) When we redecorated here after Mum died, and before we moved in, we had the bidet removed and the shower enlarged, and in the main bathroom, where there was a completely unused spa bath (the plumbing had never seen water, said the person who came to remove it!) the spa bath came out, and a nice, big shower, taking up the full width of the room was installed in its place. And that’s pretty much what we’d have to do in “The ‘C’ House”, too. Oh, and this time I remembered to count the stairs on the mini “Grand Staircase”. There are six, so six down, and six up = twelve… and I’ve just spent a fruitless five minutes trying (unsuccessfully!) to work out how many times I’d have to go up and down them to equal 128 steps, then multiply that number by three, because that’s how many times I do those 128 steps every day (one complete Stair Walk = 128 steps) But my maths is about as good as my Brain Surgery, and I get lost by the time I get to “20”, because that’s when I run out of fingers and toes. I usually have to get Julian to translate for me, after 20…. Getting back to “The ‘C’ House” – because the sun was shining and the ground was relatively dry, Julian was able to go outside in the back garden for a snoop and a wander around, but I stayed inside because (a) I was cold, (b) my bare feet are highly allergic to damp grass – but most importantly (c) my back was beginning to give out, so I borrowed one of the (highly uncomfortable, as it turned out) kitchen chairs and sat down, instead. The tiny little bit of garden looks very “manageable”, and it looks like there’d be room for a small veggie garden along the side fence, which would be perfect! 🙂 Julian also found a sort of an underground cellar/storage area, which isn’t mentioned anywhere, in any of the house details at all – he said it was quite big, too, because storage was one of the things that was making him just a trifle reluctant, in regards to us moving in next week – or the week after that 😉 We also found a couple of rather large storage closets inside, which was a pleasant surprise. There’s one thing that has both the Estate Agents and ourselves completely intrigued – at the top of the mini “Grand Staircase, and right in the middle of the passage way there, is a large, round, indentation in the carpet, as though a heavy table, or a large (very large!) heavy drum of some sort had sat there for long enough to leave this very obvious round “dent” in the carpet. To get past the top of the stairs to the rest of the house, you would have had to hold your breath to squeeze past it – that’s how large the indentation is, truly! Anyway, after we left there and were on our way to Shoppingtown to have my Warfarin blood test done (a day early!), and to pick up some Flipper Food, we passed another “Open For Inspection” sign, so we did a “U-turn and went to have a look. It wasn’t much, really – it was “alright”, but not what we’re looking for, and most definitely not worth even close to the six figures they were looking to sell it for. However, the reason I mention this place is because I saw something there that really floored me! I was standing just outside the kitchen/family room, with a good view of the kitchen itself. Now when you go looking at houses, it’s always been accepted that people – strangers – will open cupboards to see how far back they go, open drawers to see how well they slide, and turn taps on to see what the water pressure is like. In fact, anything that’s considered a “fixture” (that is, it’s remaining in the house after the sale, usually because it’s built-in, or partially built-in) can, and in most cases should be examined. But free-standing furniture and electrical appliances, unless specifically included in the sales brochures, should never be touched, right? A woman came into the kitchen with a group of what appeared to be her family. The examined the sink, the oven, and the cupboards – fair enough – but then, bold as brass, this woman marches over to the fridge, yanks open the fridge door, and started examining the contents, as though she was looking for ingredients for dinner! One of her “group” came over and muttered something to her, but I was too far away to hear what it was. The woman looked cross, slammed the fridge door, and moved off. I hope I didn’t look as amazed and horrified as I felt – but I was stunned that anyone would… would… do such a thing! Crikey! Julian gets cross with me if I open a ruddy cupboard! Anyway, we finished looking at that, went to Shoppingtown, I had my blood test done (no results have come through yet)  and we did our few errands, then came home. I frittered away a bit of time looking for another blog template, and then made the header… and what you see before you is what I worked on this afternoon – I hope it meets with your (collective) approval?! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Well, my last fluid loving and retaining pill was dutifully swallowed whole yesterday morning… and, proving that miracles do still happen, I went down four points. “This is good!” you’re probably all thinking. No, it’s not good! It only means that I’ll almost certainly be bouncing back up again, either tomorrow or the day after! It’s too soon after finishing off those wretched pills to be a “genuine” four point drop, anyway! *sigh* Two points are a good drop, even one is acceptable… but four? *shakes head in trepidation*

So that was my day that was… I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow, apart from the fact that our cleaning lady will be here, but I’m sure we’ll do something exciting, newsworthy, or interesting 🙂 The Vermont South “Water Feature House” wasn’t Open For Inspection today, but it will be on Saturday, which means that Saturday will be extra busy, for Julian, if not for me too. We both want to see the house again, and he wants to go and “observe” at least two Auctions. I don’t know whether I should go or not – I’d need to take the wheelchair, as there’s far too much standing and walking around at Auctions for my (pardon the French!) buggered back. I’d really like to go, and of course it’ll depend on the weather… but at the moment, it’s in the lap of the ghods 🙂 And that’s where I shall leave you, gentle readers! 🙂 Do drop back again tomorrow night, if only to find out if my weight did bounce back violently or not, and to see if I have to take more rat poison (Warfarin), or less… but as usual, there’s sure to be lots of news, anecdotes, fun facts and fiction for everyone, so… don’t miss out! 🙂 Until then, though…. please bee good, remember that the best way to destroy an enemy is to make them a friend, and also remember to take care of yourselves, drive carefully, and keep warm… but above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂