*There’s an update on the “As Seen On…” page tonight – today’s “Quote of the Day” from Goodreads…

Well, I’m not starting quite as early as I did yesterday – I got myself caught up in a very interesting and intricate online jigsaw puzzle – and abstract mosaic. Quite a challenge (only 300 pieces though) As you can see, this is yet another blog template (one of the free ones) with yet another new header. I thought it was quite nice – and at least the header didn’t change the size of the text and/or pattern on me, like the one last night did! Last night’s was a proper little horror to work with – first of all, it was one of the “magnifying templates” that made everything anywhere from two to three times bigger than the original graphic. Secondly, when I started making the header for it there was nothing to alert me to the fact that the header was one enormous gradient! The default header certainly showed no signs of using a gradient, anyway! This meant that whatever text I put on the header tended to fade from view as the gradient got darker and darker towards the bottom. What’s more, there was no way of altering the direction, or the intensity of the gradient. “Transparent” to “black” was what I had to work with, and even the “transparent” bit was too dark for my own colours to show through it properly! (f’rinstance, the header I used last night was stark white but it looked as though it was a medium grey fading to almost black!) Julian liked it, but it just annoyed me – I don’t like templates that say you can use your own colours and headers, only to have them do a  “Henry Ford” on you and say “you can do it any way you like, and use any colour you like, as long as it’s what we’ve provided for you!” Well, thanks, template makers, but no thanks! I’ll go and find myself a free template that does allow me to make and use my own graphics! 😛 So what do you think of this latest blog look? 🙂 All the “widgets” are right down at the bottom of the page, if you’re looking for the archives and the calendar (riiight down, at the bottom of about nine blogs! There should be some sort of arrow, or some sort of “widget link” thingy on the template, but there isn’t – sorry!)

Oh, roll on moving day! Once we get ourselves settled in our new abode, we’ll be able to get back on track with things like my name change (or rather my name addition!), running our own blog template where I can make my own from scratch, without having to put up with silly, senseless things, like a very poor choice of fonts, headers which change size and colour on you for no apparent reason (sudden thought: Hey! I wonder if they do that in IE? Different browsers display things in often very disparate ways (they shouldn’t, but they do!) I might test that theory later on… Yeah…!) and last but by no means least, finding me a decent mail client! I don’t really like The Bat, I no longer trust Thunderbird, and there’s really not much else out there that will give me all the bells and whistles that I want and need! Julian’s currently (i.e. when he has time!) looking at Outlook for me. All of those things haven’t been dropped off our list, or conveniently forgotten, they’ve just been shunted to the back of the queue until we’re all nicely settled in Stillwater 🙂

Well, I went and had my Warfarin test this morning, and the results are in… They’ve increased my dosage – again – it’s not that I mind taking more rat poison, it’s just that I do worry about the possibility of developing more blood clots. Julian says it’s because I’m losing, or have lost, so much weight, but I get very jittery when my INR keeps dropping, and I don’t want it to! 😦 and remember, in my case, high is good, low is not good! So… extra Warfarin for me on the weekends, and my next test is due in only a fortnight (it used to be once a month! *sigh* Oh well, at least they’re monitoring me fairly closely!) While we were over the road I bought some candles from Aurora – I got two small, single wick “Gardenia” candles for the bedroom – one to use now, and one to use when that one gets …used up? … burnt out? *sigh* when there’s only the stub of a wick left! …and one large, double-wicked “Japanese Honeysuckle” candle, for ‘ron, as a House Warming present when we move 🙂 So what with all that, the cleaning lady being here, and working on the new header that you see above you, I really didn’t get much time to do anything except Manage My Minions in Rift (and then of course, I got side-tracked with the jigsaw puzzle, didn’t I! 😉 )

Tomorrow, of course, is Saturday, which has “traditionally” been our Shopping Day – but we did a bit of shopping this morning, and I really can’t think that there’ll be much left to get tomorrow – so I’m not sure what’s happening. It’ll probably be a sort-of “pottering” day (read: we’ll slop around all day and do absolutely nothing constructive or worthwhile!) in preparation of Sunday, our equally traditional “Murder, Mayhem, and Madness in The Plane of Water Day” 🙂 I doubt very much if we’ll get up to level 65 on Sunday, but we should get a fair bit closer. I also have to make a list of “Things That Must Get Done Before We Move” (Julian hates it when I start making lists like that because there’s always too much on them! teehee!) But despite all my warnings, I can see the time slipping away from us all too quickly! I don’t want to have to do everything in a great panicked rush in our last couple of days here – *sigh* so list making it shall be for me tomorrow! (there goes my Rifting again! )

Weigh-in this morning. Much to my surprise (and quite frankly, delight!) I went down another four points – from 82.0kg to 81.6kg – which is quite a big drop, so I won’t be too surprised if I bounce back up again! I hope I don’t though… So… only another eleven kilos to go! 🙂 I looked at myself in the mirror this morning and wondered if losing another eleven kilos would make me look much thinner… Is eleven kilos a dress size, I wonder? I guess I’ll find out in a couple of months… It’s a very scary thought you know, finally reaching my goal weight! It’s always been this rather nebulous “w-a-y in the future dream” that has always hovered just this side of the horizon, but never seeming to get any closer… now, it’s almost “just around the corner”! What do I do then? I’m so used to living this way now, it’s going to be extremely daunting, reaching, and maintaining my goal weight!

The people we bought our bedside lamps from the other day have just rung to say that they’ve come in – so that might be one of the things we’ll end up doing tomorrow – though I don’t actually have to go – I’m quite sure that Julian can be trusted to pick them up from Beacon Lighting in Nunawading without my beady little eyes glued on his every move! 😉 And that’s really about it from me for tonight – but do drop around again tomorrow night to find out all the latest from this neck of the woods 🙂 I’m sure you’re all waiting with battered breath to find out if my weight went down… or up… or stayed maddeningly the same; whether Julian went to pick up the new bedside lamps, and how many lists I made. You know, when I make a list, I do a very good and thorough job! Everything has to be set out “just so”, the list title has to have an appropriate font, in an appropriate colour. Lists are either bulleted, or set out in a table… and table cells are usually colour shaded (you want to see my Christmas Present lists! They’re really impressive! 😉 ) (Hmm… on second thoughts, nah! I don’t think you want to see my Christmas Present list… 🙂 ) But anyway, there’ll be heaps to tell you all, so don’t be shy and miss out! Until then though, please remember to bee good, don’t forget that your attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure, do remember to keep warm, to look after yourselves, and to drive carefully… but most of all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂