Three days to go…

Again, I should have put this on the “As seen on…” page, and once again, I couldn’t be bothered – so here’s today’s “Quote of the Day” from Goodreads, which makes a bit of a record! A daily quote that I actually like, two days in a row! I hope you all like it too…

“Why should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination as easily as the actual scenery.” ― Ward Moore, “Bring the Jubilee”

The blurb reads: Ward Moore (born August 10, 1903) rarely wrote science fiction, but his 1953 novel “Bring the Jubilee” is considered one of the definitive works of alternate history. It tells the story of Hodge Backmaker, a historian (and time traveler) living in a world where the South won the American Civil War.

Well, I’ve started late this evening, so I’ll probably have to break tonight’s exciting blog episode into two parts – before and after dinner! (Winter hands around a plate laden with typewritten pages: “After-dinner blog, anyone?”) My favourite eldest daughter was over today, so of course we watched “stuff” on television this afternoon – the last three episodes of Season 2 of “The 100” (which I think is starting to get a little “Twin Peaks-ish” or something – it’s getting quite “strange”, in a weird sort of way…) and the first (pilot) episode of “Arrow”, which was a good “fun” watch 🙂

Today of course was the “Big Day” – going over to Stillwater for last-minute measurements and finding things out, like where the vacuum cleaner dust receptacle is (in the garage!) the exact size of the shower in the en-suite (it’s barely big enough for a shower stool – I’ll have to get a small one!) and how big the area under the laundry bench is, so that we know if the clothes dryer we were planning to get will fit there (I think it will!) We also had a closer look at the dishwasher – it’s not a Bosch, it’s a Blanco (er… I think!) and I really don’t like it at all! It’s “brushed steel”/stainless steel, which shows every single finger print, and has a cluttery basket, not a cutlery drawer – so I have a feeling that a new dishwasher will be on the menu… There’s also no insinkerator – we don’t use one often, but they are handy to have, if you don’t keep all your vegetable waste for compost (yet another job for “Super Clarke”! Installing an insinkerator!) I was surprised to see so many chips along the edges of the caesarstone island bench, too – and unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a way of repairing them… (though if anyone knows of a way, it’ll be Clarke!) The rest of the house was as we remembered it, only without furniture – just a lot of “weight dents” in the carpet where it had been. There was less damage to the walls than we expected, too, because they’d had a lot of very large wall-mounted televisions, so that was good… Julian has organised a lot of pallets for the shed floor – apparently there’s evidence of water ingress there, and as we’re (probably) going to be storing a lot of cardboard cartons in there (temporarily!) it’s probably a good idea to make sure that they’re raised above any possible flood level. The key for the back door of the garage (into the back yard) was missing, as was the remote control for the main garage door. We’re assured that they will be ready for us at settlement, on Friday. There was a big roll of leftover wallpaper sitting on one of the kitchen benches, and probably just as well, too, as the Vendors had managed to gouge quite a nasty gash in the hall wallpaper (disappointing, but apparently mendable) and Julian says there are a lot of spare tiles and paint in the shed, too – but hopefully they won’t be needed… I’m starting to think of ways of utilising the bath as a useful “non-bath” – why a bath is still considered a “selling point” in this day and age is beyond me – I don’t think I’ve sat in a bath since I was a child! We’ve always used showers – much more cleaner and hygienic! Anyway, to us, a bath tub is an enormous waste of space – this one is very nicely tiled and “built-in”, and I was wondering if it would be possible, or even feasible, to cover over the top of it with a cut-to-measure thin marble slab or thin sheet of caesarstone, and maybe mount shelves or cupboards on it? Depending on the placement of the taps and faucet of course, which – also of course – I forgot to take note of today! I’ll check it out again on Friday… 🙂

Now, I know that the Vendors only moved out this weekend, and today is only Tuesday so they’re probably very busy settling in to their new house – but I was very taken aback at just how… filthy… the place was! (OK, I was horrified! That’s simply not the way to leave a house for its new owners-to-be!) The stove-top had only been wiped over, the oven looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in several years, the sink had some sort of greasy residue in the bottom of it, and the shelves and benches were grotty and finger-marked! It could be that they’ve arranged for cleaners to come in sometime between now and Friday – I’ll be very surprised if they haven’t – but if not, well, we’ll be having Clarke and workmen in for most of next week, and we’ll get the charismatic Carmen’s “Army” cleaners in when they’ve finished. …And that was pretty much our visit to Stillwater this morning! By the way – do any of you know if outside goldfish need to be fed by their humans, or if they gobble up small insects that get close enough for a small orange and white goldfish to grab? And also, the water seems to be very mucky and murkey with a lot of greenish algae – is that detrimental to a goldfish’s health? I know absolutely nothing about goldfish – but I’m thinking that it might be a good idea – as far as the fish are concerned, anyway – if we turn the small square “pool” surrounding the water-feature by the front door, into a proper fish pond, covered with wire netting so that birds can’t eat the goldfish… Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?

Weigh-in this morning. Well, I noticed today that my feet haven’t been as swollen, so that’s a good sign – but anyway, this morning I had to weigh myself three times to get the same result twice! I’ve gone down one point, from 79.8kg to 79.7kg. so at least it’s a start! And this is the first time in ten days that I haven’t swallowed one of those ‘orrible fluid retaining pills. I shall continue taking two of the anti-fluid pills per day until Thursday, when I shall revert to the original dosage of one per day, and hopefully we’ll see some sort of downward trend emerging soon-ish! 🙂

Tomorrow I think I have a “spare day” – Julian will be off doing banking thingies, and there’s really not much packing left to do! Julian says there’s only our plate cupboard left to pack! (and of course, all the day-to-day items that can’t really be packed up until the actual moving day) Then there’s the fact that there are two funerals on this week that we should go to but probably won’t be able to. Julian’s God Father had a series of strokes a couple of years ago and never really recovered. He was sent home, where he lingered for a long time, unable to communicate… he finally passed away two days ago. We don’t as yet know when the funeral will be, so we don’t know whether Julian will be able to fly over for it or not. And then last night, we both received an email from the son of an estranged friend of ours (it’s a very long story!) who passed away on Sunday – and we’ve been invited to his wake on Thursday afternoon. I feel terribly guilty – I have commitments that I really can’t break, so I won’t be able to go – but I feel guilty, because for personal reasons that I won’t go into, I don’t want to go, and those prior commitments have given me a legitimate reason for not going…

*sigh* I thought so… It’s that time again…

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

And now, by the miracle of modern time travel and computer magic, here I am back again, with scarcely a pause between before and after dinner! 🙂 Where was I? Oh yes, feeling guilty because I had a legitimate reason for not going to a wake I didn’t want to go to…

Thursday will entail more shopping and organisation for Stillwater, I fear… and then Friday’s the day! 🙂 So that’s about all I have for you this evening! 🙂 You now know what transpired at Stillwater this morning, what my favourite eldest daughter and I watched this afternoon, what my weight did, my feelings of guilt, and my rough plan for the rest of the week… but do call back again tomorrow night to find out if Julian got the bank cheques needed for Friday, and whether he managed to drop them off to our solicitor without incident; whether or not we’ve come to any decisions regarding shower stools, dishwashers and insinkerators, and if those wretched pills I’ve been taking are finally starting to make their way out of my system. There’ll be lots more news tomorrow night, so I’ll see you all then! In the meantime, do please try to bee good, remember that there are three constants in life – change, choice and principles… and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully… but above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Four days to go…

I should really put this on the “As seen on…” page, but I can’t be bothered, so I’ll just put it here. This was my “Quote of the Day” this morning, from Goodreads. It’s simple enough, but think about it for a moment, and you’ll realise how right it is…

“Life is like a prism. What you see depends on how you turn the glass.” ― Jonathan Kellerman

The accompanying blurb reads: “Jonathan Kellerman is a model of high-achieving multitasking, somehow managing to serve as the Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine while also writing the bestselling Alex Delaware murder mystery novels.” I’ve never heard of him, or the Alex Delaware murder mysteries – but maybe I should read one or two of them – after all, I do enjoy the odd murder mystery now and again – I don’t always read fantasy, science fiction, and books on ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome! (Note to self: don’t byte off more than you can chew, Winter! Your “Too Read” list is already stretching into about 40 years worth of books, and quite frankly, I don’t think you’ll last that long! Shame… there are some good books on that list, too) *sigh* – oh well, maybe they’ll make some tele-movies, or a “Father Brown” type series from some of his books… One can only hope! (I really hate getting old! It’s not fair!) Anyway, for what it’s worth, I rather liked that quote…

This morning we were supposed to be going out early, to look at floor lamps and outdoor furniture to use as a shower stool/bench. We were going to go down to a lighting place – Custom Lighting –  in Armadale, but we left a little later than planned so we didn’t end up going to Armadale after all – we were going to cruise down the “Household Goods” strip along Whitehorse Road, between Mitcham and Blackburn Roads, but once again, we got “sidetracked”. We got as far as Harvey Norman, and we went in there to see if their outdoor furniture had anything suitable to use as a shower stool/bench. They didn’t – only absolutely appalling choices! All they had was that black/dark-grey “woven grass” looking stuff, which is quite nice in its place (like outside, where I don’t have to look at it every day) but I was after the “oiled teak” look, or perhaps cedar, and there was absolutely nothing like that in the entire shop. Very disappointing! Then, as luck would have it (or bad luck, depending on your point of view) we were spotted my the little salesperson who sold us our white tables wot we’re going to use as desks. So she bounced over (she is truly a delightful young girl – bouncy, bright, cheerful, and always very helpful, but today, of all days, I just wanted to get on with things! *sigh*) So after a small amount of polite small-talk, she informed us that all our furniture, apart from one piece which we’re not expecting until the end of August anyway, was already in, and we could have it any time we wanted! Fantastic! 🙂 She suggested Saturday morning for delivery… and as I pointed out to Julian, we were going to be at Stillwater on Saturday anyway, because we were meeting up with Clarke, our builder, about the en-suite door, etc., so our three white, glass-topped table-desks, Julian’s office desk, bookcase, and filing cabinet, are now being delivered this Saturday, instead of on the 21st!

While we were at Harvey Norman, I thought we might as well have a look at their selection of floor lamps. They don’t have a lighting section, per se., the lamps are scattered throughout the area reserved for lounge room furniture… There were a couple we liked, and they should go well in the lounge room at Stillwater – we ended up buying one floor lamp, and one matching table lamp – they’re pretty standard lamp shapes – long pole holding the shade up – I’m sure you’ve seen similar, somewhere! 😉 The shade is round – or should I say “drum” shaped, and … it’s black! with a pretty “jet” coloured crystal trim (my mother would spin in her grave, if she hadn’t been cremated! She loathed black – said it looked “gloomy” – never mind the fact that it’s about the only colour I ever wear!) By the time we’d been around the floor several times, looking at floor lamps, and organised to bring the ones we’d just bought home with us, it was after lunch time, and because I’m still taking two anti-fluid pills, I was in a bit of a hurry to get home…

Regarding the shower stool/bench. We’ve reached a compromise, of sorts. Julian is going to look at the three best ones available online, and re-check their measurements. When we go over to Stillwater tomorrow morning, he’s going to re-measure my shower – er – the shower in the en-suite. Then depending on their “Return Policy”, he’ll pick the one that he considers the best of the online ones, and order one of those. I’m still very unhappy about having to spend so much money on a “pig in a poke” – there has to be a better way, but at the moment it’s all we can do.

And regarding the bedroom mirror – there’s a place in Hoddle Street called “Mirror Mirror” that Julian thinks might have something suitable, so we’re trotting off there on Thursday to see what they have… Cross your fingers for us… that we’ll be able to get a park close by! 🙂

Wednesday is going to be largely taken up with trotting off to the bank and getting the bank cheques printed up… then taking them to our solicitor, Joy, so that then they become her responsibility – and if she leaves them behind when she goes off to the settlement on Friday morning, it’s her fault, and we’ll sue her! 😉 (we wouldn’t, really, but we would be very cross with her!) Of course, that won’t take all day to accomplish, but I think it’ll probably wring himself dry – he’s done nothing but worry and fret and stew about the finances for this project since we first started contemplating whether we were going to move or not! One of the main reasons why I just wish this whole move was finished, and over and done with is so that he can stop fretting!

Weigh-in this morning. Well, on the very last day of those (obviously not much better than the old ones!) new pills, the Big Bounce Back finally caught up with me! I suppose it wasn’t as bad as it might have been, but it sort of set me back on my heels a bit – after all, I am taking extra anti-fluid tablets, and I am walking that extra floor, three times a day (crikey! imagine how much worse it could have been, if I wasn’t doing those extra things!) I really should have guessed though, from my rather swollen feet, that things were “not going well in the fluid department”… I went up three points, from 79.5kg to 79.8kg – quite a small amount weight-wise, but a very big disappointment emotionally! Hopefully, by the day after tomorrow I should start going down again… Hopefully!

Going over to Stillwater tomorrow is going to be quite exciting! We’ll pick up my favourite eldest daughter on the way there (it’s quite close to Lee’s place in Glen Waverley) and she can come with us, as she was coming over here tomorrow anyway – her sister, my favourite youngest daughter, is going to be fuming that Lee got to see Stillwater before she did – but she works and can’t take time off, and although Lee’s at uni, she only has one day of classes a week this semester! I’m rather glad that none of you can see me at the moment – I’m being most undignified and bouncing up and down in my chair with excitement! I feel like a kid, a week before Christmas! Well, the way kids used to feel about a week before Christmas! Almost bursting with glee and anticipation… what would be under the tree?! What would be in the stocking (or the pillow case, if you were greedy! I wasn’t allowed to have a pillow case – all my friends did, but Mum and Dad said that that would be being greedy… so I got stuck with one of my ankle-biting socks! I used to resent that… I wasn’t even allowed to use one of my knee-length winter socks!) I am soooo looking forward to tomorrow… and, of course, Friday… and then it’ll only be eleven days until the move, so the count-down at the top of the blog will re-start after August 14th! 😉

And that’s about all I have for you again tonight – but don’t forget to drop around tomorrow night, to find out how our visit to Stillwater went, what secrets and useful information about the place we managed to pick up, and the preliminary ideas for furniture placement and household arrangement we’ve been able to formulate. It’ll be a bit too soon, I think, to see much change in my fluid retention and weight (fluid?) gain – I reckon it’ll take about three days for everything to get back to “normal” again… but we’ll see! 🙂 There’ll be heaps of news for you all, so don’t miss out on all the latest chez nous! However, until then, please at least try to bee good, don’t forget that the secret of getting ahead is getting started, and always remember to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm – but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

 

Five days to go…

And here it is… “Happenin’ Eve” – because next week (starting tomorrow) is the beginning of what will probably turn out to be an extremely busy and hectic “Happenin’ Week” 🙂 So, we made the most of today, and spent a real fun day on Tarken Glacier, because we’re not sure when we’re going to be able to spend the day playing Rift again – certainly not for at least three to four weeks! Oh! I managed to find a place that actually sells wooden bench seats that, at a pinch, could be suitable for a shower stool. I know it sounds very dim of me, but all this time I’ve been looking for “wooden shower stools” – the sort of seats, or stools, that are designed to get wet – in the shower. OK, so what is a shower? Drops of water falling down that you stand under to get clean… yes? Alright then, what is rain? Umm… drops of water falling down that most people try not to stand under, yes? OK, here’s the hard question: what’s the difference between a wooden shower stool, and a small wooden outdoor or garden bench? No difference, as far as I can see! Both made of wood? check… both designed to get wet? check… Why have I only been looking for bathroom furniture, and almost tearing what’s left of my hair out because they only seem to be sold from “online” places (see last night’s rant!) Anyway, the place I found that actually has wooden shower-type benches that you can (apparently) go and look at was Ikea – and then they went and spoilt it all by saying, somewhat ominously, “needs assembly!” When Julian griped a bit at that, I said “Never mind dear, I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone to assemble it for you!” which was when I belatedly thought “umm.. why don’t I have a look at some outdoor furniture? Some of it doesn’t look too bad, and after all, it is designed to get wet when it rains, as it often does here in Melbourne!” So tomorrow, after checking out some outdoor furniture places online (I seem to remember going through AMart in Nunawading when we were looking for desks and outdoor furniture, and they had some reasonably decent small garden bench seats!) first we’ll go and see what Ikea have got, and then we’ll go looking for small garden seats! We’re also going to “do the strip” along Whitehorse Road, between Mitcham and Blackburn, looking for lighting places, in the hopes of finding some nice floor lamps. Tuesday morning, we have our appointment at Stillwater, to be “shown the ropes”, so to speak, after which we’ll come home and start planning where we’re going to put what. This is likely to take a long time, and copious cups of coffee (or tea, for a change) I’m not sure what’s happening on Wednesday – probably more furniture organising, at a guess… Thursday I’m having my hair cut, and around noon on Friday, of course, we’ll be waiting in the car outside the Real Estate office, waiting for the call from our solicitor to say that we can go in and get our keys! 🙂 Then we get in touch with Tel$tra (Boo! Hiss! Boo!) to organise our (unfortunately) new phone line and number (which they say will take ten days! Why, in this day and age, for all that’s holy! It should be able to be instantaneous!) People getting our new number will receive it via email, as soon as we know what it is – so watch your emails! 🙂 Then we’ll need to get in touch with a locksmith, to get the locks at Stillwater changed… And then we can start breathing again! But we can’t rest… we need to get the en-suite door and the WIR door underway before the following Friday, which is when the furniture will be arriving… so it’ll be “go! go! go!” from tomorrow morning until at least the end of the month!

Rift events today. Well, we didn’t get up to level 65 – we didn’t really think we would, though. We did loads of Carnage quests, and one particularly hard quest where we had to “mend” the souls of Monks who were all spread out along a very long mountain ridge. It’s snowy – everything is white. Shadows range from light grey to soft green. It’s a very high, very steep mountain. You can’t really see the edge of the cliffs that they’re kneeling on, and the only way you can reach them is by working your way through a maze of hillocks, disguised with boulders, and it is just soooo easy to plummet over the cliff while you’re making your way towards one of these Monks! Once you “mend” a Monk, he disappears, and doesn’t re-spawn again for quite a long time – bad mistake, Trion! When a lot of people are doing this quest, as they were today, it can make it very difficult to actually locate a Monk to “mend”! They could possibly re-spawn a little faster, maybe? Please? I remember doing this quest last time, and I kept falling off the cliffs all the time – this time I only fell off once! 🙂 *preen* (Julian fell off twice!) At once stage, we were running down a long twisty canyon, and we stopped for a bit while Julian went off to check the washing and make a cup of coffee. Normally, when we stop like that we find a “safe spot” to stand, and the person not leaving the room is left to “defend” the party, should a roving monster come along. All of the monsters in this particular canyon were level 65 Elites – difficult, but not impossible to kill, with two people plus their pets working at it. Well, off Julian went, and I started going through my baggage to see what I could sell – because we were in a safe spot, weren’t we! All of a sudden, this gigantic level 65 Elite monster materialises literally right on top of me, growling and hitting and biting – aarrggghhhh! So I growled and hit and bit right back, and cast nasty spells at him… Julian’s pet didn’t last long, and it was all I could do to keep mine alive, let alone fight this sod off! But my pet and I prevailed in the end – just as Julian walked into the Den with two cups of coffee! 🙂 The next time we stopped in a “safe place”, we both Feigned Death – just in case! It’s not much fun trying to kill a level 65 Elite on your own, I can tell you! I didn’t die at all today – Julian died once – or was it twice? I fergit… same old problem that we usually have with Footholds! There are usually four or five really nasty creatures surrounding and guarding a Foothold (basically, an idol that spawns Invasions) and we usually try to avoid them – but sometimes they have to be dealt with so that you can continue your quest (i.e. they’re in the way!) The best way to handle them is to “pull” the creatures away from their friends, one by one, but occasionally, they’re so close together that if you pull one, the rest come too! They’re still not impossible to deal with though, as long as you don’t target the central idol instead of one of the creatures – you have to get rid of the creatures first before you tackle the idol, because they’re what give the idol its strength! Well, that’s what Julian did today – miss-targeted the idol by mistake…. and got killed for it! But apart from those few highlights, it was a pretty routine romp through the snowy wilderness, and we both had a very enjoyable day!

Weigh-in this morning. I’m watching my weight with great curiosity! I’m taking different medication, but to counter that, I’m taking double the anti-fluid pills than I usually take, and I’m walking that extra floor, three times a day… I seem to be “holding my own” at the moment (I have one day left of the new pills and the double dose of anti-fluid ones) I stayed the same again this morning – three days at 80.5kg. I’m wondering what my weight will do next week, when I’m not taking these pills? Will I go up? I don’t really think so (but I might! You never know with me!) or will I start going down again? Are these new pills, plus the double dose of the anti-fluid ones, what’s keeping me from bouncing back, like I used to on the old pills? Or, would I have still been going down, if I hadn’t changed pills at all, except for the double dose of anti-fluid ones? It’s impossible to say, really. All I can do is wait and see what happens next week!

And that’s really about it from me again this evening – do drop in again tomorrow night to see what my weight’s doing – or not doing, as the case may be, and also to find out how we went with our shopping expedition – did we find any decent floor lamps? And did I find something suitable to use as a shower stool! There’ll be heaps to tell you all tomorrow, so don’t be shy and miss out! 🙂 In the meantime, please continue to bee good, don’t forget that it is never too late to be what you might have been. Remember to take care of yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully – but above all… remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Six days to go…

We ended up not going out today, after all! We decided we’d go on Monday, to look for floor lamps and shower stools. We’ll be over at Stillwater on Tuesday morning and Julian wants to measure the space under the laundry bench before settling on a clothes dryer – which is probably a good idea. Unfortunately, all of the places I found with photos of decent-looking wooden shower stools were for online shopping only, none of them had a brick-and-mortar shop that you could go to and, you know that quaint old-fashioned custom? actually have a look at the item you were hoping to buy? Buying online like that is great, if you’ve seen those items, or brands before, you know exactly what they look like, and more importantly, how well they’re made – all you really need are the dimensions – which is about all they give you, along with the not-terribly-detailed photo! Well, we don’t know what these stools are like, or how well they’re made, what weight they’re rated to, or how safe they are on a wet and soapy surface – we’ve never seen one before, and they’re not exactly cheap – so pardon me, Mr. Online Shopping Only peoples, but you’ve just lost our custom! Julian plans on starting at Reece, as being one of the biggest plumbing and bathroom stores in Melbourne, but I just had a look there, and no, they don’t have shower stools …so I guess it’s back to the drawing board on that one…

We did a lot more packing today – well, when I said “we did”, I really meant he did, and I sat and supervised him, because he was packing the big display case that sits in our hall, just inside the front door, and because everything in that display case is so terribly fragile, and totally irreplaceable, it has to be done with kid gloves (so to speak, anyway) You know, I thought that the packing ladies had boxed up all the stuff from the big long sideboard in the hall – the one with the marble top, but… not so! It appears that I’ve been labouring under a misapprehension as to exactly how much has been packed, and how much is still left to do… The sideboard is still full of crystal and plates and odds and sods of crockery, because apparently the ladies didn’t manage to get to it the other day – so I suppose we’d better do that one next We don’t really have to – that’s what we’re employing the ladies to do, after all, but I have to admit that I’m quite appalled at how little they seem to have accomplished so far, and how much is still left to be packed! If we don’t start packing too, and doing at least a cupboard a day, I honestly don’t think the ladies have a hope in hell of getting the last of the packing done – on the day before we move! I’m not interested in how much they have done, I’m concerned about how much is still left to be done! At this point I’m seriously thinking of having our day in the Tarken Glacier on Tuesday, after we get back from Stillwater, and spending tomorrow and Monday packing! Anyway I said I was considering it, but I’m pretty sure we will be skiing? sliding? skating? (how do you get down a glacier, anyway, apart from falling?!) down the Tarken Glacier tomorrow – but I really am concerned about the amount left to pack… Who would have thought we had so much rubbish… junk… “stuff”! There are boxes from here to eternity already, and there are going to be a lot more before we’re finished! (and to think – we still have boxes and boxes, still in storage from our last move, in 2007!)

Weigh-in this morning. Well, still no sign of the dreaded big bounce-back yet, but you can be sure that it will catch up with me, sooner or later! It was quite amazing really – I looked at my graph weight chart this morning after I’d weighed myself – I stayed the same, by the way, at 79.5kg. When I hit 80.5kg, I stayed there for a day. Yesterday, I got to 79.5kg – and again, I’ve stayed the same for a day – though who knows what I’ll do tomorrow! But I’ve thought of a way to stymie the weight-monger’s plans! I’m walking an extra floor! “But”, I hear you saying “how can you walk an extra floor, if there are only six floors, and you’re already doing those?” Easy-peasy! 🙂 I enter the stair well, as normal. I gaze upwards to the top landing – 18 stairs up, 18 stairs down. I start climbing… I get to the top. I walk down to the fifth floor landing again, as normal… but instead of continuing downwards as I usually do, I turn around and walk back up to the top again, and back down to our floor, and then I continue on my normal Stair Walk. And why do I do it twice in a row? Why not just continue up for that extra floor when I get back from my normal Stair Walk?! Because I’m one of the laziest people you’re ever likely to meet, and if I can get out of something I don’t want to do, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll find a way to do just that! Once I get back to my “Home Landing”, it’s all too easy to chicken out of that extra floor, and say “I’m too tired”, or “It’s too cold! Brrr!” But if I’ve already done it twice before I do my normal Stair Walk, it’s done – and I have to climb back up to the fifth floor to get home again, so I can’t wriggle out of that! Anyway, only two more days of this new pill, and two more days of 2 anti-fluid pills instead of one, then it’s back to normal again, when the extra floor might just make a bit of difference, so I’ll keep on doing it! 🙂

Tomorrow, as I said, should be our day on the Tarken Glacier – I wonder if we’ll make it to level 65? Doubtful… But! Apparently Trion are due to have a new expansion coming out soon, with a new “Calling” – so you’ll be able to choose your usual Callings – Mage, Warrior, Cleric, Rogue (and all their various permutations), with a new one added, called “Primalist” who, the blurb says, “channel powerful animal spirits in defense of their lands” – whatever that means! But it sounds intriguing! *sigh* Just another something else “I can’t wait” for! 😉 What with trying to pack, trying to organise everything and steer us in the right direction to order and buy things for Stillwater (without nagging too obviously, because I really hate nagging – I used to listen to my mother nagging my father and I always swore that I would never do that, with the result that Julian will probably say that I don’t nag enough!) juggle my graphics, writing, and Rift… I seem to be living a very hectic and chaotic life at the moment! Still, this time next month will come, and we’ll be happily in our new home, hopefully I’ll only be a couple of kilos off my goal weight, and everything will be… a little less chaotic? 🙂 And with those words, once again it’s time for me to remind you all to drop in again tomorrow night, and find out how we went on the Glacier! Did we get up to level 65? Did we die? and if so, how and why? Have we done any more packing? How many boxes did we get done this time? Has my weight stayed the same for a second day, or has the dreaded Big Bounce-Back pounced on me?! Will I manage to dodge it, and go down a bit more, or will I be in floods of tears, well back into the 80kg zone again?! All these questions, and more, will be answered for you here tomorrow night! 🙂 Until then, though – please try to bee good, remember that if we did all of the things we’re capable of, we would literally astound ourselves – and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully… and never forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Seven days to go…

I’m starting this a titch later than I would have liked – I’ve just been fiddling, re-fiddling, and re–re-fiddling with the header… I’m still not sure that it’s right – it just doesn’t look centred to me – how does it look to all of you? Should I try to move things over to the right a bit? The trouble is, this template treats the full area of the screen as being “the blog”, so the header is, according to the template parameters, centred on the screen. It’s just not centred over the actual text portion of the blog, which makes it look a bit “off” to me, if you see what I mean… *sigh* (bloody temperamental templates!)

This time next week we’ll probably be wandering around our new home, planning where we’re going to put this, that, and the other! Now, apparently this is the order of things for next Friday. Our solicitor will meet with the Vendor’s solicitor in some undisclosed room, somewhere in the CBD. In fact, if I understood Joy (that’s our solicitor’s name) correctly, all of the house sales being settled on the 14th of August will be occurring simultaneously in this undisclosed room! Once all our necessary papers have been signed and the cheques handed over, she will ring us to tell us that settlement has taken place, and that we can go and pick up the keys. Then she rings the selling Real Estate Agent (that would be “Julian-the-Agent”!) to tell him that settlement has taken place, and to expect us to arrive momentarily to demand pick up the keys. I told her that I fully expected that at precisely 12 noon, Julian and I would arrive outside the Real Estate office, and wait in the car until we got her call – then we’d race in, and grab our keys! 🙂 Well, I don’t know if it’ll happen exactly like that, but it’ll be something along those lines, anyway 😉 We’ve also contacted “Julian-the-Agent” to arrange to go and look at the place again next Tuesday, at 11.am. We’re basically going over to be instructed on the care and use of the air conditioning and heating, the ducted vacuum cleaner, and where the “fluff-holder” that we’ll have to empty out – whenever – lives (how often do you have to empty out the “fluff-holder”, anyway? I wouldn’t have the foggiest notion!) We also want to have an up close and personal with the dishwasher – I think it’s a Bosch – I know the stove is – but I could be wrong… We both prefer dishwashers that have a cluttery drawer on top, rather than ye olde cluttery baskets which take up so much room on the bottom of the dishwasher (yes, Julian, I know it’s “cutlery”, not “cluttery”*sigh* 😛 ) But if it is a “basket” dishwasher, we’re prepared to give it a go before we go forking out more money for a “top cluttery drawer” one. We also need to see what the water pressure is like in case we have to have a “something-or-other-suppressor” put on it for the washing machine – and lots of other little things like that. Of course, my favourite eldest daughter will be coming over, so we’ll probably go and pick her up before we head off to Stillwater – I’m sure she won’t object to seeing the place! 🙂 (Oh dear! Flipper has just noticed that Daddy has left the house – he’s gone over to pick up the Dry Cleaning – and she’s running around the place screaming for him! (she does that whenever he goes out!)) So anyway, we’ll go and have an “information tour”, and then we’ll come home, seething with ideas, and suddenly remember questions that we really should have asked while we had the opportunity, but didn’t think of at the time! (but isn’t that always the way?! 😉 )

We went over the road this morning for my Warfarin blood test, and while we were there I thought it might be nicer if I went in to Oscar Oscar in person, rather than just ringing up to see if I could change my appointment next week… As luck would have it, Elliot was there, and from being fully booked out on the Thursday, I have an appointment at 4.30, so I should be able to walk into our new place the next day with my hair should looking nicely cut and neat! Oh, and I got my blood test results back – I’m to stay on the same dosage for now (3mg Mon – Fri, and 4mg Sat – Sun) My INR has gone up to 2.4, which is really good, and my next test is due on…. the 21st, when all the furniture will be arriving! So we’ll go the day before, on the 20th (a day or two either side isn’t really a problem, but you wouldn’t want to make it any longer (or shorter!) ) So that’s all good…

Tomorrow I think we’re going to see if we can have a look at the Miele clothes dryer – I really don’t know why – we know what they look like (we have one, which we’re leaving here!), and it’s not the store that delivers it, it’s Miele who do that… But I do want to go out anyway, because I also want to look for blinking floor lamps – we were very disappointed in Beacon Lighting – they didn’t really have much at all, apart from those utterly hideous “retro” pretend “spotlights” on rickety looking tripods… I’ll have another look around for lighting places tonight – and now that Julian’s brought home the Dry Cleaning, perhaps I won’t freeze to death when I go outside tomorrow!

Weigh-in this morning. Boy, when that bounce-back hits, it’s gunna be a doozy! I went down another point today, from 79.6kg to 79.5kg!  I can hardly believe it, you know – I’ve lost 55kg since August 18th last year, I now weigh less than Julian, I’m wearing size 16s on the bottom half of me, and sizes “S” (small) and “XS” (extra small) in tops! Plus, I’m so much fitter – I can walk up and down seven flights of stairs, three times a day, with no problem – I don’t even get puffed! (mind you, the first Stair Walk in the morning really hurts my knees, and makes me feel cold and clammy, but I think that’s because my body thinks that it should still be in bed, and that I’m just having a bad dream!) Let’s see what transpires tomorrow morning. I’ll probably skyrocket up to 80.4kg, or something! (oh lord! I hope not!)

So it looks like we’ve just about got a full dance card! Shopping for clothes dryers and floor lamps tomorrow, The Tarken Glacier awaits our “cleansing” 😉 on Sunday… I’m not sure about Monday, but it will probably involve some packing… Tuesday we have the appointment for the “information tour” of Stillwater, Wednesday will probably see us packing a bit more, Thursday I have my hair cut, and Friday is settlement! Saturday we meet up with Clarke at Stillwater to discuss en-suite doors, cabling, etc. – and rinse and repeat for the rest of the week, until Thursday 20th! On Friday 21st, the furniture arrives, Saturday and Sunday will pass by in a blur, Monday will see the packers back here, and Tuesday…. we move! Our cleaning lady came today, for the last time, and we won’t see her again until after we’ve moved. She has bad arthritis too, and has virtually been living on strong pain killers – but two weeks ago she went and had two cortisone injections into her back – I have heard remarkable things about this treatment – apparently, if it works, it’s like a miracle – E. says she hasn’t taken any strong pain medication for two weeks, where she was pretty much living on them before – but… these injections are extremely painful, and I’m one of the most devout cowards that you’ll find this side of the edge of the universe, when it comes to pain, and I simply will not have anything injected into my spine. Too much has been done to it in the past for me to dare to contemplate or risk further damage to it, no matter how wonderful the results. Besides, it doesn’t work for everyone – so I guess I’m stuck with my pain medication. Besides, it’s not too bad, as long as I can lean on something 🙂 And with that fairly philosophical note, I shall bid you all a fond au revoir, until I “see” you all tomorrow night! Don’t forget to check whether or not we’ve managed to get ourselves the right sort of clothes dryer, and if we found some semi-decent floor lamps, or if I froze to death first! This morning, I was shivering so much I could hardly stand upright! Julian said, very helpfully, “I’m not cold!” to which I replied somewhat testily, through chattering teeth “That’s because you’re wearing a coat, and I’m wearing a very thin jumper with a nice “pretty” scooped neck!” – and it occurred to me to wonder why nearly all women’s winter clothing is fairly skimpy, and has ruddy low scooped necks! Unless you’re going for tracky-dackies, all women’s tops today seem to have scooped necks! What happened to the old-fashioned “crew necks”, that hugged the base of your throat?! The only ones you can get today are those sloppy, baggy, tracky-dakkie tops, with logos and words and pictures all over them! I want an old-fashioned, clingy and “shaped” (alright, “form-fitting”!) crew or turtle neck, and the only way I can get one of those is to buy a Men’s jumper, where the shape is all wrong, and the sleeves are w-a-y too long! If I could still hold knitting needles, I’d knit myself a proper jumper, but I can’t hold knitting needles long enough to even cast on the stitches! Ah well, I guess winter is almost over, and we’ll soon be into the skimpy, sleeveless, low-necked tops, which I’ll also complain about because the tops of my arms are so “saggy-baggy” that there’s no way I’d allow myself to be seen in public in a sleeveless top! Ya can’t win, can ya! 🙂 So, until tomorrow night, bee good, remember that while we can’t help everyone, everyone can help someone! Don’t forget to take care of yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully… but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Eight days to go…

Well, the packers did arrive at 8 o’clock this morning – it’s 5 to four now, and they’re still here! I don’t think they’ve done more than pack up most of the kitchen! At this rate, we’re going to need them for several more days, not just the day before we move, to pack up the “last-minute things!” – they’re really not terribly fast… (but I’d be a lot slower! 🙂 ) As I promised, I sat in here and pretended I wasn’t in the house, until Julian called me – saying that I was “needed in the kitchen” With a sinking heart, I cautiously approached the kitchen – what did he want me to do? I was very suspicious… Well, it wasn’t for the kitchen, it was for the display cabinet on the dining room side of the kitchen. It’s stuffed full of – what I call junk, because I don’t particularly appreciate Royal Dalton – figurines that came all the way over from New Zealand, a legacy of my mother’s partner who died many, many years ago. We did attempt to get them valued once, because mother always said that they were “worth a lot of money“, but the “expert” who came out to value them was very non-committal and didn’t seem to think that they were that good… Most of them are either signed, or  numbered, they’re all in “as new” condition, and at the moment, I’m tempted to say “free to a good home!” – I don’t really want them coming with us – we’ll be losing a display case when we leave here because the one where they used to live is “built-in” and can’t be moved – and I’m loath to go buying another display case just for all this Royal Dalton stuff that I don’t particularly like! So that’s what I was called out for – what did I want packed that would then be unpacked at the other end, and what did I want boxed up to either go to auction, or a new home somewhere. Then I think he wished he hadn’t called me 🙂 because there are a few pieces from that cabinet that I not only do want to keep, but they’ll probably have to be prised from my cold, dead fingers with a crow bar when I die from old age! – there are some absolutely beautiful glass vases, ornaments, and figurines with fantastic iridescent decorations – I’m not sure what the style called, but it’s reminiscent of Art Deco glassware – there are also a few small bronzes that have been in the family for generations – if Lee and Kate want to sell them off after I’m gone, that’s fine, I don’t really care, but I won’t part with them! 🙂 The packing ladies have just been down to talk to us about the things in the two sideboards, and will we want it unpacked at the other end. Julian, in his wisdom, said to pack them up, but not to unpack them at Stillwater – and without consulting me, volunteered my services to unpack them all and sort them for auctioning! Actually it’s probably a good thing that I’ll be doing all that! Julian’s simply not to be trusted with good quality crockery! 😉 Both packing ladies were aghast that he wanted to send entire dinner sets off to St. Vincents! Some is Bone China, and I know there’s at least one full Mikasa dinner setting for eight there – they both said that it was “far too good to send off to St. Vincent’s!” I just turned to Julian and said “See?! I told you so!” – Ha! Vindication, at last! So it’ll go off to the auction rooms…

Anyway, they’ve finished up for today – Julian seems to think that with two of them working, it should only take another four to five hours to finish off the packing up – the day before we move! And if they don’t get it all finished, I guess it doesn’t really matter – we can come and go from here as much as we like until the end of September, when the job of turning this place into a doll’s house will be handed over to the sagaciously stylish Sharron 🙂

I finally got right through my desk notebook and finished off my Rift Character Names list! I even numbered the pages! (there are seven, all told!) 🙂 It’s printed out, and all ready to by put in the folder with the plastic sleeves – then I’ll be able to go through and pick out names that I like from all the letters left available on Hailol, and create my new character! So all’s well that ends well! 🙂 I also had time to create a new header for the blog… I’m not sure about it – I quite like it, but maybe the central colours are a little too dark, or harsh, or something. Those “fade to white” gradients generally do better in pastel colours – I might give that a go tomorrow, if I think of it… I also have my next Warfarin blood test tomorrow morning – I might get so light-headed from blood loss that I’ll completely forget to try the pastel approach! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. This time, there most definitely will be a bounce back! Let’s just hope that it isn’t a big one! I went down six whole points, from 80.2kg down to 79.6kg! 🙂 I’m into the 70’s! I’ve lost 55kg in under a year, and I now officially weigh less than Julian! I’m now thinner than he’s ever seen me! Mind you, I still have nine and a half kilos to go (9.5kg), but I’m into losing single digit numbers now! I’m so pleased! 🙂 I’m also scared – I won’t know what to do with real food in front of me, though that’s a few weeks away yet…

We got in touch with the Bank Manager to organise about the bank cheques, and we got in touch with Clarke, our fantastic builder. He’ll be coming over to Stillwater on Saturday, the day after settlement, to have a look and tell us what can be done to create an en-suite door, and possibly a door to the walk in wardrobe – I’m very lazy! If there’s no door to the walk in wardrobe, you have to keep it tidy, otherwise it looks awful, and simply shutting a door on all the mess is far easier, and a lot less time-consuming! 😉

So tomorrow I have my blood test, and our cleaning lady will be here… probably for the second last time! She comes every fortnight – so, yup! The second last time! Next time will be the 21st – oh s’truth! She can’t come on the 21st! Our furniture is being delivered, and I want to be at Stillwater to see it , and decide where I want it all to go! There’s no point in her coming the week after because our very own dynamic duo, the charismatic Carmen and the scintillating Sharron, are getting in their own cleaners because they don’t trust anyone else to do a good enough job! So it looks like tomorrow is the last time that our cleaning lady will be doing this apartment! Of course, she’s more than welcome to pop over to Stillwater for a gossip and a chat on the 21st, but I simply must be there! And I just thought of something else we need to get in a bit of a hurry – one of those patio heater thingies… so we can sit outside on the deck and have our lunch without freezing to death! Anyway, I think I’d better call it quits now, before I start getting too glassy-eyed and carried away, panicking about all the things we haven’t got yet, and getting neurotic about all the things that we simply must have by August 25th (I’m scribbling down a list, even as I’m typing! That notebook on my desk is so handy! 😉 ) So, that’s about it from me for tonight – do call in again tomorrow night, if only to see how much I bounced back, after shedding six points overnight! I’ll let you know if my Warfarin levels need to be higher, or if I’ve gently settled into my new lighter body (Julian thinks it’s my weight loss that’s affecting my Warfarin levels!) and, I can fill you in on what our cleaning lady said about not coming here on the 21st… There’ll be lots to tell you all, so make sure you drop around to hear all about everything! 😉 In the meantime, continue to bee good, remember every day to ask yourself: “what great thing would I attempt if I knew I couldn’t fail?” and then actually listen to your answer! Don’t forget to keep warm, to look after yourselves, and to drive carefully – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Ladies and gentlepersons! A small alteration to the countdown figures is in order!

We have early settlement! 🙂 Settlement date is now August 14th – I repeat, settlement date is now August 14th!

Nine days to go…

However we won’t be able to actually move in until the originally planned moving date, August 25th. The furniture is still being delivered on August 21st, and unfortunately it’s too late to change that now. However settlement being a week earlier than planned does give us the opportunity to have cables, an en-suite door, and possibly a walk-in wardrobe door, installed before we have total chaos, and the associated bedlam of having workmen and removalists, waltzing around eachother whilst they attempt to perform their very disparate jobs. Not to mention the fact that trying to sooth and appease Flipper amidst all that noise and cacophony would be a next to impossible task at the best of times, especially as the two of us are probably going to be running around in different directions at once, like chooks with their heads cut off! Just as well that the packers are coming tomorrow… 😉

Well, my favourite eldest daughter did come over today – well, actually she came over to the hairdresser, and then she came over here. After lunch (why does my keyboard sound different? it’s not as “clacky” as it usually is, I’m sure!) after lunch, we watched a couple of episodes of “The 100” – oo-er! It’s getting very “bloody” (as in lots of blood and gore getting in the grouting!) I can’t wait for next week – actually, next week is going to be a lot chaotic – Lee comes over on Tuesdays, because her cleaners go there on Wednesdays… Oh! the 14th is a Friday! For some totally inexplicable reason I thought it was next Wednesday (I’ve told you all before – my maths is absolutely and abysmally lousy!) oh, well, that changes things a bit… I have a hairdressing appointment to have my hair cut on the 14th, which I’ll have to change, but that’s the only fly in my ointment… and I did warn them that we thought settlement day would probably be the 14th… I’ll ring them tomorrow and re-schedule my hair cut… It’s all so exciting! I’m sorry – my apologies in advance – because I’ll  probably spend the next nine days babbling on about Stillwater, the settlement, and moving in on the 25th, and won’t be able to get back to writing coherently for several days after that!

Writing this afternoon is a little hard – while I’m writing this, I’m mentally constructing lists, of things to do, people to contact, items still to organise, etc., etc., so if I go flying off at a seemingly totally unrelated tangent every now and then, that’ll be why! Tomorrow… we must contact Mr. “I-can-do-that” – our wonderful builder – about the en-suite door et al. We found this absolutely wonderful builder when we were getting ready to move in here. We wanted quite a lot of work done – the carpets were being ripped up and replaced with tiles, the main bathroom had a totally unused spa-bath in it that had to come out, and a teeny shower which needed to be drastically enlarged, we wanted a “cat-lock” door installed at the top of the corridor, a new sink, a new stove – oh, lots of things. We had absolutely no idea who to get to do these jobs, so we rang a few builders at random and got them to come out to give us quotes. When this guy turned up, he kept replying “I can do that!” to everything we said we wanted done, so with our fingers firmly crossed behind our backs (and because his was the most realistic of all the quotes we got back) we gave him the job. He did the lot, from the re-painting and tiling, to the installation of a new sink and stove! Altogether, he did an amazing job on this place, performing well above the call of duty – so much so that when we “re-furbished” (basically a “gut and re-fit” of the whole four bedroom house) Glen Waverley several years later, we called him again – and again, he did a fantastic job… and when I inherited the house in Hampton East, ditto… so he was the first person we called about doing the en-suite door, etc. Julian needs to call the bank to arrange for the Bank Cheques, we need to organise for the clothes dryer to be delivered and installed… (see? I’m babbling, aren’t I! Sorry…)

Where was I? Oh yes… I started late tonight because Lee was here, and it’s now that time again…

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

So, I’m back! I’m not really looking forward to the early start tomorrow morning but I think I’ll survive (just!) The place is going to look very different, with no ornaments and all our little bits and pieces around – at least the books will still be here… Flipper really doesn’t like strangers in the house, especially strangers that are going to be making a lot of strange noises, and making things… disappear… No! She will definitely not be impressed… And then, she’ll just get used to the “bare bones” house, when she’ll be whisked off, first for a day at the Vet (to keep her out of harm’s way) and then to a scary new place where she’s going to feel quite lost. Part of me feels that as long as we’re there, and making a fuss of her, she’ll be alright – and there’s another part of me that thinks that it’s terribly unfair of us to put an old cat like her through all this stress and change – but what can you do? Not move, so as not to upset the cat? Sounds ridiculous, when you put it like that, doesn’t it?! But I still feel guilty…

Weigh-in this morning. Not as bad as it could have been – but not as good as I would have liked, either! I went down one point, from 80.3kg to 80.2kg – back to where I was on Sunday! Hopefully tomorrow will be better… Though as far as size is concerned, I was lying in bed this morning before prising myself out into the cold, cruel world, and I realised that simply running my hands lightly over my ribs, I could feel every single one of them! I can promise you, it’s been many, many years since I could feel my ribs – and my sternum feels like a rock under my skin (no, it’s not a “suspicious lump”, it’s a bone!) Never mind the fact that my body looks like badly hung dilapidated drapes – that can, and will be remedied later on, once I’m at the weight I think is right for me, and I’m stabilised (but I’m getting a face lift first! 😛 (oh Vanity! Thy name is Winter!)) So… let’s see what a second day on two anti-fluid tablets can do for me! 😉

We got another email before from our solicitor – settlement is scheduled for August 14th at 2.00pm. Where, I don’t know. We’re told that “we don’t have to be there” – but I think I must insist! I wanna grab those keys and go tearing over to Stillwater to walk around our new home – is that silly of me? I don’t care if it is, anyway! I mean, what’s the point of being a mature, sober adult, if you can’t be silly sometimes?! 🙂 And that, gentle readers, is where I shall once again leave you for the night! Drop by again tomorrow night to find out how the packing went, and how much the two ladies managed to get through in 6+ hours, and whether or not the house looks any different (it probably won’t look all that much different – most of the stuff that’ll be getting packed is seldom seen anyway, because it usually lives inside cupboards and drawers!) And I’ll let you know if I’m still retaining too much fluid, or if my weight’s gone down again… I’m sure there’ll be heaps of other things to tell you as well, so don’t be shy and miss out! 🙂 Until then, though, please try to bee good, remember that perfection might not be attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence! Don’t forget to take care of yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – but most of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Sixteen days to go…

As it turned out, my favourite eldest daughter didn’t come over today – because she’s got a hairdressing appointment tomorrow, too! So we took advantage of the time available and did the job that we thought we’d cleverly and thankfully put off until Thursday… However…

The professional packers have been booked! We’ll get two of them, this Thursday, arriving at the ungodly hour of 8.00am, and they’ll be here for six hours (plus time extra, if they haven’t finished) Then they’ll come again on August 4th (the day before we move) to pack up the last of the household. And with the kitchen all packed, I guess we’ll just have to have sandwiches for dinner that night, and a cup of coffee for breakfast! 😉 No, we’ll pack, and take with us when we walk out the door, personal effects, kitchen and food items, and any other last-minute items – mind you, we can come back and ferry things over to Stillwater at our leisure – the scintillating Sharron and her re-decorating (sorry, “stylising“!) crew are not descending on the place until around about October 5th (the photos are being taken on October 12th, which will give her about a week to get the place looking suitably like a doll’s house) So… it’s all happenin’! 🙂 This morning we gritted our teeth and girded our loins for the “Attack On The Den Drawers”! We each worked on our own drawers – six each – and it was interesting to note that while my drawers were largely full of papers, both used and brand new desk notebooks (see, I told you I always keep a couple of year’s worth of notebooks handy – “just in case” I needed one of those anonymous phone numbers or something! 😉 ) used stamps, still on their little corner of torn off envelope, pens… markers… odd gloves… a small handbag – and yes, even a pack of cards – complete, for a change! You know, the sort of stuff one usually keeps in one’s drawers… Julian’s, on the other hand, were mostly full of tools… screwdrivers of all sorts of sizes and shapes, pliers, computer components, both large and small, and mostly unusable (but then, you never know with computer bits, do you?! 😉 ) and cables… hundreds of cables! His drawers looked like he’d been cooking black spaghetti – the type made with squid ink? – for several years, and just dished it all up into his drawers! If those cables had been strands of hair, I’m pretty sure he’d have been able to make enough wigs to cover all the bald people in Melbourne! I think he ended up packing them all… There’s still a bit left in here (the Den) to pack, but we’re leaving the rest for the packers, except for the books. All the books are being left behind for the stupendous Sharron to decorate the bookshelves with (we’ll come and collect them when the place is sold, and hopefully, by then we’ll have some bookcases in which to house them all) Poor Flipper is complaining long and loudly about “things disappearing”, and “what are all those boxes doing in my spare room!”, and stamping around the house in a thoroughly bad mood (I think she takes after her mother! 😉 ) I don’t think there’s anything else left of a personal nature that we have to empty out – we’ve done the bathrooms, and the wardrobe, and the chests of drawers and bedside tables in the bedroom, and now these Den drawers – about the only thing left to “tidy out” are the hooks on the wall in the walk through wardrobe, where I hang all my scarves and wraps – I haven’t told Julian yet because 99.9% will have to go to be Dry Cleaned… I finished my drawers first, so I took the opportunity to make a new header for the blog – what do you think? I had to fiddle around a bit because it’s been a very long time since I used shapes, round (circular) gradients, and feathering – also, the space I have to work with isn’t exactly “commodious”. I feel that it’s a bit… “wishy-washy”? I was going to use a background from another of my ancient web sets, but it turned out that it was much too dark, so I decided on something completely different – but by the time I’d decided to do something completely different, it was too late to fiddle around looking for more vibrant colours – so, sorry, but it’ll have to remain wishy-washy until at least Thursday!

Weigh-in this morning. Well, the two anti-fluid tablets helped a bit – I went down two points, from 80.5kg to 80.3kg – so I still haven’t made it back to the 80.2kg that I was before the fluid started to soak into me. Anyway, I took another two anti-fluid tablets today, and I’ll keep on taking two instead of only one for as long as I’m on these other wretched pills, and hopefully they’ll keep my weight going in the right direction…

As I said earlier, my favourite eldest daughter will be over tomorrow – it seems that we both have hairdressing appointments – hers at noon, mine at 1.00pm – and she’s going straight there by bus – Julian isn’t available to pick her up tomorrow morning – so I doubt that we’ll get a chance to watch anything exciting tomorrow – by the time we’re both done, it’ll be almost time for Julian to drive her home! But it’ll be good to see her – and at least we can gossip while we’re being dried! 😉  And of course she’s sure to get a good laugh out of her mother still wearing socks (not the same pair of socks of course, I do have other, clean pairs that I change into occasionally…. like every morning!) after spending all her life listening to my many vehement and quite often strident denunciations of, and tirades against, the wearing of socks… (but the fire escape stairs are so cold!) (and besides, as I said the other day – these socks are loose, and comfortable! 😛 ) I found one fingerless glove in one of my Den drawers this morning – probably the mate to the one I used to use to protect my hand against the rough textured wall of the stair-well, until it well and truly wore out (the glove, not the wall!) So I have press-ganged this solitary fingerless glove into service, this time protecting my left hand against the glacial chill of the stair-rail!

Thursday promises to be a lot of fun (not!) with the packers arriving at the yawn-worthy time of 8.00am – I’ll hardly have my eyes open by then! I think the best thing that I can do to assist in the packing procedure is to lock myself in here, and pretend that I’m not even in the house… I’d only get in the way… (well. that’s my excuse, anyway! 😉 ) Friday, of course, our cleaning lady will be here. Don’t get me wrong – she’s a lovely lady and we love her dearly – but she’s not a very good cleaner! She won’t dust anything except benches because she’s afraid of breaking something, so everything ends up looking as though it hasn’t been cleaned for years – probably because it hasn’t! I remember my mother’s cleaning lady – she was fantastic! She’d arrive at  – there you go, 8 o’clock in the morning – and she’d do literally everything! She shifted all the furniture so that she could clean underneath is. She did all the ironing – perfectly! She cleaned and polished the silver! And she dusted everything. By the time she left at around 6 o’clock in the evening, the whole place was spotless! She cleaned for Mum for more than 20 years, and in all that time, she only broke three things! (mind you, those breakages were rather valuable antiques – but these things happen, and you just have to accept it and move on, like Mum did!) We’re hoping – rather guiltily, I’m afraid – that when we move it’ll be too far for her to come – but knowing her, she won’t want to let us down, so she’ll get there, even if she has to walk all the way! Anyway, once again that’s about all from me for tonight – but don’t forget to call in again tomorrow night and find out if my favourite eldest daughter did laugh at me for wearing socks, when I’ve always sworn that I wouldn’t, and if we did get to watch any of our favourite shows, and probably more importantly, find out if those two anti-fluid tablets that I’m now taking are still working to get rid of my excess fluid! Find out the answers to all those questions, and more, this time, tomorrow night! 🙂 Until then though, do try to bee good, remember that there is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate; don’t forget to keep warm, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves – but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Seventeen days to go…

Here I am, a little later than usual – I seem to have been having a bit of a problem with my eyes – it’s only been noticeable for about a day, but the reflections on my screen from our “strip lighting” under the bookshelves has been driving me insane! We’ve had these lights for well over a year, and while the reflections have always been noticeable, and at times a bit annoying, they’ve never bothered me to this extent before! Anyway, I’ve turned them off for now, and you know what? I can see the ruddy screen again! Maybe I’m shrinking again (I do feel lower in my seat that I used to be… or maybe it’s just that the chair has sunk, and needs to be raised again…) Anyway, we didn’t go out to look at mirrors and/or shower stools today – once again, the weather was just too vile! Instead, we stayed home and went through the wardrobe… 😦 there’s not much left on my side of it now! Once upon a time, my stuff used to well and truly spill over into Julian’s side of the wardrobe (and which he grizzled copiously about, too!) but now, he has nearly three times as many clothes as I do! Of course, a lot of my clothes are languishing in the Dry Cleaning basket… There are also a lot of things from our chests of drawers that we cleaned out on Saturday that are now sitting in the Dry Cleaning basket, waiting to be cleaned and pressed before going off to either St. Vincent’s, or into a suitcase to come with us to Stillwater. So as you can probably imagine, the Dry Cleaning basket is quite full – overflowing, in fact – with more than half of the items to be cleaned (like Julian’s ties!) sitting perched precariously on top of it! They were supposed to have gone off today, but “someone” forgot them… I’ll make sure they go tomorrow… And I did learn one very hard lesson from culling my side of the wardrobe again today, and that is that I must not save clothes up as “best” – all too many of the tops that went off to St. Vincent’s today had never even been worn – they still had their labels and price tickets on them! Oh, what a crying waste! Still, I suppose that they’re going to make some very lucky women think that all their Christmases have come at once!

I did go looking for picture and mirror framing places – and there were heaps of them too, so I was quite pleased that there were so many to choose from! They all had different names, and (supposedly) different sites… but when I went to actually look at the sites, they all linked back to the same ruddy place! That stupid place I was grizzling about last night – the one that only showed you one corner of a bare frame, as if they expected you to know what it was going to look like, full size, and with a large mirror in the middle of it! I followed four of the apparently different sites, and they all led back to that useless place, so I gave up in disgust, and continued going through my trusty notebook, collating all the nice-sounding names for Rift characters… I have about half the notebook left to go… 🙂 We were also going to sift through our “desk drawers” in here – these chests of drawers that sit under our desks won’t be coming with us, so everything in them will have to be sorted, culled, and packed… If I hadn’t been looking forward to dealing with the Medicine Cupboard, I’m most definitely not looking forward to dealing with these drawers! They are so full of junk, you wouldn’t believe! Paper clips… broken pens, or dried up biros… used stamps on torn off corners of envelopes… a couple of packs of playing cards, minus a few, just so as to make them totally useless (but I can’t throw them out, because hey! I might find the missing cards, somewhere in all this mess, mightn’t I!?) Lots and lots of totally useless junk, that I can always find an excuse for keeping… pack-rat that I am! 😉

Tomorrow my favourite eldest daughter is coming over, so I suppose we’ll be watching episodes of whatever’s left to watch – I think we’ve caught up with “The 100”, and there won’t be any new episodes of “Orphan Black”, “Agents of Shield” or “Person of Interest” until their next season(s) come out, and of course Julian and I are hanging out for the next “Game of Thrones” season to be released on disc, and also “Elementary”… I think Lee said she was going to bring “Arrow” (based/about “The Green Arrow” comic books) I can’t say that I know anything about it, or the character of Green Arrow – it’s not a comic that I ever followed, really (not that I ever really “followed” any comic series – though I do confess to reading a few Superman and Batman comics, occasionally…) still, it’ll be interesting to see what I’ve been “missing out on” 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Well, I did think it was too good to be true, and sure enough, it was. The new pills seem to be causing fluid retention, after all – I went down 3 points yesterday, from 80.5kg to 80.2kg… and went up three points today, from 80.2kg to 80.5kg – exactly what I was the day before yesterday (and the day before that, too!) It makes me wonder why the hell my body bothered to do that! Stay the same for two days, go down three points, and then the very next day, go back up those three points that I’d just lost! Ridiculous! And very disappointing! But! I started taking two anti-fluid tablets today, instead of just the one! Let’s see how my weight likes them little green apples! (well, they’re not green, they’re a sort-of yellow, and they’re not apples, they’re pills – but – they are little! 😉 ) I’ll let you know what transpires tomorrow!

I need coffee…

Because my favourite eldest daughter is coming over tomorrow, I doubt very much that we’ll be able to do anything about the drawers in here – ditto Wednesday, as I have a hairdressing appointment – and I’m pretty sure that the cleaning lady is coming on Friday – so it’ll have to be Thursday. That should work out alright, because I think that Julian is going to book in the professional packers for next Wednesday (that is, Wednesday next week) No, he’s just brought me a cup of coffee and tells me that he was thinking of getting in the “pp’s” this Thursday – working on the premise that they can be packing “other things” while we go through the drawers in here. They may not be able to get it all done, but they should be able to “break the back of it”, and get as much done as possible, then come back the Monday before we move and get the rest done (hopefully!) I’m now starting to get worried that we’re not going to be ready on time – there’s still the headache of the ruddy mirror, the shower stool (I wonder if they sell them in Howard’s Storage World? They have lots of bathroom stuff… I just went and had a look – well, they do, and they don’t (have them) They do have a version, but they look much more flimsy, and don’t look as good… and they’re more expensive that the other one we were looking at… so…) Look, I can’t help all this worry! I’m neurotic – surely you know this by now! Anyway, once again, that’s about all from me for tonight – but do drop in again tomorrow night, if only to find out whether taking two anti-fluid pills instead of just the one has made any difference! As a bonus, you’ll also be regaled with tales of what Lee and I watched, and what I thought of “Arrow” (if she remembers to bring it, that is! 😉 ) Hopefully the new clothes dryer will have been ordered (we talked about it at length the other night, and we really only have a couple of choices. We know what they both look like, so we don’t feel the need to actually go out and look at one!) and maybe even the shower stool… but… you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow night to find out, won’t you! 🙂 So until tomorrow night, please try to bee good, remember that one of the blessings of a good friend is that you can afford to be stupid with them; don’t forget to keep warm, to look after yourself, and to drive carefully – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Eighteen days to go…

Well, as usual we spent a very pleasant day on the Tarken Glacier – it would have been even more pleasant if it hadn’t been snowing so heavily, though! Needless to say, we didn’t reach level 65 – in fact, I only made it half way (51%) and poor Julian didn’t even get quite that far! I tells ya, it’s a s-l-o-w goin’ when you get into the sixties! I only have one more point to go in my Foraging skills, though, to become a full “Savant” at skill-level 450 (and that’s as high as you can go, in all of the Skill departments – 450!) and about fifteen levels left to get in Butchering Skills (that’s the skinning and the processing of the skins, not meat production, as one might have thought!) You can only have three “Skills” – the basic ones being “Foraging”, “Mining” and “Butchering” – they’re the three “Gathering” skills, then there are other “manufacturing” skills, but I won’t go into them here. You can buy extra skill slots for Credits, but as I already have all the artisans who can make anything that Guild members might need or want, I didn’t bother buying any extra for Sylversong. When Julian and I play together, we usually choose to level up only two skills out of a possible three… Why? So we don’t waste too much time figuring out whose turn it is to harvest whatever. This time I took Foraging and Butchering, and he took Mining and Butchering – so all plants are mine to harvest, and all minerals are his to harvest. The Butchering we take in turns, each of us going up ten levels and then handing the skinning over to the other person. A little clumsy, but it works 🙂 And that’s why my Butchering skills are so far behind my Foraging skills! 😛 Anyway, as I said in the beginning, we both had a fun day – it’s a lot harder at this level, not because the mobs are so much harder to kill – they’re not – even the Elites were pretty easy – no, it’s the mob density! At one stage we were running around in the snow and the blizzards, visibility almost 0%. We had to find dead Researchers and give them a “proper burial” (i.e. right click on a sparkly skeleton, and hey presto! He’s decently interred!) These “sparkly skeletons” were very few and far between, and we had a very wide area in which to search for them – but the mobs were like flies on a pile of umm… rotten meat? making it: mob density (number of nasties attacking you) close to 87%, quest objective (the “sparkly skeletons”) about 5%! And of course, fighting in those snow storms and white-outs, you got turned around a lot, and all you seemed to be doing was fighting, fighting, and more fighting – with only the occasional “burial”… and all the time we’re killing this, and slaughtering that, our poor little experience bars were barely moving! Quite frankly, I don’t think we’ll even make level 65 next Sunday, but I don’t care – it’s fun playing!  🙂

my-Julian got an SMS from Julian-the-Agent the other night – the Vendors wanted to know if we wanted to buy the desk and bookcase in the front study (my-Julian’s office-to-be) We did think about it – we do have a lot more rooms to furnish than we do here – but in the end we decided that we didn’t really need it. However, I would like to buy their bedroom mirror, or failing that, to know where they got it from. Well, they obviously don’t want to sell it, because they did say that they’d bought it from a “Trade Fair”, and that the manufacturers were in New South Wales (I think?!) about four years ago. Well, that rules out that plan of attack for getting the same sort of mirror… Having looked around at all sorts of places for something similar, I have a feeling that we’re going to have to buy the right size piece of mirror and take it to a picture framer and get them to match the frame as closely as they can to the one in the picture we have of the original. There used to be a beautiful picture and framing shop over at Doncaster, many years ago – but alas, like My Size, Urban Soul, Magnolia, and many other really fantastic shops, they ended up balking at Westfield’s highly exorbitant rental fees, plus the rule that if the Centre was open, they had to be too, whether it was Christmas, Easter, or just an ordinary Public Holiday, and they’ve all moved out – to who knows where! So this evening, after dinner and television, I think my allotted task will be to look for picture framing shops – I may be living in the past, but I think we should be able to choose the frame, tell the people what size mirror we want, and get them to organise it all for us – and hopefully we might get it before Christmas… next year! Anyway, I know you used to be able to do it that way, once upon a time…

I also looked for a shower stool – I’m used to having the bench seat in my shower, and while I don’t rely on it as heavily as I did before I lost so much weight, I still need it – especially when I’m washing my hair – so I’m going to have to get a shower stool, because there’s no handy-dandy built-in shower bench over at Stillwater. Now, I could pick up a “cheap as chips” plastic and tubular steel one at the local chemist shop, but they look horribly “hospital-y” and ugly. I want a nice, wooden one! Well, I found some. They’re made of cedar, and they look lovely! They’re also a lovely price – from the manufacturer’s point of view, that is! We’re thinking about it… So, tomorrow, weather permitting, we may go picture framing shopping, or shower stool shopping… Julian says he has the clothes dryer goal in hand… so I’m not sure that there’s anything more to do in the furniture shopping department! If the weather is really too bad, we should (and probably will anyway – it won’t take long!) go through our wardrobe. Anything bigger than a size “S” goes! 🙂 Then we can get the “professional” packers in this week, and be ready to go by August 25th! I’m also compiling a list of things to assemble for August 20th – settlement day! We’ll need to take something to sit on, an electric jug or a saucepan, to boil water in, a couple of mugs, some skinny milk, tea and or coffee (Nescafe, unfortunately!) and a packet of my Optifast bars (I’ll need one there for Friday too, so I might as well take a packet and be done with it! They’ll be “living there” after the 25th, anyway!) Ooo-er! I can’t wait! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. More surprises! Maybe these new pills are going to work out alright – although after only one day, it’s a bit soon to tell for sure… However, I went down another three points – from 80.5kg to 80.2kg! And there I am, aren’t I! Down to the last two or three points before going down to the next kilo-level! And we all know what that means, don’t we! I’ll sit there on that weight for about a week, or go up, and then sit there… so I’m not really looking forward to weighing myself tomorrow…

(Ahhh… coffee… 🙂 ) I can’t believe myself… this is the third day in a row that I’ve spent the day wearing… socks! I hate socks! Normally… but those concrete stairs are so icy… and besides, these socks feel nice and light and loose – not tight and restrictive like socks normally do! In fact, I was thinking on my morning Stair Walk, that they’d make ideal shoes for me! I think you can get socks for yoga or something, that have non-slip soles… and if then they cut the tops off the socks so that they looked more… stylish? and they came in black (which, unfortunately these ones don’t – but maybe the yoga ones might?!) I’d be quite happy…. er… well, maybe a little less opposed? to wearing shoes…  “If”, “if”, and more “if’s”! Still, at least I’d be comfortable… So anyway, once again that’s about all from me for tonight! Don’t forget to look in on the blog again tomorrow night, and find out if my weight “misgivings” have come to pass, or if I’ve gone down a bit more (fingers crossed! fingers crossed!) And see whether we did go out, or if the weather kept us indoors again, sifting through our wardrobe this time! There’ll be lots to tell you about, so don’t be shy and miss out! 🙂 Until then, though, continue to bee good, remember that the most common way people give up their power is by thinking that they don’t have any; don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm… but most of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂