♦Quote of the Day from Goodreads this morning: “Ignorance killed the cat; curiosity was framed!” ― C.J. Cherryh, The Chanur Series, et al.
Blurb: The acclaimed speculative fiction writer was actually born Carolyn Janice Cherry, but her editor felt like the last name sounded too much like a romance writer. The fix? Adding a silent “h”!

For once there was an interesting – well, perhaps more amusing than interesting, quote on the Goodreads Quote of the Day email that I received this morning, so I decided it was worth re-posting here – I hope you all like it too! 🙂

Well, we were – really, really were – going to head off to Ikea this morning to look at these bookcases that we need so much… but by the time we were both breakfasted and ready to leave, uhh.. the weather had started to turn nasty, so we didn’t go. And of course, by the time it was too late to go all that way, the weather had cleared right up! Typical Melbourne weather! 😦 Never mind, hopefully we’ll be able to go tomorrow! This morning I woke up with such a sore back that I did something I haven’t had to do for months and months! I had to take some Panadol on top of all my other anti-inflammatories and pain killers! My back’s been getting quite sore lately, and I’ve been wondering what could be causing it – apart from moving from Doncaster to here, nothing’s really changed – we’re using the same mattress, and doing the same sorts of things that we’ve always done, apart from walking up and down a lot of stairs every day… the only other thing that’s changed is the lounge-suite. It’s a little “firmer” to sit on than our old blue one – well, alright, it’s a lot firmer – downright hard, one could almost say – and if it is the lounge-suite, well, there’s nothing we can do about it except sit on it a lot, because sitting on it a lot will soften it down after a while, and it’s a lovely, comfortable couch, too! But I think I might do away with the leather cushion that came with it that I’ve been using – it does tend to make me slide down a lot – so much so that often I end up lying almost flat, with my head cricked up at an awkward angle so that I can see the television screen properly. I might also try swapping places with Julian, and see if sitting on the cantilevered seats helps my back (the cushion parts of the ordinary seats all pull out, so that you can put your feet up quite comfortably without having to resort to using the chaise) So we’ll see what happens – otherwise, as I said, we’re just going to have to sit on it a lot, until it softens down! 🙂 Well, I had my first treadmill “go” this morning after breakfast – I’ll have my evening stroll tonight after I finish writing this… Julian found a timer so that I could time myself (seven minutes per walk until I get used to it, remember? 🙂 ) but I found that the treadmill itself has a timer, so I walked using that this morning. Walking on the treadmill, it turns out, is very easy, and surprisingly, it wasn’t my back that got sore – or my feet, it was my arms! It has a handle on each side that you’re supposed to hang onto, and that was fine, for the first couple of minutes, but then my arms started to feel cramped, so I “walked” my hands up along the handles and onto the top part of the frame, where I found I could lean on the top of the treadmill quite comfortably… for a few minutes, and then my arms started to get cramped again! In the end I found that I was wriggling my arms between the handle grips and the top of the frame almost constantly, but that’s OK, it worked… There’s one position that I feel my arms would be the most comfortable in, but I can’t use it! It’s at a point just past the handle grips, but before the handles start turning into the frame – and the reason I can’t use it is because the right hand handle has a speed controller right in that particular spot! If I tried leaning on it I’d probably end up turning up the speed to full throttle! 12 kilometers and hour! There’s no way known I could walk at that speed, even for the short amount of time that it would take me to turn it down, or stop the machine! So unfortunately, leaning on that nice, comfortable looking position is a definite “no-no!” Walking at one kilometer per hour is going to very quickly become too slow – even this morning, I occasionally found my feet walking over the top/front part of the treadmill, and I had to make myself slow down so as not to get too far ahead of the moving belt – however, I’ll give it another couple of days before I speed things up a bit…

Weigh-in this morning. Honestly, this is really getting very tired! Up… down… Up… down… ad nauseam! This morning I went down the two ruddy points I’d gone up yesterday and the day before, taking me back to 76.4kg again! *sigh* I wonder when I’ll manage to get below 76kg! However, last night in the bathroom I realised that I could see my reflection in the window, and I was actually quite horrified! There was me thinking that I was looking quite a bit thinner, that I’ve lost a third of my body weight, and blah, blah, blah – but looking at my reflection, I looked almost as thick and chunky around the wait, hips, bottom and thighs as I did before I started losing weight! I honestly do think I’m going to have to go down to 65kg – that’s half of my body weight before I started this project. Maybe that’ll be enough! Yes, I do know that a lot of it is excess skin, and yes, a fair amount of it will eventually be removed – but it’s still dispiriting to feel pleased with yourself, and then be rudely awaken to the fact that you don’t really look all that good, after all!

Anyway, hopefully tomorrow we’ll be off to Ikea – because not only do we need bookcases for books, but we also need a narrow sort of side table to go between the chaise part of the lounge-suite and the wall – something that you can put a cup of coffee on, or a book, or the remote controls for the television… It can’t be too wide though, because as big as this house is, it’s not quite “palatial”, and we don’t want it to look “cluttered”… About the depth of a bookcase would be ideal… 😉 And, Ikea sell bookcase “extenders”, both horizontal and vertical ones. If we got one of the vertical ones and turned its bookcase side to the wall, it would be just the right size and shape to look like a narrow side table next to the lounge-suite! I do think that perhaps Julian had better get busy with the tape measure between now and tomorrow morning, measuring up for how much room we do have available for bookcases! 🙂 Friday I have my visit to the hairdresser… I don’t quite know what Flipper’s up to – I think she’s hungry… so Julian is going to feed her early tonight, seeing as she’s almost shouting at him to feed her. He’s trying to “train” her to go to the Library for her food, and you all know how well “training” a cat to do anything works! It only works when and if the cat wants to do it – subject to change without notice! 🙂 Well, it seems to have worked – this time, anyway – she walked into the Library of her own volition, and is munching away. Tomorrow will probably be an entirely different story! 🙂 And now once again that’s about all I have for you this evening! 🙂 Stay tuned though, because there’ll be lots to tell you all tomorrow night – like, did we really get to Ikea, or did we pike out again? Were there any suitable bookcases, or bookcase “extenders”? And if there were, did we get any? Will my weight have continued to go down, or will it have gone up, yet again? How is my Treadmilling going? And lots of other stuff besides! Anyway, until tomorrow night, please continue to bee good, remember that only you can change your life. No one can do it for you… and don’t forget to keep warm, to drive carefully, and to take care of yourselves… but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂