Oh dear, I’m starting this quite late tonight! We went over to Doncaster this afternoon, unfortunately forgetting to take the dry cleaning we were going to drop off on the way to the hairdresser! 😦 Anyway… this morning was fairly quiet again – Julian went off to ferry around some more boxes from storage to the shed, leaving me to…. Rift. I managed to get one more new character back to Meridian (I still have one more character to go!) stopping along the way to die four times, and pick up the three basic Skills, plus some fairly good artifacts… Now, how on earth does a level 10 Mage manage to die four times… in the ruddy baby area? Simple. One runs into a Hell Bug Foothold, and very foolishly decides to team up with another character, in order to eradicate the nasty Hell Bugs! We both died three times – dying isn’t a problem in these sorts of games – it’s easy enough to “get better”. The first time you die, you can “soul walk” – that is, your ghost hovers around at the place of your death for a couple of seconds, and then re-solidifies into you – you whistle up your pet (if you have one) and off you go – back to the fray! If you die a second (or third, or fourth) time within a few minutes, you can “purchase” a soul walk with Credits, or you can re-awaken in the nearest graveyard, where there’s usually a Healer – then you have to run all the way back to where the fighting was – and the graveyard is nearly always in the most awkward place possible for you to get back to where your battle was. Again – apart from the inconvenience (and the cost of healing!) this is not too bad… the worst part is that as soon as you “exit combat” (because you’re dead!) the mob you were fighting returns to full health! Imagine… you’re battling a great big bad Boss monster… you’re taking heavy damage, and your pet is dead – no time to whistle up another one – the big bad Boss monster is also taking heavy damage! You’re wearing him down! If you can stay alive just… a… bit… longer… you’ll have him – he’s slivered! Two more hits should do it! “That’s it!” you think, “I got him dowww…” and you die. The big bad Boss monster didn’t. Slivered though he was, you died first – and he returns to full health, because you “exited combat” when you died! And that’s what happened with the Hell Bug Foothold. We kept dying! They kept healing! I was running back to the fight after my third death thinking “I’m not sure if the two of us are enough to get them down!”, especially when I saw the other person’s little “tombstone”, indicating that he’d died too – but wait! The Hell Bug Boss was almost slivered! The other person must have died after I’d resurrected, and because we were a “group”, only one of us had to be alive to prevent the Hell Bug Boss from healing himself! And so we finally killed them all! 🙂 Yes, I died three times there – my fourth death occurred when I was happily artifact hunting in one of my favourite artifact hunting spots. I ran around the corner, and there was this great big Ogre – a “special” monster that occasionally appears in that spot. I’ve killed him so many times that without thinking, I just ran in an attacked him. He’s not even hostile – he’s a “yellow”, which means he won’t attack you if you don’t attack him. And he’s such a pushover! He’s a big pussy cat! He’s easy! …If you’re not level 10, that is. Too late, I realised that he was level 15 – not even Elite – just level 15. But I was totally no match for him – when I saw he was level 15 I thought “Uh-oh! 😦 Too late now! I’ll just have to give it my best shot!” – which I did… and so I died, for being silly and not checking on his level before attacking him! Oh well… as I said – it’s easy enough to recover from being dead… 😉

Julian got home around lunch time with some more boxes – he’d thought that two more trips should get them all back here, but I guess there were more boxes that he’d originally thought, and we were running out of room in the shed! He didn’t have time for another run this morning, the van was due back in the early afternoon, so the rest of the boxes will have to wait a bit longer. We had lunch, and I did my lunchtime Treadmilling (2.8kmph now!) after which we took off for Doncaster (leaving the dry cleaning behind, as I mentioned earlier) I had my hair done, and we did a bit of shopping. We came home via Harvey Norman, where we stopped off to pick up our deposit that we’d put on the non-materializing credenza, and we came home. Once in the garage, I jumped out to check on my little fishies (they’re fine!)

Ooops! It’s “that” time again… Sorry! 🙂

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

And here I am, back again! 🙂 Yes… I had a look at my little fishies – and they took one look at me, turned tail, and fled! 😦 then I came inside, shed my feet, and without so much as waiting for a much needed cup of coffee, jumped on the treadmill for my evening “stroll”. Twelve minutes, at 2.8kmph… I started off with the treadmill going at an extremely slow 1 kilometer an hour, and I’ve gradually increased that to my current 2.8 kilometers an hour – now I’m wondering just how much faster I can go without falling off! It’s not the walking speed that’s the problem – it’s the stopping! If I just hit the “Stop” button I almost go sailing over the front of the machine – and even when I slow it down gradually (after hitting 12 minutes, so I’m actually walking for close to 13 minutes by the time I stop it!) before I stop the machine it’s… unsettling, shall we say? because my brain is still in “I’m travelling” mode, but I’m not moving!  Anyway, then I came in here, was given that life-saving cup of coffee, and started this.

Weigh-in this morning. Will wonders never cease?! I’d gone down another four points – from 75.3kg down to 74.9kg! That’s two mornings running, with a drop of four points each, or almost a kilo in two days. Unfortunately, that seems to be quite normal for me – I’ll drop a lot of weight, very quickly, and then my weight sits there sulking in the lower part of the kilogram zone, scarcely moving more than one or two points in either direction – for days and days at a time. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, wouldn’t you… it’s been doing that since August 18th last year when I started this weight loss program… but it really rattles me, every! single! time!

Tomorrow my favourite eldest daughter is coming over, and we’ll probably watch some more episodes of “Arrow” – and I think Julian will be doing some office work. I’m not sure what’s happening on Saturday, but we’ll either use it, or Monday, as our “Sunday in Telara”, because on Sunday we’re having our somewhat belated “Father’s Day” luncheon, and both my favourite eldest and my favourite youngest daughters will be here with the respective other halves, so it should be a good day. Kate and Terry will be bringing their book of “what to plant when”, and we’ll be mapping out my long promised veggie garden, and we’ll see just how much room is left over for other things… It’s been a busy day, but we’re slowly getting the place together! We’ve got some big decisions to make about where to put big things – there’s a Grandfather clock that will be coming over from Adelaide, and a very large painting – as well as a lot of our own large paintings and mirrors – but there’s no rush 🙂 and Julian has finally taken some proper photos of Miranda – you can see them here – I think she’s gorgeous! 🙂 And I think that’s about it from me for tonight! Do drop in again tomorrow night and find out how my weight went, and whether it bounced back or not, and to find out what my favourite eldest daughter and I watched all day, as well as lots of other news and tidbits from chez nous! But until then, please bee good, remember that the art of a people is a true mirror to their minds, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂