Wowee-bang! I have a new email client! (or app, or whatever they’re calling programs these days!) But let me go back to the beginning and start again properly. My favourite eldest daughter came over today, so we spent some time discussing such esoteric subjects as feminism, and why it’s still necessary in this day and age, the fact that most people seem to think that if 25% of a company’s board members are women, that it’s an “even” representation of males/females, and how nearly all main-stream industries and businesses cater to men before women. This all started out after Lee was telling me about a couple of her assignments, one of which was editing another student’s writing, and another one where she had to critique another student’s writing – and the fact that she usually has to turn to “fan” fiction rather than main-stream fiction to find the genre of science fiction and fantasy that she likes. Then I mentioned the fact that I didn’t want to have to work for my entertainment, like having to search through fan-fiction sites for it, and so we got on to stereotyping, catering to certain demographics, and the under representation of not only different sexual preferences, but of women in general, right across the board. I might point out here that advertisers absolutely hate people like me – I don’t fit into any particular demographic – I don’t give a damn about who or what something (anything!) is supposed to be for – if I like it, I’ll buy it, or use it, or take it home with me and call it George (or Georgina – whatever!) mind you, it helps if it falls under the category of “pretty”, too! 😉 Anyway, we chattered on at length and came to no conclusions or agreements. She gets very frustrated with me because, as I said, I really don’t care. I suppose I should, and I’m usually the first one to stand up and shout if I find something to be grossly unfair, or unjust. However, there is no easy way, and although things have changed a lot – even since I was a little girl – there’s still a very long way to go before people realise that it really doesn’t matter a hoot what sex you are, it doesn’t matter what your sexual orientation is, it doesn’t matter if you’re fat, or skinny, black, white or any other colour in between, whether you’re good at maths or a damn bricklayer – we’re all people, and we all deserve to be treated as we would like to be treated ourselves. And yeah, this was not a rant, this was a general observation. Think about it. Anyway, I went and did my 12 minute Treadmilling, at 3.2 kmph (yup, I upped it again!) and I nearly came a right cropper! I could see that there was provision to show distance traveled, as well as speed (and calories consumed, and pulse rate!) on my treadmill, but I wasn’t sure how to display those… but there were three buttons on the controls, labeled “3”, “6”, and “9” – so I pressed the “6” button, and almost fell off the end of the treadmill! It suddenly sped up to six kilometers per hour! I got such a fright! After one and a half steps I knew I’d never be able to stay on at that speed (innit funny how when something reasonably dangerous is happening, your mind seems to speed up and work so fast?!) I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to hit the slow-down “minus” button fast enough to save myself from falling off – so I yanked off the emergency disk – and almost went over the handlebars/control panel, because the machine stopped, and I was still moving – but I stopped it, which was the main thing! Phew! Never again! I did work out how to display the distance traveled (well actually it was Julian worked it out and then showed me) so it’s a matter of setting the speed first, and then bringing up the distance display, with a large button to the left of the Stop/Start button. I shall try that later tonight 🙂 Julian didn’t want me going faster than 3 kmph, but I started thinking it was feeling a bit slow – so I’m now doing 3.2kmph (Julian’s not very happy about it though)
When I got back from that, we retired to the lounge room and ate our Optifast bars while we watched “Arrow” – I can’t remember how many episodes we watched, but we did see the last episodes of Season One, and the first episode of Season Two… It’s quite a good show, as long as you remember that it’s a Comic Book series, and that only the actors are real, to protect the innocent 😉 I mean – who can catch a speeding arrow in their bare hands, only centimeters away from their vital organs?! 🙂 Who goes swinging on a chain through plate-glass windows, about 20 stories up, just as a matter of course?! And other such things – it’s “pretend”, and fun (well, I think so, anyway! 🙂 ) Julian’s just got back from Driving Ms Lee home – and he tells me it was 9C outside the car on the way back here – and it actually hailed twice here this afternoon! The hail came right up over the decking as far as the back door, too – I hope our little fishies didn’t freeze in their tiny pond!
Oh dear – it’s that time again – sorry! 
+————————–+ * Dinner & Television Break * +————————–+
Right, and with a snap of my fingers, I’m back again! 🙂 Brrr! It’s cold tonight! When I said to Julian that I was cold, he said that if I wanted a vague idea of what it was like outside, I should just go into the laundry (our laundry is long and narrow, with a glass door opening up to the side path leading to the back yard – normally the inside laundry door is kept closed because the outside glass door loses too much heat/allows too much cold to seep inside!) I told him “No thanks! I don’t want to know how cold it is out there!” and scuttled into the Den here! 🙂 One thing I have been very grateful for since moving in here is the heater! It’s much more betterer than the heater in Doncaster, and the house isn’t as draughty as the apartment was – I just hope that come full summer, the air conditioner works half as well as the heater does!
Weigh-in this morning. Once again it took three goes to get the same weight twice – and I went up one point, from 73.6kg to 73.7kg 😦 and I’ll bet it was because I didn’t have any salad for lunch again! *sigh* Oh, c’mon body, we’re getting too close to the end of the month and those wretched fluid-retaining pills, for you to start mucking me around like this! Besides! I’m not low enough in the 73kg zone for your usual stalling process to kick in! *pout* Oh well – I guess we’ll have to see what happens tomorrow morning…
I have a hairdressing appointment tomorrow at 1.00pm and I think Julian plans on taking me to look at tiles either before or after that. I know exactly what I want in the tile department, so they shouldn’t be too hard to find, and I have the caesarstone codes – I have to find the glass brick page again, and I’ve found some rather nice laminates for the vanity unit. In perusing the laminates colours, I realised that even if I’d been able to find a suitable light colour, it wouldn’t work – it really needs to be a dark-ish colour. The vanity unit is going to have to be made to measure, you see, and although the top will be caesarstone, the cabinet itself will need a laminated veneer. Anyway, I’ve found two very nice plum colours (actually one’s called Eggplant!) and there’s also a very nice lapis lazuli blue, which is tempting, because it’s one of my favourite colours – but I really think I want to stay with the plum/purple colours against the light grey marble tiles… I really need to see it though – it’s so hard to look at colours online…
The reason I was so excited at the beginning of the blog is because I’ve finally been able to get a new email client (or whatever!) I used to use Mozilla’s Thunderbird, but I tried out a new Office program which totally and completely obliterated all my email, every single bit of it! So now I no longer trust Thunderbird, and I’ve been using The Bat, which I really don’t like. I hate the slow way it loads images and displays messages, and I find it complicated and cumbersome – Julian will disagree with me – he likes it, but it’s a matter of “horses for courses”, and it doesn’t suit me. So I’m now trying out eM Client. It looks promising, but needs to be properly set up with all my mail folders, etc. – but I’ll write you all a review of it in a week or so, after I’ve put it through its paces! 🙂 And really, that’s about it from me again for tonight! Do drop in again tomorrow night, and see if my weight is behaving itself again – or if it’s already started on its “will I -won’t I” stalling and annoying see-sawing antics, and whether or not we went to have a look at some tiles. There’s sure to be lots more news, too, so I’ll see you all here again tomorrow night! Until then, please bee good, remember that an investment in knowledge pays the best interest, and never forget to keep warm, to look after yourselves, and to drive carefully – but above all, never forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 