Winter’s log, earthdate 201509.26

Well, hooray and hallelujah! I finally found my tiles! 🙂 After breakfast, and a bit of scrabbling around printing out photos and writing down measurements (so we could show the tile salesperson how big the area was and what we had in mind for it) we hit the road to Moorabbin. It was a much smaller place than the one we went to the other day, but they had about three or four times the amount and types of tiles! I’d got Julian to SMS Clarke to ask him if a 600 mm x 600 mm tile would be too big or not – he got back to us when we were almost half way to the tile place, saying that it would be perfect, because the bigger the tile, the less grouting you’d have to see! So anyway, we got to the tile place, and I think we hadn’t gone more than half an aisle when I spotted the very tile I’ve been after! Julian took a photo of it – the lighting was a bit woeful, but you can get an idea of what it’s like here. The tile is actually a “not quite a dazzling white” colour, with soft grey marbling through it, and it’s “polished” (i.e. it’s not a mat finish) – it should look fantastic, with the floor and all walls up to the height of the top of the shower all in this ever-so-slightly off-white marble, with only the vanity unit, the scattering of lilac glass bricks, the back of the toiletries alcove/niche, and an outline around the edges of the alcove/niche in these iridescent, multi-coloured mosaic tiles – once again, the lighting wasn’t all that good, but I’m sure you’ll all be able to get a fair idea of what it’ll look like. They look like they have a lot of black lines running through them – I can assure you they don’t, that’s just an artifact of the lighting! The larger square tiles to the left of the mosaic tiles is what we’ll be using as a “demarcation” line between the yellowish corridor tiles and the not-quite-stark-white bathroom tiles. I’ve managed to narrow the number of laminates I’m thinking of getting the vanity unit made up in – this first one is called “black tulip“, and is currently at the top of the list – this second one is called “eggplant“, and I think it might be just a bit too dark – what do you all think? The runners-up were “stipple burnished plum“, which I’ve decided is a bit too pale for a vanity unit, “raspberry“, which is maybe a little too “pinky”? “purely purple“, it’s also very nice, but perhaps a little too “in-your-face”, so no… and lastly, a really gorgeous colour with a slightly silly sounding name, “chichi“, really more of a Sodalite colour than a Lapis Lazuli, but unfortunately I’m not doing blues this time around, and I don’t think it would really fit in with the rest of the colour scheme. Seeing I’ve shown you all of those, I suppose I really ought to show you the glass bricks too… so this is the “clear” one, and this is the “lilac” one – there’ll be three or four of these scattered randomly amongst the clear ones… (I hope those glass brick links work! Julian’s over at Doncaster collecting mail, so I’ve had to do it on my own from memory *gulp*!) So now you all have a fair idea of what my bathroom is going to look like – colour-wise, anyway – now all we have to do is get all the codes to Clarke so that he can start working on the costings and order all the materials, then hopefully, in about six weeks – no! about four weeks now! he should be able to start knocking down walls, and poor Julian will have to put up with me invading his bathroom for – I don’t know how long! 😉

After choosing my tiles, at long last, we came home via the KMart Plaza shopping centre on the corner of Blackburn Road and Burwood Highway. We had a bit of a poke around – I haven’t been there in over ten years – and had lunch at a little coffee place just outside Coles. Julian had a ham and cheese croissant and a “hedgehog”, and I had a Cappuccino Optifast bar and a glass of iced coffee. I got Julian to specify that I just wanted black coffee, with a bit of skinny milk in it, and nothing else. It duly arrived and I took one sip – it was sweet! It also went back – it turned out they had put some sort of vanilla flavouring in it, so they had to re-make it without the vanilla so that it was drinkable. We’d thought that we only had a small amount of shopping to do, but we returned home with the car virtually stuffed to the gunwales When we got inside, I shed my feet and donned my socks to do my belated lunchtime stroll on the treadmill, and Julian sorted out the urls of the pictures of the tiles, and when I’d finished on the treadmill, I started writing this, so it’s been quite a busy, but very satisfying day! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Oh dear – it’s started! The usual tooth-grinding, fury-invoking, up and down, dithering, see-sawing end of the month and kilojoule level debacle! I really wish I could skip this part of the weight loss proceedings and just go on to the next “big drops” stage! I went up a point this morning, from yesterday’s comfortable and pleasant 73.2kg to a massively fat and bloated 73.3kg! I Predict! I predict that I’ll either stay the same weight for the next three days, or go up again… and then stay the same for three or four days, when maybe I’ll go down one point… rinse and repeat for the next two and three-quarter weeks! 😦 It’s not fair, I tell you! Oh, I bought some of that athlete’s tape stuff wot they use today… The Podiatrist must have sliced off just a bit too much callous on both my feet, and by last night I could hardly hobble… I’m now wearing great big band-aids all over my toes and bunion areas, and walking in two pairs of socks! Two! So I decided that I’d try taping up my feet, as being (hopefully) a bit cheaper than multiple band-aids, and only use one pair of socks… then I was faced with the unexpected dilemma of what sort of tape?! Did I want/need the “rigid” tape, or did I need the “kinesiology” tape? And what the hell is kinesiology, anyway?! Julian looked it up on his phone – it says: “the science dealing with the interrelationship of the physiological processes and anatomy of the human body with respect to movement” – so “human body” – that could mean me, at a pinch, and “movement”, that could probably mean “walking, perhaps on a treadmill”, so that was the sort I ended up getting. Unfortunately, Julian left it in the zipper bag on the back of the wheelchair which is still disassembled in the back of the car, and he’s not home yet, so… I’ll try it out tomorrow! 🙂

Tomorrow being Sunday, we can sleep in! (bliss!) and we’ll get our first, full, day of “Traipsing Thoughtlessly Through Telara” in our new home… First, full day! And we’ve been here a month! That almost borders on disgraceful! Well, I guess it shows you all just how busy we’ve been! There’s not very much that can stand between us and our Telara-ing! Actually, we’ve been slowing down a bit lately, and I said to Julian on our way to look at the tiles, that I felt we were losing our impetus, and that next week we should start getting back into the swing of things – like unpacking boxes… and then I felt really guilty, because he’s the one who has been doing 99 and three-quarters of all the work, while I just sit around whistling Dixie (so to speak) and I suddenly felt like a mean and nasty slave driver, cracking the whip over his back to get him to do more! 😦 So I apologised, and then shut up. The boxes can wait a bit longer… they’re not going anywhere… However, tomorrow, we Rift! After we’ve slept in until eight o’clock. For now, though, I shall finish my cup of coffee, put on my two pairs of socks, and go for my 12 minute stroll on the treadmill… and really, I think that’s about it from me for tonight 🙂 Do drop by again tomorrow night though, and find out how we fared in sunny, downtown Telara! Where did we go? Did we die (and how many times!)? Is my weight still playing the “see-saw, hide-and-seek” game, or has it decided to behave itself for a day or two more? Find out the answers to all of the above, plus a lot more, right here, tomorrow night! But until then, please continue to bee good, remember that a fanatic is someone who can’t change their mind and won’t change the subject, and don’t forget to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm – but most of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂