I learnt something today… I learnt that I’m a totally hopeless architect/house designer! Totally. Hopeless. Give me the interior, and I’m a fantastic Interior Decorator – but design the house itself? Nuh-uh! What am I talking about? I can hear you all wondering (Ha! you didn’t know I could hear your thoughts, did you! 😉 ) Well, I told you last night that in my infinite time-wasting meanderings around the ‘Net, I discovered, to my great delight, that Rift has two new Dimension keys, which I just couldn’t wait to “have a go” at! Last night I got hold of both keys and had a wander around inside them. This morning, while himself was out shopping, I chose the bigger of the two Dimensions, “Mathosian Cascades”, and decided to throw together a small, unpretentious, single story “cottage” to live in whilst I built myself a Grand Mansion. Grand Mansions don’t get built overnight, so obviously I was either going to need somewhere to stay while I was building it, or commute between Tempest Bay and the construction site – yes, the commute is instantaneous, but it would be much more betterer and convenient to have a cosy cottage to relax in! 😉 Anyway, I loaded up all my backpacks with the items I thought I’d be needing to build a cottage, and tramped out to the Cascades. Splashing through the shallow water that you arrive in, soaked to the knees, I made my way inland, looking for the lake. The sun was shining, the breeze was gentle (actually I think it’s a “fixed time” Dimension, quite literally, a place where time stands still!) but it was a long way to the lake. I eventually got there, dumped my backpacks, and started planning my cottage. I put a wall up, and then another one… and thought that perhaps I should put the floor in first, before I went any further. It’s all “meadow” land, and as such has quite thick, lush, green grass with little wildflowers in it – so thick and lush, in fact, that it was poking up through the floor! OK, raise the floor a little… a lot… This left a very obvious gap between the ground and the flooring. Hmm… Add another layer of floor, underneath the first one. This sort-of worked, except that the ground isn’t exactly pancake-flat, so I still got clumps of grass and wildflowers poking up through the stone tiled floor. Bear in mind that most Dimensions are notorious for lumpy, rocky, hilly, uneven, or just plain impossible to build on, except on a platform of some kind – this one is one of the very few exceptions, in that it’s flat – only not pancake-flat. So I stood there for a bit, trying to figure out what to do. I was damned if I was going to build yet another platform house on a nice, flat plain… Ah yes! Lawnmower Mushrooms! I suppose enough people must have complained about grass and plants coming through their Dimension floors for Trion to have invented these Lawnmower Mushrooms – what they do is flatten out all plants and grasses within a certain radius. There are several different species – one flattens grass for a radius of 5 (in-game) meters, another flattens the grass for a radius of 10 meters, and the third one obliterates any and all plants within a 20 meter radius, which includes anything that you might “plant” close to your building, like shade trees, and flowers, and even wishing-wells! (so I didn’t want to use that one!) I already had one of the “flattens grass for a radius of 10 meters, but it was back home in my bank – so I bought another one from the Rift Shop, thinking that 10 meters would be plenty – I was only building a small cottage, after all! I planted my mushroom, and continued building… Front door… living room and kitchen area… need somewhere to put a table – create dining area! Hmm – bathroom… No, make that the hall, create a bathroom here instead… Oh, it’s a bit small for a bathroom – move the wall and make it a bit bigger – that’s better, but now the walls don’t meet. Add another wall, and leave 3/4 of it inside the original wall – I only need a bit more… Then add a bit more to the outside wall, and we can put a bedroom in here! Then I added another two bedrooms, and the whole place is a bit of a mish-mash, with rather strange looking walls where I’ve had to double them up a bit to make them all meet at the joins. I’ve added another three Lawnmower Mushrooms to the first one I bought, and I’m still going to have to add a few more – apparently 10 meters isn’t as big as I thought it was – or my cottage is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be! 
But there it is, my new cottage! Un-roofed at the moment, and just the bare bones – no furniture or decorations, no rugs on the floor, no stove in the corner with a pot of stew simmering over the hot coals… It’s a pretty hideous floor-plan, and I really wouldn’t want to have to live in it – but it was fun creating it, and although I haven’t done any Dimension building for ages and ages, I haven’t forgotten how to turn things around, or make everything the same height 🙂 Tomorrow the roof goes on, and then I can get on to doing what I do best in Dimensions – creating furniture, wall hangings, bathroom fittings, lounge suites, etc., etc.! When I get it finished, you can all log on to Rift, just to come and vote for my Dimension, which I will be calling “Cabanon du lac” (literally: Cottage of the lake) 🙂
Julian’s put up one of the temporary steel shelves in the spare front bedroom, and wanted to know if I thought we’d need the second one. Well, it is a big shelf, but I’m pretty sure we’ll need the second one as well – not just for all the bits and pieces that we brought with us from Doncaster, but there will be things coming from Adelaide, and there are still a lot of items that never got unpacked when we moved in 2007 that have to be dealt with, now that we have the room! We also got in touch with Mr. Treadmill Person, who does have a treadmill with an adjustable incline available, and as Julian wants me to try it out before we go ahead and hire it, we’re going off to put it through its paces this coming Friday! I’ll keep you all posted! 🙂 Clarke called too – he wanted to suggest that we change the floor tiles from shiny and polished to matt tiles, because the nicer looking shiny and polished tiles are extremely slippery when wet (which is what usually happens on the floor of a shower!) That’s exactly what the guy in the tile showroom said the other day, but I know those sorts of tiles get very slippery, and I always use one of those non-slip mats on the floor of the shower anyway (it’s better to be safe than sorry, right? 😉 ) – so I will be getting my much more nicer looking shiny and polished tiles 🙂 He’s working on the costings at the moment, then he’ll come over with samples of the glass bricks, the tiles, the laminate for the vanity unit, and a sample of the caesarstone so that we can put them all together to see how well the complement eachother.
Weigh-in this morning. Heigh-ho, no surprises there! I stayed the same. So it appears that my feet are now very firmly planted on the “will I or won’t I?” (lose weight), path, the “this looks like a good spot to stop and have a snooze” excuse, and where I shall languish and moan and grizzle about it for a week or more. I absolutely hate it! I know all the academic reasons for it, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling insecure, worthless, and a total failure (I was trained well!) Tomorrow, I’ll probably go up again – or stay the same for another day… 😦 I wish it was this time in two and a half weeks… 😦
Julian has a dental appointment tomorrow afternoon (at 2.30 pm (tooth hurty! 😉 )) so I don’t think very much unpacking will occur – I’m not even sure if he’ll have time to put up the second set of shelves in the front spare bedroom, though I should be able to get the roof on my cottage… I’m not sure if I should put a flat roof on it (much more easier!), or attempt to put on a pitched roof – unless you’re good with maths and angles and stuff it’s almost impossible – especially given the weird layout of my rooms… I think I’ll go for the flat roof, then I can make a roof-top garden and entertainment area up there! Yeah… good idea! I won’t have to struggle with angles and pitches and yaws and all that sort of arcane stuff! 😉 We’ll probably be back to the business of unpacking by Thursday, so I should really try to get as much done in my Dimension as possible… And once again, that’s about it from me for tonight – but do call in again tomorrow night – find out what happened with my weight, and whether I stayed the same again (or went up!) and how Julian got on at the Dentist. He had a root canal filling done about a year ago, and it’s taken all this time for it to settle down! It’ll be interesting to find out what the Dentist has to say… Oh, and I’ll also let you know how my Dimension’s going – if it’s finished, I might even take some screenies of it! 🙂 Until then, though, please try to bee good, remember that things don’t just happen, things are made to happen, and don’t forget to keep warm, to look after yourselves, and to drive carefully… but most of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 