Winter’s log, earthdate 201510.16

Well, today’s been a very good day all round! Julian had some office work to do this morning, and we were going to be going out and doing my x-raying this afternoon, after lunch – so I had a really fun morning Rifting! I’d re-rolled my level 4 Primalist on Laethys last night – her name’s the same, Tallissia – and I worked on her this morning. I still can’t quite work out why I seem to take to some of my characters, but not others! They’re all “me”, after all! But I just… didn’t like her predecessor, so as I said, I re-rolled her last night, worked on her this morning, and got her the highest of any of my Primalists – level 17! I’m curious to know how the Primalists are going to pan out over the long-term – as they say in the classics, “so far, so good!”, but it’s early days yet. Even though they’re not getting as many soul tree points (and therefore abilities and capabilities!) as the other races, they seem to be very powerful! I haven’t been killed yet (well, I was a bit, with one of my other Primalists, but it was my own fault – a lowly level 11 shouldn’t try to solo a level 15 Boss and expect to live! – however I’d forgotten that he was level 15 – I’d thought he was a level 13! ) and I’ve certainly not had any problems handling mobs two levels higher than myself. I seem to be doing as much damage as a Mage + Pet, which is pretty impressive! My betting is that after all the excitement of the new expansion and the new Race dies down a bit, they’ll “nerf” the Primalists quite severely – unfortunately! What’s that? What do I mean by “nerf”? Well, you’ve heard of “nerf” balls, haven’t you? Balls made from some sort of foam rubber that you can happily throw at windows, without the window glass going “shatter, shatter, tinkle, tinkle”? That is, they’re pretty much harmless – and I’m a-feared that they’ll render the Primalists – in my opinion, too powerful at the moment – into “pretty much harmless” – and therefore pretty much useless – characters But… we’ll see. They may get harder to play as they level up….

As I said in my opening bit, Julian was going to do some office work this morning, and I was going to Rift, and then after lunch we were going to go out to get my x-rays done… but as the best laid plans, etc., etc., Clarke rang up to say he was going to bring the samples over – “sometime after lunch” – so our plans for going x-raying went somewhat out the window, because “sometime after lunch” isn’t a “nerf” ball! 😉 Still, I’m very glad that I did get to see the samples (at long last!) The colour I’d chosen for the caesarstone bench top wasn’t… as nice as I thought it would have been – the marbling in it turned out to be too chunky and “clumpy” looking, and the deep plum laminate for the vanity unit was a bit on the “too bright” side and would have ended up looking “chintzy” and cheap. Anyway, with help from the sample books that Clarke had brought over, plus looking things up on my computer here, I’ve chosen a new caesarstone colour, and a new laminate colour – what do you think? I know the laminate looks really grey, but it’s got a lot of plum in it – it’s a bit hard to see on a computer screen, but it was fairly obvious in the little sample – and besides, the main colours in the house are chocolate-brown, “warm” mid-charcoal grey, cream, and white, so it should all “fit in” (hopefully!) Clarke took some more measurements in the bathroom, and we made a few more decisions – f’rinstance, the window takes up most of one wall, and goes from the top of the shower to the top of the wretched built-in “box” that the totally useless and unwanted bath is embedded into, so if it went unchanged, not only would the window be lower than the top of the vanity unit, but I’d have no-where sensible to put a towel rail. So the bottom of the window will be raised enough to install a towel rail under it (but the window itself will still be wavy/clear glass bricks, with a few wavy/lilac bricks “scattered” amongst them) The vanity unit will now go from wall to wall, instead of having a gap at one end for some sort of bathroom “tidy” – the bathroom “tidy” will now be incorporated into the bottom drawer, next to where I’ll be sitting, so it’ll be all nicely tucked away and out of sight. Neat-o! 🙂 Clarke says he’ll be starting in two weeks… (I can’t wait! I can’t wait!) Well, we might not have been able to get my x-rays done, but we did get the plans for my bathroom finalised, so I reckon that we came out on top! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I. Could. Not. Believe. My. Eyes! It seems this practice of taking one anti-fluid tablet in the morning, and another one at lunch time, works a lot better than taking two at once! I went down another eight points! From 70.7kg to…. 69.9kg! Yes, this morning, for the first time, I was under what will be my Final Goal Weight! I have four more kilos to Maintenance! Imagine that! in a year and two months, I’ve gone from 134.something kg to 69.9kg! I’m stunned… Heh! And they all said I couldn’t do it on my own – that I’d have to have weight-loss surgery, blah, blah, blah! (Winter does virtual jig around the room, singing (somewhat off-key) “Four more kilos to Maintenance! Four more kilos to Maintenance!”) If I stopped my diet now and went onto Maintenance I would go over my goal weight, so I’ll keep on going, to 65kg, that way I can oscillate between 65kg and 70kg until I get myself stabilised… I’m so pleased… 🙂

On Monday morning we’ll go do my x-rays – last night the pain in my foot woke me up a couple of times – it’s hard to describe – it’s sort of a bit like a cramp, but it’s not a cramp because there aren’t enough muscles on the very top of the arch of your foot to cramp! And it was a hot, almost burning sensation – very localised, in a patch about the size of a credit card, right on the very top of what would have been the arch of my foot, if I wasn’t flat-footed! It’s been totally fine today though… go figure! Because Clarke was coming over “sometime after lunch”, I didn’t get straight back into Rift after lunch, I fiddled around with the new template you’re all seeing at the moment, and trying to create the header – it took eight attempts, but it has its little Spring icon, spring green for leaves, purple for Irises, gold for daffodils, and pale pinkish for the blossoms, which alas, have just about all finished for the year! I hope you all like it – and what do you all think of the template?

Tomorrow is Saturday, so there’ll be a bit of shopping to do, and Julian did go to T2 yesterday and got the special jug for making Iced Tea, plus two boxes of the very nice Marrakech tea wot I liked so much – only we haven’t made any yet, because Julian can’t remember if the Iced Tea is made with cold or boiling water! You use an awful lot of tea – six to eight teaspoons, from memory, and it has to steep for about five hours (three hours for the Marrakech!) which suggests, to me anyway, cold water – you certainly wouldn’t want to steep tea made with boiling water for that long, it’d get stewed! Three to five minutes, yes, but hours??! The mind boggles! It’s strange – they don’t list the Marrakech tea on their website… Maybe it’s a new one – but whatever it is, it’s very nice… Iced, anyway. I wouldn’t mind trying it hot, either, though I’d venture to say that it wouldn’t be a good idea to put milk in it, as it does contain a little bit of mint tea. Anyway, once again that’s about it from me for tonight – but do drop in tomorrow night, to catch up on all the latest news from chez nous – this time I’m absolutely positive that I won’t drop that much weight again – for the third night in a row! If anything, I’ll probably swing backwards, and go up half a kilo! (Crikey! I hope not! That would just be too cruel!) and you’ll probably all be wondering if we did make any of that Marrakech tea – hot or iced, and if my foot’s still acting up – I really am very anxious to get back to my hill climbing treadmill! Oh, if Julian’s going to Doncaster tomorrow, I might come too – I want to see if I can get a pair of those socks that my favourite eldest daughter was wearing yesterday! (but that might have to wait until Monday!) However, until tomorrow night, you’re just going to have to sit patiently on your hands, bee good, don’t forget that life is so much easier with a sense of humor; always remember to look after yourselves, to keep warm – or cool, depending on the weather, and to drive carefully – and above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂