As you can see, in honour of my “re-birth” and new name, I’ve created a new header (with sparkles!) and colours… The spring icon is still there, in soft-blossom-pink, and will remain where it is until the 1st of December, the first day of summer (unfortunately – I don’t enjoy summers…) Actually, not all that much has been happening around here today! We set off at around 11.20 this morning for my appointment with Dr. B., to get the results of my foot x-ray and to find out if I could get back on the treadmill or not – it was pouring with rain when we left, and I can tell you that we were most grateful that we have a door from the house into the garage! As we got closer to Glen Waverley, the rain got stronger, and by the time we got to the surgery, which doesn’t have an underground car park, it was really pelting down! Luckily I didn’t have to use my chair, or poor Julian might have got drowned! As it was, we both scuttled into the waiting room looking a little like drowned rats! There’s usually a bit of a wait to see the good doctor, and today was no exception – there were two other patients before me – so I settled down with my kindle, and Julian read his book on his phone (yes, he does have a kindle, but he didn’t bring it with him, the silly goose! 🙂 ) Dr. B. had a look at the x-rays, with Julian and I both adding little bits of information as to what was which and where, but on the whole, my feet didn’t look too bad, apart from the severe arthritis on the top bones near the ankle of my left foot. So I didn’t have a stress fracture at all, it was just the arthritis eroding the bones on the top of my foot which had me in agony the other day – so I now know to stop walking if that pain becomes consistent or gets unbearable!  However at least I can start treadmilling again, and maybe my weight will be a little more “obedient” as a result! Dr. B. is still quite mystified about the swelling in my feet and ankles, because although fairly severe, especially in my left foot, the arthritis isn’t really bad enough to cause so much swelling. My feet do look terrible, but then they always have (the fine legacy of eleven years of classical ballet!) Whenever I’ve been in hospital, nurses have taken one horrified look at my feet, and gone running for the oxygen monitor (because they go a nasty bruise-purple colour, you see, which is usually a sign of oxygen starvation in the extremities which can lead to all sorts of nasty things) the results of the oxygen monitoring are always the same – the nurses just give me a dirty look for scaring them and tell me what I’ve been telling them all along! That there’s nothing wrong with the oxygen supply in my feet – they just don’t look as if there’s enough (*shrug* it’s not my fault! I keep telling my feet not to do it, but they won’t listen to me – they’re very disobedient!) Anyway, I’ve got my Warfarin blood test tomorrow, and Dr. B wants an iron count done and several other tests to see if we can narrow the cause of my swollen feet down a bit, so they’ll be done at the same time, and I’ll get the results of those sometime next week. But in the meantime, I’m back to the treadmill! 🙂 I went on a short hill climb as soon as I got home this morning, but because Julian and Dr. B. had laid down the law and told me to “take it a bit easier” (*fume*) and to stop walking if my foot played up again, I only walked for twelve minutes this morning instead of my normal fifteen minutes plus – and I only walked at 3 kmph instead of my usual 3.3 kmph – but I suspect that I’ll be back up to full-time and speed again by the weekend… My foot did give a few twinges here and there, but not enough to stop me, tough old snowflake that I am! 😉

After my treadmilling I thought I’d play a little Rift, but it was night time again in Telara, and I couldn’t really see where I was going – if it had been real life and not a game, I’d be covered in scratches and bruises from where I’d been running blindly into rocks and fences and trees, so I gave up after I’d scrambled my way up to level 29, and decided to give the blog a new face instead. Which I did. What do you all think of it?

Weigh-in this morning was quite gratifying – maybe it was all the anticipation of starting to walk up hills again or something, because I went down four points! From 70.1kg down to 69.7kg – which pleased me greatly! I asked Dr. B. about going down to 65kg before starting on Maintenance, and she said that there was no reason why I couldn’t, but that I shouldn’t try to go lower than that. So, down to 65kg I shall go, and then start a carefully planned Maintenance diet. I aim to be stabilised around 70kg or less, and from then on I’ll be monitoring myself like a hawk! I’m totally determined that I’m not going to let myself go permanently over 70kg!

I think the rest of the week is going to be fairly quiet – I have my blood tests tomorrow, and I want to get there early (are you reading this Julian?! Early! As in maybe after my treadmilling but before breakfast?) so as to be able to give ourselves as much of the day to “do things in” as possible! As far as I’m aware, Friday is free (to Rift! Yay!) On Saturday, I’d like to get to the nearby nursery, or to Bunnies, to talk to someone about out veggie garden – Sunday, of course, Mandreth and Sylversong will be messing about in The Wilds again (where hopefully we won’t die quite so many times as we did last Sunday!) After that, there’s only a week left before Clarke’s due to start work on my bathroom! Maybe we can do some box unpacking next week – if Julian’s finished with all his paperwork in the Office! Anyway, I think that’s about all I have to regale you with this evening – as I said, it’s been a quietish sort of day, and apart from our rather damp start this morning everything’s been a bit “Ho-Hum”, if you know what I mean. Do drop in again tomorrow night to find out all the latest! Hopefully my Warfarin tests will be good and they won’t want to feed me any extra rat poison – and if we go early enough in the morning I might even have the results by the time I write again. I’m sure you’ll all be most anxious to know whether or not my weight behaved itself again, as well as how my treadmilling is going (and whether or not I’ve snuck myself back to full speed again!) But until then, please bee good, remember that if you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs; never forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather… but most importantly, never forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Hooray and Hallelujah! 😀 I am renewed! Reborn! Made afresh! 🙂 My new Birth Certificate (read: “Certicate”! 😉 ) arrived today! I am now officially and legally Winter! Next step? Change my passport, driver’s licence, electoral enrollment, bank account(s), Medicare (?), joint utilities – well, I’m sure Julian knows which ones need to be notified, anyway – but at long, long, last, I have the name I’ve used on the ‘net for nearly twenty years, and wanted to be “official” for so long! 🙂 Thank you Josh, for goading me into actually doing it properly! 🙂

Well today has been both good (my new name 🙂 ) and bad (my weight – more of that later! *glower!*) and very, very busy! As I said yesterday, my favourite eldest daughter had a Periodontal appointment on Whitehorse Road in Blawyn this morning, which is almost impossible to get to by Public Transport when you live in Glen Waverley, and I had a hairdressing appointment in Doncaster less than an hour later! So once again it was a very early start for us – almost directly after breakfast we had to get ready to leave (well, I did, anyway!) First we went and picked Lee up and took her to her appointment – we got a bit mucked around at the corner of Whitehorse and Union Roads though. There were police and divvy vans in the middle of the road, several empty and stationary trams lined up on the city side of the intersection, Whitehorse Road was closed to traffic for nearly half a dozen blocks, and we caught a brief glimpse of another tram further down the road, sitting at 45° to the tram tracks! I have no idea what happened – and although they were starting to move it, it was still there about an hour later when Julian went to pick Lee up. I wonder if it’ll be on the news tonight? (probably not, unless it was a “flavour of the month” terrorist attack… ) So we saw a lot more of Balwyn than we’d planned, went down a lot of side streets, and eventually came out further down Whitehorse Road, quite close to the Periodontist, where we dropped Lee off. Next we headed for Doncaster, where Julian dropped me off while he went over to our old apartment to have a chat with our erstwhile neighbour (who wasn’t home!) “Meanwhile, back at the ranch,” I made my way to the hairdresser, arrived early (of course!) but was allowed to ensconce myself with a cup of coffee and my kindle. After my hair had been washed, I was quite startled to see my favourite eldest daughter standing there, looking around for me! She’d finished early, and Julian had picked her up and brought her back with him. So although we didn’t get to watch any television, we did get to spend the day together after all – and we probably got to talk more, too! 🙂 Then Julian got back from his meanderings – empty-handed, I noticed – so I said (somewhat wistfully) “I don’t suppose there was anything in the P.O. Box for me, was there…?” fully expecting him to shake his head sadly and say “No…”, but he said “Yes there was actually…” and fished in his inside coat pocket and handed me… an Express Post envelope! Either my new Birth Certificate, or a rejection of the application… Trepidatiously I opened the envelope – there were two pieces of paper inside it. One was a letter (which I didn’t read then) and the other was… my new Birth Certificate! I have to admit – I hugged it a bit! 🙂 The letter, which I read later, was simply to tell me that I now had to go and change my identification details with any and all organisations with whom I did business. Anyway, after I’d had my hair cut, Julian went off to do some shopping, and Lee and I went off to Target, where I tried on a size 14 top (I was absolutely certain that it would be too small, and that I’d need the size 16 I’d also brought into the change room with me!) Well, it wasn’t too small, it fitted me really nicely, so it looks as though I can go and buy some of their long-sleeved, $15 tee-shirts online, after all! My mind is still boggling a bit – even in my mid-twenties, I was a size 16! I don’t think I’ve been a size 14 since I was at school, sixty million years ago! Then we went off to look for the Bonds socks – they did have some, but not the same as the ones Lee had been wearing last week – I bought a couple of pairs of a different sort, because they did have “cushioned soles”. And you know what? As we walked out of Target, right there across the central aisle, was the newly opened Bonds store! So we went in there, and I bought a pair of socks there too, because they had longer tops and felt slightly thicker on the toes and heels. Anyway, I’ll find out tomorrow if I can start treadmilling again or not! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Not! Happy! Jan! I went up! I went from 69.9kg yesterday to 70.1kg today! I don’t believe that it’s “only fluid” (how can it be “only fluid”, anyway! I’m taking two (2!) anti-fluid pills a day! There shouldn’t be any excess fluid to fluff my weight up like that!) it’s not fair! If I was on Maintenance, I’d expect it – in fact if I was on Maintenance, I’d be extremely pleased that it was only two points, despite the fact that I ate that piece of chocolate, or that chip, or that “whatever it was” that I’d eaten because I was on Maintenance! But I’m not on Maintenance, am I! I’m still Optifasting, with the emphasis on the “fasting” part! So… I am not a happy little Vegemite tonight, because of that! (but I am very happy about my name change/addition!)

Tomorrow morning I’m off to see Dr. B., to find out the results of my x-rays, and whether or not I can get back on my treadmill. I think I should be able to – although still quite swollen (in fact both feet are quite swollen – but of course that might be because I was in my much hated shoes for the better part of the day!) although still quite swollen, my foot isn’t sore, even when I stretch it or flex it, so whatever I did to it the other day, it’s all better now! (well, it feels better, anyway!) I’m not sure what’s happening after that – I suppose we’ll come home, and I’ll either hop back onto my trusty treadmill and start climbing small hills again for fifteen minutes, or I’ll hop back into Rift, if I’m not allowed back on the treadmill yet. Did I tell you that I managed to get my Primalist Tallissia up to level 28, and into Scarlet Gorge? Well, I did, and I’ve already done quite a bit there (in Scarlet Gorge) Julian had a bit of a play with his Primalist, and he agrees with me – at the moment, they are far too powerful. No doubt they’ll be “evened out” in the next Hot Fix Update (probably in a couple of days) although they might want to keep them the way they are until the novelty of a new Race has worn off a bit… hmm… I have my next Warfarin blood test on Thursday, I think (yup! I just checked the date – the next blood test is due on October 22nd!) but we won’t go all the way over to Doncaster for it unless the Dry Cleaning is ready to be picked up – we’ll go to the Dorevitch collection centre up near the Vermont South shopping centre, as it’ll be a lot quicker than going all that way for a small vampire bite… My favourite eldest daughter was going to come over on Friday, but as we spent the better part of the day with her today, and she has things to do at home, we’ll take a rain-check until next week – it’ll free both her and Julian up for other matters 🙂 …I haven’t managed to organise things too well this week, have I! I had the appointment at the hairdresser today because I managed to get a cancellation, otherwise I would have gone on Thursday, and I could have had my blood test done the same day, killing the two birds with one stone, so to speak 🙂 There’s the Doctor tomorrow at 11.40am – all the way over to Glen Waverley, then probably a long-ish wait in the waiting room, and by the time we get back home, the better part of the day will be gone – the blood test on Thursday – that should be quick enough, I suppose, if we only go up the road… At least it looks as though Friday is clear – I know Julian has been frothing at the mouth to get into the Office and get on with some of the paper-work he has piled up… Hopefully next week will be a little quieter! 🙂 Anyway, that’s about all I have for you all tonight – do drop in again tomorrow night and find out what annoyances my weight has piled on my head this time, what the doctor said about my feet and the treadmill, and what other fun things we’ve been up to! 🙂 Until then though, continue to bee good, don’t forget that if you don’t do wild things while you’re young, you’ll have nothing to smile about when you’re old, and always remember to keep warm – or cool, depending on the weather, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves – but most of all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, quite an interesting day today – and a good one, too! 🙂 This morning after breakfast, when Julian had finished his shower, and we’d had our obligatory first cup of coffee (we have a cup of tea before breakfast, you see, while we’re waiting for the bananas to get themselves peeled and sliced onto our cereal) I put on my shoes ( 😦 ) and we took off for the x-ray place. It’s very close by, actually – right next to the Burvale Pub on the corner of Springvale Road and Burwood Highway! As we were pulling into the car park a phone call came in on Julian’s phone (which is hands-free, of course!) and we were most surprised, as well as very pleased, to see that it was from a close friend that we hadn’t heard from for a while. What a shame we were in the car and it was a mobile call – but that was why he was ringing – he’d rung our old home number in Doncaster, and of course, that’s been disconnected now! Anyway, Julian parked the car and we sat and chatted for a while, exchanging news – he and his partner live w-a-y out on the other side of the Black Stump (well, it’s not really that far out – it’s actually classified as “metropolitan” or something now, but honestly, as far as I’m concerned, it might as well be the other side of the Black Stump!) They’re moving soon, to more-or-less just around the corner from where they are now, and he was trying to ring us to tell us about it – but of course the old number didn’t work! I grizzled at him a bit about not coming down to Melbourne more often, and he was kind enough not to say “Well, why don’t you come up to see us more often then!” – but it was great speaking to him again, and I hope we will be able to get together again soon! It’s been far too long! So after we’d spoken for a bit, we went in to the x-ray place, which we were a bit dismayed to find was jam-packed! We resigned ourselves to a longish wait, and I felt smug because I’d brought my kindle with me (as I always do – one never knows when one is going to have to put up with a longish wait! Kindles… 🙂 “Never leave home without one!” 😉 ) There was a big sign up on one of the doors telling those waiting that because they provided lots of different services there, people shouldn’t expect to be called through in the order in which they’d arrived (in other words, it wasn’t a matter of “first come, first served”) and we actually didn’t have to wait long at all before I was called in! I’d had one of these full-face dental x-rays last year – before I started my diet – and in the past it’s always been awkward because (a) I can’t stand up straight because of my back, so I have to sit down for the x-ray, and (b) because the machine travels 360° around your head, it always had trouble getting around my right shoulder, which is ever-so-slightly higher than my left one. Apparently I’m now thin enough that the machine trundled quite happily around my head without snagging on my right shoulder, for which I was very grateful! Then there were my feet – different room (next door) and appropriately, a different machine. Now, I’ve had my feet x-rayed in the past too, way back in the time of the cave-men, apparently, and it’s always been a most painful procedure because the technicians have insisted on twisting my feet around until they’re “straight” on the plate, or whatever that thing’s called that they put under the part that they’re x-raying. Not so this time – the nice technician twisted the plate-thing around under my foot, so that it would look as though it was straight! (or something) Then I came out and sat around for a few minutes while they printed my “photos”, which I then took home with me. I have an appointment to see Dr. B. on Wednesday at 11.40am, and hopefully I’ll be able to do my before-lunch treadmilling again as soon as I get home! Dr. Nathaniel said he’d only contact me if there were any problems with my full-face x-rays, so hopefully I’ll not hear from him before my next “maintenance examination” next year (cross fingers, touch wood!) We were going to call in at the Vet on the way home to get Flipper some more of her favourite pussy biscuits (kibble) and our Vet, the one we normally go to, is in Blackburn, but Julian decided to check the Vermont South P.O. Box first (not the Doncaster one, where hopefully I’ll receive my new Birth Certicate* – maybe even tomorrow! 🙂 ) and on the way through the Vermont South shopping strip part, we saw a Vet Surgery with what looked like packets of kibble in the window – so Julian went in and came out with Flipper’s “treats”, we checked the P.O. Box, and arrived home around noon! 🙂

After lunch, I Rifted for quite a while – Tallissia is now level 28 and has completed Gloamwood and on her way to Scarlet Gorge! I did die once today – I think it’s the very first time she has died (though she might have died once before – I fergit!) It’s not really surprising that I did die today – I was in the last part of the Gloamwood quest chain, in a ruined castle, surrounded by hostiles… and I spotted a “Special” (i.e. a named Elite – good for big experience points!) There were other people playing close by, and I didn’t want to run the risk of anyone else getting to “my” special first – so instead of doing things the right way and picking off everything else that might attack me first, I went straight for him. Naturally he became enraged and started fighting me, and so did his two henchmen, and that sort-of acted as a signal for three of the other hostiles around me (which I should have picked off first!) to start fighting me too. And I died. It was my own stupid fault, but… you know? I got them all down before I died – only one walked away from that fight, and as soon as I resurrected, I killed her too! 🙂 I tell’s ya, them Primalists are just a teeny bit too powerful!

Weigh-in this morning. Not bad… back down one point, from 70.0kg to 69.9kg – what I was three days ago (and back under my final goal weight!) But… who knows what I’ll be tomorrow! Back to 70.something kg? It’s possible!… Down another couple of points? Also possible! My weight is a bit like Melbourne’s weather – of a box of chocolates! You never know what you’re going to get!

Tomorrow I’m off to the hairdresser, and my favourite eldest daughter is off to her Periodontist – I’m not too sure what’s happening after that… I have to talk to Elliott tomorrow about what colour to use on my hair either next week or the week after, as my appointment with Dr. Y. is closing in on me and I do want to look my best. Lee had “frosted” tips put in hers, but her hair is a lot darker than mine – mine is far too light for “frosted”! I could have the rest of my hair darkened first, but it would start to look a bit “agouti” when it started to grow out. Then I thought ‘well, if I can’t have “frosted” hair because my base colour is too light, what about “anti-frosted”, or “reverse frosted” hair!?’ Where the base would remain the way it is, very light, but instead of light tips, I had very dark tips done? As I said – I’ll talk to Elliott about that tomorrow. Also, if I’ve got time tomorrow, I’d like to go into Target and try on some tops. I know that I can buy long-sleeved tee-shirts from Target online in a size 14 or 16, but I’m not sure what size I should get. From Autograph and My Size, I take a size 14 or ES (Extra Small) but I’d be very surprised if their “size 14” is the same as a “normal” or Target size 14! So before I go buying a whole lot of $15 size 14’s from Target online, I’d better find out if they will actually fit me! Julian made a batch of that “Marrakech” Iced Tea yesterday and I tried it this afternoon. Not bad for a first attempt, but I think it’d been brewed/steeped a little too long, as it was a touch “sour”. It’s certainly drinkable though, and has that lovely, soft and cooling “minty” aftertaste. Anyway, that’s about it from me for this evening 🙂 Do drop in again tomorrow night to find out how my weight went, what, if anything, was decided about my hair colour, did I try on any tee-shirts in Target, and… was there anything “special” in the Doncaster P.O. Box waiting for me! But until then, please bee good, remember that the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool, depending on the weather… but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*Certicate: many, many years ago, when I was heavily involved in the Cat World, as a registered breeder of Siamese I had to be able to produce “Certificates of Pedigree” to go off with any of the kittens I sold. Most of us (breeders) bought our blank Pedigree papers from our Club, The Royal Sacred Siamese Cat Club, and filled them in as needed. The Club had been selling these “Certificates of Pedigree” for years and years and years… then one night at the monthly Club meeting, some bright spark noticed… for the first time mind you, and they hadn’t been changed in years… that the word “Certificate” had been incorrectly spelt (for all those years!) and actually spelt “Certicate”! Great hilarity ensued! We couldn’t stop laughing! We decided to leave it “as is”, because it was now “us”, and we wanted to keep it that way 🙂 Since then, I’ve had great difficulty in using the word “Certificate”, because strangely, I’ve grown to love that word “Certicate” 🙂

Ahhhh! Sunday in The Wilds! 🙂 It’s a most confusing place – well, actually The Wilds themselves aren’t confusing, it’s the way that the quests are written or worded that’s confusing – you’re told “do this, that, and the other!”, but you’re given absolutely no information about what the “this” is, or where the “that” is, or what “the other” looks like. You’re simply shown a very large “approximation” circle on the map, where the “this, that, and the other” might be found – and left to do it! Just like that! At one stage, we had to find “eight good hiding places”, where a (cough!) “gentleman” could hide from a (cough! cough!) “lady” who was pursuing him with amorous intent – and we weren’t even given an “approximation” circle for the location of the hiding places! We ran around fruitlessly in all the wrong places for about ten minutes, until Julian gave up in disgust and searched the ‘net for clues… sure enough, we’d been looking in completely the wrong place! Really, you know – all we need to know is the approximate area, and given a hint of what to look for! A hiding place! It could have been a cave… a large crate… an out-of-the-way room… even a curtain to hide behind! Anything! It turned out that the hiding places were indicated by glowing blue circles on the floors of what appeared to have been alcoves in a ruined temple that looked a little bit like Angkor Wat! How were we supposed to find them in a very large and completely unmarked area? Still, we had a jolly good time, running around completing Carnage quests… This new area, The Wilds, is strictly for level 65 characters, and once you get to level 65, you stop earning experience points; you’ve reached the pinnacle, you can go no further, you are pretty much the king (or the queen) of the castle! But playing with no incentive isn’t very thrilling or exciting – Faction rewards? meh… Notoriety and reputation? nah… Better abilities and attributes, like extra running and swimming speed, extra intelligence or endurance? Yeah, sure – why not?! 🙂 So that’s what you work for after you reach level 65 – you get a little orange bar across the bottom of your screen so that you can measure the rate of your progress towards increasing your abilities – and what’s more, it seems to go up a lot more rapidly than your experience bar used to, which is very gratifying! 🙂 And the place where most of these points comes from is…. Carnage quests! The same way that they were the next quickest way to gain experience points besides handing in completed quests. The more things change, the more they stay the same… You know, after what I said in my blog the other night about everything being too much the same, etc.? I made a point of looking at all the mobs that we killed today, to see how they differed from the mobs we fought and killed back in the starting areas. Well, with very few exceptions, they looked pretty much exactly the same – not even very much bigger! Tougher, yes, and harder to bring down – certainly! But so were we! (tougher and harder to bring down) I was going to say that there’s really no reason why we should ever get killed in the game, apart from silly mistakes on your own part, like zigging left when you should have zagged right – that sort of thing – but… Julian managed to die about three or four times today, and I died once (but I did use a lot of “Feign Death” spells, to make the mob I’d been fighting think I was dead, so that it’d leave me alone!) When all’s said and done, the mobs might be pretty much the same, except for tougher and harder to kill, but believe me, level 65 Elites are not to be sneezed at! And level 65 Elite Specials (a “Boss” mob, particularly named Boss mobs!) are really, really hard to dispose of! I’m also very unhappy about the fact that my Pet seems to have been made a lot more fragile – where a Mage’s Pet used to be an invaluable part of the team, they’ve now become more of a liability! You remember that I explained what “shot rotation” was? well today I wasn’t able to use my normal shot rotation – I’d get off one round, and then spend the rest of the fight healing and trying to keep my ruddy Pet alive! The biggest mobs we had to get down today simply went through my Pet like a hot knife through room-temperature butter! Mages can revive their dead Pet almost instantaneously – once! Then it’s quite a lengthy period before you can get the Pet back again – time you can’t afford to waste when you’re being battered by a level 65 Elite Special! I’m afraid my Pet dying was probably the cause of at least two or three of Julian’s multiple deaths! I think Trion have a lot of “balancing” to do – in my opinion, Primalists are w-a-y too powerful – at least at the lower levels, and high-level Pets are stupidly fragile and – quite frankly – pretty much useless except as a distraction, for about the two seconds it has before it gets killed. I know I sound as though I’m grizzling about today – I’m not – it was a good day (Winter mutters through clenched teeth: though it would have been better if at times we’d had just a little more quest information!) and we both enjoyed ourselves! I’ll look into different Mage builds during the week, to see if I can work things so that I get a slightly tougher Pet… Elementals are supposed to be tougher, I think…

Weigh-in this morning. Was very disappointing – but at least I didn’t go up! I stayed the same, precisely on 70.0kg – though the scales did do a lot of dithering and dodging backwards and forwards between 69.something kg, 71.something kg, and at one silly stage, down to 68.something kg – but finally decided to settle on 70.0kg (again!) So as I said – disappointing, but at least I didn’t go up! I was quite pleased this morning, too, because when I got up my foot wasn’t as swollen as it’s been for the last few mornings – I could actually see bones in my toes and on the top of my foot! Even now, at almost 6.00pm, my left foot isn’t as bad as it’s been for a long time… (Winter crosses her fingers, and hopes that she hasn’t totally mozzed herself by saying that!)

Tomorrow is Monday (that’s what usually comes after a Sunday, anyway!) and I’ll be off for my x-rays, no matter what! I can’t get back to my treadmill until I talk to the Doctor after she gets the results, and every time I go into my bathroom I can hear the poor little treadmill crying to itself from loneliness in its little room next door Tuesday is going to be a bit of a problem – my favourite eldest daughter has a Periodontist appointment at noon, and I have a hairdressing appointment at one o’clock. Julian usually drives her to those appointments as it’s too awkward to get to by Public Transport – but I also need transport so that I can get the wheelchair to Doncaster. I have an idea! 🙂 (I can see Julian wincing in the background! 😉 ) If Julian takes me over to Doncaster early, he can drop me off there, whizz over to Glen Waverley, take Lee to her Periodontist appointment, drop her off home, and then come and pick me up! It’s a lot of driving though… and I don’t want to cancel or re-schedule my appointment because I got it on a cancellation, and it’s not fair to muck them around – still, we’ll work something out, I’m sure! 🙂 Hopefully, I should hear back from the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages some time this week (I’m sooo nervous! ) If I’m not allowed the change (addition, really!) I don’t know what I’ll do! Cry first, and then appeal the decision? or Appeal the decision first, and then cry?! I wish it was this time next week…. We also need to visit a good nursery or hardware store, to talk to someone about what sort of sleepers would be best to get for our veggie garden(s), and what else we’ll need, so that we can get on with things! I’m really looking forward to some beautiful home-grown tomatoes when I get onto Maintenance! And lettuce… radishes… celery… snow peas… beans… potatoes, even! 🙂 Anyway, that’s about it from me again for tonight – do call in again tomorrow night, to find out what my weight has decided to do to me this time, and what happened about the x-rays, and whether we had time to go to a nursery or Bunnings, or whatever – but until then, please try very hard to bee good, don’t forget that if plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters (204 if you’re in Japan! 😉 ) and always remember to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but most importantly, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, today was another good-ish sort of day – Julian went out this morning to do a bit of shopping, for things like cereal, which he forgot to get the other day, and to check the P.O. Box in Doncaster, to see if my new Birth Certificate had arrived early. It hadn’t, and I think I’d be being just a wee bit over-optimistic, to expect it before the end of next week (but one can only hope!) and really, I don’t even know if they’re going to allow me to make the change or not! Oh, and you might have noticed that I’ve changed the format of the blog – it’s the same template, but my favourite eldest daughter informed me this morning that she hadn’t been able to see the links for the new caesarstone and laminate colours – and she was quite right – set out the way it was last night, with the side-bar at the bottom instead of on the side as it is now, for some totally incomprehensible reason, links were only visible on mouseover! In other words, you couldn’t just see links within the text – you had to physically mouseover lines and words to see if any links were present. Now, I have to ask you – how stupid is that?! Anyway, they show up alright in this format with the sidebar visible – I’d much prefer it to be on the bottom, but if it’s a toss-up as to what I’d prefer, and my readers being able to see my links, well readers, you win hands down 🙂 However, I will point out to you all that the difference between a plain old, ordinary, everyday, underlined word, and a link, is fairly subtle – in underlined words, the line is very close to the text. In links, there’s quite a noticeable gap between the line and the text. And if you mouseover that slightly lower line, it thickens up a fair bit, indicating that it is, indeed a link. So there you go – from now on, if I say something along the lines of “This is what I’ve done – what do you all think?” with a line under one or more of the words, you should be able to see that it’s a link, without having to mouseover the whole ruddy blog! 😉

Getting back to this morning! While Julian was out, I Rifted! I managed to get my new Primalist up to level 24, and it’s still far too easy! In a way, it’s good, and you can just go sailing gaily through thick and thin, killing as you go, tr-la-la-la-lay… but in actual fact, it’s a bit boring! Once you get your “shot rotation” worked out – the order in which you use your weapons so as to maximise the damage you inflict on enemies – you hardly even have to look at the screen! It’s just a matter of ‘plod, plod, plod, oh look, there’s a Goblin! shoot, bash, wollop, shoot, oh, not dead yet? Here, have another one of these (shoot)! plod, plod, plod‘ – rinse and repeat, ad infinitum! There’s no real challenge in it anymore! Actually, I think I’ve been saying that for quite some time – that there’s no challenge in the game now. I suppose it’s just a matter of Swings and Roundabouts, Supply and Demand – in an effort to attract more players, the game writers make leveling up easier, so that more players will want to join in… but by the same token, those game writers run the risk of boring their older, more seasoned players, who then turn their eyes elsewhere, looking for new horizons and something with a bit more “meat on its bones” – I know I’m looking for something a bit more exciting, and Julian is dipping into World of Warcraft again (though that was the main reason we walked away from it – the writers were “dummying it down” it down too much, and it was getting boring!) Which is a great shame – it’s a really good game, and I like it a lot – but it’s just getting too “same-y”, too “Ho-hum, here we go again….” from starting area to level 65 End Game scenarios – nothing really changes but the power of your weapons and the calibre of your attributes or abilities. Nothing surprising ever happens – even most of the foes you’ll face are all basically the same – they just become bigger, nastier, and more formidable – but they’re still mostly the monsters that you grew to hate and kill back in the starting out area (and most of them even look the same!) I suppose I was hoping for something “different” with this latest patch – and it is! Different! But the basic game play is still the same, and once you’ve worked it out, you still use the same shot rotation until you could do it in your sleep. Ah! I think I’ve just hit on the problem! I think they really need to make the AIs smarter – or at least introduce some true randomly generated reactions to their repertoire! As we, the players go through the same old ‘plod, plod, plod’ routines all the time, so do the poor old monsters and baddies! (I bet they get bored, too!) If we, the gamers, are predictable, the monsters (the AIs) are even more predictable. The writers have managed to introduce a teeny-weeny bit of randomly generated behaviour in some of the level one critters – sometimes when you shoot at them, instead of just keeling over and dying as they almost always do, occasionally (very occasionally!) they’ll stand their ground, or even (try to) attack you! This surprises you – this startles you – you often don’t quite know how to react, and if it was a high-level monster, you’d probably be dead! The critters though are only level 1 – their defiance doesn’t last more than a couple of seconds – but if the writers could do a bit more of that sort of thing with really high level mobs, there’d be no more ‘plod, plod, plod’ – we gamers would have to think and react quickly, and that would be much more betterer! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I knew it was going to happen 😦 I knew it had to happen 😦 But that doesn’t mean that I have to like it, or take it without grizzling! I went up a point – from 69.9kg to 70.0kg! I suppose that at 70.0kg I’m still on my final goal weight, but I need to be lower, so that I don’t end up over my goal weight when I start on Maintenance! The anti-fluid tablet haven’t been working as well today – I guess I’ve probably shed all the fluid that those other wretched pills made me retain, and now I’m “back to normal” as far as fluid retention is concerned. Now all I have to do is start walking on my treadmill again… I reckon I could you know – my foot only hurts if I try to flex my toes… but I’ll be a good girl (for now!) and keep off the treadmill until we see what the results of the x-rays say *sigh*

So – tomorrow is Sunday, and I’d imagine that Julian and I will be quite busy in The Wilds… I’m actually wondering exactly where in Telara these Wilds are! To get there, you have to go to one of the very early zones called The Droughtlands – then you go though a portal to what used to be a closed off area in The Droughtlands, run around there a bit, and then step through another portal into The Wilds! I must have a look on the world map tomorrow, if I can – er… I mean I’ll remember to look at the world map, but it may not be possible to see where we are in relation to the world map, especially if The Wilds is located in an “elsewhere” area, like another plane, or something. Anyway, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow night, because right now, that’s about all I have for you tonight 🙂 Do drop by again tomorrow night though – and find out what we did in The Wilds – if we died or not, and if so, why? What my weight got up to (or hopefully down to!)  and also if we’ve decided exactly where the veggie garden(s) will go – and lots of other interesting and fascinating things besides! Until then, please sir on your hands and bee good, remember that the more you overthink, the less you will understand, and don’t forget to drive carefully, to keep warm – or cool, depending on the weather, and to look after yourselves – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

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! 🙂

Late again, as usual 🙂 Never mind – my favourite eldest daughter was over today, and she’s only just left! We had a good day – I still haven’t been able to do my treadmilling as I haven’t had time to get to the x-ray place, so that gave us extra time to watch a new series we started watching today. It’s called “The Librarians” and is quite a fun show – light and frivolous entertainment, if you will! I’m told that it was the original inspiration for the later series, “Warehouse 13”, though further investigation indicates that “The Librarians” was aired after “Warehouse 13”, another excellent little piece of fun and frivolity, ended (although the two shows have absolutely nothing in common, except for the retrieval and neutralising of mysterious and magical artifacts which wreck mayhem and chaos if left in the public purview! 😉 ) We watched six episodes today – the first two “pilot” episodes, and another four – and were well entertained for the afternoon! 🙂 She also brought with her one of those new “adult” colouring books, which seem to be becoming increasingly popular. They come in various “flavours”, from figures, to plants, to insects and nature, to absolutely gorgeously drawn and printed mandalas, like the one she brought with her. I’d absolutely love to try my hand at colouring some in, but they’re so beautiful that you feel quite daunted – what if you went over the lines? Or smudged it? Ruined it?! It would almost be a crime to mess them up, they’re so lovely! I look at them and say to myself “I’d love to do one of those… but my eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be, and my colouring pencils are a bit on the “scratchy” side – I’d probably only make a mess of the picture…” and put the book back down:/ But… one day I might dredge up the courage to try one – who knows? 🙂

Before Lee arrived this morning, I did a small amount of Rifting, and was still playing when she walked in – of course, I was working with one of my new Primalists, and Lee started bemoaning the fact that she’d just re-opened her World of Warcraft account, and that the next expansion of “Star Wars: The Old Republic” was due out in a month or so – and besides, although Rift is a very good “Play for Free” type game, if she wanted to try out a Primalist she would have to buy the “Primalist Pack” – about $60-odd. I suppose I could let her create and try out a Primalist character on my account, on one of my less populated shards… but then her husband Neale would blame me if she really liked it and decided to not only re-open her old Rift account, but to buy the upgrade as well! (then again, I am his mother-in-law, and as such, I suppose I do have a reputation to maintain… 😉 ) Still, we’ll see what happens – if she does use my account to try out a Primalist, I’ll have to sit and watch her play – it’s been many, many years since I used to sit and watch her play games like Everquest, Diablo 2 (and III!)  and World of Warcraft, yelling out things like “Look out behind you!”, and “Quick! Take a pot! – Oh… too late…. you died…” and generally learning my way around MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online role-playing game) by observation. After about two years of that, I decided to try playing myself. My first foray was as a “Mule” in Diablo II – as a way for Lee or Julian to carry extra goods – the game was much too fast-paced for me to survive, so I sat back in the camp and minded the store! 🙂 Then I tried World of Warcraft, and took to it like a duck to water, and I suppose I played that for about eight years… and when Lee discovered Rift, I migrated over to that. At first I hated it – it was a lot faster than World of Warcraft in some ways,  but eventually I found my niche as a Mage, rather than the Hunter/Beastmaster that I’d played in the past, and soon I dropped completely out of WoW, as did Julian. I’d managed to get into the Beta (pre-release) version of Rift in early 2011, and soon after it was released in March, Julian joined me in Telara, so we’ve both been playing Rift for four years now. Curiously, Julian has started dabbling in World of Warcraft again – and I must admit – I am tempted! 😉

Unfortunately, it’s that time again, so…

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

So here I am, back again 🙂 I came back intending to go on with this, only to find that the router had crashed (don’t ask! It’s technical!) so I had to sit around and wait for Julian to get it going again – I didn’t want to start writing again in case everything fell over and I lost everything (though WordPress does backup drafts every eight minutes or thereabouts, so I would have had something to go on with) One day I might have another look-in at WoW, “but that day is not today!” 🙂 For the moment, I’ll stick with Rift, though I must admit I always have my eyes and ears open for news of any new MMO games.

Weigh-in this morning. Was quite spectacular! Dr. B. had told me to only take one anti-fluid tablet in the morning, and one at lunchtime, and the results were… unexpected? Yesterday I weighed in at 71.5kg… this morning, I weighed in at 70.7kg! I do not expect to do this again, but am looking on it as merely a quick way of shedding the fluid that those ‘orrible little pills made me retain – almost a whole kilo’s worth! I just hope I don’t bounce back too violently from that enormous drop! Unfortunately it hasn’t reduced the swelling in my feet very much – maybe Dr. B.’s right, and the swelling is due to the arthritis…

I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow – I probably should go and get those x-rays over and done with so that I can get the results, and, Dr. B. permitting, get back to my treadmilling! My lovely favourite eldest daughter was wearing some new socks today (they’re Bonds socks) the design on them made them look like she had them on inside-out (she didn’t) but what interested me the most was that the toes appeared to be extremely thick and “felt”-like – ideal for… ? Walking on a treadmill! 🙂 I shall have a look around to see if I can find them online – failing that, I shall have a look in DJ’s – they seem to have a lot of Bonds products in their “intimate apparel” section. Lee said that she got her socks from the Bonds shop at Chadstone, but didn’t recommend that we go there because of all the building going on (they’re expanding, yet again!) No fear of that though – Julian issued a very solemn oath many years ago that he would never again go to Chadstone Shopping Centre (because it’s too big) and since then he never has… However – those strange, inside-out-looking, extra thick-toed socks, cannot hide from me in my quest to find something suitable to wear on my feel whilst treadmilling! I shall hunt them down, and they shall become a trophy worthy of wearing on my tootsies! (I hope!) So tomorrow, maybe I’ll go and have those two lots of x-rays taken – or maybe I won’t… and if possible, I shall try to get some Rifting in. We shall have to get in touch with Clarke again too, as he didn’t drop off that laminate sample, and I want to see what it looks like! And that’s really about it from me for tonight – do drop in again tomorrow night to see how my weight behaved – will it go down some more, or will it have swung the other way and gone skyrocketing back up again? Will I have had my x-rays done and be back on the road towards treadmilling again? My foot really does feel a lot better – in fact, you’d never know that it had been so painful… except when I flex it! Then it hurts like blazes, so maybe I do have a stress fracture… And… will I get the chance to do any Rifting? Well, you can find all of those things out tomorrow night, but until then, please bee good, remember that the only time success comes before work is in the dictionary, and don’t forget to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep cool – or warm, depending on the weather, but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, it was a very quiet, peaceful day here today – apart from his morning walk, even Julian didn’t have to leave the house today! The lawnmower man came this morning, and with one exception, I can honestly say that that was about the most interesting or exciting thing that happened all day! I rang the x-ray place this morning to make an appointment to go in and have my feet (it appears that Dr. B. wants both of my feet x-rayed!) and my full mouth x-rayed – but they said to just go on in – no need to make an appointment! So I suppose I should have gone in today, and got them all over and done with, but I wanted to have a day of Rifting for a change! Well, I did have my day of Rifting, and things were going very well indeed – until I had to put some things in the Guild Bank, and then I spent the rest of the day re-organising and sorting out the ruddy Guild Bank! The trouble is, we either don’t have enough room in it, or we’re trying to keep too much in it! This is the problem when you have about six reasonably low-level characters who are bringing back low-level ores, herbs, and skins, all of which are needed for their reasonably low-level Crafting recipes – and about six high to very high-level characters who are bringing in high-level ores, herbs, and skins, all of which are needed for their high-level Crafting recipes! I can tell you from bitter experience, too, that attempting to cater for both low and high-level Crafting needs in one five-vault Guild Bank just simply Does! Not! Work! On other “Guilded” shards (shards that have a Guild and a Guild Bank) where I’ve managed to keep experience levels fairly stable and uniform, I don’t have these problems because as the characters and their skills go up, I shift the really low-level items to a “third-party” – a character specially created to look after the Guild Bank “overflow”, because you never know when you might need those low-level materials to make a few low-level items that you have on your list of Crafting Recipes. Anyway, it all took a while, and by the time I’d finished sorting everything out my eyes were beginning to cross and I’d wasted a considerable amount of valuable playing time But I can report that playing a Primalist seems to be working out alright, even though I don’t have a pet to assist me (or stand right on top of loot that I’m trying to pick up, or right on top of the quest giver that I’m trying to hand a quest in to! *grr!*) Mind you, the highest level that I’ve managed to (read: had time to!) get a Primalist up to is 14 – so nothing’s been terribly hard or dangerous, so far! We shall see how we go – I’ll know if I’ll want to, or be able to, play a Primalist successfully by the time I get them up to about level 25… It’s quite interesting really, looking at their soul tree – I have no idea what Trion are doing, or trying to do, or what they have in mind for the Primalists, but their soul (or skill) tree is less than half the length of those of all the other Classes. Normally you end up with 66 points to “spend” on your way up the tree, putting points towards better and more effective spells, fire-power, speed, agility, or whatever attributes and abilities are most pertinent to your Class – Primalists get only 31! Fewer, but far more powerful attributes and abilities? At this stage of the game I can only guess… In the beginning, in the starting-out area, I’ve noticed that Primalists get points every time they go up a level – until they get to about level five – then they seem to only get a point about every second or third level (I really must count them – and keep a record of how many points they get, and more particularly, when!) they still go up levels normally – they just don’t get a point (or 2 points, every third level) to spend in their soul tree the way every single other Class in Rift does! It’s most strange, but I think I like the Class… so far, anyway! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Was surprising, seeing as I didn’t do any treadmilling yesterday! I went down another three points, from 71.8kg to 71.5kg! Amazing! Please, everyone, be very, very quiet! Tippy-toe around, and speak in whispers, please! I don’t want my body to wake up, yawn, and stretch – and then think “Hey! I didn’t do any hill climbing yesterday – or today, either! What gives?! I’d better stop shedding the weight so quickly! In fact, I should probably put a bit more back on – pass the rich, dark chocolate layer cake and whipped cream, please!” In fact, I probably shouldn’t have even written that – you do know that writing something about what you want, or don’t want your body to do is akin to shouting it in their ear, don’t you! Now I’ll probably be back up to 73kg or something equally as horrible tomorrow!

Speaking of bodies and such, I’m so proud of myself that I just have to tell you all! 🙂 Last year, before I started this weight-loss program, and I was at my heaviest – 134. something kg – I fell over getting out of the shower. I didn’t hurt myself – only my dignity – but what with my arthritis and my enormous weight, I couldn’t get up off the floor! Julian couldn’t get me up off the floor either! It was really horribly embarrassing, and I cringe with shame just thinking about it In the end we had to call the Ambulance to get me up off the floor, which they did with surprising speed and very little effort, and I was very grateful, as it was most uncomfortable on the floor… That, I’ll remind you, was just last year. Today, while Julian was off on his walk, and the lawnmower man had just arrived, I dropped one of my pain killers on the floor and it rolled under my desk where I couldn’t reach it. I said a few rude words, and thought “Blast! Now I’m going to have to wait for Julian to get home to rescue it for me! (*fume*)” For a split nano-second, I contemplated asking the lawnmower man if he could come in and get it for me, but I rejected that idea almost before I thought it, and so I sat there, staring gloomily at that horrid little tablet lying just out of my reach… I did think of getting something long with which to pull it out, but we have a large sheet of Masonite under our desks for the chairs to roll on, and even if I’d had anything long enough to reach the pill, I wouldn’t have been able to get it off the carpet and onto the Masonite. I looked at it a bit more, trying to will it to levitate towards me, but it was most disobedient, and wouldn’t. I found myself thinking… “I could try to get it… there’s a couch over there that I’m sure I could pull myself up with… and if I can’t, Julian will be home soon…” In the end, I got down on the floor (which was actually a lot further away than it looked from the chair, but I managed, without mishap!) I got my bloody stupid little pill! And you know what? I got up! By myself! The only thing I hung onto, if you can call it hanging on, was I put one hand on the desktop, just to steady myself! Ladies and gentlepersons, I don’t think you can possibly realise how overwhelming that was for me! Just the simple act of getting up off the floor! I’ve been so overweight, and so badly affected with the arthritis, that getting up off the floor unaided hasn’t even been a possibility for about fifteen years! But I did it today! And if there was even the slimmest possibility of me ever putting that weight back on again before, there sure ain’t now! 🙂 Give getting myself off the floor up?! No way! 🙂

Tomorrow my favourite eldest daughter will be over and I’ll be able to see what her newly coloured hair looks like properly – she sent us a selfie, but the lighting wasn’t that good and it was hard to tell exactly what colour it was (she said it was “frosted”!) Anyway, I’ll see it tomorrow, and if I think it’s suitable, I might consider it as a “cooler” colour for my hair, if the lovely people at the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages allow me to have the “Winter” on the front of my name (I should know by the end of next week!) I’m not sure what we’ll be watching tomorrow – we started watching “How to Get Away with Murder!” last week – it’s a bit “dark”, if you know what I mean, but it’s certainly interesting – and of course, there’s always “Arrow” 🙂 But that’s about it from me for tonight – do drop by again tomorrow night and see what other exciting things have been happening! I won’t have played any more Rift, but I might have picked up something else from the floor that I didn’t think I could reach – how ’bout that! 🙂 and hopefully my weight won’t have heard my comment about rich, dark chocolate layer cake with whipped cream, and eaten a few virtual slices! 😉 Anyway, I’m sure there’ll be lots of news for you all, but until then, please try to bee good, always remember that knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens, and never forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – and above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*Quote of the Day from Goodreads this morning: “Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.” ― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
The blurb reads: October 12, 1979: Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was published. It was the first book in the deliberately misnamed Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy, which actually contains six books.

I quite liked that quote – it’s the way I occasionally feel… a sort-of “Let’s do it anyway, and at least try it – who knows? Maybe it’ll work!” attitude! (and then I usually think “well… perhaps not… ” but that’s just the defeatist part of me, and I don’t often listen to it! 😉 ) Right, well last night I hurt my left foot. You know I’ve been constantly grizzling about how swollen my feet get an’ all, well for the past few days it’s been harder and harder to get my shoes on, but I somehow manage to jam my feet into them far enough for me to be able to look almost normal, and to be able to hobble around without falling over. Yesterday was no exception, but as I was going off to hand in my name-change papers and I had to look as good as possible, I jammed my feet into my shoes as usual and “soldiered on”, as they say in the classics. And as I told you, by the time we got back it was late, and I got a late start on writing yesterday’s blog, but somehow I did manage to get it finished before dinner (another minor miracle!) I finally got the blog online at seven o’clock, so Julian paused the news whilst I hurried off to do my hill climbing exercises. Well, I’ve told you how I amuse myself when I’m on the treadmill – I count my steps. I usually do 800+ but by the time I got to “300”, I was thinking “yow! My foot hurts!” By the time I got to 500, I was in a lot of pain, and by the time I got to 800, I was in total agony – have you ever tried limping heavily on a treadmill going at 3.2kmph? Don’t. It’s not easy, and probably not very safe – I probably should have stopped when it started to get really sore – but I got to 800, and I did my 15 minutes plus. I have no idea what I’ve done to my foot (it’s my left one) but it was bad enough for me to take it to the doctor today, and she’s sending me off to have it x-rayed, and told me “No treadmilling until we get the results!” 😦 So I guess my weight will go up again. I went to the Prosthodontist today – he was supposed to be removing and cleaning my top bridges this year, because for the past two years he’s had to do the bottom ones. He did have a good look at the top bridges and pronounced them satisfactory, but again decided to remove and clean the bottom ones – apparently it’s (everyone’s!) bottom teeth (or in my case, implants) that accumulate the most tartar, and need to be done most often. He’s also sending me off for an x-ray – it seems that the bone in my lower jaw is starting to deteriorate a bit (that’s what happens with age, and the reason that elderly people can’t keep their lower dentures in place because there’s just not enough bone to hold them properly… but don’t worry, I’m not that old, and my bones are still fine! (besides, I don’t have dentures anyway!) 😛 ) Anyway, I reckon it was a stroke of luck to be able to get the appointment with the doctor today – I guessed she’d probably want an x-ray – and the Prosthodontist usually sends me off for one every year – so tomorrow morning I’ll ring up and make an appointment to have them both done at the same time! 🙂 Oh, Dr. B. had a good look at both my feet, took my blood pressure (which is “perfect” – her words, not mine!) and listened to my chest to see if there was any excess fluid in my lungs. Her opinion is that it’s the arthritis in my feet which is causing them to swell, and that there’s nothing more sinister afoot (oh, har har – “a foot” – pardon the accidental pun!) but to be on the safe side she’s also ordered some more blood tests to be done the next time I have my Warfarin one done. Anyway, if it turns out that it’s only arthritis causing my feet to swell, I’ll be much relieved, and I’ll stop grizzling about it – I was just worried that it might have been something… er… worse.

Oh, I had a reply from the GM’s at Rift this afternoon! Apparently the business about extra character slots was badly worded – we only got one extra slot, not two, but they’ve refunded the Credits for the two extra slots that I bought, and will pass that information onto the Game Developers, because I was right – you’re not supposed to be able to buy more of anything when you’ve reached your limit. So they’ve been very kind refunding my Credits, and I’ve reported a serious bug 🙂 I’m happy! (but I’d be a lot happier if I could find some time to sit down and actually play the game! ) As far as I know, I’m going to be home tomorrow, so I might get a chance to do more than just process my Minions! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I wonder if it was my nerves, taking those papers in to the Justice Centre, or later on, the amount of pain I was in from my foot? Anyway, I went down four points, from 72.2kg to 71.8kg! I hope I go down again tomorrow, but… I haven’t done any treadmilling since last night! I feel very guilty about that, but if I have got a small stress fracture in one of the bones in my foot, I don’t want to aggravate it and make it worse! Much more betterer to be safe than sorry, and wait until I get the results of the x-ray back from Dr. B. If I get the OK, I might extend the time from 15 minutes to 20, or 25 minutes. (thinks…) Or I might not. I’m very lazy… 😉

Ah! Some life-giving dark brown liquid nectar has just arrived at my desk! 🙂 Yum… As I said earlier, I don’t think I’m doing anything much tomorrow apart from booking in two x-rays, so with a bit of luck, I might get some Rifting in! However, on the other hand, I’m itching to do some graphicing! I feel the need to do a different header for the blog – or change the template, or something! Why aren’t there more hours in the day?! Why don’t I have more than two hands? It’s not fair! I also want to go over to Doncaster Shoppingtown to go T2 and look at their special Iced Tea jugs, find out how they work, and see if we can find out how to brew our own Marrakech iced tea – at $4 a bottle (two glasses of iced tea!) it’s a little on the expensive side to get in a week’s supply! Well, my favourite eldest daughter will be over there tomorrow getting her hair coloured, and if Julian decides to go and pick her up and drive her home, well, I’ll probably go along too, and check out the Iced Tea Jugs at T2! Maybe. It’ll depend on how hot it is, and whether my desire for Iced Tea is stronger than the allure of Rift! 😉 And actually that’s about it from me for tonight – I don’t think there’s anything else of supreme or vital importance, or even of mild interest, to tell you all, but there almost certainly will be tomorrow night – so call in again then to see what’s been happening around here 🙂 Will I have booked my x-rays? What did my weight do? Go back up again, stay the same, or drop a bit further?! Hopefully it’ll have dropped – at the moment it’s a toss-up as to whether I stop when I get to 70kg, cross my fingers, and say “Let’s try Maintenance!”, or whether I’ll keep on going down to 65kg, so as to give myself 5 kilos of weight to play with while getting myself stable on a maintenance diet. The quicker I actually get to 70kg, the quicker I’ll have to decide, and I don’t think I like being indecisive! Did I end up going to Doncaster with Julian to pick up my favourite eldest daughter, whom I’ll be seeing on Thursday anyway, just to look at T2’s Iced Tea Jugs? Well, you can find out all about it right here, tomorrow night! 🙂 Until then, please continue to bee good, remember that in the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance; don’t forget to drive carefully, to keep warm, and to look after yourselves… but above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Goodness, I’m starting this late tonight! It’s 10 past five, and we’ve only just got home from our “errands”! Clarke came this morning to collect the rubbish that had been left behind after he and Paul installed our two doors, but didn’t bring the laminate sample – he was going to bring that tomorrow, but as we won’t be home in the morning he’ll just put them in the letterbox, so that should be alright… Now, we were going to be going off to take all my name change paperwork to the Justice Centre, but by the time I’d re-filled all the forms in (I’d filled them all in months ago, before we moved, and as you can probably imagine, they were starting to look a little bit “tacky”!) Julian decided that we’d go in after lunch, about two o’clock, so that we’d miss any sort of “lunch time rush”. So I sat back down again and played a bit of Rift… (what else?! 😉 ) Anyway, we had lunch at home, and I managed to get my lunchtime hill-climbing done, and then we headed off to the Box Hill Justice Centre, which is in Station Street, just past the corner of Whitehorse Road and Station Street, on the Doncaster side. Parking, of course, was impossible – not only is it a very busy area, but they, too, are building apartments, businesses, and what will probably be additional annexes or buildings for the Box Hill Tafe (is it still a Tafe? or has it assumed the title of university now? I can’t keep up with all the changing terms and titles!) Luckily there was one (one!) Disabled Parking spot opposite the Justice Centre, so we took that – and were very thankful that it wasn’t raining, as it probably would have been if we had gone in the morning! So off we went, and almost got squished by their automatic door on the way in – apparently there’d been a power outage earlier, and the door’s brains had got a bit scrambled by it – it didn’t want to open – a button inside the building had to be held down for that to happen, and when it did open, it was only opening about three-quarters of the way, when it would immediately try to slam shut again (which is where I nearly got squished!) We must have hit the sweet spot though, because when we arrived we were the only people there. We spoke to a very nice and helpful lady called “Amanda”, and she went through all my forms – I think we impressed her because we had so much documentation with us – she kept telling us “we don’t need that”, and “you’ve brought us too much!” She told us that she’d done lots of these name change thingies and that there shouldn’t be any problems with mine – she said that they may want a credit check of my first marriage done, but she doubts it (and which would be rather pointless, as they don’t keep those sorts of records for more than seven years, and Julian and I have been together for 29 years, which is longer than the statute of limitations, anyway!) (so now I just know that they’re going to demand one, and hold the whole process up for months!) Do you know, it takes 41 business days for them to process change of name applications?! 41 days! However for a sinfully exorbitant price, you can have it “fast-tracked” to five business days… So we paid the sinfully exorbitant price, and what’s more, we also paid to have it express posted to our PO Box address – I’m really sitting on broken glass about this – so by the end of next week I should know if I got my name change or not. I’m so nervous! What if they say “No! You already have enough names – you can’t have Winter as well! (so there!)” or something?! 😐

Well, we were planning on going up to Knox City to pick up our cupboard drawer thingy from Howard’s Storage World, and to see if we could find a Swatch Watch for me – but by this time it was starting to get a bit late, so we changed our schedule and went to Doncaster Shoppingtown instead, because it was just up the road and a lot closer. I could have gone without a watch for another day I suppose, but I had a prescription to get filled, and we also wanted to get some more toothbrush heads from The Shaver Shop (and if I’d been thinking properly, we also wanted to go to T2 to have a look at the special jugs they have for making iced tea, but I forgot!) Do you know, no-one sells Swatch Watches any more? You can buy them online – I even had a look at a few of them last night – but their site was as slow as a broken down bus, and there were no real close-ups to show you any details in the (so-called) patterns on either the dial or the bands (so you can’t really see what they look like, or how they’re going to suit you) Or if you’re really desperate you can go into Melbourne Central, where they’re supposed to have a shop (and there are two chances of us doing that! Buckley’s and None!) We did the Grand Tour of all the jewellery shops that sold watches on the ground floor of Doncaster Shoppingtown – we should have done upstairs as well (we probably wouldn’t have forgotten the toothbrush heads or the T2 iced tea jugs if we had, though I wouldn’t swear to that!) but we were really running late by this time, and we were both getting quite desperate for a cup of coffee, so when we found a black plastic Casio watch, with a plastic buckle at Proud’s, we caved in – it was even on Sale, so with our tongues hanging out for caffeine, how could we resist?! And I can now tell you (with but a single glance at my right wrist!) that it’s precisely twelve minutes past six o’clock in the evening, give or take a few minutes, and not just a patch of bare skin, which I’ve been hopefully looking at for the last day and a half, as if hoping that it would tell me what time it was!

Weigh-in this morning. I knew it, I knew it! Yes, I’m in the ruddy see-saw event at the end of the kilogram zone! Back up one point! from 72.1kg to 72.2kg! Over the past five days I’ve gone from 72.4kg to 72. 5kg to 72.2kg to 72.1kg to 72.2kg – what will it be tomorrow, I wonder? Oh well, about another two days should see me past the effect of the fluid-retaining pills (I hope!)

Waiting at the traffic lights on our way home from Shoppingtown, I was idly looking around, and I saw these two guys – they were obviously friends, they’d crossed the road together, and were standing on the corner together, each one busily texting away on their phones. To me, this looked stupid enough – but then they started walking off, side by side, together, both of them still busily texting with both hands. I said to Julian “I wish I had a magic wand! I’d magic a hole in front of them so that they’d trip over it!” Julian laughed and said I was mean. I said “Why? It might wake them up and make them take notice of the world around them! Look! There’s blue sky, and heavy grey clouds! There’s traffic, and trees, and people! And they’re head down, both thumbs busily pecking away at a minute keyboard! For goodness sake – if they want to communicate with someone, why not talk to them – then at least they could observe the world around them while they were walking and talking!” To me, to see people behaving this way is the epitome of idiocy – they obviously can’t know how deadly dull and stupid (“zombified” might be a better description!) they look while they’re doing this, or they wouldn’t do it! Do you all think I’m mean too, for wanting to wake them from their zombified trance?

So tomorrow I’ve got my visit to the Prosthodontist, Wednesday’s free, because my favourite eldest daughter is off to the hairdresser to have her hair coloured – but she’ll be over on Thursday, so that’ll be good! I’m not sure what’s happening on Friday – let’s just say “To Be Announced” 🙂 And that’s really about it from me for tonight! Do call in again tomorrow night – find out all about my visit to the Prosthodontist, and what I think of the laminate sample that Clarke said he’d put in our letterbox for me (it’s the laminate for my vanity unit in my new bathroom, and is (supposed to be!) a deep sort of plum!) I’ll also fill you in on how my weight’s behaving, and any other interesting little tidbits from the day’s doin’s! Until then, do bee good, remember that dreams come true – without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them, and don’t forget to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂