Well, as usual on a Sunday, I’m starting writing a bit later than I usually do – still, better late than never! 😉 We’ve spent most of the day Rifting, and I’m pleased to be able to report only the one death – and for once it wasn’t me! 🙂 My poor pet died numerous times, of course, but I bandaged him up and resurrected him (or her – I have no idea which!) and off we went again, happily slaughtering critters, left, right, and centre. We took our two level 65’s into The Wilds, and it sure is confusing! Naturally, all the mobs are a lot harder than we’re used to, and there are lots of “Carnage” quests, which usually trigger when you’ve had to kill something in self defence! As soon as you’ve done so, there’s a sort of trumpet fanfare, and the words “Quest Accepted!”, written in large letters, flashes across your screen – so you have no choice but to go off and kill “X” numbers of the type of beast that you just killed in self defence. Well, actually you do get a choice – you can choose to ignore it completely until you leave the area, whereupon you can “Abandon” the quest. You can Abandon the quest while you’re in the area, but every time you happen to kill one of those particular creatures (and believe me, you will kill quite a number of them in self defence as you move around that location!) you’ll get that annoying fanfare and “Quest Accepted!”, written in large letters, flashing across your screen! It’s far easier to either ignore the quest while you’re in the area (though by the time you leave, you’ll probably have killed the requisite numbers, anyway!) or just complete the quest and get it over and done with. You do get such goodies as financial rewards, notoriety, reputation, but above all, you get experience! In fact completing Carnage quests yields nearly as much experience as that gained from completing normal “Pass me that book on the cabinet over there!” quests! Most players move around the countryside with an eagle eye out for artifacts, gathering items (ores, herbs, wood, and anything that will give you their skin, once it’s dead) and Carnage quests! So anyway, there we were, scooting around The Wilds (I can’t say “galloping around” The Wilds because we were riding on a very fast, very agile sort-of disk-shaped slab of lava, which doesn’t really make galloping noises!) scooting around The Wilds, trying to find our way to the King of that particular area. Of course we kept getting side-tracked by a lot of Carnage quests and as a consequence spent quite a bit of time back-tracking – and getting lost! Looking at the map, the way seemed quite straightforward, but the terrain was in fact on two different levels, and by the time we realised that we were on the lower level, but needed to be on the upper level, we’d already wasted a great deal of time looking for a way around (because “around” wasn’t possible from down there, we needed to go “up”, and that wasn’t possible from where we were, either!) In the end we had to travel right back to the beginning of the area and take a different route from there… Once on the right track, we came across another lot of Carnage quests – these creatures looked like a cross between a kangaroo and a baboon (they were in fact called “Babaroos”!) [aside: you should hear the thunder and rain pelting down outside! It’s looking really nasty, with almost simultaneous thunder and lightning! I hope the power doesn’t go out! ] and it was one of those Babaroos that killed Julian! We’d already killed quite a lot of them (we had to kill twelve, from memory) without much trouble, but we’d each targeted different Babaroos, so neither of us could really go to the aid of the other. Well, I could hear Julian having difficulties with his Babaroo, but I was just a tad busy at the time, so I wasn’t immediately able to go and help him. By the time I was able to get to him, it was just in time to hear Mandreth give a horrible gurgle, and keel over dead! My pet and I took over the fight, but for some unknown reason, that Babaroo was really, really tough! He wasn’t an Elite or anything, he was just your average, run-of-the-mill, garden variety, Babaroo – but my pet and I were hardly making a dint in him! In the end, when Mandreth “got better” from being dead, I managed to hit this Babaroo with a double whammy dose of death damage at the same time that Mandreth was whacking him over the head with her staff, and we finally got him down… and I skinned him! That’ll teach him to go killing Mandreth! *scowl* We were a bit more wary of the Babaroos after that, but the rest of them behaved like normal, everyday Babaroos, and we completed the quest. We finally found this wretched King we were looking for, and that was about where we finished off and came back to town and dusted down for the day. The rain outside has stopped for the moment – and if you ever want to know what the weather is like here in beautiful downtown Vermont South, this is the permanent link to Julian’s new Weather Monitoring Station! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Could have been better – but then again, it could have been a lot worse! So I should be thankful for small mercies, shouldn’t I! 🙂 I only went down one point, from 72.2kg to 72.1kg – but I only stopped taking the fluid retaining pills yesterday, so I think it’ll take a few more days to get those horrible little sods completely out of my system. It’ll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow – I’ll probably go up, knowing my record!

We had a brief visit from my favourite eldest daughter and her equal but more technical half at lunch time – they were on their way up to Knox City and thought they’d drop in to say hello (and to have a cup of coffee! 😉 ) It’s now just after 6 o’clock, and almost time for me to go on my evening hill-climbing expedition – I doubt very much that I’ll get this finished before dinner, but I’ll give it my best shot… Tomorrow morning, early, Clarke will be coming over to pick up the debris that’s still here from when he installed the two doors in the en-suite and the Walk In Wardrobe, then we’ll gather all our papers and head off to one of the two closest Justice Centres for my name change business – then we’re off to Knox City ourselves – We ordered in one of the little slide out drawers that screw into cupboard shelves from Howard’s Storage World there, and they rang to tell us that it has come in, and we have to pick that up – plus, I need to get myself a nice Swatch Watch with a plastic buckle, to wear while my gold watch is being repaired (the hinge on the clasp broke! I think I said something about it last night…) Unfortunately, I have a severe allergy to nickle, so any jewelry – or watch – that I wear has to be either stainless steel, silver, or gold. Plated (stainless steel, silver or gold) won’t work – the nickle leeches out after a few months and I find myself coming up in what looks like a severe nettle rash. At the moment it’s really most annoying, glancing down at your wrist to see the time, expecting to see a watch there, and all you see is bare skin!  Anyway, it’s “that” time again – I’ll have to finish this after dinner… Sorry!

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

Here I am, back again – where was I? That’s right, tomorrow… first off, Clarke – and if he’s thinking of dropping the laminate sample off on Tuesday, we’ll have to let him know that we won’t be home in the morning, after that (and a cup of coffee) our first stop will be the Justice Centre, then we’re off to Knox City to pick up the drawer thingy for the cupboard shelf, and an “interim watch” for me – and who knows? If I’m really lucky, I might get to do “a bit of shopping” 😉 Oh, I was thinking tonight, that I might get Julian to turn the treadmill around… It’s set up so that when I’m trudging up the never-ending hill, I’m staring at a boring, blank wall – while behind me is a nice big window, where I could look out on a bare fence and trellis, half a tree, the sky, clouds, and the occasional bird. Much more interesting than a blank wall, where all I have to entertain me is counting off in one hundred lots to 800 (steps – I count my [*censored*] steps for entertainment – how thrilling is that, eh?! ) Actually, I don’t know why I didn’t think of getting the treadmill turned around sooner… I guess I must like counting to 800 or something. And that’s really about it from me for tonight – but do drop by again tomorrow night, and find out what my weight decided to do to me that morning, what transpired at the Justice Centre, if we picked up our sliding drawer thingy, and where we’re going to put it – we might not need it now though, unless Julian wants it for his bathroom, because my new bathroom won’t have cupboards per se, they’re all being turned into drawers! and whether I managed to get a nice plastic buckled Swatch Watch to wear until my gold one is repaired – plus other mundane but interesting things 🙂 However, until then, please do try to bee good, don’t forget that the worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt, and always remember to look after yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully – but most of all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Here I am, starting at about the right time – more or less, give or take a few hours 😉 I must say it’s been a very  pleasant day so far – Julian went out and did the shopping this morning while I stayed home and…. Rifted! I finally got a chance to do something with my new Primalist, though a lot more digging and experimentation is going to be needed! I still haven’t heard anything from the GMs (Game Masters) about my missing character slot – or my missing credits – whichever – I’ll gladly donate two of those three missing Credit payments that I paid for the second extra character slot that I only bought because they told us we could, to a Charity of their choosing! If you recall, I purchased the two extra character slots that we were told we could get, but I only got one of them. The next day, thinking that I might have been mistaken about actually buying the second one, I purchased another… no extra character slot was forthcoming. Then deciding that maybe it needed to be bought by a different character, on a different shard, I switched shards, and you guessed it, bought yet another character slot! Still no second character slot. In all I spent approximately 2,504 Credits for two extra character slots, but was only given one of them (the character slots are about 626 Credits each, or thereabouts) Now, another thing that puzzles me is that fact that when you’ve bought your limit of whatever it is you’re buying, the icon for that item suddenly gets a little padlock added to it, and when you mouseover it a tooltip is displayed saying something along the lines of “you have already purchased the maximum of this item”, and the Rift shop won’t let you buy any more of whatever it was. So, the long and short of it is that there’s a problem, and it’s not coming from my end! I’ve “raised a ticket” – the equivalent of sticking your hand up in the classroom and waving it about so that the teacher notices you and asks you what’s the matter. I haven’t heard back from the “Teacher” (read: Game Masters) nor do I expect to for some time – they’re usually rushed ragged off their tiny feet right after a major patch, especially one as big and as complex as this latest one, “Into the Wilds”. However! I noticed something else whilst playing my brand new Primalist this morning… Normally, as you progress through the game, you level up all the time – that is, go up a level. Whenever you go up a level, you receive one “soul point”, and every three levels you go up, you’re given two “soul points”. You can either spend them as you see fit within your soul tree, or put them where the game thinks they ought to go (I use both methods, but mainly the former) These points give you added abilities, capabilities, spells, special armor, and the like.. and if you don’t spend them, they just build up. So, one point per level, and an extra point every third level. I’ve got my Primalist to level 9, so I should have 9 points spent in my soul tree, plus 3 extra, for levels 3, 6, and 9, making a total of 12 points in my soul tree. But I haven’t! I have only 6 points! Half of what I think I should have. So I’m going to create another character, elsewhere, another Mage, and run her through to level 9, to see how many points she gets. It could be that Primalists simply don’t rise through their soul tree as quickly as other Classes – though that doesn’t seem likely. So as I said, more experimentation is needed! If it seems that there’s a problem with the Primalist soul points, I guess I’ll just have to raise another ticket! Oh, I also found that I do have ranged attacks – I just don’t cast them/shoot them from a staff, a gun, or a bow! I think I just wave my two-handed sword around a lot! 🙂

Julian got back from his shopping and we had lunch – then he was going to go out again to get some electrical gear (?) for his new wireless and blue-tooth weather station that had just been delivered. He was just getting ready to go out again when someone knocked on the door (our doorbell doesn’t work all that well! so if you’re coming to visit, knock! Just in case the doorbell isn’t working!) “Who can that be!” said Julian “we’re not expecting anyone today!” – we’d both completely forgotten that Clarke was coming over today, instead of yesterday! So Julian had to put off his trip to get the electricals he needed, and we chatted and discussed my bathroom at great length. He gave us each a copy of this costings, which turned out to be pretty much what Julian had expected them to be, so we’ve given him the go-ahead to start in about two weeks, which will be about the amount of time it’ll take to get the vanity unit made and all the materials gathered and delivered, so it’s all good! 🙂 He also helped Julian hang the bedroom mirror, so at long last I have a nice big, full-length mirror in the bedroom! He’ll be over again on Monday morning, around 9.30-ish, to clear out some of the rubbish that was left behind when he was putting in the two doors for us, and he’ll bring the tile and laminate samples over on Tuesday, though I must remember to let him know that we’ll be out most of Tuesday morning – I have a Prosthodontist appointment on Tuesday morning at 11 o’clock. Dr. Praveen Nathaniel is the Prosthodontist who made my implants, and once a year I go and have them all unscrewed and cleaned, and then screwed back in again 🙂 I used to hate having my teeth cleaned with that hurty ultrasonic de-scaler – it really hurt, and made my gums bleed a lot – now I don’t care – cos they do it over on the bench, and not in my mouth! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Was a very pleasant surprise, for a change! I went down 3 points, from 72.5kg to 72.2kg! which is excellent – though I’ll probably be up again tomorrow… But at least today was the last day of those excruciatingly horrible little pills! All I have to do is wait a couple of days until they’re out of my system, and everything should go back to what is laughingly called “normal” (what exactly is “normal”, anyway?!)

At the moment I’m slowly sipping on the second half of a bottle of Iced Tea from T2 – it’s called “Marrakech“, and it’s lovely! No artificial sweeteners or flavours – and no calories, either! 🙂 A bottle seems to hold two glasses of iced tea… I think we’ll get a few more bottles, next time we’re at Doncaster (because there’s no T2 at The Glen 😦 ) Tomorrow Julian and I will be off into The Wilds with two of out level 65 girls – I haven’t had a look into The Wilds since the patch went live – Julian has though, just to have a look (he likes exploring! he’s outside at the moment, “exploring” the back yard, for where to put the little wind gauge thingy, and the other outdoor-y parts of the weather station 🙂 ) so I’m expecting that we should have good weather for tomorrow’s expedition Into the Wilds! 😉 I’ll be sure to tell you all what it’s like, tomorrow night! In the meantime, I’ll continue to experiment with a non-Primalist character, and the other Primalist that I created yesterday – she’s only level 4, and it’ll be interesting to see if their soul points go up at the same rate or not. I’m betting “not” – I think Trion still have quite a few more creases to iron out of their Primalist’s shirts! 😉 Of course, having said that, there won’t be anything wrong or untoward, just to prove me wrong! (*grrr!*) And now, that’s about it from me again for tonight! Do call in again tomorrow night though, to hear all about our adventures in The Wilds with Mandreth and Sylversong, and to find out if I’ve started on my experiments on my enigmatic soul points hypotheses, as well as to read the next enthralling episode of that factually fabulous story, “What Winter’s Weight Did Next” 🙂 But until then, gentle readers, do try to bee extra good, remember that there is no man living that cannot do more than he thinks he can, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully – but most importantly – don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Such a busy day – and I’m starting quite a bit later than I would normally. Actually we’ve been out most of the day – I had a hairdresser appointment at 11.30 this morning, so I wanted to leave early so as to have enough time to go to the Jewelers to get my watchband made smaller before I went to the hairdresser, and then do “a bit of shopping” afterwards (why do men always shudder when a woman says that she wants to “do a bit of shopping”?!) I was going to wait until I’d reached, and stabilised myself, at my goal weight (only another two kilos to go!) before I had my watch or my rings re-sized down, but my watchband had other ideas, didn’t it, deciding that it didn’t want to wait for me to lose any more weight – that I was now thin enough for it to try to escape by sliding down my arm and over my hand – so I decided that if I didn’t have it made smaller now, I stood a good chance of losing it altogether. It turns out that what I’d thought was a normal watchband was in fact a bracelet that had been adapted to be a watchband – or so the jeweler said, anyway. It wasn’t easily shortened either, as it didn’t have “pins” holding the links together like a normal watchband does, but it had to be cut, and filed, and welded – or something (whatever! It was expensive! Next time I’m going to get a Swatch watch with a plastic watchband!) Sadly, my plans for today were somewhat stymied last night, with Clark calling and arranging to come over this afternoon, at about two o’clock – presumably with tile samples etc. (and to help Julian hang that wretched bedroom mirror!) Thinking sadly that ‘never mind, there was always Saturday to “do a bit of shopping”…’ I agreed to sacrificing my pleasant, unhurried, afternoon of wandering around the shopping centre, looking for anything that I could suddenly decide that I couldn’t live without… As it turned out, by the time I’d been through my email this morning, processed my Minions, done my treadmilling, and put my makeup on, it wasn’t all that early, anyway, but with (a lot of)  luck, we might have had time to go to the jewelers after the hairdresser, and still be back in time for Clarke. Julian had also had a call from our erstwhile next-door neighbour in Doncaster, saying that his computer had “blown up”, and because his usual technician was overseas, could Julian fix it for him, please? *sigh* Well, we were just about to walk out the front door when Clarke called – he was on a “mission of mercy”, on his way to his son’s school to pick him up and take him home, because he was so busy throwing up that he couldn’t concentrate on his lessons. Julian and I looked at eachother. “That’s fine, Clarke!” said Julian “as a matter of fact, that probably suits us better – we’ll see you tomorrow, about the same time?” So that was good – I could have my nice, quiet, unhurried day wandering through the shopping centre… looking at “thingz” (and mostly deciding that I didn’t really need them, afterall! I did buy some Chanel mascara in DJ’s, though…) I had my watchband smallerated, Julian got himself a new leather watch band (because the old original one had died!) We went to T2 – I’d been through an online list of their flavoured black teas, Tisanes, and Iced teas, and written down all the ones I thought would be nice to try. I’d written them in one of my sacrosanct desk notepads, the ones that no-one is allowed to tear out a page, or a part of a page, not even me, so I copied them all down onto an index card to put in my handbag… only I left it behind, didn’t I, and there I was in T2, wracking my brains trying to remember the names of some of them, because T2 no longer have a printed list, or a “menu” of all the teas they stock, for customers (and more to the point, would-be customers!) to browse – I wonder how many sales they’ve missed out on because potential customers didn’t know what was available? Pretty slack, if you ask me…. Anyway, we bought a few of the flavoured black teas that we hadn’t had before, a couple of their Tisanes, and two of their ready-made iced teas in bottles. Actually, I tell a bit of a lie there, because one of the teas mentioned at random by the young sales-boy, had a name that I remembered from years ago, that we had tried, and liked a lot  – “Chilli Kiss”, so we got a box of that, too. Then we had a quick whizz around the supermarket and got a few staples, plus some more Flipper-food – and that was that – we came home! I was literally gasping for a cup of coffee, and once I’d gulped that down, I raced off for my belated lunchtime treadmilling. I admit that part of the reason I started this so late was because I allowed myself a whole hour of Rift before starting this – sorry, but the new patch came out the other day, and  since then I’ve only had about two hours total trying it out – which isn’t really long enough to do anything but construct – and set up – two new Primalist characters, so I still don’t know exactly what they do, or how to play them! I do know that as a Vulcanist is supposed to be a “ranged” character – that is, a character who either stands back and casts spells at things, or stands back and shoots arrows and/or bullets at things – but out of the two I’ve created, they have no ranged weapons, only a dirty big hammer! I might let Julian go and do the Saturday Shopping on his own so that I can have a bit more of a play with them, because Sunday we’ll be playing with our “big girls”, actually in The Wilds (a brand new area that opened up with the expansion patch)

Weigh-in this morning. Was a big disappointment – but more-or-less expected, after the two big losses that I’ve had over the last couple of days… I went up one point, from 72.4kg to 72.5kg (*sob!*) But tomorrow’s my last day of those wretched fluid loving and retaining pills, so I’m expecting things to improve within a couple of days (after they work themselves out of my system!) I expect that I might even go up again tomorrow – let’s just hope it’s not too much!

Oh, remember I told you that I’d ordered a pair of those funny looking yoga/Pilates sock things? I ordered Men’s size 12 (the very biggest they have!) thinking that surely I’d fit into those! I mean I take a Woman’s 11 and a half – a Men’s size 12 has got to be bigger than that, doesn’t it?! Well, they arrived this morning. I took one look at them and immediately thought “I’m never going to fit into those!” And I didn’t. They were about three sizes too small for me. They’re labeled “Men’s 10 – 13” – but if they’re “men’s”, it has got to mean “fairy men“, because they’re so teeny! Stretched out to their fullest, I could barely squish my foot into one! I didn’t bother trying the second one on! So that was a failed experiment, but I find myself in a state of bewilderment, thinking of a great big, muscular bloke, gracefully going through all his yoga movements and postures, or balancing on one of those Pilates “half balls” that my favourite youngest daughter keeps telling me about (she does Pilates!) with his poor, aching, squished-up “size 12” feet wedged painfully into these teeny-weeny (but very pretty!) sock thingies! Look, I know I have ginormous (and badly deformed) feet, but this business of getting something that I can put on my feet is starting to get ridiculous! 😦 The hunt for footwear continues… But anyway, that’s really about it from me for tonight – do call in again tomorrow night, to find out what Clarke had to say (if he doesn’t suddenly remember that he has a kid’s sports day that he can’t get out of!), if I managed to get any further into the Primalist build on Rift, and whether my weight has decided to behave itself or not (it’d be a first, if it did! 😉 ) You can bet your sweet bippy that there’ll be lots of things happening around here tomorrow that you’ll want to know about, so stay tuned! 🙂 In the meantime, do try to bee good, never forget that kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see, and always remember to keep warm, to look after yourselves, and to drive carefully… but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

I was greeted by a very nice surprise this morning when I went to process my Minions – the new patch had been installed – “Rift 3.4: Into The Wilds!”, and with it, the new player Class: The Primalist! Wot we’ve all been waiting for, for months! 🙂 We can even “buy” new character slots, for those of us who’d filled up our alloted 12 character slots, but who wanted to try out the new Class – naturally I bought them both 😉 and as soon as my Minions had been fed, watered, and sent on their merry way again, I jumped straight in and rolled a *gasp!* Primalist, and not another Mage! I have no idea how I’ll go with her, and it’s just as well that as with all the other Classes, there are different “builds” you can choose from – for instance with Mages you can be a Warlock, where you work with destructive spells, a Necromancer, where you work mainly with DOTs (Damage Over Time) spells, or an Elementalist, and work with the elements and elemental – all Mages, but all different builds. From memory, with the Primalists you can have a Berserker build, doing melee damage to a number of enemies at the same time, a Typhoon build – much the same as the Beserker, only ranged, a Titan, which is pretty much your common or garden-type Tank, a  Dervish, a single-target melee fighter, a Preserver (read: Healer) and the one I chose, a Vulcanist, a single-target ranged fighter. More builds have been planned for future patches, but I think these will be plenty to work with for the moment! And I’d only just created Tallissia when Julian came in with all my name change papers! It’s all set to go – we’re not going to mail them in, and then sit around chewing our nails for a couple of weeks – we found out that as well as posting them in, or taking them to the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, you can also take them to your nearest “Justice Centre”, and there’s one at Box Hill, and another at Ringwood! Now all I have to do is decide whether I want to put “Winter” first, or add it as a second name, along with my current name, which I’ve hated and detested ever since I was old enough to form sentences, so this would be the ideal opportunity to get rid of that detested middle name for once and for all, and change it from “Luisa” to “Winter” (for some unknown reason the name “Luisa” (with no “o” in it – it’s “Luisa”, not “Louisa”!) has always made me shudder!) But perversely, I don’t want to do that – I dunno, it sort-of makes me feel uncomfortable and “disloyal” to my parents… No, I think I’ll go along with my original plan, to keep my original name as is, and just tack “Winter” in front of it. Hopefully, next Monday?

Anyway, by then it was almost lunchtime. Julian went over to Doncaster to get the last of the papers we’d need from the safe – apparently you only need the credit report if you’ve been convicted of fraud, or been declared a bankrupt at anytime in the past, which I haven’t, so we don’t have to jump through those hoops! While Julian was doing that, I went for my hill climbing exercise in the Games Room, and at long last I’m doing some exercise that actually does make me feel as though I’m working! Let’s just hope it pays off! 🙂 Julian returned, we had lunch, and then I waltzed off to put away the stuff we’d unpacked the other day – as I said earlier – there wasn’t a lot of it, really, and it only took a couple of minutes to move three drawers into two, leaving me with two drawers free. When we first moved here, we had the packing ladies back the next day to un-pack a lot of things, and I’m really not sure why, but anything labelled “bedroom” that they weren’t sure where to put, they put on the nice, very high, shelf that runs around three sides of the Walk In Wardrobe, above the hanging rail. Which I can’t reach. In fact I can’t even see what’s up there! Today I got Julian to get everything off that shelf – there were lots of ornaments, which have now been moved in here, and papers, and (another) pair of binoculars (I’m beginning to think that my parents had a bit of a “thing” for binoculars!) and lots of miscellany – a packet of shoelaces? A very large, unopened and still in its sealed, original cellophane wrapper, bottle of my mother’s favourite perfume, “Crêpe de Chine” by Millot – probably worth a fortune today, and one of these days, if I’m feeling really reckless, I might even open it to see if I still like it. Unfortunately it was discontinued years ago, but I serendipitously found that bottle right at the very back of a dusty old shelf in an Apothecary’s shop one day and immediately pounced on it for mother – she hadn’t been able to get it for over ten years! No, I have no idea why she never opened it, and I suppose I never thought to ask her… Anyway, so I finished putting all of my stuff away – Julian still has a pile of stuff for the Office sitting on the floor in the top front spare room, though! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Well, either that new adjustable incline treadmill is working very well indeed, or miracles are still happening! I went down another three points this morning, from 72.7kg to 72.4kg! Perhaps I won’t mention those terrible pills to Dr. Y. when I see him, after all! (though who knows how much more I might have gone down if I wasn’t taking them! – so maybe I will still mention them!) I shouldn’t get too optimistic or excited though – my body will probably wake up tomorrow morning and decide to reverse the process and push me back into the 73kg zone again! I hope not! Cross your fingers for me, please everyone!

Tomorrow morning I’m off to the hairdresser – and maybe have time to do a little bit of shopping (I’m not even sure what I want – I certainly don’t really need anything… I don’t think… though maybe… hmm… ) then we’ll have to race home because Clarke is coming over about my bathroom – and hopefully he’ll finally help Julian hang the bedroom mirror! With a bit of luck I might have some good news for you all tomorrow night, about when they’ll be starting on the renovations! 🙂 And with even more luck, we’ll be able to take those name change papers to either Box Hill or Ringwood (I think Box Hill is probably closer, but the parking is likely to be horrendous – Ringwood might be easier to get to…) I’m not sure what’s happening this weekend, but I can tell you one thing! 🙂 On Sunday, Julian and I will either be taking our two level 65’s through into The Wilds – we did the breadcrumb quests last week – or we’ll be starting off a couple of new characters as Primalists, in order to get a “feel” for the new Class! It might be that a Primalist isn’t for me – I prefer to stand back and do damage while my pet goes in and does the Tanking (fighting up close and personal-like!) for me – that’s why I picked the Vulcanist for Tallissia, though you don’t get a pet 😦 Oh well, we’ll just have to see how she goes… and if the worst comes to the worst, I can always re-roll her as a Mage (I mean, why waste that empty character slot, hmm? 😉 ) I don’t think that there’s much more to tell you all, so I guess that’s about it from me again for tonight! Don’t forget to drop in again tomorrow night though, to see if I have any good news about the bathroom renovations, and to find out if my body decided to rebel again and go backwards (that is, go up!) There’s sure to be heaps of interesting news though, so make sure you don’t miss out! 🙂 Until then, do at least try to bee good, remember that whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect… and don’t forget to drive carefully, to keep warm, and to look after yourselves… but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, here I am, a little earlier today (just for a change! 😉 ) It’s been fairly quiet around here – I haven’t put away all the stuff we unpacked the other day, and it’s not because I don’t know where to put it all (and there isn’t really all that much of it, anyway) it’s just that I’m going to have to move a whole heap of things first, and, well, I just didn’t feel like doing that today! I’m going to blame the weather (I mean, why not? Everyone else is! 😉 ) after a spell of unusually warm weather, and then the temperature suddenly plummets, one tends to feel particularly lethargic and slow… the spirit might be quite willing, but the flesh says “Nah-huh! I wanna sleeeep!” When we first moved in here, over a month ago now, we had all this new furniture, with lots and lots of drawers, and heaps of places to put things – so we did, or rather, I did! I luxuriously spread myself out, and took full advantage of all this room I suddenly had! Of course I knew that we still had a lot more to unpack, but that was going to be “later on”, wasn’t it – I’d worry about that later, eh?! 😉 So now it is “later on”, and I have to move the things that I’d spread out over three large drawers, and fit them all into one drawer I was going to do all that first, this morning, and then I was going to get onto Rift and go Dimension Item Hunting. So I re-scheduled the drawer tidying event, and hopped straight onto Rift. And, ummm… I spent most of the morning running around looking for the shard where I had the new “Mathosian Cascades” Dimension, because that was where I was going to start this wonderful Dimension Item Hunt! I thought I’d been working on Greybriar when I bought that Dimension, and I was most  mystified when I couldn’t find it! I’d also forgotten who the designated Dimension Mistress for Greybriar was… in other words, I didn’t know where to start! I could have started anywhere, on any shard, but the problem is you can’t ship Dimension items between shards easily – you have to ferry them across in backpacks and personal banks, and yes, I’ve done it many times, but I needed to know which shard I was going to have to transfer them to, if I started collecting on the wrong one! My original plan was to start on the shard that had the new “Mathosian Cascades” Dimension, collect everything from around that shard, and then go through all the other shards, one by one, amassing Dimension items, and then working out a plan of action to get everything across to the “Mathosian Cascades” shard. It was a good plan, and it would have – and will still – work brilliantly, only… I couldn’t remember which shard it was on! So I went around, from shard to shard, looking for it – and you have absolutely no idea how much time that wasted! Naturally I found it on the last shard I looked at – I’d been absolutely sure that it wasn’t on this last shard, that’s why I left it to last – but of course, it was, and I was quite put out about all this mucking around I’d had to do! Anyway, I got that all sorted out, and then started going through the Dimensions, one by one, collecting items. Each character has around three Dimensions, and most of them were empty – but they still had to be checked! By lunchtime, I’d managed to collect all the “Plants” on the shard (except for the ones actually being used to decorate a Dimension!) Well, at least I know the “Where” and the “Who” now, so I should be able to get through a hell of a lot more tomorrow! (as well as put the “real-life” items in the trolley away!) On Friday I have an appointment at the hairdresser in the morning – I was hoping to get a nice, full, quiet, peaceful day for going to the hairdresser and doing a bit of shopping on Friday, but we finally heard from Clarke again this morning – he wants to come around on Friday afternoon – I presume with all the tile, glass brick, caesarstone and laminate samples, to discuss the bathroom renovation proceedings *sigh* oh well, maybe next week I’ll get a nice, quiet and peaceful day for the hairdresser and shopping – I hate going out, thinking I’ll do a bit of shopping, but have to be constantly looking at my watch because we’re being rushed for time! Speaking of shopping, I ordered those two garments from Autograph online this morning, they’ll be delivered to the Autograph shop at The Pines shopping centre in Templestowe… and guess what?! I’m not quite sure exactly where that “Special” “Any two items for $80” deal comes into it all, because each item was $40, anyway! In other words, If I’d ordered one today, it would have cost me $40, and if I’d ordered the second one next week, that would have cost me $40 as well – or $80 in total over two weeks – so why couldn’t that blithering martinet at Autograph in The Glen yesterday have let Julian bring home a single item, instead of insisting that he wait until the size 14 shirt came in, so as to get the Special deal?! Oh well! All water under the bridge now – they’ve done their dash with me! And also speaking of shopping, I had another look at those Yoga/Pilates slipper/shoe/socks that I found. They do look quite nice, and come in various different colours – but the “ladies” ones only go up to size 9 and a half, and even the men’s ones only go up to 10 and a half! Do Americans have smaller feet than we do, or something? (I’m not sure if they’re American or not, but Amazon sell them, so they probably are…) I’ve looked for them by brand name, and I eventually managed to find a place called Move Active that sells something similar – though they’re really more like the short “barely come up to your ankle funny-bone” socks, so they’ll probably end up walking off my foot – but the ones I ordered are a men’s size 12, so, hopefully not… well, they were only $15, so I guess we won’t have lost a fortune if they don’t work out! And if they don’t walk off my foot, well, I’ll order some more! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Ladies and gentlepersons! Miracles do still happen! 🙂 (of course, they may not be long-lasting, but they do still happen!) I went down four points this morning – from 73.1kg to 72.7kg! Four points! 🙂 I don’t expect to stay down there – I’ll probably bounce back up again tomorrow, but… 72.7kg! Amazing! 🙂 Actually, it’s a bit scary! I look at myself in a full length mirror, and I don’t look like “me” anymore, and I’m worried – what if I can’t keep the weight off? Well, I mean, I will – even if I have to go back on the full Optifast diet every couple of months (I quite like it, actually) and I’ll make sure that we don’t keep things like biscuits… lollies… sweet things… potato chips (read: crisps) in the house – I will eat normally, but smaller portions (not that I used to eat much anyway – just far too much of the wrong things!) and I’ll keep up the exercise – this adjustable height treadmill is exactly what I was hoping it would be, and I think it’ll be good for me! But still, even knowing all the above, I still worry about it all (but I suppose if I ever stop worrying about putting weight back on, that’ll be the time that I will, because it’ll mean that I don’t care anymore…)

So… I have my days all planned and mapped out before me – now let’s see… how many things can go wrong between now, and tomorrow morning? (How many times can the cat throw up on my homework? 😉 ) Well, whatever happens, I’m sure I’ll muddle through it in the end 🙂 Hopefully Clarke will have some good news regarding starting on my bathroom on Friday (and hopefully he’ll help Julian hang our big bedroom mirror – not to mention the one I want hung in the hall, above the Bronzes Table!) Anyway, once again that’s about all I have for you tonight – but drop in again tomorrow night, and find out if I did get all the things that were unpacked a few days ago put safely away in one of my drawers, and if my weight did indeed go bouncing merrily back up again… and whether I managed to collect some more of those elusive Dimension items! 🙂 Until then, though, please at least try to bee good, don’t forget that there’s real power in looking silly and not caring that you do, and remember always to drive carefully, to keep warm, and to look after yourselves… but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, today being Tuesday, I had my favourite eldest daughter over, so the only thing that we did a lot of was watching episodes of “Arrow”, and “How to Get Away with Murder“, starring Viola Davis as Professor Annalise Keating, a defence lawyer who uses some extremely unorthodox (and quite often downright “dubious”!) methods to win her cases. I have to admit that “How to Get Away with Murder” can be very confusing, as most of the time there’s just so much going on that it’s hard to tell who’s happening to what, or which is happening where… but still, it’s not a bad show 🙂 My new height adjusting treadmill arrived this morning, and I’ve had two strolls on it (it arrived after I’d done my first walk this morning) As I think I said yesterday (or the day before – I fergit which, now!) it has ten different manually adjustable heights (just keep pressing the “+” button) or three automatic height adjusting buttons, “3”, “6”, and “9”. So far, I’ve used the “+” button (repeatedly) the “3” button, and the “6” button. Using the “+” button is terribly s-l-o-w! The machine doesn’t suddenly jump up to the height you want, it goes “whirr, whirr, wheeze, whirr” as it slowly cranks itself up one notch – then rinse and repeat for however many notches of height you want to go up. Pressing the “3” button gives you the equivalent of pressing the “+” button three times. It goes through the same  “whirr, whirr, wheeze, whirr” business, only for a bit longer. Since I started experimenting with the height adjustment buttons I’ve been mostly using the “6” button, which as you can probably surmise, takes the machine up to twice as high as the “3” button, makes twice the number of “whirr, whirr, wheeze, whirr” noises, and takes twice as long to get there. But for all that, it does work, and it does make me work harder! Not a lot harder, I mean I’m not exhausted and/or dripping with sweat when I finish my fifteen minute stroll, but harder, none-the-less, which is exactly what I wanted! 🙂 The first time I used it I wore my usual two pairs of running socks, but they were the very short, “barely come up to your ankle funny-bone” short, and I hadn’t been walking for more than about two minutes when I realised that I was walking the right hand socks off my foot! The left one was OK, it was only the doubled up socks on my right foot that ended up with the top of the socks half-way under my right heel, and the toe part of the socks flapping merrily in the breeze! Hmm! I am definitely going to have to do something about my footwear with this new treadmill! I was looking up “exercise shoes”, and “yoga shoes” yesterday, and I found some quite nice yoga and Pilates “socks” – they look a lot like Ballet Flats, but have a bobbled non-slip sole and a reasonably wide elastic band over the top of the instep – of course, they don’t appear to have my size… Why am I not surprised? (I take a size 11 1/2 shoe! Yes, I have very big feet! They have been the bane of my existence since I was a toddler, and just one of the millions of reasons that I hate shoes so much!)

Unfortunately, it’s “that” time again – back soon! (Sorry!)

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

Right, here I am again… where was I? Oh yes, hating shoes! 🙂 However, the hunt for something to wear on my feet whilst climbing the treadmill will continue, because although I don’t think I’m in any danger of tripping on the flapping sock, it is very distracting (not to mention uncomfortable!) It’s probably because the incline causes me to put my feet down at a different angle, which presses the sock up towards my toes (?) as I step forwards. This evening I wore two pairs of slightly longer socks, and while they weren’t terribly comfortable, at least they didn’t try to walk off my foot – so until I can find something better, they’ll have to do.

Oh, apropos of the saga of the missing shirt and the lost and then found again top – there was a different salesperson in Autograph when Julian went to pick them up today (along with two missing packets of my pills from the Apothecary) the two missing packets of pills came home, but the shirt and the top didn’t! It turned out that amongst all the shirts in the shop, there wasn’t another size 14 – it would have to be ordered in for me, and would take about a week. And because they have a “Special” on at the moment, where you can buy two of anything (shirt, skirt, top, scarf – whatever!) for $80, the salesperson wouldn’t let Julian bring home the top that all the fuss was about in the first place, until the shirt came in so that she could sell them both at the same time at the special price. Julian rang me, and I’m afraid to say that I really blew up! I told him to cancel both orders, they could keep their ruddy missing and then not missing top, and the damn shirt that they didn’t have in my size (but if the woman yesterday hadn’t been so ditzy had given it to me when I asked for it, they wouldn’t have sold out of that size!) I won’t be going back there again… we’ve had trouble with that particular Autograph store in the past – and every time you go in there’s someone different – so from now on, I’ll order what I want online, and pick the items up from the Autograph at The Pines shopping centre! Stuff it all – because of one stupid salesperson they’ve lost two sales, and our continued custom. I’ll only go into the store at The Pines, to pick up something, or if I really have to, to try something on. Then I’ll come home and order it online! Grrr! I get cross, all over again, just thinking about it – it’s not as though Julian didn’t have anything better to do than go up and get stuffed around, either! Sorry…

Weigh-in this morning. Yay! A miracle happened! I went down a point! I went from 73.2kg down to 73.1kg! But don’t worry, those ‘orrible little fluid-retaining pills will make sure that I go back up again tomorrow 😉 I’m actually beginning to wonder if I should try to get under 70kg… looking at myself last night I could see all my ribs! It wasn’t a very pretty sight, and I quickly looked away again… the thing is, my stomach, backside and thighs still look big – but then again, that might just be excess skin… But I am going to go down to 70kg – I’ll re-assess how I think I look then…

I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow – Julian says he wants to spend the day in the Office – I know I have some things to put away from the boxes we unpacked the other day, but that shouldn’t take very long, so with any luck, I might even get a bit of Rifting in! 🙂 Well, maybe not “Rifting” as in questing, killing monsters, gaining notoriety, earning platinum and garnering experience, but more like running around like a chook with its head cut off, looking for all my elusive and reclusive Dimension bits and pieces! Oh, wot fun! 🙂 Hopefully, on Thursday we’ll be back to unpacking boxes in the morning, and Rifting in the afternoon – or vice versa 😉 And that’s about all I have for you tonight – I’m sorry that this is not only a bit shorter than usual, but also a lot later than usual – never mind though – as they say in the Classics: “Better late than never”! 😉 Do drop by again tomorrow night to see what we got up to – did I Rift, or did I search for and locate any of the missing Dimension items? Did those wretched pills put my weight back up, or did I stay the same again? Have I managed to walk the socks off my right foot again, and how am I really faring with this new-fangled hill climbing? 🙂 Find out tomorrow night, right here! Until then, though, do bee good, remember to dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully, but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, I knew that today was going to be busy, and I wasn’t wrong! Mind you, I could have started a little earlier, and I could have been a little quicker – but I didn’t, and I wasn’t, so it was a bit of “rush, rush, rush” this morning. We left for The Glen as early as we could, and actually managed to get a good parking spot on the ground floor, close to Coles, and the downstairs Chemist. I think it was a great shame when they stopped calling the places “the Apothecary” and changed it to the terribly common and mundane “the Chemist” – “the Apothecary” sounds much more nicer and grander, don’t you think? So from now on, I shall refer to the shops that dispense medication (amongst other things) as “the Apothecary”! Anyway, we each had a prescription that needed to be filled, so we dropped them off first, then went upstairs to Autograph. Well, they had a few interesting tops that I liked – a blue shirt with long sleeves that you could roll up and hold in place with a tab and button – I liked that one so much I got the lady to cut the labels off so that I could wear it home… I also said “I’d like to get two of those, please!” Apart from that, there was a rather nice “almost aqua” coloured top with three-quarter sleeves in cheesecloth (if they ever get them in purple or black, I’ll get another one (or two) because the only other colour they had was white, and I look utterly dreadful in white!) There were another two fairly nondescript ones, and another one that the nice lady couldn’t find – so she took our details with a promise to let us know if she could get one in for us. I also bought another, smaller, pair of jeans… I got the ones I’m currently wearing in size 18, because jeans are always as stiff as last week’s cold omelet, and tight. They do soften up a bit after their first wash and you’ve worn them a couple of times, but silly me thought “better safe than sorry!” and got the larger pair. Well, of course they were washed as soon as they came home, and I’ve worn them a couple of times, and guess what?! They’re slightly too big around the waist! I think my problem is that I still can’t get used to the fact that I’m not as big as I used to be – I can’t seem to bring myself to actually believe that I’m a size 14 now, not a size 24! The ones I got today are a size 16, and they fit rather nicely, much to my totally stunned amazement! I’m a bit of a funny shape – I’m now size 14 on top, size 16 on the bottom – so I should be pretty much set for at least a couple of months until I shrink a bit more… Well, we finished off there in Autograph, and I came home thinking that I had two shirts – the one I was wearing, and the second one that I’d told the lovely lady that I wanted – a couple of other tops, and the jeans. We’d barely got out of the lift when the forgetful lady called Julian to tell us that she’d managed to find the top she was going to try to get in for me, right there in the shop! We didn’t go right back to pick it up because we were already running very late, we still had to pick the prescriptions up from the Apothecary’s, and we needed to get a few things from the supermarket – we will go back to get it though, probably tomorrow, after the new treadmill with the adjustable incline has been delivered. Anyway, the next thing we know is that my favourite youngest daughter called to say that she was on her way from the doctor’s appointment in Mitcham, so we raced into the Apothecary to pick up the scripts… *sigh* isn’t it always the way! Right in the middle of a running late panic attack! The Apothecary didn’t have two of my three packets of pills! The one they had will last me a short while, but I guess we’ll just have to pick the rest of them up tomorrow too, when we go to get that top that the nice lady couldn’t find, but then did. We managed to beat Kate back to our place, but not by much, but whilst I was hanging up my new tops, I discovered, much to my chagrin, that the somewhat vaporous nice lady had neglected to include a second blue shirt with my order! So that’s a third thing we’re going to have to pick up tomorrow! …May I scream now, please? 😉

Kate duly arrived, and we sat and chattered over an extremely welcome cup of coffee. She’d actually had an appointment to see my hero, Dr. Y., who has ordered a few tests for her and will see her again later in November. When she told him that she was my daughter, he was apparently most impressed with me – she said he had the biggest smile on his face while talking about me – so maybe I won’t be quite so hard on him about the matter of these horrible, terrible pills I’m taking at the moment – after all, it was only my constant grizzling and moaning about the other ones that made him change them over… (so it’s probably all my own fault – as usual! 😉 ) Then we talked about her work situation – sometimes one is quite taken aback by how slack and disorganised a business can be, and still remain viable! The place has just changed hands, and so far, no-one from the new management has bothered to find out what her qualifications actually are, and they’re under utilising her on the reception desk, answering the ruddy phone! She’s had close to fifteen years experience as a Customer Relations Manager, for crying out loud, and she’s answering the phone and switching people through to the other departments! I almost said “like a coolie”, but that’s a no-no word these days, isn’t it, so I didn’t (but I did think it – sorry!) Then we talked about my favourite subject at the moment, next to exercise machines 😉 vegetable gardens! We’ve worked out a plan of action – there’s a very large nursery-slash-gardening supplies place not too far down the road from us on the left – just past Bunnies, Officeworks, and the Waste Refuse Transfer. We’ve printed out a photo of Julian’s mother’s raised garden beds in Adelaide, showing the sleepers and their layout, and we’ll go to this very large nursery place and ask their advice about what sort of sleepers to get, how much soil we’ll need, what sort of drainage to provide, and all that sort of thing, and we’ll get it all delivered for the three of them, Julian, Kate and Terry to assemble and set up. Then we can start planting! (at long last! 🙂 ) One thing I will mention here – apparently Julian’s idea of the veggie garden layout and mine are totally different from eachother! He envisions them as running parallel to the back fence – I have always envisioned them as lying perpendicular to it… because… I don’t know! I just think it would look better, and we’d be able to walk right around the raised beds and reach every part of them easily – if they’re parallel to the fence, we’ll only be able to walk around three sides, and it’ll make working in the middle of the back of the bed awkward – well, that’s what I think, anyway. After another cup of coffee, Kate went home, and I came in here to start this evening’s narrative 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. More of the same – and by “same”, that’s exactly what I did! I stayed the same! I went from 73.2kg to 73.2kg, despite the fact that I’m now walking for fifteen minutes, not the usual twelve! Ah well, the new treadmill with the adjustable incline arrives tomorrow – though it too probably won’t make much of a difference whilst I’m still on these rotten pills! 😦 Five days down, five to go…

So now it looks like we have another busy day again tomorrow! Not only is the treadmill arriving, but we should probably also go and pick up the two tops from Autograph (though the somewhat absent-minded lady has said that she’ll hold the top that she managed to find for three days, but… what if she forgets, like she did about my second shirt?!) and the two extra packets of pills from the Apothecary…  Apart from that, I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow – I’d really like to unpack a few more boxes; I know Julian has some paperwork to take care of in the Office, and I really need to make a move on re-collecting and re-collating all the Dimension items that have become so hopelessly muddled up on Rift… so I’m spoilt for choice, aren’t I! 🙂 Truth be told, I’ll probably end up doing none of those things, and just sit here frittering away my time doing jigsaw puzzles, crosswords, and playing solitaire! And with that shamefaced admission, I shall bid you all a very good evening, as that’s about all I have for you tonight 🙂 Do look in again tomorrow night though, to find out just what we did do – did we trek back to The Glen, to pick up the missing pieces? What happened with the adjustable inclining treadmill? Were we able to unpack any more boxes, and did the paperwork get done? Find out the answers to these all important questions right here, tomorrow night! 😉 Until then, however, continue to bee good, remember that if you care about what other people think of you, you will always be their prisoner! Don’t forget to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm – but above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Right, well I’m starting this a bit later than usual – and not because everything’s an hour later than it was yesterday, thanks to Daylight Saving! 😉 We’ve had quite a busy Sunday, for a change, because of course we got up an hour later than usual – we’d slept in properly yesterday, but of course eight o’clock this morning was seven o’clock yesterday morning, so we got up when the alarm went off, called it a “Clayton’s Sleep-In (the sleep-in you have when you’re not having a sleep-in)” and re-set all our clocks and watches – the computers do it automatically and on their own, the clever little beasties, so we didn’t have to do them! 🙂 After breakfast, we unpacked seven more boxes, and I have a lot of things to find homes for this evening! Luckily I have enough space in the bottom of my bedroom chest of drawers for a lot of it, and some of it can go in one of the cupboards in here – there were three sewing boxes, and a big box of buttons – I vetoed tossing out the box of buttons – I used to play with them when I was little, and I can remember the fun I had with them (and the headaches I gave my mother, who had to tidy them all up again after I’d finished merrily strewing them all across the floor!) There were bundles of letters from my mother to various people, photos! Lots and lots of photos! Exercise books, many of which were unused and which will go to live in the Office; about a dozen or so small, pretty items that were purchased (again by my mother!) as stocking fillers, no doubt, and will go into a spare box, so that they can finally be used as what they were presumably purchased for! Two big “vanilla” folders full of printouts of cartoons, jokes, funny newspaper articles, etc., which I’ll tuck safely away under something heavy in a bottom drawer somewhere. More things were placed on the “St. Vinnie’s” shelf, and a couple went on to the “Auction” shelf, and we have two, top quality, even by today’s standards, identical sets of opera glasses, which we don’t know what to do with – they’re far too good to “donate” to St. Vincent’s, so I suppose they’ll either end up tucked back into a “I don’t know what to do with these” drawer somewhere, to become a headache for my two favourite daughters, later on down the track…

After lunch, and my lunchtime stroll, which I’ve now lengthened to 800 steps (about 15 minutes worth of walking at 3.2kmph) and I’m still not walking a whole kilometer! I’ll just have to walk faster I guess, because I’m not, I refuse point-blank, to cross the 15 minute line, and walk for longer than that! Even 15 minutes is pushing it a bit… but wouldn’t it be wonderful, if you could exercise as much as you wanted, but for it not to take up any actual, physical time! I had trouble this morning trying to find a light casual top that didn’t fall off me, and I thought: ‘You know, everyone rubbishes fat people, sneers at them, and make disparaging remarks, etc., etc… and when someone actually does do something about it, and loses a lot of weight, everyone says how wonderful it is, and how hard it must have been, and all the usual platitudes – but then, woe betide that newly thin person if they dare to wear sleeveless or short-sleeved tops – or even worse! Shorts! or two piece bathers! *gasp, shock, horror!* if their skin hasn’t shrunk back into place and is hanging loose! We’ve been so conditioned since early childhood – all of us – to admire and covert the body beautiful, and to regard with shame, revulsion, or distaste, any “body” that doesn’t fit the dictates of this year’s fashion imperative. I’m one of those people whose skin hasn’t shrunk back, and even I myself am so conditioned that I wouldn’t dream of going out wearing anything that exposed even a tiny bit of my excess, un-shrunk skin! What really gets me though, is that the people looking at or seeing this unlovely sight must know – have got to realise, if they have even half a brain in their head, that this person that they’re looking at with distaste has either been in a terrible accident, or had been terribly fat, but has made the effort to become “un-fat” – in either case, surely this poor, saggy-baggy person deserves their support, their admiration, and their approval – not their distaste or disgust, because their body doesn’t happen to look the way that they think a body ought to look? We’re all so judgmental – myself included, though I do try not to be. What brings out this sort of reaction in me though, is not because of something that can’t be changed, but if it’s very obvious that the person just hasn’t bothered to make an effort – like not doing their hair for a week – everyone can make an effort to neaten their hair a bit, even if they comb it with their fingers! I saw a guy once, many years ago now, whose hair not only looked dirty and matted, but would you believe? there was an old, faded price sticker stuck in his hair – not on the top, as if it was accidental and had happened when he was putting on his shirt or something, but deep down in his hair, close to the scalp, and looked as though it had been there for some time -how could he have walked out his front door, looking like that? Anyway, rest assured that none of you will be seeing my very unlovely sagging skin any time in the near or distant future – tomorrow I’m going to get some long-sleeved, or three-quarter sleeved tops, and as soon as possible, I’m going to have as much excess skin removed as I safely can. What a horrible topic! Sorry about that…

This afternoon we played Rift – we had quite a good bash, actually, and we both went up several levels! 🙂 My only problem was that (a) it’s still nighttime, and it was terribly dark, and (b) it’s Gloamwood, and it’s always dark, dank, and gloomy in Gloamwood! But we managed to finish off a fair few quests, and as I said, we both went up about three levels, without the benefit of experience enhancing potions! Hopefully we’ll be able to get a bit more Rifting in during the week – this new arrangement of spending half the day unpacking boxes, and half the day Rifting, or amusing ourselves, seems to be working out better than I’d hoped! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Was horrible, but I knew it was going to happen! I went up a point 😦 from 73.1kg to 73.2kg 😦 I hate these pills! When I see Dr. Y. I think I’ll break down in tears or something – anything, if he’ll put me back on the old ones (though they were pretty terrible, too!) 😦 *sigh*) four days down, six more to go…

So tomorrow morning – early – we’re off to The Glen to get some new tops for me. I’ll look in Target too – they’ll be a bit cheaper than Autograph and My Size – so by the time I’ve finished, I should be able to go out looking presentable again! The top I’m wearing today is another of my favourites – I had it in an XL (extra-large) first, and when that got too big for me, I got it in a Medium… which I then had to donate to St. Vinnies and get a Small one – this one – and now this Small one keeps slipping off one shoulder, which it’s not supposed to do, and the sleeves are too loose and wide, which they’re not supposed to do either, so I might just pop into My Size to see if they have one in an Extra Small! Well, we shall see… I’ll fill you all in tomorrow night! My favourite youngest daughter will be over in the afternoon, which I’m looking forward to! She works full-time, so I don’t get to see her as often as I get to see my favourite eldest daughter – perhaps over the Christmas break the three of us can go out for lunch, or just to go window-shopping or something – I hope so! 🙂 On Tuesday, my new mountain climbing treadmill is being delivered, and I can’t wait for that! 🙂 Listen to me! I’m getting excited about getting a harder exercise machine? I’m starting to wonder who I am, and where the old me has got to! Anyway, once again that’s about it from me for tonight – drop by again tomorrow night and find out how my shopping spree went, what Kate and I chattered about, and what’s the latest that my weight has tortured me with! Until then, though – please continue to bee good, remember that the greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Today’s been a bit of an “everything” day – first, we slept in, something we normally only do on a Sunday! After quite a bit of discussion about what we were going to do today – Rift, or unpack boxes – we decided that, being the versatile and clever people that we are, we could do both, so we started off with a bit of Rifting – though not for very long. The last time we stopped playing was just at the point where you pick up the last quest in Silverwood – a “Boss” fight (if you could even call it that) to kill Kongeegon, a rather nasty and belligerent tree spirit, who we bumped off fairly quickly. Handing the quest in, we were rewarded with some fairly nice pieces of armor, and then promptly ordered off to Gloamwood, the next area, or zone! We picked up and finished the first couple of quests there, and logged off for lunch. After lunch, I headed off to the treadmill, and when I’d finished, we retired to the top front spare bedroom to unpack some boxes. We managed to get through six boxes, but I’m not sure if those six boxes included the two boxes of items from my bathroom – we had to just close them up again and put them aside, because there’s absolutely nowhere to put all the things in them! They’ll just have to wait until my bathroom’s finished! There was a box full of kitchenware – mostly old frying pans, and most of them ended up in the “discard” pile! Julian says he doesn’t need more than two frying pans, anyway, though he kept the little electric skillet. It’s a bit battered, but it’s not that old, it still works, and I don’t think you can get them any more (yes, actually you can – I just went and looked them up – you can get a 9.5″ Kambrook electric skillet from Hardly Normal – I shall inform himself!) There was lots of old stuff in the box too – and when I say “old”, I mean really old! Things that I remember from my very early childhood, and which I couldn’t bear to throw out – so they’ll probably get shoved to the back of a seldom used cupboard again, and forgotten about until the next time we move – or I die of old age – whichever comes first! 😉 We also found the big teddy bear packed away… He belonged to my mother when she was a little girl, and he’s mostly bald now – but he’s always sat on the replica Roman camp stool, dressed in an antique singlet that belonged to my father when he was a baby. It was made and embroidered by hand by my grandmother – over the years the teddy bear has been adorned and embellished by various people, with strings of costume jewellery, and a pair of my father’s old gold-rimmed glasses. I’m happy to be able to report that Teddy is back on his replica Roman camp stool in the corner of our bedroom, looking quite pleased to be out of the stuffy box that he’d been languishing in for a month and a bit! 🙂 So out of all those boxes, a lot got thrown out, some of it will be going off to Auction, but most of it will be going to St. Vincent’s, or the Salvos.

We got a call from my favourite youngest daughter this afternoon – they won’t be over tomorrow, as she’s not feeling the best. We chattered a bit about gardens and our veggie patches, and decided that last time they were over, and everyone except me was out in the back yard discussing where they were going to be placed, whether or not they were going to be free-standing or just boxes standing on the ground, and how big we wanted them – we should have written it all down, because now no-one can remember what we decided! I was leaning more towards boxes on the ground, but upon reflection, I think free-standing ones would be better, and have better drainage… and I had thought to have two – one more for root vegetables, like potatoes, and the bigger leafy greens, like cabbage, and celery and stuff – and another one for smaller things and bushes, like a small bay tree and/or another type of small lemon tree, or maybe even a small mandarin tree, and herbs. I don’t know – I’ll just tell the guys what I want, and let them work out how and where to plant things! 🙂 (I’m mentally picturing Julian’s mother’s three free-standing vegetable and herb gardens, because that’s exactly what I want, only we don’t have room for three of them, only two…) Anyway, they won’t be over tomorrow, but Kate will be over here on Monday – she has a medical appointment in the morning and has taken the full day off work – but hopefully I should still have time to get up to The Glen to look for some full sleeve or three-quarter sleeve tops, which I’m beginning to need badly! At the moment I’m wearing what used to be my favourite top – it has three-quarter sleeves, and the style really suits me – but it’s miles too big for me now – it’s a size 18, and I’m closer to a size 14 than even a size 16! Oh, and for the first time in over 28 years (28 years!) I’m wearing a pair of jeans! How about that! 🙂 However, I digress – when Kate’s over here on Monday, we’ll map out the back yard on paper, and sketch in where we want the veggie beds, with their approximate sizes, so that Julian and Terry will be able to work out what sort of sleepers we’ll need, and how many, and what tools, how much soil, etc., etc. coz at the moment, we don’t have a clue! Thanks to some really good video clips sent to me by a very dear friend, I now have some ideas as to how to go about cleaning up the fish puddle – er, I meant pond, under the water feature – it’s far too small for a pump of any kind, unfortunately, but one of the videos showed the guy holding a medium sized stick, that he’s sort-of “spaghetti-d up” his algae with – if I can do that, and remove enough of the algae in the pond, I can then introduce some snails and little plants to help keep their growth down. I also think we should run the fountain a lot more often than we don’t, as I think it aerates the water, which in turn might keep algae growth down. All I can do is cross my fingers! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I think those horrible fluid-retaining pills might be starting to catch up with me – I stayed the same this morning, going from 73.1kg to 73.1kg My feet are really quite swollen, too, which worries me a bit… It is all fluid, but even taking two anti-fluid tablets instead of just one doesn’t seem to be doing much (though on the other hand, who knows how much worse they might be if I was only taking the one!) whatever! I want a way of stopping it! *frown* The funny thing is – my ankles aren’t swollen, nor are my legs or any other part of me – just my stupid rotten feet!

So because my favourite youngest daughter and her husband aren’t coming over tomorrow, I suppose we have the choice of Rifting, unpacking more boxes, or having a carbon copy of today and doing both! 🙂 I guess we’ll see, come tomorrow! I must say that I’m looking forward to Tuesday, when the treadmill with the adjustable incline arrives! Yesterday, when I was trying it out, I didn’t really think it was much of an incline, even though it was adjusted up as far as it would go – it felt pretty much like the one I’m using now – flat! But I guess I must have been working my leg muscles harder than I normally do, because this morning when I went for my pre-breakfast stroll, I could really feel the muscles at the back of my calves pulling, as though I had a stiff muscle? So that’s good! I’ll either start to build up a bit of muscle in my legs, or lose a bit more weight (or hopefully both!) Anyway, on that wistfully hopeful note, I shall bid you all a very good evening, because that’s about all I have for you again tonight! 🙂 Don’t forget to call in again tomorrow night though, to find out how we spent our day, Rifting, unpacking, or both, and what my stupid weight decided to do to annoy me. There’ll be heaps of other news and tidbits for you all, so don’t miss out! Until then, please bee good, don’t forget that when it rains, look for rainbows, and when it’s dark, look for stars! Remember to keep warm, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves – but most of all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

It was quite a good day today – as I told you last night, I’d been to have my Warfarin blood test yesterday (after which we sort-of got caught up in the burst fire hydrant mini-flood) and Dorevitch usually SMS’s the results through later in the afternoon or early evening, but we heard nothing at all from them – so I just took the dose I’d been taking – and with no SMS arriving this morning, we rang them. Well, I dunno – maybe they were on skeleton staff or something because of the long week end – they had my INR, but hadn’t worked out my dosage – they’d let us know! (most mysterious – this is after all a very serious condition, and what dosage you take is of great importance) Anyway, the SMS finally came though – my INR has gone up to 2.1, which is good, I’m to keep taking the same dosage as before (3.5mg per night) and my next blood test isn’t until October 22nd, so I guess they’re pleased with me 🙂 We also rang up about the treadmill, but the guy who handles them was right over the other side of the city and wasn’t going to be back before 12.30 this afternoon, so we arranged to see him then. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I really hate having my day chopped into little bits – neither of us likes starting something – like unpacking a box, f’rinstance – and having to leave everything all over the floor and the table because something else is happening. Nor do I want to start doing something in Rift, just get into it and absorbed with it, and have to leave it because we have to go somewhere or something. So as usual, I compromised, and made this header instead. At least with graphics, you don’t leave messes all over the floor and the table that has to be picked up and put away later on, and even if you do get all absorbed in what you’re doing, you can save it and return to the exact same spot you left it, rather than have to go galloping all over the countryside to get back to where you were! So what do you all think of this new header? I tried to stick with the Spring Theme as much as possible – “young” greens, blossom pinks, and flowery thingies. Yes, it’s “pink”, and I’m really not a “pink” person (my mother was though, but luckily it’s not a trait which I inherited!) but it’s not a “lolly pink”, or a bright pink – it’s quite muted, with a lot of black (read: grey) in it… I suppose you could even call it a “mushroom pink”? But that’s how I occupied most of this morning – the rest of the time I mucked around a bit on Facebook and did jigsaw puzzles… 🙂

So at noon, we headed off to the treadmill place – we’ve got to learn not to think it terms of Doncaster distances – this guy’s in Glen Waverley, and it only took us a few minutes to get there from here, so of course we were miles too early! Luckily I’d thought to bring my Kindle with me (I never leave home without it! You just never know when you’re going to have to wait for something – taxi… tow-truck… ambulance… 😉 ) and I think Julian used his phone as a Kindle. The guy rocked up at about the agreed upon time – 12.30pm – and we trudged up to his garage where he wheeled out the treadmill with the adjustable incline beastie. It looks almost exactly like the one we have at the moment, except that it has an extra set of controls on the left (I only have controls on the right) so there’s not many new things to have to learn or work out how to use – the incline has ten settings, all on the left of the machine. You adjust them by hitting the “+” or the “-” buttons, the same as you do for the speed buttons on the right. I hopped on and had a bit of a try-out – with my shoes on, which made me feel heavy and clumsy, and ruined my balance – it was still on its “steepest” setting, but I really didn’t feel as though I was going up a hill. However, the long and short of it is that we’ll swap our current one over for that one next Tuesday morning. It’s about $50 per month more expensive to hire than the one we have, but that’s understandable – it does more than this one! I’m really looking forward to trying it out – sans mes chaussures (without my shoes) 🙂

We’re still not sure if we’re seeing my favourite youngest daughter or not this Sunday, but just to be on the safe side, we’re going to be Rifting tomorrow – maybe not the whole day, but some of it, at least! 🙂 and on Monday, I’m off to The Glen! I get emails from both My Size and Autograph when they get new stock in, and because it’s beginning to warm up a bit (alright, a lot!) I’ve found that the summer T-shirts I have (all two of them!) (a) no longer fit me (they’re too big!), and (b) I’m afraid that it’s going to be quite a long time (and several surgeries) before I can wear short sleeves again! My arms have lost so much weight that the skin on my upper arms looks – how can I put it politely? – totally disgusting – there, that’ll do – so it’s going to be long, or three-quarter sleeves for me from now on Autograph have some quite nice new tops in, with long and three-quarter length sleeves – I just hope they have them in extra small! (Yes, a size “Small” is now “a little on the large side” for me!) I can also go looking in Target and other stores now, without automatically crossing them off my mental list with an “Ahh! No point looking there – they don’t go up to my size!” Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to get something a little cooler to wear than thick jumpers! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I’m starting to get both trepidated and suspicious – trepidated, because I know this run can’t last much longer, and suspicious, because… why?! I’m taking those wretched fluid-retaining pills – so why isn’t my weight going up?! Oh, no doubt it will – tomorrow, too, probably – but this morning I went down another point, from 73.2kg to 73.1kg. It would be really, really nice if I could get well down into the 72kg zone by early next week, but I’m not going to hold my breath! Two days down, eight more to go… I see Dr. Y. again on November 10th (I really must have words with him about these horrible little pills!) and I would really, really like to get down to 65kg by then… I don’t think I’m in the race, but I’d really, really like to… *wistful look*

So, we didn’t do any unpacking of boxes yesterday, and we haven’t done any unpacking of boxes today. If we’re playing Rift tomorrow, it would seem highly unlikely that we’ll do any tomorrow either, and of course, if my favourite youngest daughter and her husband come over on Sunday, no unpacking of boxes is likely to occur. Monday’s out, my favourite eldest daughter is due over on Tuesday, so that leaves us until Wednesday, before we can get into any serious box rifling! Or have we managed to get our priorities muddled, somewhere along the line? *sigh* so many boxes left to go through… Anyway, once again, that’s about if from me for this evening! 🙂 Don’t forget to drop by again tomorrow night – find out if we did go Rifting, or if our guilty consciences forced us to go box emptying – and whether or not my weight suddenly remembered that it was supposed to be going up and retaining fluid, or went down… but… it’ll probably stay the same, unfortunately But whatever happens, there’ll be lots of news and stories for you all, so until tomorrow night, do at least try to bee good, remember that you use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul – and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully, but most of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂