What a lovely day it’s been today! 🙂 A bit on the cool side, which is good, and a bit windy, I suppose, but an excellent day for getting out in the garden and… finishing off my promised veggie beds! Yes, they is done! Finished! Completed! Well, the construction, or woodworking part  is finished, anyway – the soil goes in early next week, after Julian works out how much we’ll need, then we’ll add some cane or bamboo sticks for beans and tomatoes to climb on – and then we’ll be able to start planting seeds – or seedlings – or both! Snow peas – are they “climbers”? I’m not sure… but I want to grow some of them, and some sugar snap peas… carrots, celery, tomatoes, zucchini, beans (the purple and white mottled ones!) spinach… I also want to get a large tub or pot(s) in which to grow herbs – I don’t want them in the veggie beds with the other vegetables, I want them separate from, but next to the veggie beds. Why? I don’t really know, but that’s how I want them to be! I’d also like to put in another large tub or pot to try growing some strawberries in – and if Julian takes care of the vegetables, I’ll take care of the herbs, the strawberries, and another backyard project of mine – and I think it’ll all work out really well! I almost forgot! I’d like a third (or fourth? Depends on how many herb pots I end up with, I guess!) tub in which to plant a small kumquat bush, because they’re pretty 🙂 (and they make nice marmalade, too! 😉 ) But at least the raised beds are now made, so we’re almost ready to start growing stuff! 🙂 Also, the Hills Hoist clothes line has finally been removed! It had been placed into a specially made cylindrical hole in the concrete path, from which you were supposed to be able to lift and remove it if necessary. However Julian and Neale, using the time-honoured method of brute force, hadn’t been able to even wobble it a little bit, let alone remove it! That was why Julian requested that Terry bring his ankle grinder, so that we could cut the blasted thing’s “head” off! That turned out to be unnecessary – Terry single-handedly wrestled the beastie loose and removed it, without needing to resort to the ankle-grinder! 🙂 All the left-over wood has been stored neatly in the shed, where it will become a kind of a high-rise apartment building for all sorts of horrible spiders, earwigs, ants, slater bugs, and numerous other creepy-crawlies that I would much prefer to have living out there in the shed, rather than in our house! Actually, I would really prefer that they didn’t live anywhere remotely near me and mine, but I suppose if they have to live somewhere, they can use the shed, as long as they promise – word of honour – not to come anywhere near our house!

Tomorrow, being our Telara-Sanitising Sunday, we’ll be back into The Wilds, finishing off Act II and starting on Act III, which went live two nights ago! From the way the patch notes read, I suspect that we’re about to get a new King! 🙂 Khar will probably wander off hand in hand with his new girlfriend, to lead a simpler, and more fulfilling life, leaving his second in command, Uureg, in charge as the new “King”. At least, I hope so! Khar’s incessant attempts at clever puns and amusing asides is quaintly funny at first, then it becomes only sort-of amusing, then it gets really tedious, and in the end you find yourself reaching for the speaker switch to turn the sound off! We haven’t quite finished off all of Act II, but there’s not much further to go, so we should be able to segue straight into Act III. Hopefully we won’t die too many times, and hopefully we’ll pick up some interesting and usable “loot” – someone really needs to tell Trion that their quest rewards for level 60+ characters really sucks big-time! I don’t think that Julian or I have had a really decent “upgrade” quest reward since we were humble level 50’s!

Julian was just telling me about a very interesting development in the infrared examination of Tutankhamun’s tomb –  Apparently the results show what might turn out to be two extra, hitherto hidden rooms! There’s a great deal of speculation that one could be another annex or storeroom, and the other, possibly another burial chamber – hopefully intact! I can’t wait to find out! 🙂 Unfortunately, no matter how much I’d absolutely give my eye teeth to go to Egypt to see all these things for myself, the last places on earth that I’d visit at the moment are Egypt, or anywhere else in the Middle East! Not unless I was given some sort of a cast-in-solid-gold guarantee that I’d come back, not only alive, but also totally and completely – not even a teeny little mosquito bite – unharmed!

Weigh-in this morning. I’m still stunned… I went down six (6!) whole points, from 68.4kg to 67.8kg! One more point, and I’ll have lost half my original body weight! You know, I just  went and – just for fun, mind you – worked out my BMI now. I put in my original height, before I became so bent over with arthritis, because I reckon that’s what I would be now, if you could straighten out my spine. So at my original height, and at 67.8kg, my BMI would now be 23.5 – a healthy, normal weight! 🙂 According to that particular BMI calculator, the category for what they consider “normal weight” is between 18.5–24.9 and I’m 23.5 – a bit under their top figure. Of course, one shouldn’t take too much notice of what BMI indexes tell you – I certainly don’t anyway – as I said, this was just for a bit of fun! My favourite eldest daughter called me “skinny” the other day, and I told her “No, I’m not “skinny”! I’m thinner, but I’m not “skinny“! I’m wearing size 16 jeans” (aside: which BTW are starting to get a bit loose around the waist!) “and a size 16 is, according to the fashion pundits, a size only for the grossly obese! Even size 14 is frowned upon! According to these fashionistas, you need to be a size 10 to be slim and trim!” (yeah, right – and I suppose they think that a skeleton is only slightly underweight, too!) Anyway, as I said before – I’ve almost lost half my original body size, (one more point to go! 🙂 ) and I’m very pleased with that! 🙂 Mind you, knowing me, I’ll probably be back in the 68kg zone tomorrow morning!

Another thing I’m going to have to do tomorrow night, is clean out everything from my bathroom and cart it all into the en-suite! Poor Julian! I sure hope Clarke and co. finish a little earlier than 5 weeks! I can see some clashes… I like everything neat and tidy and put away “just so”, and Julian tends to be a little more… “casual”, shall we say! 😉

Sorry – I’m afraid it’s “That Time” again… more later… I promise! 🙂

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

Here I am again 🙂 Ah well, to say that I just can’t wait for my new bathroom is probably the understatement of the millennium, but also, as my mother loved to snap impatiently at me, when I said things like “I can’t wait for Christmas!” or “I can’t wait for the holidays!”, over and over again, “Well, what are you going to do instead!” So indeed! What can I do instead?! Nothing! I can do absolutely nothing at all, except wait! Dang-nabit!

And so time blithers along… next week promises to be full to the brim – the cleaner, Clarke and the renovations, my appointment with Dr. Y., my favourite eldest daughter’s visit, and who knows what else will crop up during the week –  hopefully I’ll get in a few Rifting days 😉 The week after promises to be just as full! I believe that Julian has tentatively set aside either Tuesday or Wednesday the week after next for his day-trip to Adelaide, the renovations, of course, will continue on a daily basis – we haven’t heard back from the nice cable-laying man who came out on Cup Day to give us a quote (which we still haven’t got, so if he’s that keen to take our money, maybe we’ll look for someone else?) there’s the vegetables to plant, and the fish puddle to clean… Well, I don’t think I’m going to die of boredom, do you? 🙂 Anyway, that’s about all I have for you this evening – my apologies for it being so late, but never mind, it’s up now! Do drop in again tomorrow night – find out how we fared in The Wilds, and whether we managed to finish Act II and whether we’ve started Act III or not. Did we die? Call in and find out! Did my weight go back up again? Stay the same? Go down that one last point to say that I am now only half the woman that I used to be? All the answers will be right here for you all tomorrow night! 🙂 Until then, bee good, for goodness’ sake 😉 remember that worrying is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do, but doesn’t get you anywhere, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, and to drive carefully – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂