Here I am, early for once! (well, early-ish!) Today has been a good day – Paul arrived traffic-late, but that was OK, because Julian went off on his morning walk, leaving me to let Paul in when he arrived, so I put off my treadmilling, came in here, and got all my preliminary morning chores over and done with early (like… scanning through the Foxtel television programs and turning on the “record” function for anything that looked remotely interesting, checking my email, etc.) Once Paul got here I put on my two pairs of socks and hopped on the treadmill – and as there was a great deal of noise going on (the wall between the corridor and my bathroom was being knocked down!) I wasn’t able to do my usual “counting steps” – I kept losing my place. Instead, I amused myself by seeing if I could walk faster than the treadmill was counting seconds! I was able to count to sixty without losing my place, so I’d wait until the timer on the console hit “the” minute, then started walking as fast as I could, counting each step – when I got to “60”, I’d look at the console (part of the “game” consisted of not looking at the timer on the console until I’d counted sixty steps!) and see where the timer was up to – I usually managed to beat it by about 3 seconds, which I thought was pretty good for an old woman to keep up for nineteen and a half minutes straight – then I’d slow down for a couple of steps until it hit the “minute” mark again, and rinse and repeat! 🙂 It was actually fun, in a way, seeing if I could “Beat The Machine”! I might employ it more often in the mornings, even when it isn’t noisy – as I’ve often said, the morning walk is the worst – I’m still half asleep, my legs don’t want to do what I tell them, and my mouth gets terribly dry because I haven’t had my morning cup of tea, or my after-breakfast cup of coffee. Well, I hadn’t this morning, either, but I did have a glass of diet cordial with my Vitamin D capsules, so it wasn’t too bad. Besides, playing my new “game” took my mind off the usual first-walk-of-the-day discomforts! 😉 After “walkies”, when Julian got back from his walk, we had breakfast (and an after-breakfast cup of coffee) and then Clarke arrived to help Paul with the bathroom door. He also brought over one of the floor and wall tiles, and I must say that they look even nicer than I remembered! They’re not exactly grey marble, they’re more of a soft grey-ish off white marble? with very soft light grey veins running through them. They’re the 600X300 tiles, not the 600X600 that I think would have looked better, being a nice, big square tile – but they’re going to be really nice and light! The old bathroom was all dark chocolate-brown with a few dark cream highlights – and dark colours tend to pull a room inwards, making it look smaller than it actually is (and of course, light colours do the opposite! Which is why I wanted a light marble look! 🙂 ) I also had a quick chat with Clarke about a new project of mine for the back yard, but I’ll get a proper quote from him before I decide which way to do it. After that, I jumped into Rift, where I got Blyce up to level 24 and finished off the last Silverwood quest chain, so I’m now off to Gloamwood (again! I think I must know these quests better than the Trion programmers and writers!) The noise in the corridor and bathroom, by the way, are still resounding throughout the house… Anyway, by that time it was lunchtime – I had my lunch, but Julian headed out to return a mattress protector. Our old mattress protector was getting a bit worn, so a couple of days ago he decided to replace it. He went up to Knox City and ended up at Adairs, where he got a supposedly nice one (it cost a fair bit, too!) did a bit of other shopping and brought it home. The mattress protector wrapping said to “Wash before Use”, so, following the washing instructions to the letter, he did. Dried it, according to the drying instructions, and brought it into the bedroom to put on the bed. The package it came in said “King” on the label. He’d washed and dried it according to the instructions on said package. The ruddy thing had either been mislabelled, or it had shrunk by over a foot – whichever, it was too small for our quite normal, standard, king-size mattress! So he took it back to Adairs, and they refunded the money – but we don’t have a new mattress protector any more. We’ll be going out tomorrow to Vic Roads to register my change of name and get a new driver’s licence, so after we’ve done that we might go off and see if we can find a haberdashery shop that has a (hopefully slightly cheaper!) king size mattress protector that won’t shrink when washed as per the washing instructions! If we do go up to Knox City there’s a Medicare Office just about opposite Adairs, I think, coz we have to dart in there, too, to have my name change registered and put on my Medicare card. That’ll only leave the Banks, Electoral Roll, and Passport left to get changed over (I think!)
After lunch I did my midday treadmilling, had a cup of coffee, and then I had a couple of emails to write – and by the time I’d done that it was almost time to start writing this, so I filled in the rest of the time doing an online jigsaw puzzle 🙂 I just noticed! At the top of this editing page there are four little boxes! The first one is to add media – so apparently I’m able to add music for you to listen to while you’re reading this! Bagpipe “music”, anyone?! 😉 Or I can add a location (*shrug*) or a contact form (*??*) …. and a poll! Now, that could actually be handy, when it comes time to ask you which font you like best in my experimental headers! 🙂
Weigh-in this morning. I was dreading it, I really was! I wondered how much I would have bounced back! Hopefully not too much, but knowing my luck… 
I gingerly hopped up onto the scales, dreading what I was going to see… I saw… 65.9kg! 😮 What??! I got off the scales, and then got on them again, for a confirmatory weigh-in. Again, I saw 65.9kg – so I’m now in my “goal weight” zone – less than a kilo to go! Nine more grams to go ’til Maintenance, and (gasp, shock, horror!) real food again for more than just breakfast! I can’t believe that I’ve lost 68.8kg in fifteen months! And to tell you all the honest to goodness truth, it’s been so easy, I almost feel as though I’ve been cheating somehow! I’ve been voluntarily exercising regularly, for about the first time in my entire life (I’ve always hated and detested exercising, except for horse riding and ballet, the only two things that I was good at, and did love doing) and I’m fitter than I’ve been for goodness knows how long! Decades probably! So, this year has been “The Year of the Me!” – I’ve pretty much re-invented myself, and so bless you, Dr. Y., because you made me realise that I didn’t care, and that maybe I should… 🙂
So tomorrow it’s off to change my name at a few places – Oh, I’ve waited so long to do this! 🙂 I’ve never liked my birth name – and although I have retained the name my parents gave me – more out of some sort of misguided sense of “duty” to them, I suspect – I’ll never use it again if I can help it! So please, everyone – it really and legally IS “Winter”, now, OK? 🙂 I just went and checked on my new door-to-be – the framework is all up, the lintel and doorjambs are in, and even plaster-less, dusty, dirty, and messy, the room looks three thousand percent better than it did before they started! Yes, this has been a very good day! And on that happy note, that’s really about it from me for this evening! Do drop by again tomorrow night to see how much my weight bounced back (because it will! It will! It’s just too good to be true, and you know what “they” say – If something seems too good to be true, then it generally is, OK? 😉 ) how all my name changing exercises went, and exactly how many of the ones listed actually did get done! I’ll also be able to tell you if my new bathroom door is in or not, and what other work has been done in my bathroom! However, until then, once more let me exhort you all to bee good (because “you-know-who’s” watching you! 😉 ) don’t forget that it is never too late to be what you might have been, and always remember to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather – but more importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 