At Home: Well, well! 🙂 “Ther Big Day!” dawned bright and clear, the moment our alarm clock went off at 7.00am instead of 7.30am – when we normally groan and lie there for another five minutes before psyching ourselves up into actually getting out of bed. No time for psyching ourselves up this morning, with Clarke and Paul supposed to be arriving at 7.30am (actually it was only Paul who showed up today) I think I probably resembled a chook with its head cut off, running around in ever-decreasing lopsided circles, trying to cope with a different bathroom (the en-suite, which is actually Julian’s bathroom!) trying to bind my feet (to save my blisters from bursting! not so that I could walk like a “lady” by taking teeny-weeny little tottering steps like the ancient Chinese!) get dressed, have my morning treadmill work-out, get changed again (well, I wasn’t going to wear grubby jeans and a sweaty shirt to see Dr. Y., for goodness sake!) put my makeup on, brush my teeth, and have breakfast – all at the same time! I ended up only putting a couple of giant band-aids on my blisters because we didn’t have time to stuff around with the tape (besides, I wasn’t dressed yet, and time was of the essence!) So after I’d flung on the first pieces of clothing that came to hand (my jeans and a shirt), I didn’t wait to brush my teeth first, but haired straight off to the treadmill – which was when Paul arrived! Would you believe that, despite the very nasty (and big! Don’t forget big, because they’re whoppers!) blisters on that patch of skin between the “bunion” joint and the base of your big toenail on both feet, just two giant band-aids on one blister, and three on the other (plus three pairs of socks!) my feet were probably the most comfortable they’ve been since I started using the treadmill! Maybe my blisters are developing callouses! 🙂 So I studiously ignored demolition noises coming from the bathroom while I dutifully counted steps, and did my full eighteen minutes’ worth, and repaired to the Den. I think I can safely assure you all that drinking a cup of tea at the same time as eating a bowl of cereal doesn’t really work all that well – spoons full of cereal and the edge of a cup were definitely not meant to go in your mouth at the same time – so I slowed down a titch… Bolting down my breakfast, I next headed back to the bedroom to find something (anything!) fit to wear this morning. Julian should have picked up the Dry Cleaning yesterday, but it wasn’t ready because their machine had broken down. It won’t be ready until tomorrow! I managed to find a very light top to wear – I froze, but at least the sleeves covered the top of my wrinkly arms. By the time I finished putting on my makeup I think I had about ten minutes before we had to leave, but at least I made it on time! (puff! pant! puff!)

At Dr. Y’s: I’ll give him one thing – for a Doctor, he doesn’t keep you waiting! 🙂 Well, we discussed lots of things – the tests I’d just had done, the horrible pills I was taking which upset me so much because they make me retain so much fluid – and my pending surgery. Because I’m permanently on Warfarin now, surgery – which would normally be quite straightforward for about 99.75% of the population – isn’t, for me! (Julian is muttering “Typical, of you!” in the background!) Warfarin thins your blood and makes it less likely to clot – which is not what you want in surgery! Patients on Warfarin tend to bleed out during surgery, which is not a good look! (and it’s sooo hard to get the blood out of the grouting of the tiles on the OR floor!) So, although I’ve now lost enough weight to have the surgery with reasonable safety, I would need a team of blood specialists monitoring me all the time – and there’d still be a huge risk that I’d suffer a fatal embolism if I were taken off the Warfarin for the surgery, or bleed to death if I wasn’t! A real-life “Catch 22” situation! The long and short of it is that Dr. Y. is still extremely reluctant to proceed with the surgery – he wants to try one last thing before we make the final decision. He’s changed the way I take these ruddy little pills now – I’m to have one month on them (er… that is, taking them, not sitting on them!) followed by two months off (not taking them!), and he’ll see me again in four (not six, this time! 🙂 ) months – which just happens to fall on my Birthday! 🙂 The appointment wasn’t deliberately made to be on my Birthday, that just happened to be the day the Receptionist picked, and I said “Oh! That’s my Birthday! :)” and she said “Oh, well you won’t want to come on your Birthday, let’s see what other dates I ha…” but I quickly interjected with a “No! No! That’s fine! I don’t mind coming on my Birthday!” – so there it is – I see him again on March 9th, 2016! 🙂 Mind you, all of the above was very much “in a nutshell”, but the whole situation was discussed at great length by the three of us – me, Julian, and Dr. Y., who thinks I should go to Florence (Italy!) for Christmas! Unfortunately that’s not going to be possible – now that I have a new Birth Certicate, I don’t have a legal passport anymore! 🙂 but we are in the process of changing things – Medicare card, driver’s licence, passport, electoral roll – and that’s just for starters! I never realised just how many places there are where I have to officially change my particulars! Maybe I’ll go for my Birthday next year instead! 😉 (nah! I wouldn’t want to miss my appointment! 🙂 )

Weigh-in this morning. Filled me with despair! I went up another point! From 68.3kg to 68.4kg! Devastating! Today, of all days! Thank all the “Powers That Be” that I took my last horrible little fluid-retaining pill for two whole, blissful months! 🙂 After I’d grizzled about them to Dr. Y., he asked me which ones I wanted to take – the old ones, or these ones? I said “Errr… ummm.. I don’t know! Which ones do you think I should take?” – very cleverly throwing the ball back into his court! 😉 He said he thought I’d get a lot less fluid retention with the ones I’m taking now (though personally, I have my doubts!) so I’ve decided to stick with them – after all, “Better the devil you know…” and all that!

When we got home (after stopping off to buy some more band-aids!) we had a look in at the work Paul was doing on my bathroom… the bath was finally gone, the far too small vanity unit and the far too high mirror were gone, and so was most of the shower… but I couldn’t believe how big the room looked without that useless bath! It was amazing! I’m going to have a gorgeous bathroom when it’s finished! 🙂 (Winter bounces around in her chair hugging herself with glee) I don’t think I have much happening tomorrow – we may see my favourite eldest daughter though, as she has a hairdressing appointment at Doncaster, so it’s possible she’ll come here after that – my appointment’s on Thursday, so we didn’t really plan that terribly well, did we! Never mind – it’s not so much “our lack of planning” as a matter of when I can get an appointment with Elliott, and I think Peter does Lee’s hair, so she has to wait until she can get an appointment with him! Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, Julian’s currently up in the Office, doing address and name change thingies, and I’ve been steadily sorting out shards in preparation for the Great Guild & Guild Bank invasion 🙂 One down, two to go – or rather make that one and a half down, one and a half to go… Yes, and I’m afraid I’m culling as I go, only a little bit though – just enough to make room for two Primalists on each shard 🙂 And that, I guess, is where I leave you all for the evening, having described – at some length – the happening of the day! Drop by again tomorrow though – find out if now that I’ve stopped taking those pills, my weight is starting to go down again – Dr. Y. was saying that it’s getting close to the time when I have to stop losing weight 🙂 Hopefully by tomorrow night we’ll have the soil for the veggie garden ordered (if not delivered as well!) and I can tell you what stage my bathroom  – sorry, “the Roman Ruins”, coz that’s what it looks like! – is at! But until tomorrow, please try to bee good (you know why! 😉 ) remember that the good thing about now, is that there is another one tomorrow; and don’t forget to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves – but most of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, at least I’m starting early today – I might even get this posted before dinner, if I really try hard! 😉 It’s been a real non-event day today – oh sure, the cleaning lady came – on time, too – but I’m a little dismayed by her apparent lack of attention to detail. F’rinstance… there’s a paper clip on the floor in here, it’s slightly behind one of my table-desk legs, but it’s quite easily visible, being a steel-silver colour lying on a very short pile, dark chocolate-brown carpet. So the paper clip is very easily visible, and obviously not there to perform any sort of function. The reason it’s there at all is simply sheer laziness on my part! It fell off the desk a few days ago, but instead of bending over and picking it up as I should have done, I casually dismissed it with a lazy “Arrgh! Never mind! The cleaning lady will be here the day after tomorrow – she can vacuum it up when she cleans in here…”. Well, the cleaning lady either didn’t see it (I don’t know how!) or might have thought it was there to try to hold two pieces of the carpet together (?!?) because it’s still there! Well, actually it’s not. I just picked it up and put it in a drawer, but my point is, Kelly, the cleaning lady should have seen it, should have picked it up and put it on the desk, or asked me if I wanted it! Attention to detail… I shall keep a close eye on that in future… I played Rift for most of the morning, and once again was blown over by the sheer power of the Primalists. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been neatening up the shards in preparation for starting Guilds on all of them and at the moment, only three of the six shards have a Guild and a Guild Bank. The Guild on Laethys has more platinum than we know what to do with, so the plan is to weigh a high level character down with a lot of platinum, and temporarily transfer them to one of the Guild-less shards to finance a new Guild (and Guild Bank) Anyhoo, I was running one of my new Primalists around this morning – apparently I’d created her, and raced her off to Meridian (she’s a Defiant) straight away, only stopping to pick up her training in the three basic Skills for “later on” – so she was only level 10, and hadn’t done any of the exploring, or “baby Carnage” quests along the road that one usually does on the run to the capital city of your faction – an omission I corrected this morning. Julian and I have found, over the years that we’ve played first World of Warcraft, and later Rift, that properly handled, a character can usually defeat a mob two, and very occasionally three, levels higher than they are. This Primalist was handling mobs four levels higher than herself! She shouldn’t have been able to handle a mob four levels higher than herself – but she did! None of the other Classes (Mage, Warrior, Cleric, or Rogue) are able to do that! Mind you, some of the outcomes were a bit “touch-and-go” – she nearly died once or twice – but for the most part, it was… just too easy! But I had a fun morning, and I managed to get her up to level fifteen. As it was getting close to lunchtime, and Clarke’s arrival, I logged out and went off to do my treadmilling….

Remember that big blister I was telling you about last night? Well, I discovered a second one, same place, opposite foot. Damn! So this morning when I was getting ready for the first of my daily treadmillings, first I stuck a giant band-aid over each of the blisters, then I stuck the white sports tape (it’s not quite as expensive as the stretchy blue tape) over the band-aids in strips, crossed my fingers, offered up a quick and somewhat garbled prayer to the Ghods of Sporting Injuries for a relatively pain-free amble on the treadmill, and set off for my first walk of the day. Well, the prayer didn’t work (but then again – who knows how much more painful it would have been if I hadn’t made the offering! 😉 ) my feet (toes, really – the area between the “bunion” joint and the base of the big toe nail) hurt quite a bit, and I was already in a brown study after weighing myself, so when I finally finished my walk and sat down dejectedly to take those horrible hot socks off, I stuck another giant band-aid on top of the tape strips and over the offending areas, in the hopes of a better lunchtime treadmilling experience. After the cleaning lady left, and seeing that it was getting close to “Clarke Time”, I decided to do my lunchtime walk early, before lunch. I’m pleased to report that the application of a second giant band-aid over the top of the white sports tape seemed to work a bit better – my toes still hurt, but more as a dull bruise than a sharp “I’m a blister! Stop walking on me!” pain… and then I came back in here and decided to try mucking around creating a new desktop wallpapery-type thing. Oh, and the Prismacolor coloured pencils that I’d bought from Amazon arrived this afternoon, too! Now all I have to do is get myself a colouring book! 🙂 They do look like splendid pencils! I got the 48 pencil set, and there’s a gold, and a silver, and all sorts of other colours that I can hardly wait to try out! I’m going to see if I can download some “colouring in pages” tonight, though depending on how depressed or elated I am after my appointment with Dr. Y. tomorrow, we may stop off at a shopping centre so that I can get a more appropriate colouring book. Clarke and his aide-de-camp, Paul, arrived – around about lunchtime, as Clarke had said they would – and promptly went outside to eat their lunch! McDonald’s! I’m glad they ate it outside… They seemed to have quite a long lunch break… Then they inched their way gingerly down the drive (Clarke’s truck is very big, plus it had a trailer on it) and deposited their tools, loaded up the rubbish that they’d left here when they were putting in the en-suite and Walk In Wardrobe doors, and off they went to the Refuse Recycling Depot, telling us that they’ll be back at 7.30am tomorrow! Seven Thirty! Five weeks of getting up to be dressed and presentable by seven thirty! I may just die… 😦

So I have my impossible to live with bathroom for yet another night…

Weigh-in this morning. Well, I’ll tell you, but I refuse to watch myself writing it! It’s just too depressing. I went up another point – from 68.2kg to 68.3kg. On the eve of my all-important visit to Dr. Y.! How could my horrible, disgusting body do that to me! (very easily, obviously!) I don’t want to talk about it – if I do, I’ll burst into tears!

So… up with the early larks tomorrow morning 😦  Actually, in a way it’s good, because it means that I can have my walk earlier, giving me a lot more time to get ready to go off for my appointment with Dr. Y. – but that’s only tomorrow that it’s going to be good – after that, sheesh! Does this mean we’ll have to go to bed earlier? (probably, but it doesn’t mean that we will. though! 😉 ) I think it’s just something we’re going to have to grit our teeth and get used to – besides, think how absolutely wonderful it’ll be when my bathroom is finally finished, and we can sleep in! 🙂 I keep trying to envision what it’ll look like, but I just can’t imagine the room without the enormous bath there, taking up almost half of the room! (it does, you know! That bath takes up a bit more than one-third of the room!) I’ll also have a nice new toilet, without a split seat, and without a wonky flush button that wants to come apart if you’re not very careful! The window should look fantastic – clear wavy glass bricks, with about five lilac wavy glass bricks scattered casually amongst them! I wish it was mid December! (Winter jumps up and down in impatience!) Anyway, once more, that’s about all I have for you this evening – do call back again tomorrow night though – if only to find out how we fared with our extra-early morning, what my weight did to me (it’ll probably go up another four points, to 68.7kg! 😦 )  and what Dr. Y. said. There’ll also be news about my bathroom, and how it looks without that gigantic bath in it, and what the next thing to be happening in there is going to be – so it’ll be worth dropping in for! But until tomorrow, please do try to bee good (just in case Father Christmas is watching! 😉 ) remember, we all make choices; but in the end our choices make us; but don’t forget to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

I’m starting this very late tonight – by the time we finished up with Rift, and I’d done my evening treadmilling, it was dinner time! Anyway, here I am now – we had a very good day in Telara, all things considered, though we were very disappointed with the powers that be’s handling of the final end quest in the King Khan part of Into The Wilds! As usual, the quests are so poorly worded that several times we had to go off and read the Rift forums to find out exactly what we were supposed to be doing! But we muddled along, with Julian dying three times, and me having to Feign Death (i.e. play possum) twice! The entire final quest chain (well, we presume it’s the final quest chain!) ends with an Instanced “solo” battle. In other words, you have to pass through a portal that only one person can access – so playing as a group is out – you’re completely on your own! Once in there, you have to do battle with this semi-ghod-like creature. He has two henchpeople with him, who you bump off fairly quickly – but… you don’t fight this semi-ghod-like creature, oooh no! He has a very large – gigantic, even – ravening dinosaur-slash-dragon that you’re supposed to vanquish first – and then presumably polish off the semi-ghod-like creature IF you survive the fight with the dinosaur-slash-dragon thing. Which of course, you can’t, on your own! The consensus in the forums is that you might stand a very slim chance of besting the dinosaur-slash-dragon if you have a pet to fight with you, but solo? without a pet? No way! You will not survive! And Julian didn’t. Twice. Put it this way. We’re both very experienced players, playing very powerful characters – we’re at the peak, as high as you can go, at level 65. This dinosaur-slash-dragon, like the one I was telling you about a while back, is a Special Elite – a lot higher that a mere, humble little level 65 character! He has a Stun attack, and he has either a totally lethal flame or a poison attack (I’m pretty sure it’s flame though – I’m sorry, I shut my eyes while watching Julian get slaughtered – I couldn’t bear to watch!) So first he stuns you, and then while you’re unconscious and unable to retaliate, he flames you. You’re instantly dead. According to the forums, you need to use what are called “interrupts” – in other words, you “interrupt” his attack so that he’s unable to stun you. As a Cleric, Julian does have an ‘interrupt” ability, but he can’t use it very often, and after he has used it, it takes quite a while for it to become usable again. Which is not really ideal in that situation, as he found out to his cost! Of course, I do have a pet, but for some weird reason, Trion seem to have overly weakened Mage’s pets, or somehow made them a lot more fragile – it’s all I can do to keep my ruddy pet alive in a normal fight with an ordinary, run-of-the-mill monster! If I’d gone into the Instance (which I didn’t! I’m a very devout Coward, and I’m also allergic to the sight of my own blood!) I would have had to spend all my time just trying to heal my pet, which against a creature like that wouldn’t have worked, anyway. We were both extremely disappointed in this rather one-sided “solo” end Boss Fight – judging from the messages in the forums, I think there are an awful lot of very disgruntled players at the moment – and the new Blizzard “World of Warcraft” expansion next year is looking pretty damn good! I think it’s about time for Trion to do some rather major balancing patches! Anyway, after lunch we reverted to our two new Primalists that we created a couple of weeks ago, and we took them through a couple of the really easy, almost beginner level quests – hopefully, by the time they get to level 65 (they’re both level 17 at the moment 😉 ) Trion will have sorted out this “Into The Wilds” end Boss-Fight mess!

Well, tomorrow is “D” Day – “D”, as in “demolition of my bathroom”! 🙂 The cleaning lady will be here in the morning, though with workmen tramping through the house and dropping bits of grot all over the place after lunch, one really does have to wonder “why is she coming???” I still haven’t emptied everything out of my bathroom – there’s so little actually in there (because there’s so little room in which to put things!) that I should be able to move it all out in one foul swoop as soon as we see the whites of Clarke’s eyes… Then I’ll just have to find somewhere in the en-suite to put it all! I thought I might commandeer a stand of four pull-out shelves, and put all of my stuff in that – it could fit quite well in the bathroom-tidy corner of the en-suite.

Weigh-in this morning. Was a very big disappointment! Yes, I went up again! I am not a happy little Vegemite! I went from a happy little Vegemite of 67.8kg – to a very not happy little Vegemite of a whopping great fat 68.2kg! Four wretched points! This is not the time to be doing this to me, body! Do it next week! Do it on Wednesday – I don’t bloody care! But don’t do it to me now! Would it hurt that much to keep me in the 67.something kg area until Tuesday bloody night?! Obviously, the answer to that is “Yes! It would!” 😦

Well, I’ve been using the tape on my feet – as well as the triple socks, and I have felt a lot more comfortable… until tonight! I have the biggest blister you’ve ever seen, right on the “bunion” joint of my right foot! The strange thing is, it’s not all that painful – yes, it stings a little, I suppose, but with the tape, and the three pairs of socks, it’s felt fine to walk on – except for the occasional twinge, but I’m used to twinges like that in my feet, and mostly I just ignore them… I think I know how I got the blister though. Julian put the expensive, blue, peel-off paper-backed tape on this morning, but instead of winding it around the top half of my foot, I got him to put it on in strips, just across the parts where I don’t want the friction of the socks rubbing against my skin (if that makes any sense!) That worked fine for my morning walk, but after my lunchtime walk, I noticed that the tape had pulled away from that part of my foot a little bit – so when it was time for my evening walk, I just held it down when I put the first sock on (which isn’t as easy to do as it sounds!) and then just pulled the other two socks over the top. Well, I reckon that’s what did it! The skin was taped down tightly in two places, but there was a gap with bare skin slightly bulging out between those two tightly taped places… and guess where that gap was! Yup, right on the “bunion” joint of my right foot! Now I have to devise a means of protecting the blister that doesn’t involve sticking tape over it, because that sort of tape would just yank the skin right off the top of the blister! Most painfully, I suspect! Anyway, once again, that’s about all I have for you tonight – apologies once again for the lateness of this post – I’m going to have to think of a way to play Rift on Sundays and still get my blog written on time… no ideas spring immediately to mind, but… where there’s a will, there’s always a very stubborn Winter! 😉 Drop by again tomorrow night and find out how the “demolition derby” of the bathroom went, how I managed to patch up my blister, and what my stupid weight has decided to do to me on the eve of my appointment with Dr. Y.! Until tomorrow night, though, please bee good (Christmas is a-coming! 🙂 ) don’t forget that if you obey all the rules, you’ll miss all the fun; always remember to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

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! 🙂

Well, yet another very busy day – in which I once again managed to not really accomplish anything terribly constructive! Morning was “the usual” – did my walk, had breakfast – Julian had his shower and we had a cup of coffee… then because we had to leave early to get over to Doncaster by 1.15pm for my hairdressing appointment, I went for my lunchtime walk early (to get it out of the way!) then put on my makeup. I’ve found that if I put my makeup on before going on the treadmill, I tend to smudge the eyeshadow a lot, because I’m (mostly!) looking down towards my feet, and the eyeshadow on my eyelids smudges onto the area under my eyebrows and looks… well, weird, to put it mildly, and definitely… not nice! By the time I’d done all of that, I had about an hour before we had to leave – not enough time to do any Rifting – not even enough time to check out Facebook – so what did I do? I played Solitaire! Now, how constructive was that! Anyway, off we went to Doncaster, I had my hair done (and made several appointments for later on – Elliott is a very busy hairdresser… er, sorry, I meant stylist!) and as usual it looks really good – now, all I have to do is try to make sure it stays looking this good until Tuesday afternoon! (I don’t really care all that much what it looks like after my appointment with Dr. Y. as long as it looks good for that!) After I finished at the hairdresser, I went on a bit of a safari for foot protector things – Priceline had virtually nothing practicable, so on we went to the Apothecary downstairs – the one that’s virtually impossible to get into if you’re wheelchair-bound! Honestly, they have so much “rubbish” around the two doors, and clogging up the aisles, that you can almost believe that they actually want those rubbishy items to “walk out the doors”, because it’s certainly not worth buying! I usually sit around outside and read my Kindle while Julian goes in to drop off, or pick up a prescription, but because I couldn’t plug Julian into my brain (so that he could see, in his mind’s eye, the sort of thing I was after) today I turned my wheelchair down to “one bip” – the slowest it can go – and very slowly and carefully, I inched my way through the least clogged-up door, hoping and praying that I wouldn’t send anything crashing to the floor! I made it inside the shop, and saw Julian, right down at the other end of the shop! Of course there was no easy way to get down there – I had to work my way up and down several of the slightly wider aisles to get there – but get there I did (where there’s a will, there’s usually a very stubborn Winter! 😉 ) but they had virtually nothing that I thought would work for my feet. They did have the sort of “ankle bandage” that I’d been hoping might work, but on closer examination I could see that they really didn’t come far enough down over my toes, so I reluctantly put the packet back. In the end, we took a couple of rolls of adhesive sports tape – sort-of like the one I still had a bit of left at home, only these ones didn’t have that silly paper backing. [Unfortunately, I’ve had to ask Julian to wind it onto my feet for me, as when I try to do it myself I just end up with a messy wad of wrinkled and stuck together adhesive sports tape!] I also got myself some special liquid eye makeup remover, which I should have bought when I got my new mascara a few weeks ago, but didn’t, because (a) it was expensive (Chanel makeup isn’t exactly known for being very cheap!) and (b) I thought it would be alright just to use my usual makeup removing wet-wipes. Well, I was wrong – for once! 😉 Normal makeup removing wet-wipes do get mascara off, but it takes forever, and you have to scrub fairly hard, which is not really very good for sensitive and delicate eye tissue! We also had to call in at a couple of the banks (unfortunately, not because of a “bank error in your favour – collect $200!”) and then we came home. Once home, we had a cup of coffee, and I got Julian to wind the new sports tape around my feet… then off I went to try this new hair-brained scheme of mine out on the treadmill. I debated whether I’d still need the triple socks as well as the tape, and in the end thought that it would be better to be safe than to get more blisters, and put all the socks on. And now, I’m very happy to be able to report that the new tape, plus the triple socks, worked extremely well! So maybe it wasn’t such a hair-brained scheme, after all! 🙂 I was walking in relative comfort, for a change, so from now on I’ll get Julian to put the tape on every morning, leave it on during the day, and peel it all off after my last walk of the day – and hopefully, by the time my Podiatrist returns at the end of November, there won’t be any more blisters for her to scowl at! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Better, but I don’t expect it to last – at least, not while I’m on these wretched little fluid-loving and retaining pills! However, I went down three points, from 68.7kg to 68.4kg – if only I could keep that up until next Tuesday morning! If I could get down into the 67kg zone by Tuesday morning, I don’t think I’d mind all that much if I did go back up into the 68kg zone for a few days! Dream on, sunshine!

We just had a phone call from Terry, my favourite youngest daughter’s husband – they wanted to come over on Sunday, to finish off the veggie garden beds, but Julian grizzled a little bit about how Sunday is our one-and-only Rift day, and how much it means to us, etc., etc. – so they’re coming over tomorrow, around lunch time, instead (so why do I feel guilty now!) They should be able to get the last veggie garden bed done very quickly with the two of them working on it, and hopefully, get rid of that eye-sore of a Hills Hoist clothesline as well! Then we just have to get the soil and the seeds, or seedlings – whatever! I think I’ll make a list off all the things that I can think of that we’ll need for a successful veggie garden… watering can… hose, hose reel, and some sort of sprinkler – or maybe some sort of drip irrigation set-up – hand rake, trowel – I dunno, I’ve never had a veggie garden before! 🙂 We heard from Clarke too – he’ll be here around lunchtime on Monday – as it’ll take a while to load everything into his truck! So I expect that this will be a real jumpin’ place next week! 🙂 The cleaning lady is coming on Monday morning, too! Anyway, that’s about it from me again for tonight – do drop in again tomorrow night to find out if the veggie beds are all ready to receive their new little plants, if my weight went back up again, or if it behaved itself, and if the ugly old Hills clothesline has been removed or not. There’s sure to be lots more to tell you all – so hopefully I’ll see you all then! 🙂 In the meantime, remember to bee good (don’t forget that Christmas is just around the corner! 😉 ) don’t forget that if today was perfect there would be no need for tomorrow, and always remember to drive carefully, to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, and to look after yourselves – but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, here it is, the fifth of November – “with gunpowder, treason and plot” – and once upon a time, everyone would be having a quick, early dinner and getting ready to go along to the local park, or the nearest large paddock, or even just the street outside, for the big bonfire (not on the street just outside, of course – bonfires were only for paddocks – and occasionally, the local park) the neighbourly camaraderie, and the traditional letting off of crackers (fireworks) as soon as it got dark. Not any more though, oh no – it’s far too dangerous to let the mere hoi poloi handle such dangerous things! It’s a shame though – Guy Fawkes night was a night we kids looked forward to all year (and if the truth be told, the grown-ups did as well!) …now it’s just a night like any other, unless someone has forked out big $$ to get a “professional” to set something up in the local park, and sadly, the happily chattering neighbours thronging the local streets to let off “penny bungers” are a thing of the long forgotten past.

My favourite eldest daughter came over today – she’s really losing so much weight, it’s wonderful to behold! I am sooo proud of her for sticking with it – she’s looking (and feeling!) a lot better, too! We sat in the lounge room for most of the day, watching episodes of “The Librarians”, and when we finished the season, we watched some more “Arrow” – where the plot thickens! A girl thought long dead has just turned up, and seeing that Oliver (AKA “Arrow”, or “The man in the green hood”) was having it off with both her and her sister, one wonders where all this is going to lead (but no doubt it’ll probably be to no good! 😉 ) Julian, on the other hand, went outside to do some work on the veggie beds. He’d been out there for probably about fifteen minutes when that big storm hit Tullamarine – when he came inside, seconds after it started to rain here, he was absolutely drenched and he solemnly informed us that it was “very heavy rain”, then stooped over as though he was carrying a heavy burden, and trudged off to the bedroom and en-suite to dry off! 🙂 After the weather cleared up, he went back outside and finished off one of the veggie beds – there’s still one left to go, but he needs to get some more “thingies” that hold the wooden layers together, and some more flooring wood needs to be cut. I believe that Kate and Terry will be over this weekend too, so between the two of them (Julian and Terry) the last veggie bed should be finished in no time at all… 🙂

And now, because of a very late start I got tonight because I was so busy watching “The Librarians” and “Arrow” with my favourite eldest daughter, it’s “That Time” again! But never fear – as someone famous once said, “I’ll be back!” 😉

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

And… here I am! 🙂 Yes, only one more veggie bed to assemble, then we can get on with the serious business of filling them up with soil, preparing the soil, and planting some crops! I’m not quite sure why I just said “we” can get on with, as Julian has always promised me a veggie garden, so it’s up to him – besides – I don’t bend in the middle quite as well as I once did! 😉 (which is why the two beds are raised, so that I can go out and at least harvest some of the lovely fresh produce that I hope will grow in our veggie garden!) Terry also brought over an ankle angle grinder (ankle grinder? One hopes not!) on Tuesday, with which to cut down the small Hills Hoist in the back garden. It’s supposed to just lift up out of the hole in the concrete that was made for it, but it’s either been welded in, because it wasn’t stable enough to hold a full load of wet washing, just sitting in its hole, or else it has become rusted in or something, because the three of them – my husband, and my two son’s-in-law – have tried repeatedly to pull the damn thing out, but it totally refuses to budge! So, it’ll have to be ankle-grinded out! I suppose an outside clothes line is a handy thing to have, but I don’t think I’ve hung clothes out on a line since I was… er… well, put it this way! For a long, long, long time, and I don’t intend to start doing so now! There is another outside line to hang things on anyway – a collapsible one under the roof of the entertainment deck, which Julian does use quite a bit, so the Hills Hoist isn’t needed, and all it does is make the back yard look “cluttered” – so it has to go! 😛 (*sigh*) Just going back and re-reading all of this, and once more I’m almost floored but the amount of work we still have to do here! Here’s a few of them, in no particular order… We’ve come to the reluctant decision that we’re going to have to try to fish the two goldfish out of the front puddle-pool and put them in a jar of their current pond water while we completely siphon all of the green scummy water out of their home, clean and scrub (literally!) the green, scummy stones and rocks in the bottom of the pond cavity, plant some water plants, re-fill the pond with nice clean water, introduce some water snails to hopefully keep the water a bit cleaner in the future, allow the whole lot to sit and settle for a while, dangle the jar containing the fishes (if they’re still alive!) in the water until the temperature of the pond and the jar are equal, and then finally re-settle the fishes in their new, clean, home! Worst-case scenario, and the poor little fishies die on us (I really hope they won’t – I’ve grown quite fond of them – but unfortunately it’s quite possible that they won’t survive the move. We’ll do our best for them though… ) we’ll give them a decent burial in the veggie garden, and introduce some new fishies into the newly cleaned pool. Plus we still have half a room and three-quarters of a shed full of boxes to unpack and deal with, all the furniture from the old apartment to sell off, Julian’s C-64 room to set up, pictures to hang, a library to organise, and a lot of items from Adelaide to find homes for. Julian is trying to organise a day trip to Adelaide for some time next week, so that he can supervise the packing up and shipping of the numerous clocks that have to be sent off to various places (he’s a watch and clock maker by trade so he knows the right way to handle them!) The Grandfather clock is coming here 🙂 And work on my bathroom is supposed to start next Monday! Goodness knows when we’ll be able to call this place “finished”!

Weigh-in this morning. “Move along, move along!  Nothing to see here!” Yup, you guessed it, I stayed the same! I went from 68.7kg to 68.7kg – how exciting! Not! I now have only four days left to get down into at least the 67kg zone before next Tuesday – but somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen! Not while I’m on these horrible pills, anyway! 😦 And you know what?! I stop taking them on Tuesday (of all days!) so by Thursday, I’ll probably be down to something like 67.3kg! Two days too late for Dr. Y.! But… what can I do?! Absolutely nothing!

Tomorrow I have an appointment at the hairdresser, and while we’re over at Doncaster I want to pay a visit to Priceline. If we were going to Knox City, I’d be going to the Terry White Apothecary, because they have – or had, anyway – a very large section devoted to all things “feet”, and I really need to find something to stop me blistering my feet on the treadmill! They’re really getting very painful, not only walking on the treadmill, but just generally walking around the house, and it’s starting to become a real problem. I tried taping them up this afternoon – I need to find some way of stopping the friction between my socks and my skin while I’m walking, you see – but winding the slightly adhesive tape on without wrinkling it is next to impossible because it has a nice, paper backing strip that you’re supposed to peel off as you wind, which is terribly awkward for me, and it’s really hard to get it in the right place… I suppose I could get Julian to wind it on for me, but I really hate having to get him to do even more things for me, when I should – and can – do it myself… it’s just that I don’t do it terribly well, or very successfully! Still, I think Priceline at Doncaster has a fair amount of “feet” things – so hopefully I’ll be able to find something there that will work… And once again, that’s about it from me for tonight! 🙂 Drop by again tomorrow night – find out if I’ve managed to solve my toe blister problem, whether any more work has been done on the veggie garden, and if my weight has decided to take pity on me and go down a few points. There’s sure to be lots of other news for you all, too, so don’t miss out! 🙂 But until tomorrow night, please try to bee very, very good, and always remember this: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift – that’s why it’s called the present! 🙂 However, don’t forget to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, today’s been a fairly quiet sort of a day – not really all that much happening at all, for a change… Julian’s been busy in the Office, spending a fair bit of time arguing with United Energy about the our electricity bill. We had those so-called “Smart Meters” installed some time last year (I think!) not at our request, I might add! and since then we’ve been given excuse after excuse as to why the meter hasn’t been read, ranging from “they don’t have a key to get into the Utility Room”, which they do have, to the idiotically naive excuse that they don’t know how to read the new meters yet! If we can read the damn things – and we haven’t even been trained – why the ruddy hell can’t they?! They keep on giving us “estimated accounts”, which are just plain wrong! They insist that the meters have been read correctly (that’s why the account reads: estimated amount”!) and we keep insisting that they’re wrong! All they have to do is come and read the wretched meter and the whole mess could be cleared up – and if they’ve “mislaid” their key (again!), we’d be only too happy to escort them into the meter room so that they can get a correct reading! We keep telling them – we’d be very happy to pay them what we owe them, but we’re damned if we’ll cough up an exorbitant estimated fee! The dispute continues… (we’re not the only people from the apartment building who are going through this “estimated” account business, either!) So while Julian’s been busy wrestling with that little fiasco, I’ve been busy with my usual pursuits, namely Rift, and “tidying up the shards (yes, still at it! 🙂 ) I’ve also been busy looking through a new book (“gift”) that I got for subscribing to the “Delicious” magazine. It’s a gorgeous book, as you can see if you follow the link there, and it’s full of wonderful recipes, and lovely, glossy photos of the food… But when you stop and think about things a bit more deeply, you have to wonder about some things… The food photos are all beautifully plated up to look as professional and enticing as possible – of course! This is a recipe book and They’re selling you something – therefore it has to look “perfect”, right?! Wrong! No-one… no-one is going to go to the trouble of trying to present a dish that looks just like the one in the picture, not even if the ruddy Queen of England was coming to dinner – because the picture is a lie! It’s been doctored, sprayed with oils to make the sauces look glossy, has had fake ingredients piled on the plate to make it look fuller and healthier – in other words, it’s not the sort of food that you could just pick up a knife and fork and start eating, if it was suddenly and miraculously placed in front of you! I said to my favourite youngest daughter yesterday, while we were looking through this beautifully presented book, that if I ever do get around to actually writing and compiling my oft-threatened “Family Recipe Book”, I will take photos of the plated up food – but it will be plated up and presented in the book… exactly the way it would be plated up and presented to the rest of the family sitting around the kitchen table! No fancy and fake glosses to make sauces look richer or more mouth-watering, no fake browning colourants to make chicken look perfectly cooked, nothing made up or not the genuine article, but just as we would see it when we sat down at the table. The other thing that struck me was that in the introduction part of the book, the author, Valli Little, I think, stated that she limits herself to only one cup of coffee a day – WHY?! – but she makes sure that it’s really good coffee! And that in turn made me think of the segment in The Age, and on the ABC News, or the 7.30 Report (I forget which!) It was about foetal alcohol syndrome, which really is a very serious, terrible, and totally avoidable outcome for the baby of a mother who drinks too much alcohol. But… total abstinence? What are we all still alive and reasonably healthy? Since mankind discovered how to make wine and spirits, people have been drinking alcohol. Even women, and more specifically pregnant women. Throughout recorded history! Way back when it was far safer for a woman to drink wine or ale with her meal because the water was far more dangerous to drink! My mother drank when she was pregnant with me. And smoked! I drank while I was pregnant, and smoked too! No-one thought that there was anything wrong with either drinking or smoking – most women did! So, as I said, how come the human race has survived – nay! Thrived!? How come we’re all pretty normal, intelligent, functioning human beings? Most women (who could afford it) ate soft cheeses, with no ill effects, ate all sorts of shellfish, smoked – some more heavily than others (I was one who smoked heavily) drank all sorts of alcohol, and not just “socially”, either – so is all this exhortation to stop smoking, stop drinking, and to avoid certain types of food if you’re pregnant a load of scare-mongering, just in case anything bad happens? As it seems to be mainly medical practitioners who do the lecturing on these possible harmful side effects, and which is then picked up by other do-gooders in the community who continue the barrage of dire prophecies – I find that I have to ask myself – is this just a defense mechanism? A way to protect themselves from any possible legal action if anything untoward happened to the baby? ….More food for thought, and… all things in moderation!

Weigh-in this morning. Not so good 😦 Those ruddy Gremlins! I tell you, if I ever manage to catch any of them, it’ll be instant dismissal! “Begone, foul Gremlins! And never darken these doors again!” – that’ll larn ’em! 🙂 I went up a point, from 68.6kg to 68.7kg *sigh* It really isn’t fair! Now I only have five days left to lose as much as possible before my all-important appointment with Dr. Y.! I would really have liked to be in the 67kg zone, but I don’t think that’s going to happen now, especially as I’m on those damn fluid-loving and fluid-retaining pills… 😦

At this stage I’m not sure if my favourite eldest daughter is coming over tomorrow – I hope she is – I haven’t seen much of her over the past week, so it’ll be good if she can come. If not, then I suppose I’ll continue fuddling around neatening up some more shards, though truth be told, I seem to do more writing and walking than anything else! In a rather vain effort to save my toes from further blisters, not only am I heavily band-aiding the balls of my feet, I’m also wearing not just two, but three pairs of running socks! It’s helping a little – I think – but the Podiatrist’s secretary called today with my next appointment (November 27th at 4.30pm) and the phone number for the guy who makes such good shoes – well, the Podiatrist recommended him highly, anyway! 🙂 So I shall call him tomorrow, and ask about having several pairs of shoes made… And I’m afraid that once again, that’s about it from me for tonight! 🙂 However, do drop back again tomorrow night to see if I’ve managed to catch, and fire, any of those naughty little Gremlins who went and snitched on me to my body, which promptly went and made my weight go back up again (I’ve always wanted to yell, Donald Trump-like, “You’re fired!” at someone – haven’t all of you? 🙂 ) And also to find out if my body is still listening to their soft sneaky voices (that is, has my weight gone up again?) or is it turning a deaf ear to them (or have I stayed the same, or even gone down a couple of points!) You’ll also learn if my favourite eldest daughter came over or not, and what we did to pass the time… but until then, please try to bee extra good (Christmas! remember?! 😉 ) don’t forget that it’s nice to be important, but it’s much more important to be nice, and remember to drive carefully, to keep warm, or cool, depending on the weather, and to look after yourselves – but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, I’m not starting this as early as I would have liked, but by the same token, I am starting earlier that I expected! My favourite youngest daughter and her husband Terry came over today to “finish off” the two veggie garden beds – they’re still not finished though, as Terry wasn’t feeling terribly well – but all the “bits” using the sleepers have been made – all that remains now is to bolt them all together, fill the beds with the right sort of soil, and plant the seeds! Each “veggie bed” consists of four 2.4m x 1.3m frames made with the sleepers, one on top of the other and then bolted together, and each one is approximately the size of our dining room table, which is exactly what I wanted! This week Julian is going to have a go at putting in the flooring (thick flat planks laid between layers 2 and 3, so that we won’t have to use so much soil) Surprise, surprise, these two raised beds won’t be going in parallel to the back fence, but the way I wanted them to go – perpendicular to the fence! When I asked “Why?”, Julian and Terry looked at eachother, and I was told “Secret man’s business!” – whatever that’s supposed to mean – personally, I think it was just their way of saying “It turns out that you were right, after all!” without having to use the words “you were right, after all!” 🙂 Kate and Terry brought their dog Ralph with them today, and Kate and I sat outside and played with him while the menfolk worked. Honestly, Kate had the doggie equivalent of a Nappy Bag with her, containing a collapsible water bowl for Ralph, one of his favourite toys, his ball, some plastic bags for collecting his unmentionables, his leash, and she thought, some beef liver treats – only she’d left them on the kitchen table, hadn’t she, and she was gloomily predicting that one of their cats, Parsnip, would tear the bag to shreds to get at the liver treats, as being overly fond of beef liver treats, he’s done it before… Hopefully, he won’t eat the plastic bag too! 🙂 Anyway, the afternoon passed very pleasantly for us, and it was fun sitting outside on our entertainment deck instead of in front of a computer for a change! I can’t wait until I’m finally off this diet, and go onto Maintenance, when I can eat normally again – a BBQ on the decking, with fresh vegetables from our garden – I’m sooo looking forward to it! 🙂 We will need to get a couple of bug zappers though – I think something nibbled me this afternoon, and I know that mosquitoes absolutely love me! We’ll need two of them as it’s such a big area, but it’s all under cover, has clear, pull-down plastic curtains to keep the weather out, and would you believe it even has a ceiling fan? Now, that’s what I call “civilized outdoor living!” 🙂

This morning before the kids arrived – yes, you guessed it, I was busy with Rift! Still tidying up shards, this morning I worked on Laethys. I had one too many Defiants, and there was only one that I could move to another shard, and I really didn’t want to do that anyway, because she’s a level 60 Dreamweaver who makes all our Dimension keys! So after clearing out most of her worldly goods, and neatening things up, I realised that even if I did move her, I’d still have to create another Guardian to get things lined up properly. I didn’t really want to do that, either, so… think…. think…. Brilliant! My problem was that I had to replace a Defiant with a Guardian – well, there was one really easy way to do this – change Factions! That is, change the Defiant I was about to transfer off to another shard, into a Guardian! This would mean that she’d change sides – I’d be down a Defiant, but I’d have the extra Guardian that I needed! It meant buying some more Credits, but the end result was well worth it! 🙂 So that’s Greybriar, Hailol, and Laethys all sorted out… now on to Wolfsbane! 🙂

The cable laying gentleman who said he’d come to give us a quote this morning actually turned up right on time – on a Public Holiday, too! He seemed nice enough, and is going to ring or email through the quote tomorrow. Once we get this cabling done we can get the electrician in to change a few power points here and there, and to connect all the new cables in correctly – the cable man only puts the cables in, but he’s not licensed to hook them up to the power – you need a qualified electrician to do that. We could have had the electrician in ages ago, but Julian didn’t want to have to get him in multiple times, and so wanted to wait until the cabling was done. As it is, power points and light switches are going to have to be changed when my bathroom is re-done, but I think Clarke will probably organise that. Julian has finally come in from outside – he’s finished off laying the first two layers of the veggie garden beds, swept up all the sawdust, put away all the tools, and set up the final four veggie garden bed frames in another section of the garden, so that I can see what they’ll look like when they’re finished. I think they’re going to be very successful! Kate and Terry will be coming back next weekend – probably Saturday – for Terry and Julian to put in the final bolts that will keep all the layers in place – never fear, there will be Flickr photos of the finished article when they’re done! 🙂

It doesn’t feel like a Tuesday – it feels more like a Sunday, without the Rift playing… probably because yesterday, Monday, was a sort-of “unofficial Public Holiday”, and today being Melbourne Cup Day, was a Public Holiday – so I’m expecting that tomorrow, Wednesday, will feel more like a Monday! Oh well – Clarke starts next Monday, and I go to see Dr. Y. the day after! Hopefully he’ll be pleased enough with me that he’ll start organising my surgery…

Weigh-in this morning. Contrary to logical prediction, I actually went down two points, from 68.8kg to 68.6kg, despite being on those horrible fluid-retaining pills! Oh dear – I don’t think I should have said that! I’m sure the Gremlins will hear, and pass it on to my ridiculous body, that “Winter doesn’t think she should still be losing weight because she’s taking those pills again!” My body will say “Oh yes! I’d forgotten about that!” and promptly put on half a kilo! Bother, said Winter, as she got on the scales in the morning and found that she’d gone up drastically…

I was extremely pleased to see that a woman, Michelle Payne, was the winning jockey in the Melbourne Cup! The first woman rider ever to do so. Anyone else out there have any luck on the horses today? I used to follow the races avidly when I was in High School – most of us did… we’d turn up to school on Melbourne Cup Day with the race form folded up in a blazer pocket 🙂 (not that any of us had more than a couple of cents to bet with, mind you!) Tomorrow should be a fairly quiet day – we have to be out in the morning, but other than that, I think it’ll just be more of the same, mostly Rifting! 🙂 I’m supposed to be having my next Warfarin test done on Thursday, but seeing as we’ll be out tomorrow, I might as well have it done then, and save having to go out again on Thursday, just for that! Friday I have a visit to the hairdresser again, which is really a little earlier than I’d hoped I guess I’m just going to have to cross my fingers and hope that it lasts through until Tuesday and my visit to Dr. Y.! And that’s really about all I have for you this evening! Do drop in again tomorrow night though, to find out how our day panned out, and if those stupid Gremlins dobbed me in to my own body, making my weight sky-rocket! (they’d better not have! If they have, I’ll… I’ll.. I’ll… give them the sack! 😛 ) However, until then, do try very hard to bee good (it’s getting close to Christmas, you know! 😉 ) remember that “But” is a word you use when you’re afraid to try, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool, depending on the weather… but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Merciful heavens – I must be ill! I’m not starting late for once! 🙂 Anyway, it’s been a fairly full day today – my favourite youngest daughter and her husband came over this morning with a Bunnings ute, to go off and get all the sleepers and stuff for my soon-to-be veggie garden. Of course it was raining, but being Melbourne we had high hopes that it would clear up “soon”. We had a cup of coffee and chatted for a while, and yes, the weather did clear up! So without further ado, Julian and Terry took off for the big Bunny just down the road, while Kate and I discussed various things and surfed a bit – I was mainly trying to find her some pictures of the absolutely beautifully coloured pigeons I’d seen on Facebook – and not succeeding terribly well (well, it was a while ago that I saw them, and I didn’t have a clue as to whose they were, so they weren’t exactly easy to find!) Then the guys came back with 36 sleepers in the back of the ute, and… it started to rain! Typical Melbourne weather! Fine one minute, raining the next! So they left the sleepers in the ute and came inside. Then, it stopped raining – sort-of. There was a bit of fine, misty rain coming gently down, but not enough to drench a veggie garden constructor… I’d been told, many years ago, that it’s the sort of rain that motor cyclists hate to ride in, because without a full face helmet, that gentle “fine mist” of rain actually feels like hundreds of tiny needles hitting you in the face! Julian and Terry stuck with it out there until that fine misty rain managed to get in under the collars of their coats, whereupon they came back inside again. I went off to have my lunchtime mole-hill climb, and while I was doing that, I believe that they went out again to do a bit more work on the sleepers, but were forced to retreat once more when it started to rain even harder! By the time I’d done my eighteen minutes walk, it had been decided that Terry and Kate would head off home, as it didn’t look like the rain was going to stop this time, and come back again tomorrow morning, when no rain was forecast! So off they went, Julian went off to have a shower and get warm and dry again, and I decided to file down my nails, as they were getting to the “If you don’t file me down, I’m going to snap off just below the quick, and then you’ll be sorry!” stage (and it’s sooo much easier and more comfortable typing when your nails are short!) After lunch, Flipper started demanding attention, but she was almost due to have her next cartrophen injection (for her arthritis – it works almost miraculously quickly and gives her a lot of relief) and she was having a lot of difficulty getting around, so Julian rang the Vet and managed to get her in for the jab this afternoon – she didn’t need to see a Vet, the nurses can give her the injection – so off he went with a very unhappy and very foul-mouthed Flipper. They were soon back again, with a much relieved Flipper (because she was back home again) and a cat carry cage that needed a good hose down on the inside! Flipper, poor old girl, had in her anger and fear, made a mess in it (she absolutely hates going to the Vet, even though she always feels a lot better and more comfortable afterwards!) Needless to say, as soon as I’d finished filing down my nails, I made a beeline for Rift, to do a bit more “tidying up”! I really do wish that Trion hadn’t decided to give us that extra character slot – it’s terribly hard trying to balance things up with an odd number of characters! If I want to have a Guardian Primalist, as well as a Defiant Primalist, I end up with a “spare” character that either has to be deleted, or moved to another shard – which is really messy, and besides, I don’t have all that much room left on the shards to go blithely moving characters around like that all the time! I suppose I don’t have to make use of that thirteenth character slot – but it’s like being given a ca$h present – it really burns a hole in your pocket until you spend it – unfortunately, and far too often, you find that you’ve spent that money, not on something that you really wanted, but just because it was there, and you just had to spend it! And so it is with me, and an empty character slot on Rift… I just have to fill it! 😉

The men-folk, in their infinite wisdom (!? is that an oxymoron?) have decreed that the veggie garden(s) shall go parallel to the back fence, and not perpendicular to it. I still disagree with their decision, but we shall see how well it works out (and if it doesn’t, they’re the ones who are going to have to move it, not me!) However, I did make them promise that they’d leave enough room next to the shed for me to have a small aviary… Depending on how well the veggie garden(s) turns out, I might get Terry to build that for me, too! (well, he is a carpenter! …or a cabinet-maker – I always get those two professions mixed up!)

Weigh-in this morning. Up… down… Up… down… Tomorrow will probably be up again, but this morning I’d gone down those four ruddy points again! So this morning was the exact reverse of yesterday morning – I went from 69.2kg back down to 68.8kg. The week went like this: Tuesday – 69.2kg, Wednesday – 69.2kg, Thursday – 69.1kg, Friday – 69.2kg, Saturday – 68.8kg, Sunday – 69.2kg, Monday (today) 68.8kg – and what are the odds that tomorrow I’ll be back up to 69.2kg again?! Stupid body! I was hoping to get right down to almost the 67.something kilo mark before tomorrow week (November 10th) but I think I’ve left my run too late… at 67.7kg I will have lost exactly half of my original body weight in fifteen months! I hope Dr. Y. will be pleased with me…

Well, tomorrow morning the kids will be back again, so I guess that means no Rifting for me – but I’d much rather have my favourite youngest daughter over here, rather than me just sitting alone in front of the monitor, trying to organise the shards! 🙂 Hopefully the veggie garden(s) will be constructed by tomorrow afternoon – Julian says he’ll organise to get the soil delivered from Bunny’s sometime this week, and then we can start planning what we’re going to plant first! I’m not sure if we’re supposed to put some sort of rocks, stones, or gravel in the bottom of the raised beds for drainage – Terry says “no”, but we’ll also ask the nice people at Bunnys, when we go there to buy seeds, or seedlings, manure, rakes, hoes, mulch, watering cans, and whatever else we’re going to need! Stakes! We’re going to need garden stakes, or bamboo, or something for the tomatoes and beans to climb on… It’s so exciting! 🙂 And talking about exciting, Clarke is due to start work on my bathroom next… (Winter consults her calendar for what day the 9th is) Monday! 🙂 Monday! 😀 My bathroom will start being transformed next Monday! 🙂 Gee, I hope it doesn’t take five weeks! Oh, it’s going to be so wonderful to have some storage space in my bathroom, and a built-in bench seat in the shower, and basically, enough room in which to swing a frog! 🙂 However once again that’s about it from me again this evening – do call back again tomorrow night, if only to see if my stupid weight is still see-sawing around like there’s not going to be anymore tomorrows – and also to find out if the veggie garden(s) are sitting there, ready and waiting for their soil (and gravel, and manure, and mulch, and whatever else we need to put in them!) Anyway, I’m sure there’ll be heaps to tell you all, so don’t miss out! Until then though, please continue to bee good, remember that to be the best, you must be able to handle the worst, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm – or cool, depending on the weather, and to drive carefully – but most of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Oh dear, it’s terribly late – never mind, “things” had to be done – like messing about in Telara, and walking on treadmills… Yes, “Into the Wilds” is actually in Telara! Not on some Atlantean continent rising out of a previously empty ocean, like the Plain of Water – a remote and somehow topsy-turvy place with water on top and dry land underneath… As I think I said several blogs back, it’s in the previously blank area behind the Droughtlands, in Telara! I did manage to find the way into Act 2 – the instructions, or the method of getting there, were in the last lot of Hotfix Patch Notes, which went live on October 21st. Act 3 goes live on November 4th, so it should be ready for us next Sunday, if we manage to finish Act 2. It was a really good day – we got to listen to the bombastic, snide, and really terribly corny conversations of the self-styled “King” and his new “girlfriend” (for want of a better term!) Of course, with us both being level 65, we couldn’t level up any further, though we did manage to make another 3 Planar Attunement points. Planar Attunement points are a little bit like experience points – you have a long orange bar (experience bars are green!) showing you your progress towards your next point. The more Planar Attunement points you put in a particular element (Earth, Fire, Water, Air, and Death) (please don’t ask me how “Death” is an “element”, cos I really have no idea!) opens up new abilities and new enhancements for you… Well, it’s complicated! You’ll just have to take my word for it… Julian didn’t die, but I managed to make up for that by dying twice! The first time was all Julian’s fault, anyway… the place we had to be standing in to finish off a particular quest was occupied by an Invasion Force. Now, the way to eliminate Invasion Forces safely and successfully is to “pull” the evil creatures surrounding and protecting the central idol towards you one by one – so that you can pick them off one at a time – and then go in and destroy the central idol. Well, these particular creatures seemed to be a little bunched up, but Julian shot at one of them, intending for it to come careening towards us on its own – instead, they all came rushing at us together – Julian ran away, and…. I died. It’s alright though, I didn’t suffer… it was very quick, and relatively painless The second time I died was probably my own fault. We were running around in this deep canyon, chasing after and killing mobs of what looked like dwarf T-Rex’s – and all of a sudden, we ran around a corner, and there ahead of us we saw a big one! Big! (*nods vehemently*) Now, Elites are just extra tough mobs, and their “portrait” frame has spikes around it – the Elite’s level is written in red underneath it (at this stage that’s usually “65”) “Specials” are Elites (with the spiky frame) but have a little diamond next to their name to indicate that they’re worth more points. This particular mob had the spiky “Elite” portrait frame, no “Special” diamond, and his level was written as a red “??” – indicating that he was more than 5 levels above us – which is cute, because the game only goes up to level 65, for players and monsters alike! It was probably very rash of us, but we decided to give him a go… we hardly even tickled his ribs! He polished off my pet in one foul swoop, and we decided “we can’t handle this! Run!” We ran… with him pounding along behind us! Unfortunately, I must have zigged when I should have zagged, suddenly I felt a whiff of his breath on the back of my neck… and I fell over, stone dead! From then on we put a little sign over his head (you can do that in Rift!) to warn us to stay right away from him! I’m wondering if the “??” level indicator is perhaps a sign of “thingz to come” in the game! Will Trion raise the level cap in future expansions? I’m betting that they’re going to have to – World of Warcraft had raised the level cap at least twice in the five or so years that we played it – but the thing is, the more you expand a game like WoW, or Rift, you need to either raise the level cap, or make the levels harder to get to. If they make the levels harder to attain, people tend to give up too quickly: “This game is too hard, and too slow to level up in – c’mon, let’s go and play something else!” If they leave the level cap at 65 (or whatever) players will reach their level cap too early in the game and feel that they have nothing worth playing for anymore, get bored, and go elsewhere. Trion have partially got around this with their Planar Attunement points system, but it’s not going to hold players’ interest through another expansion. So yeah – I’m betting on them raising the level cap, and I’m also betting on the introduction of flying mounts in the next really big expansion (where I think that massive level “??” brute might have escaped from!) It will indeed be interesting to see what Trion does next with Rift! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Wasn’t pretty! But then, I knew it wouldn’t be – having missed out on one of my anti-fluid tablets yesterday Still, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been, I only went back to where I was the day before yesterday, from 68.8kg to 69.2kg, so I guess you could say that under the circumstances, I was quite lucky! 🙂 I’m not sure what tomorrow holds – I’m now back on those damn fluid-loving, fluid-retaining pills (though my feet aren’t particularly swollen tonight – how strange!) I’ve upped my treadmill speed to 3.4kmph, and I’m now walking for 18 minutes (approximately 1000 steps, or 1 km) instead of only 15, three times a day. The only thing that annoys me about this walking – apart from it being deadly boring – is the time it chomps out of my day! I just wish there was something constructive I could do while I was mindlessly putting one foot in front of the other – like read my kindle! Or dictate the blog into a speech recognition transcriber (or whatever they’re called!) But something so that I didn’t feel I was… not wasting – what’s the word I’m groping for? I dunno, but so that I’m not losing valuable time when there are so many other things that I need and want to do! 😦 I actually like the walking part – it’s just that I get so impatient while I’m doing it!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, my favourite youngest daughter and her husband are coming over to go looking at veggie garden necessities with us. If it’s pouring with rain, all bets are off, and no doubt I’ll spend the day Rifting, or working on my new desktop wallpapery thingy – when I’m not too busy walking, that is! (see what I mean? I don’t get a chance to settle to doing something, like Rifting, or graphicing! I feel that I’m always watching the clock for when I have to go off and do my next treadmilling!) Julian was saying the other day that he doesn’t think I need to use the treadmill three times a day – he thinks twice would be sufficient – but I feel I should keep up the routine – after all, isn’t it a matter of “energy in, energy out”? So whatever, until I reach Maintenance level (65kg) I shall keep on doing what I’m doing – full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes! 🙂 And that’s really about it from me for tonight! 🙂 Call in again tomorrow night to see how my weight went, now that I’m back on those wretched pills, and whether I managed to get anything at all done between walkies! Until then though, please continue to bee good, remember that the only limitations you will ever have are the ones you put on yourself, and don’t forget to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm – or cool, depending on the weather… but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂