And yet another very busy day! Julian says “Get used to it, with Christmas so close!” – so OK, I’ll get used to it – but it doesn’t mean that I have to like it! 
This morning wasn’t a rush, but it was “fast-paced” – no time to sit and smell the daisies, or play a bit of Rift or WoW (but I did process my Minions! One has to get one’s priorities right, after all! 😉 ) S’truth, it’s hot in here! I just had to get up and go and turn on the air conditioner! Where was I? Oh yes, a busy morning. My hairdressing appointment was for 11.45am, so we left around 11-ish, checked the P.O. Box, where we found that my brand-new Driver’s Licence had arrived – with the weirdest signature on it! You see, when we went up to have my name change registered at Vic Roads and to get a new licence, I also had to have a new photo taken for it (which as it turns out, actually isn’t too horrible, for a driver’s licence photo!) as well as a new signature to go on the card. Well, signing “Winter”, or “W”, is still very new to me, too (I knew I should have started practicing my new signature months ago!) and I accidentally signed “C” instead of “W”! Big “whoops!” – but the nice lady who was taking the photo just smiled and said “Never mind!”, and gave me another piece of signature paper to sign, which I did – with a rather wobbly “W” this time (because I hadn’t had any practice at it!) and off we went… this morning my brand-new licence arrived… with the correct “W” overlaying the incorrect “C”, which meant that a part of the first letter of my surname on the incorrect signature was sitting so close to the first letter of the correct one that it looks as though I’ve written “IPxxxx” instead of “Pxxxx”! What a mess! Oh well, luckily they don’t seem to check signatures that closely any more! (or at least I hope they don’t – if they do, I think I’m going to have trouble explaining things all the time!) Anyway, off we went to Doncaster, and I had my hair done – then we went and had lunch… and I had a proper food lunch at Jamaica Blue for the first time in what feels like centuries! 🙂 I had a spinach and bacon and fetta frittata, which looked and sounded 100% better than it tasted (and they put dressing on my salad, but because I’ve always preferred my salads “naked”, I didn’t eat it!) I also had a slice of lemon youghurt cake (no icing or cream or anything, just a nice, plain piece of cake) which I ate almost all of, and then wished that I hadn’t – because it was far too much, far too soon, not to mention sheer and utter greed (which is sort-of understandable – I hadn’t had even a taste of cake since before August 2014!) …and I felt slightly nauseous after afterwards 😦 That’ll larn me! So next time, I’ll only eat half of it! 😉 Then we went and bought heaps of coffee – not all of it for us, most of it was for my favourite eldest daughter, and then we went and got her a small tea canister from T2. In the meantime, I’d spotted Suzanne Grae downstairs, which seemed to have what looked like a long(ish) sleeved red top sitting in their doorway. I had to investigate… my arms look so… horrible, with all the excess skin hanging off them… that I’m almost desperate for long-sleeved summer tops – which, of course, are as rare as hen’s teeth! Anyway, we found the shop, and because dress sizes are so disparate depending on the brand, I thought I’d better try the size 14 one on. It did fit – rather nicely, actually! It’s a very bright arterial-blood red, and although it’ll go quite well with everything I’ve got, I would have much preferred it in black – but red was all they had, so I got that – then the lady brought me in a couple of black t-shirts with slightly longer sleeves than normal (and by “slightly”, I mean about half a millimeter longer – in other words, not really all that much longer than a normal t-shirt!) One was a “M” (Medium), the other a “S” (Small) – I tried on the “S” one first, and it fitted “like a glove”! Oh, la la!, as the French say! It was très cool! 🙂 However, I bethought myself that as I’ve started Maintenance, it’s supremely possible that I may load on a little extra weight, making the “glove” look more like a very tight sausage skin! I bought two of the “M”s! They still fit very nicely, but will probably be more appropriate until I stabilise my weight. But… me! Buying clothes that fit me! In Suzanne Grae! If you’d told me that at the beginning of 2014, I would have laughed hysterically, and I wouldn’t have believed you! Not in a thousand years! 🙂 Then we came home via Habitat, where we finally managed to have a look at those Clipsal switches – they are very nice, and I have chosen what I feel are the most appropriate for the room – the “Pure White” ones. The “Ocean Mist” ones would have been alright too, even though they were a very, very light greenish blue – but I think that the “Pure White” ones will look better against the ultra-light grey tiles, and the lilac in the window bricks, and the aubergine shade of the vanity unit. I tell you one thing – Habitat is not very disabled-friendly! It’s up a million stairs (well, maybe only a couple of dozen stairs, but they were quite steep! I had to take my shoes off to come down them again!) and there’s no lift – but I made it up and down again unscathed 🙂 (Winter wonders: “How do they get their stock up and down all those stairs! The’re quite steep, and the “treads” are very shallow! I wonder how many staff and delivery people fall and injure themselves!” Winter thinks: “probably quite a lot!” ) Anyway, Julian then dropped me off at home and went on to deliver my favourite eldest daughter’s coffee… (and tea canister)
Weigh-in this morning. Again – a surprise, because again, I was quite sure I would have gone up! I went from 64.5kg to 64.5kg – that is, I stayed the same – and for once, I’m not bitching about it! 🙂 I’m pretty sure that after the fatty lunch I ate today – and we’re having sausages for dinner tonight (but good ones, not el-cheapo, paper-skinned, “who-knows-what’s-in-them” sausages!) I most likely will put on a few pounds – even though once again I walked the length and breadth of Doncaster Shoppingtown – twice! But this is something that I’m going to have to acclimatise to, and learn to live with. I’ll do my best to eat sensibly, I will always try to eat well (as in good food, not junk – except sometimes) but one has to live, and one should enjoy living (mostly, anyway) so I’m not going to sacrifice enjoyment in order to stay thin – I’ll do my very best to maintain my weight, and if I go above 70kg, I will go back on the Optifast, and I’ll have to learn, through trial and error, exactly what, and how much, I can eat, and what I can’t. This is still, and probably always will be – for me anyway – a work in progress…
And so it’s the weekend again! Tomorrow, weather permitting, we must go BBQ and bug zapper shopping – hopefully we’ll find what we’re after fairly quickly, because I’m waiting, not terribly patiently I fear, to get a chance to sit down with Julian and have him walk me through some of the new things in World of Warcraft. Sunday, of course, will be our Day in Telara day, and then it’ll be Monday, and more mundane weekday hassles to sort through. Paul finished tiling my shower bench seat around lunchtime, and then went on and grouted the bathroom floor this afternoon, so that it can dry out over the weekend for the vanity unit installers to trample all over on Monday. Once the vanity unit is installed, Clarke will be able to make a template for the caesarstone top, and once that’s done, the basins and taps can go in – it’s getting so close now! 🙂 (Winter jumps up and down, flapping her hands in impatient excitement!) And that, gentle readers, is about all I have for you this evening! 🙂 Do call in again tomorrow night, and find out if we’ve found our ideal BBQ and bug zappers, whether or not I got to play a bit of World of Warcraft with Julian, and if that gluttonous lunch I ate today made me put on too much weight – and I’m sure there’ll be heaps more to tell you all about our day’s adventures! Until then though, do bee good (just in case!) remember to open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values, and don’t forget to drive carefully, to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather, and to look after yourselves – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 