Well, it’s been another quiet day on the home front – too hot to go out and do anything, though Julian ventured out this afternoon to check the P.O. Box and do a bit of shopping… There was a little bit of disturbing news this afternoon though – the house next door was burgled on Friday! It’s strange – we were home during the afternoon, and Paul was busy working here all day, and none of us saw or heard anything untoward… except… during the mid-afternoon on Friday, around maybe 3.00pm? We can’t really remember – Julian thought he heard one of the car alarms, and went out into the garage (which is accessible through the house, so he didn’t go outside at all) to investigate. Naturally, by the time he got to the garage door, the noise had stopped – so he more-or-less just shrugged his shoulders, unlocked and re-locked both cars, and came inside again. I too thought I heard a sound, but I wasn’t really paying any attention – I thought it might have been Julian receiving an SMS (because his phone makes a sound like a submarine “ping” when he gets an SMS), or maybe one of our UPS’s complaining briefly about some sort of power fluctuation, but when the noise stopped, I promptly forgot about it. We’re now wondering if the noise we heard was the burglary in progress, and wasn’t from our place at all, but from our next door neighbours! We rang the number provided on the Police notification form that we found in our letterbox and told them, but from what I could hear of Julian’s side of the conversation, they didn’t seem even mildly interested. So as I said – it was all a little bit disturbing! Now I don’t know whether I want to stay home all the time – just in case, or if I want to be out all the time, so that I’m not here if anyone does break in! 
Clarke arrived really early this morning – I hadn’t even finished in the bathroom! (or maybe we were just running a tad late… 😉 ) so I just flung on my jeans and a t-shirt and went out to show him what I’d meant about the shower bench being maybe a bit too steep. After clearing off all the little wedges and pins that hold the tiles in place while the glue under them is drying, I actually sat on it – and with dry jeans sitting on equally dry tiles, it was actually very comfortable! The fact is that when I’m in a sitting position on the bench, both my feet sit flat and firmly on the ground, so maybe I’m not going to be in deadly danger of sliding off the bench and onto the floor when both the tiles, and my backside, are “shower-wet”! 🙂 Clarke did end up pulling (prising?) off one of the tiles that comprise the shower floor – he said it was too low (or something!) but it’s back on again now (I think – I haven’t really checked now that everyone’s gone home!) Anyway, one shower wall is now tiled, and is looking really good. It’s the one that has the alcoves in it, which are not tiled yet – I think they want the bigger wall tiles to be set and grouted before they put in the highlight tiles. I’ll ask either Paul or Clarke tomorrow… I’m quite anxious to see what those little mosaic highlight tiles look like once they’re actually in the alcoves, and whether they’ll look as good as the marble tiles and vanity unit do, colour-wise, because so far, I’ve done exceptionally well with my choice of materials and colours (I think, anyway!) Yes, the vanity unit is in, and it’s going to be totally fantastic! For once in my life, I’m going to be able to sit in the bathroom and actually be close enough to the mirror to see what I’m doing with my hair and makeup, without having to resort of a small mirror, propped up on a rickety and wobbly stand! The vanity unit colour is a sort-of a matt finish (i.e. it’s not high-gloss or shiny!) “aubergine” colour (Oh, alright then, “egg-plant” colour, OK?!) so it’s not brown, for a change, and depending on the light, will show subtle shades of mauve and purple. I wasn’t sure what sort of opening and closing mechanisms the drawers were going to have – sometimes you don’t need knobs or handles, there’s just a small indent in the top of the drawers to act as handles – but unfortunately that’s not the case with these drawers – I’ve been told that I have to choose handles for them, only not the ludicrously expensive handles that I innocently chose for the kitchen bench handles when we were re-decorating the house in Hampton East, where my favourite youngest daughter and her husband now live. It’s Clarke’s fault! He gave me a couple of books of handles to choose from, so I just flipped though them all, and found a matching set of handles for the whole kitchen, from cupboards, to drawers, to doors that I really liked, and said “I’ll have them, please!” Unfortunately we couldn’t use them – they would have cost over four thousand dollars ($4,000.00!) for the six or seven handles that we needed! (well, they were made from solid pieces of amber!) That was a real shame – because they really did look lovely… So I’ve been very firmly told – “No more solid pieces of amber handles!” Oh well, maybe they’ll have some amethyst, or lapis-lazuli handles that would go… (only kidding Julian, only kidding!) Clarke is bringing over his books of drawer knobs for me to choose from tomorrow – I wonder if they’re the same ones? No, surely they would have updated their styles in the three or so years since we re-furbished Hampton East! Anyway, I shall try and choose a little more… cheaply… this time! (It wasn’t my fault! They didn’t show any prices in the stupid books!) I’ll let you know what sort of knobs (or handles!) I choose 🙂
So this morning I played a secondary character in World of Warcraft – also a Hunter Beastmaster – called “Satai”, who has “earned” her second Pet that she’s named “Remorse”. When a hunter starts out in the world, they’re given a Pet – which supposedly reflects, or is representative of their Race – to fight with them. The Draenei get a…. moth! Granted, it’s a pretty big moth (about as big as a medium-sized cat?) but it’s a moth, all the same! (and by the way, Blizzard, just exactly how is a ruddy Moth representative of the Draenei?!) Once you reach level 10 you learn all about how to Tame, Call, and Dismiss a pet of your own choosing – many, many years ago I used to travel over half of Azeroth to tame myself a proper tiger coloured tiger – orange and black – a passage fraught with danger and death (the islands where the tigers live is deep within Horde territory – and I’m Alliance! It never stopped me before though, and only my memory is stopping me this time!). Unfortunately I’ve momentarily forgotten exactly what route I took to get there, so “Tiger-tiger” will have to wait a bit until I do remember! 😉 I made it from level 1 to level 13 today, which was pretty good going, I thought (alas! No experience enhancing potions here on World of Warcraft! ) Actually, I do remember how to get to the “tiger islands”, but I’ll have to do a fair bit of scouting around to see what’s changed geographically in the game before I set out to tame my pretty orange and black Richmond Football Team Tiger 🙂
Food. Well, because I was so late last night I was able to tell you then what I’d had for dinner – the delicious pork fillet with onions! Tonight we’re having steak, five chips (I presume!) and a salad! (with no dressing on mine because I can’t stand the stuff! I do like it on other types of salad though, just not on “garden” salads!) and once again I had two Ryvita crispbreads with low-fat ricotta, sandwich ham, and slices of tomato for lunch today (and I munched on a raw carrot for “dessert”) I think I’m doing fairly well at the moment, because…
Weigh-in this morning. Yet another day in the 64kg zone! 🙂 This morning I found that my weight had gone from 64.4kg to…. 64.4kg! I stayed the same again, for the second day in a row… and again, I’m not bitching and grizzling about it! Now that I’m on Maintenance, I want to stay the same weight, for as long as possible! Oh No! [insert very rude word of your choice here] I shouldn’t have said that! I hope my body wasn’t listening! If it was, I’ll either go down again tomorrow (which wouldn’t be so bad now, would it! 😉 ) or go skyrocketing upwards – which I am expecting to do… just so long as it doesn’t go too high!
So, for me, tomorrow will probably be more of the same as today – Julian has Office-type work to do, and hopefully a bit more of my bathroom will get tiled. Clarke says the caesarstone vanity top should take about a week, so maybe by next Monday I’ll have the marble bench in my marble bathroom (it’s not really marble, it just looks like it!) My favourite eldest daughter will probably be over on Wednesday, Thursday is a mystery so far, and Friday, I have the hairdresser again! And once again, that’s about it from me for tonight! Please drop by again tomorrow night and find out whether or not my body was listening when I foolishly said that at this point, I actually want to stay at the same weight, and what it’s done in retaliation, whether I mustered up the courage to go after my tiger-looking-tiger in WoW, whether I’ve found my drawer knobs (or handles!) and how much of my bathroom has still to be tiled! Until then, however, please at least attempt to bee good (do I have to remind you? 😉 ) remember not to just go through life, but to grow through life, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep cool – or warm – depending on Melbourne’s crazy weather, and to drive carefully – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 