Winter’s log, earthdate 201512.23

My word, we’ve been busy today! We got up to peace and quiet – Julian went for his morning walk, and I finished off in my bathroom and went for my walk, too! On the treadmill. Then we had breakfast, Julian had his shower, and we got ready to make quit of the house to go and do the last (hopefully!!) bits of the Christmas Shopping – namely lots of stocking fillers, plus some mince tarts (from Ferguson Plarre ) for Mother and Father Christmas (along with a nice glass of ice-cold skinny milk, to wash down Winter’s Infamous Egg-Nog!) We didn’t leave quite as early as I had indicated last night – but it was close to it, and thank heavens we did go as early as we did! By the time we got home – around twenty to four – it was 37C outside, and I was visibly wilting – apart from a brief sit-down for a cup of coffee, and another a couple of hours later for a bit of a lunch-break (more about that “lunch” later! 😉 ) I’d been on my feet since about a quarter to eleven. By the end of the shopping trek, after we’d finished in Bunny’s, I was so hot and tired that I even turned down an offer of a jaunt across the road to Officeworks – a refusal so totally out of character for me that now I’m home and writing about it, I’m thinking that I must have been quite delirious with dehydration, because I absolutely love going to Officeworks – I can just about always find something that I just can’t live without! 😉 We’ll sort out the stocking fillers – those that himself is allowed to see – and if we think we need more stocking fillers, I’ll get Julian to drop me off at Officeworks tomorrow, when he goes off to buy the bread for Friday (Neale tends to grizzle if there isn’t bread on the table at mealtimes…) Then it’s just going to be a matter of wrapping up all the presents and putting them under the Christmas Tree, and getting everything ready for the kids Christmas Eve visit. They’ll come over in the early evening, to make the Infamous Egg-Nog, turning the kitchen into a war zone as they go, then we all sit around and laugh, chatter, and perhaps nibble on a mince tart, before one of us reads aloud from “The Night Before Christmas”, by Clement C. Moore (every year we take turns – I think it’s Kate’s turn this year!) After that, we “hang” up our stockings (read: we lean the stockings up along the back of the couch, as there’s never anywhere to actually hang them!) put out a couple of glasses of milk and a plate with two mince tarts on it for Mother and Father Christmas, the kids collect their Panettones (Panettoni?) that Father Christmas has dropped off early, so that they could have them for their Christmas Breakfasts – and head off home. We wearily clean up the kitchen, stuff the stockings, and limp off to bed – where rather than visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads, we have nightmares of getting all the timing right for Christmas Dinner the next day! “…And so, it begins!” (anyone remember where that quote comes from? 🙂 Anyone? Anyone at all…? 🙂  His name starts with a “K”!)

Food. Well, last night we had sausages… they were quite nice too, though Julian said that they pushed out more fat than they usually do… and we did have chips – a different sort this time – they’re supposed to be “healthier” for you, but I found them to be a bit tough on the outside – they didn’t get at all crispy or crunchy on the outside as chips usually do, in fact I’d even go so far as to say they felt a little bit “rubbery” to the bite, if you know what I mean. I think I’d prefer it if we didn’t get that sort again… and we had brussels sprouts (the night before a Warfarin test, too! 😉 ) and the usual half a tomato. There was j-u-s-t enough left of the lovely Siena Cake for us each to have a small sliver of, and now that that’s all gone 😦 we shall start nibbling away at the Pretend Panforte that we bought the other day at Colonial. Now, as I told you, we went off to the shopping centre “strip”, on the corner of Burwood Highway and Blackburn Road, because there’s a Ferguson Plarre there, and we’d forgotten to get any mince tarts for Mother and Father Christmas – and because we no longer keep any sort of biscuits in the house, we couldn’t even leave those out for Mr. & Mrs. Claus, either! So mince tarts from Ferguson Plarre, it had to be! 🙂 We’d been up to Glen Waverley for my blood test, where we’d had to wait quite a while – and we’d come back to the shopping centre “strip” to get the stocking fillers – but Julian decided that we needed a cup of coffee first, so we went to Ferguson Plarre, bought our (boxed!) mince tarts, ordered coffee, and an extra two mince tarts to “test”, to see if they were going to be acceptable to Mr. & Mrs. Claus (and I’m very happy to report that they will indeed be very acceptable to that charming and jolly pair! 😉 ) Then I left Julian sitting at the table reading one of the daily tabloids, while I went off to do my stocking filler shopping… Gentle readers, do you have any idea what it’s like to have to walk up and down the narrow and overflowing aisles of a “$2”-type of gift shoppe, carrying a walking stick, an extremely heavy handbag (and I still haven’t been able to work out why it’s so heavy! There’s nothing in it that weighs more than a packet of cigarettes!) and an empty (at that stage) and rather large zippered and insulated bag (so that Julian wouldn’t be able to see what I’d bought)? Well, let me just say: “Don’t try this at home!” As I struggled up and down those tiny aisles, I found lots of suitable stocking fillers, for which I had to masterfully juggle the stick, the handbag, and the insulated bag – and after this afternoon, I honestly feel that I should be applying for a starring spot in Cirqe du Soleil, or Circus Oz! I got lots of stuff there, then I staggered out of that nice little shop and went over to Coles, where I bought another few items, only this time I grabbed a trolley (Ha! 😛 ) into which I piled all my treasures, plus my 20 ton handbag (which was what it felt like, by then!) Yes! Yes! I’m getting to the lunch! I finally got back to Julian, who was just about to send out a search party, and as it was getting close to 2 o’clock by then, we decided to have lunch. I wanted an iced coffee, so he went over to Gloria Jean’s, got the coffee, and some “lunch”. Then he went off for something else, and I pulled my lunch out of its brown paper bag. I was more than a little taken aback to find that it was one of those long sausage rolls, encased in fatty pastry, and with the obligatory small sachet of tomato sauce, but Julian knows what I can and can’t eat, and he wouldn’t have bought this sausage roll for me unless he thought it would be alright for me to eat it, so I squished the tomato sauce on it, and started carving it up. When Julian got back he looked absolutely dumbfounded to see me devouring the sausage roll – apparently the person who had served him had given him the wrong thing! It should have been a spinach and fetta spanakopita sort of thing (see?! That’s what I get for being so trusting! I’ll probably die from clogged up arteries tonight! 😉 ) And! Not only did I eat a whole, large sausage roll (!) but Julian had also bought a gigantic raspberry (?) muffin, which we were to share, 50/50 – so I ate my half of that, too! And tonight we have steak, with its usual accompaniments, for dinner… but I think I’d better just have my diet jelly and my three prunes for dessert tonight, and maybe have some of the Pretend Panforte tomorrow night, if I haven’t split at the seams! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Well, I was quite pleased this morning – no doubt I won’t be pleased tomorrow morning though! However, it’s this morning we’re talking about today – tomorrow can, and presumably will, take care of itself! 🙂 This morning I went from 64.4kg to 64.3kg – down a point! There’s no doubt about it, my body seems to be telling me that it wants to be around the 64.3kg – 64.5kg mark – unless I go and do something stupid, like eat a whole enormous brownie – or an entire large sausage roll, with tomato sauce, plus half a gigantic muffin! And tomorrow night, it’s going to be mince tart and egg-nog (not that I ever drink very much of it – it’s very rich!) and after that, Christmas Dinner… 😦 …and then after that, it’s gunna be: “hello, Optifast!” 😉

So here it is, Christmas Eve Eve! Almost everything is done for The Big Day on Friday, and I just can’t tell you all how very much I’m looking forward to having my first shower (and washing my hair!) in my new bathroom tomorrow! We went to Bunny’s today to get a new non-slip shower mat, and we bought three – two clear ones, with very soft clear “grass” poking up out of it (they’re quite small, which is why we got two They’ll probably need to go in side by side, because it’s a very large shower!) I have no idea what they’re going to feel like under foot – they might be quite horrible, and even though they feel quite soft and squishy, they might prickle a bit! So we bought a third one – it’s made from clear blue, flat plastic “pebbles”, which should look quite good on the floor or the shower – anyhoo, I’ll let you all know tomorrow night what they’re like, and which one(s) are likely to become permanent members of my new bathroom! And again, that’s about it from me for this evening! 🙂 Do drop by again tomorrow night to find out all the latest – did my shower perform up to my expectations? How much did my weight go up after the very large sausage roll? Did I end up having to go to Officeworks? There’ll be lots here for everyone, so don’t be shy! In the meantime, do try to bee good for two more nights, and I’m sure you’ll easily make the “Nice” list! 😉 Don’t forget that you miss 100 percent of the shots you never take, and remember to take care of yourselves, to keep cool – or warm, depending on our silly weather, and to drive carefully – but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂