*Quote of the Day from Goodreads this morning: “We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.” – Sarah Vowell
The blurb reads: Happy birthday, Sarah Vowell! Besides writing nonfiction books and serving as a contributing editor on This American Life, the American journalist has also starred in a Pixar movie. She was the voice of Violet in The Incredibles.

When I got that quote this morning, I thought “How very true!”, and decided to include it in today’s blog. You know, we’re always being bombarded with ‘messages’ (advertisements are the worst offenders, with their never-ending exhortations to “look slimmer!”, “look younger!”, “last longer!”, etc, etc.!) sometimes subtly, and sometimes not quite so subtly – exactly what’s “wrong” with us, and what we need to do in order to “rectify” this so-called flaw in ourselves, because all we need is the will to do so (or the money, or the desire) But in reality, it’s our flaws that make us who we are, with all our little foibles and eccentricities – remove those flaws, and we become someone else entirely – perhaps a “nicer” person, perhaps not – I tend to think that we’d all end up being the same, bland, boring, “automatons”, with no distinguishing traits to tell us apart… so, as the French say, 🙂 “Vive la Différence!”, or even the Vulcan (see Star Trek!) IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations) – we’re all different, and long may we remain so! 🙂

This morning Julian went over to Doncaster Shoppingtown – we were suffocating under the Everest-like piles of Dry Cleaning that we kept forgetting to take over with us whenever I went to the hairdresser, so after ringing up our Daisy Dry Cleaners in Doncaster, to make sure that they were open, he took over their next Mercedes-worth of our clothing to be cleaned – we could, of course by-pass the Dry Cleaners altogether – our new cleaning lady has indicated that she’d be happy to do our ironing for us, should we so desire, and all we’d have to do would be to pay for a good iron, and a decent ironing table, rather than contributing so heavily to the Dry Cleaner’s next Jaguar or Mercedes! He also did a spot of shopping, but… he forgot to get any tea from T2! Every time he looks in the pantry cupboard he sees all the boxes of teas, thinks “Nah! We don’t need tea – we’ve still got all those boxes!”, completely forgetting that “all those boxes” in the cupboard aren’t the flavoured black teas that we like so much, they’re tisanes! Just as nice, in their own way, and quite suitable to either drink hot, or iced – all you have to do is remember not to add milk! 🙂

Anyway, he went shopping, and I played WoW! 🙂 I’m getting quite stuck into this new realm, with the very large (and rich! Don’t forget rich!) Guild Bank! I even sifted through the realms to find a character that I could… er… “re-cycle” – Julian’s doing extremely well with his Warlock, Bræ, who was transferred to this new realm last night – so much so that I wanted to try a Warlock, too! So I found a character elsewhere to “re-cycle”, and made myself a Warlock (her name’s Nimuë) Then I thought “Hnag on, I transferred Cassändra (my Hunter, who only plays with Bræ on Sundays) over last night, so what am I going to do for a Hunter that I can play with during the week?!” Well, there was a very obvious answer to that question! “Re-cycle” another character that I’d probably never use again! The deed was soon done, but which of the Horde races was I going to use this time? I didn’t want another Blood Elf, and I didn’t really like any of the other Horde races… I’d read (somewhere or other!) that next to the Troll starting area, the Forsaken starting area was pretty good, so I thought I’d see what sort of character I could make… The Forsaken are basically your decaying and rotting “Undead” – very difficult to create a “pretty” one, if you know what I mean! However, much to my surprise, in their last re-vamp, Blizzard have added one pretty face, and one unblemished skin to the Undead female attributes! I chose them, and Winterwight turned out to be quite attractive, so now I have a new Blood Elf Warlock, and an Undead Hunter to play with! And from what I’ve seen, the rumours about the Forsaken starting area weren’t exaggerated – it is a good area to start off in, even if it is a bit dank and gloomy – but I’ve almost finished with the starting area and am starting to move out into the low-level questing areas…

Food: We had lovely pan-fried pork fillet for dinner last night, with the usual beans, half a tomato, and chips (this time sprinkled with the new peri-peri salt that Julian found in his Christmas Stocking! 🙂 ) – all very delicious! For dessert, I had my usual diet jelly, and my last mince tart (with a bit of light cream) I also had my last chocolate, so now there’s nothing “naughty” left for me to eat until Easter or someone’s Birthday comes up! 🙂 The Panettone’s all gone too – we had the last of it for breakfast this morning, so tomorrow it’s back to the usual two Vita Brits with extra bran, half a banana, and 200ml of skinny milk – not that I mind – I like the Uncle Toby’s Vita Brits – the manufacturers haven’t yet taken out any and all traces of salt, so they actually taste nice! We had another home-made wrap for lunch – apparently we must have eaten through the left-over turkey, because there was ham in the wrap today, along with tomato, and plain low-far Greek yoghurt. Tonight we’re having steak “with the usual” (says Julian) for dinner – so it looks like my food consumption is going back to “normal” – let’s hope my weight does too! (it just might, too – the anti-fluid tablets seem to have started working again!)

Weigh-in this morning. Still going up, but at least it’s slowing down! I went from 65.3kg to 65.5kg – only up two points this time! Hopefully, from here on in, it’ll start to go down a bit. At the moment I only have four and a half kilos to play with, before I get to 70kg and another Optifast stint! I guess I should’na et so much! However, I don’t regret any of it – sure, I want to stay slim, but I don’t want to deny myself the pleasure of good food – or even food that tastes nice, but isn’t really good for me! Life is for living, and there’s already enough unavoidable misery and suffering in the world without people deliberately making themselves miserable, because they’re so scared that they might put on a few pounds if they dare eat even one bite of a totally scrumptious, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious chocolate brownie, ever again, for as long as they live! One chocolate brownie a month, though? I’d call that reasonable – and do-able! 😉 Anyway, let’s see what the scales tell me tomorrow…

Well, once again I have no earthly idea what’s happening tomorrow! I know Julian has to go out to get Flipper some more of her anti-inflammory Loxi-whatever drops, and I have to ring up about getting another Warfarin script (apparently I’ve used up all the repeats for my 1mg Warfarin tablets, too, so I’d better get up off my now slightly smaller backside and make the effort!) Other than that, I’ll probably be WoW-ing again – with either Nimuë in Eversong Woods, or Winterwight, in Tirisfal Glades. I know that Julian is planning a trip to Bunny’s or a Nursery, so that we can get something to plant in our empty little veggie beds – he also wants to get some worms for the soil – do any of you out there in Reader-Land know where we can buy garden worms? Anyway, once again, that’s about it from me for this evening! 🙂 Don’t forget to call in again tomorrow night to see what we’ve been up to, and whether or not we’ve been out seedling buying, or snooping around Officeworks for “things” that I shall have to try terribly hard not to be able to live with – and more importantly, what my weight‘s been up (or down!) to! 🙂 Until then, however, do try to bee good, don’t forget that though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending, and remember to drive carefully, to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather, and to look after yourselves… but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂