There! That’s better! I’ve made a proper header for this style… template… whatever! 🙂 Well, today’s been a very interesting day! It’s been as cold today as it was hot yesterday – much more betterer! 🙂 This morning I did a bit more WoW-ing, and… would you believe, the macro icon turned back into what it was supposed to be! Actually, now I’m not sure if the icons vary between realms or not, because I was on Quel’Dorei last night, and Nagrand this morning. Hmm… this will need further investigation! Or as Alice would say, “Curiouser and curiouser!” Anyway, progress has been made with the new characters I’ve created, and I’ve found out how to finish a quest that’s been driving me absolutely around the bend for the past few days! I had to go out and “extract” venom from some scorpions, using a magickal totem that you’ve been given. You’re supposed to put the totem in the sand near a scorpion, which will then attack you (they’re extremely aggressive actually, and will sprint across half an acre of sand to attack you, even when they can’t see you!) The totem is supposed to extract the venom whilst your Pet kills the scorpion. But what’s been confusing me is that you plant the totem, but nothing seems to be happening – the scorpion is busy attacking you and your Pet, and all of a sudden, there’s a message on your screen telling you “Quick! Use the totem now!, the scorpion is releasing its venom” Only you’ve just used the totem and you can’t use it again until it “cools down” (i.e. becomes usable again after several seconds) In the meantime, your Pet has killed the scorpion, and you don’t have any venom to take home to your quest giver! I knew I had to be doing something wrong, and as I said – this quest has been bugging me for days! So today I gave up, and asked Julian to have a go at this stupid quest so that he could show me what I was doing wrong. Naturally, he got the venom samples straight off – no problemo whatsoever! It turns out that I was doing it more-or-less right anyway, when I’d target the scorpion and bung the totem in the sand next to it, however I should have let my Pet take care of the scorpion by itself – I didn’t need to, and apparently shouldn’t have, attacked it myself, and as for that stupid screen message, it’s either been added to deliberately mislead you, or is a “hang-over” from the good old days when quests were actually harder to complete and you often needed to be told what to do, and when to do it! Anyway, I now know how to get the ruddy venom samples with the other three characters that I’d more-or-less given up on, when I got to this particular quest! *grr!*

This afternoon we repaired to the lounge room to unpack the five boxes that Julian had brought over from Doncaster – neither of us had the foggiest idea as to what was in them, so it was all a bit of an adventure! We found lots of “stuff” – half a ton of ancient but still serviceable bed linens, which have now been re-boxed and labeled “St. Vincent’s”, books (which we didn’t really want to find yet, because we have nowhere to put them!) these have also been re-boxed, and correctly labeled “Books”. There was heaps and heaps of computer  gear which has been carted off to Julian’s Commodore 64 Room, a partially completed tapestry cushion cover – I think it’s mine, but it might be one of mother’s – I haven’t had a good look at it yet, there was a sewing box, some photo albums, cello music, from when Julian used to learn the cello, way back when, lots and lots and lots of rubbish, and… Grandfather’s manuscripts! 🙂 I’d thought that they were already here somewhere, but apparently not, because they were in one of the boxes! I think they’re probably all there, too, because there are three large parcels of them! I’m going to have to transcribe them all, because the paper that they were typed on is pretty ragged and flimsy now, and it would be really quite tragic to lose them! Some of his short stories were hilariously funny, some were really rather dark and nasty, but he was a very good writer, and as I get them transcribed, I’ll put up links to them, in case anyone wants to see where my favourite eldest daughter got her literary talents from. Grandfather (my mother’s father) had been in the Army, but when WWII broke out, he was a Bank Manager with the now extinct State Savings Bank of Victoria (thank you John Cain! Not!) and was needed here, so he never did get to serve. In his spare time, he wrote short stories for magazines – some were published, some were sent back. I do have some of the magazines that published his work, though I’m not sure if they’re in these three bundles or not – I haven’t had a chance to look through it all yet. His sister Agnes also wrote for magazines and other periodicals, but she was much more “into” poetry than prose and short stories – I have some of her work too, but only some of the poems that she wrote in her journals. So anyway, I’m really thrilled to have found his manuscripts, and I’m looking forward to transcribing the stories. I’ve toyed with the idea of having them published when I’ve transcribed them all – or if not actually published, then at least have them properly bound, for Posterity (whoever he is! 😉 )

Food stuffz: well, I have come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to stop eating so many of the “boiled lolly” type of sugarless sweets. Yes, that may be “sugarless”, but they’re certainly not “calorie-less”! I tend to suffer from a very dry mouth – probably from my umpteen million years of heavy smoking (50+ per day!) but also from the oral surgery I had when I got my implants and part of my top jaw was removed – anyhoo, my mouth gets so dry that it gets almost impossible to talk properly, especially when I’m tread-milling – that’s why I started chewing gum and sucking on the sugarless lollies. The lollies helped a bit, but I had to keep eating them for the effect to last more than a few minutes. The gum worked fine too, but once again it was almost a matter of “chain-chewing”, which Julian couldn’t stand the sight and sound of, and which gave me quite a painful jaw ache – so I started relying solely on the sugarless lollies. And my weight is starting to climb! Not a good look! So, once again, the Mistress of Compromises has come up with a clever plan! I’ll… compromise! 🙂  I’ll only eat one or two sugarless lollies a day, which won’t upset me too much because they really are far too sweet for my liking – the chewing gum I’ll use as though it was the sugarless lolly – pop two in my mouth, and chew until there’s no taste left, and then spit them out dispose of them in a tissue. That way I won’t eat too many sugarless calories, Julian won’t have to watch me chewing all the time, and hopefully my mouth won’t get too dry! Last night we had the cold-cuts and a couple of commercial salads for dinner, which was lovely, but I think that once again, I ate a bit too much of the meat, and today I had my usual 2 Ryvita crispbread with low-fat ricotta, and some of the very yummy quinoa tabouli salad (because we’d run out of tomato!) with some ham and some low-fat cheddar cheese. Tonight we’re having “chicken in boats” – pieces of well seasoned chicken breast, loosely wrapped in alfoil and baked in the oven. The pieces of chicken steam inside the alfoil, leaving a lot of very delicious juices in the little aluminium “boats” that should be drizzled over whatever vegetables you’re having with it… a very tasty and low-calorie way to have chicken! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. It must have been the potato chips (crisps!) that Julian and I both gobbled yesterday when Mike, Inbar and Tom came over – so, once again, self-inflicted damage! But honestly – I only eat crisps for the salt in or on them! Not because they taste yummy, and go crunchy-crunch in your mouth, leaving an empty void behind which you immediately have to fill with another fistful of crisps… Anyway, getting on the scales this morning was not a pleasant experience! I went up another three points – from 63.5kg to 63.8kg! This was not good, and will stop right now – or whenever I can persuade my body to start behaving itself again – like when I don’t eat any more crisps, which I can’t eat any more of anyway because there aren’t any left, and we won’t be buying any more! (until Easter, when everyone will be over here for Easter luncheon, and will need to be entertained with “nibblies”, like crisps, and nuts, and stuff other thingz) Anyway, no doom and gloom, just determination! 😉 Let’s see what tomorrow brings… hopefully I’ll have gone down a point or two…

Tomorrow I have a visit to the hairdresser, when I’ll have to talk to Elliott about having my hair colour done again – it’s starting to look very faded! I might see if I can have that done next week… and there it is – my day today! There’s really not much more to tell you all, so I guess that’s about it from me again for tonight! Do call in again tomorrow night, to find out what my weight did to me, and when I’m going to be able to have my hair colour done again. I also have to have my next Warfarin test done tomorrow, so I might have the results of that back by the time I write tomorrow night’s “episode”! (and won’t that be exciting! *rolls eyes*) But until then, please bee good, do remember that a limit on what you will do, puts a limit on what you can do, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, and to drive carefully – but above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂