Well, here I am a lot later than I should have been, but we had a very busy and full day in Draenor today – we even went up two levels! Two! Imagine that! And we both went up at the same time – which is even more remarkable, as one of us is always a little ahead of the other! But as the fates would have it, both times we leveled up it was by so many experience points that it cancelled out the one and a half “bubble” lead that Julian had on me – so now we’re both level 95, and according to Blizzard, have “outgrown” the area (read: zone) we were in, and we’re now off to explore and civilise? tame? subdue? conquer? I’m not sure which term would best describe what we’re doing – but anyway, going in and killing all the baddies and making things safe for the new settlers coming in – you know, taking the land from the natives, and turning it into farms, ranches, and mines for the newcomers… that sort of thing. Civilising the place. Mind you, the “baddies” that we’re running around and slaughtering, really are nasty types! Slavers, torturers, drunken ogres who ill-treat everyone and everything, so I really don’t feel very guilty about killing them (except sometimes…) So after we’d finished today, only a little later that usual, I had heaps of “junk” in my backpack that I needed to sort through, sell off most of it, wear some of it, and put the rest in the Bank – and that’s what took me so long getting to this writing bit! Today’s little foray was not only unusual in that we both went up two levels, but also in that we didn’t die! Well, I did, once, because Mouselet had found a level 94 Gold “Named” Elite mob, and wanted to kill it, bless his little heart and soul! I was a bit dubious – Silver “Named” Elites? Yes, sure! We were knocking them down like ninepins – but a Gold? They’re pretty much made of diamonds and titanium, or something! They’re very tough, and extremely difficult to take down – but I thought “Oh well, what’s the worst thing that can happen? hmm? We’ll die…” Well, Julian didn’t die, but I did, and so did my Pet – and although we fought long and hard and well before the Gold Elite killed us, we were hardly even putting a scratch on him! So after Mouselet had Resurrected me (and apologised!) and I’d resurrected Boojums (my Pet) we both decided to leave this particular Gold “Named” Elite strictly alone – for a few more levels, anyway! The main thing is, we had a good time and enjoyed ourselves, and I finally managed to get my Garrison “supplies” organised enough to start sending “Followers” out on Missions again (I thought I’d run out of these Garrison supplies that you need for sending people out on Missions, and building up the Garrison – but I hadn’t – I was wrong mistaken!) At around half past twelve we took a lunch-break and I did my second treadmill-a-thon for the day, then we had a yummy lunch (wraps, in that really nice, special, “baked fresh on the premises every day”, Coles Flat Bread) and we went back to taming the jungles of Draenor. We managed to get in quite a number of “bonus” quests – which I think are not connected to any story arc, and don’t have any actual “NPC” quest givers – but they’re represented on the map of the area by a pair of crossed swords, and (usually) the presence of a skull – to indicate to  players that there’s some sort of Elite monster there for you to kill (or not, as the whim takes you) for extra “bonus” experience points, gear, or Garrison supply crates. I think we ended up doing about five of these “bonus” quests, but it’s hard to tell because the map markings seem to be fixed – that is, they don’t vanish when you pick up the quests, or when you finish them – it could also mean that they’re “repeatable” quests – ones that you can do over and over on a daily basis, depending on your time constraints and your boredom threshold! 😉 But anyway, that was pretty much our day! 🙂

Food stuffz: last night we had the veal schnitzels – cooked one of the ways that my grandmother and my father used to cook them – beaten almost paper-thin, dipped in flour, cooked quickly in a small amount of butter, with lemon juice poured over each schnitzel as soon as they were turned over in the frying pan! We had (properly prepared this time!) sugar snap peas with them, plain boiled potatoes, with some plain, low-fat Greek yoghurt and finely chopped spring onions drizzled over them, and of course, the usual half a tomato. If I had to find any fault with anything, I suppose I could say that the schnitzels were just a tad overcooked – but to tell the truth, I think they worked better slightly overcooked! They were nice and a little bit crispy around the edges, which I liked! 🙂 Apparently I’m having a bit of a rest from my diet jellies, as they still haven’t been made, and I’m happily lapping up the low-fat yoghurts that Julian usually has for dessert! Either way, I’m happy – I like them both, though I think it’s probably a good idea to have a few made up diet jellies in the fridge, for “just in case” scenarios! As stated above, lunch today was a delicious wrap made with that Coles brand Flat Bread – which really is very nice, even if it is a Coles branded one! It had the usual fillings – basil pesto hummus, quinoa tabouli salad, chopped red capsicum, sandwich ham, and cubes of Halloumi cheese – quite delicious! And for dinner tonight we had omelets, with tomato, capsicum, semi-dried basil flakes, some finely chopped onion, and (more) Halloumi cheese, followed again by a low-fat yoghurt for dessert. Yesterday while we were out doing the little bit of supermarket shopping, I bought some fresh fruit which I’ll have over the next few days – I bought four nice-looking apricots, and four yellow nectarines – I would have bought some pears if they’d had any decent Corella ones – in my opinion, the nicest tasting ones – but they didn’t, so I got the nectarines instead. According to the Optifast fruit and vegetable “free” list, I can have two small apricots a day, and one large, or two small nectarines a day without having to worry about their calories (or kilojoules) so tomorrow – if I remember – I’ll have two of the apricots… If I forget, then they’ll probably get over-ripe and mushy and have to be thrown out, so I hope I do remember! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Was only what I expected! I did go up – not much, but enough – from 63.0kg to 63.4 kg. I should (hopefully!) start going down again tomorrow, though I am still on those damn fluid-retaining pills for a few more days – I am pretty sure that quite a bit of the extra weight I’ve put on over the past three or four days is largely due to my diet (or rather, the lack thereof!) but I also suspect that about a third of it is retained excess fluid. We shall see… As I said, I should be starting to go down a bit from tomorrow… hopefully, anyway 🙂

And so to tomorrow – Chinese New Year – the year of the Fire Monkey, I believe? So “Gong Hey Fat Choy!” for tomorrow, everyone! 🙂 We’ll be placing pictures around the house, and trying (key word, that: “trying“!) to decide where everything should go… I really wish we had some of the pictures that I know are still in storage to put around the place too, because some of them are rather nice (from memory, anyway!) Still, we’ll see how we go – a lot of the pictures from Adelaide are surprisingly big, but we’ll squeeze them in somehow! I still can’t decide if “Bert’s Bath” should go on the very small amount of wall space in my bathroom, or if it’d be better on one of the walls just outside my bathroom – f’rinstance between the exercise room and my bathroom – it would look quite good there, I think… Anyway, they’re tomorrow’s decisions! Josh will be over in the late afternoon to do my hair, and if I end up with any spare time, I’ll probably be working on ways to level up some of my new girls, and on ways to incorporate my “extra” Guild and Guild Bank – I still think I’m going to have to spend the money on a Faction change and go from a Horde Guildmistress and Guild Bank, to an Alliance one – however, the jury is still out… Anyway, once again, that’s about it from me for this evening! 🙂 Please feel free to drop in again tomorrow night, to see if we’ve found places for all the pictures (well, all the ones we currently have here, anyway!) and whether or not my weight is starting to go down a bit (hopefully, it will – but I wouldn’t hold my breath!) and anything else interesting that happened during the day! But until then, you’ll just have to be patient, and try very hard to bee good! Don’t forget… you are what what you eat eats…and always remember to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on Melbourne’s totally unpredictable weather patterns – but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂