Well, here I am, fresh from World of Warcraft, and the Auction House in Winterspring, where Mouselet bought 1 (one) “unidentified plant part”, a useless and totally worthless “junk” item that you pick up in Zangarmarsh when you’re collecting other things – for 3500 gold, thereby injecting the Horde Guild Bank with fresh blood – I mean cash! 🙂 Honestly, I got so fed up with WoW this morning, I was virtually tearing my hair out! I think I may have mentioned in the past, that if one has enough “Heirloom” items, one can get a free “chauffeur” to drive you around the countryside, getting to quest items and quest givers before us normal plebs, who have to foot-it until we reach level 20, and can ride a proper mount? Yes, well I was hit by a veritable horde of them this morning (no, not Horde, horde!) I’d just taken young Círce away from her normal round of boring quests in Azuremyst Isle and into Westfall, which is in the Eastern Kingdoms, and where the Game “told” me I should go. It’s Alliance territory, and the second of the “Human” questing chains in that area, and when I got to my destination (jogging… all the way from Stormwind!) I found myself in the middle of what could only be described as a “Bikie Gang”! No less than 5 (five!) of these “motorcycle chauffeurs” suddenly zoomed up, crowding around the quest giver that I was trying to turn my quest in to, and completely drowned me out. I’ll be generous and give them the benefit of the doubt, because I have no way of knowing whether I simply got a bad case of “lag-itis”, or if all of them, talking from “local” (i.e their time-zone in the US) drowned me out and caused the lag-spike (Quel’Dorei is an US based realm, unlike Nagrand, which is based in Sydney) or whether it had something to do with the fact that Julian was downloading a very large file. Being the polite little Draenei that I am, I stood aside and let them go first – then, of course, they all raced off and “used up” all the quest fodder (to coin a phrase!) and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it except stand around and wait until everything I needed to complete that part of the quest had re-spawned. All in all, about three and a half minutes. I finally got that part done, and went to hand the quest in. Once again, they were all crowded around the quest giver, and again, I was suddenly struck with the dreaded “lag-bug”! Again, I waited. When I got the next two parts of the quest, once again I found everything as far as the eye could see had been killed. Dead critters and monsters littered the golden fields of corn! Ditto on the beach, where all the Murlocks lay dead and rotting in the strong sunlight! Being a Hunter, I did have a bit of an advantage, because a Hunter can shoot off an arrow, or a bullet, a lot faster than a Mage or a Warlock can cast a spell, but it was a matter of “the quick or it’s dead” – well, the Bikies quickly realised this fact, and as fast as I am with a bow and arrow, their wretched motorbikes were quicker, so they simply drove straight at the Murlocks and the Gnolls and mowed them down before I was even able to target them, let alone shoot! That was the point where I said “enough is enough!” (and a few other “choice” words as well) and decided to “come back later!” (*grrr!*)

Anyway, it was probably for the best, because I’d forgotten that I was supposed to have my next Warfarin blood test today, and  Clarke wasn’t able to make it today (what a surprise!) but will call me “soon” to organise a time to come over “early next week” – so we took off to have my blood test done, and after a long wait – because I think we were sitting in the wrong seats and the nice lady who takes the bloods didn’t see us sitting there – it was done, and we went off to The Glen. By this time it was lunch time, so we had lunch there and then went and did the shopping. My favourite eldest daughter had requested that we pick her up a box of the Optifast Chocolate Bars, which we did, and while we were in the Apothecary’s, I saw that they had some very interesting looking “sugar-free” lollies! They had heaps of different sorts, but I got one bag of “Citrus”, one called “Berry Mix”, and one bag of “Caramel” ones (I think I also saw “Blueberry” and “Mint” and a few other ones, which I might try next time) As I said, they’re sugar-free, but are made with fruit juice (or so they say, anyway) and each one contains about 20 calories (not kilojoules) Plus, they contain something called Maltitol, which can have a laxative effect if you eat too many of them – but how many is “too many” I have to wonder?! They don’t say! I’ve eaten four so far, so I’d probably better not have any more tonight…

When we got back from doing our little bit of shopping (where I walked the length and breadth of The Glen, twice, so I didn’t have to do my Treadmilling this afternoon) I logged back onto WoW, to continue the ruddy quests in Westfall… and I couldn’t believe my eyes! I’d left Círce standing right in front of the quest giver, so of course that’s where I was when I logged on… totally surrounded by yet another bloody Bikie Gang! (sorry, but I was so angry!) It’s cheating! Running over Murlocks and Gnolls because you can’t kill them faster than a Hunter on foot? How is that not cheating? Forming a gang and surrounding the quest giver so that it’s difficult to get, and hand in quests? How is that not cheating? Speeding ahead of those on foot and picking up or killing everything in sight so that the characters jogging along behind them have to wait – sometimes for a long as five minutes – until everything re-spawns? How is that not cheating! It’s something that Blizzard should never have done, because it’s simply not fair – but they have, and all one can do is log off, play solitaire for a few hours, and come back later, hoping against hope that all the little motorbike ganglings have been called home by their mummies and daddies because their din-dins is ready, or because it’s time for bed! Bah! It’s almost enough to make me have second thoughts about playing the game again…

Food stuffz: last night we had lamb backstraps cooked in lemon and pepper – they were absolutely delicious! It’s surprising just how well lemon compliments meat – but anyway, with the lamb we had the usual – green beans, half a tomato, and chips. While we were at The Glen, we had lunch at The Shingle Inn – Julian had an avocado and “thin French pancake” (sorry, but I’m not allowed to say – or type – the word, but you probably made paper chains with the paper variety of it when you were in kindergarten 😉 ) a very nice looking Vanilla Slice, and a cappuccino. I had a BLT (with a side salad that I didn’t eat because it had dressing on it, and I prefer my salads “naked”) a piece of (supposedly) “New York Baked Cheesecake” – which was yummy, and it was a “baked cheesecake”, but the only thing about it that had anything to do with “New York” was its name! I also had a long black (coffee) with a tiny little jug of skinny milk. Tonight we’re having chicken, chips, and all the usual, for dinner – though I should probably be having a small bowl of pasta, but I don’t think we have any sauce for it – and last night, when Julian went out to check on the tomatoes and other vegetables, he came in with a couple of not quite ripe tomatoes, and… two figs, that the fig tree next door (behind us) had graciously leant over the fence to offer us! 😉 I shall have at least one, if not both of them for dessert tonight! (Julian doesn’t like figs very much) I really prefer the so-called “black” figs, which have dark purple, almost black, skins, and a rich, rich red flesh, which you could almost call “jammy” (like jam!) – these ones are “white” figs – green skins, even when they’re fully ripe, and very, very pale, almost creamy coloured flesh inside them, but I don’t care, I just love figs, and I’ll eat them with great pleasure! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I knew I should have got Julian to get me two chocolate cakes, smothered in whipped cream! I got on the scales this morning, fully expecting to have bounced back up a few points. I hadn’t. I’d gone down another two – from 62.0kg to 61.8kg! Hence the BLT and the New York Baked Cheesecake for lunch today, and the reference to pasta for dinner tonight! This is just crazy! I never, ever, expected to be able to get to, let alone go any lower than about 64kg! “I’m melting! I’m melting!” But, tomorrow, after the BLT and the cheesecake, I will be back up again – for sure! I hope so, anyway… I’m starting to get a bit worried…

And tomorrow… I believe that my favourite youngest daughter and her husband will be coming over tomorrow – they have to give us back the keys for Doncaster, so that they can be handed over on Settlement Day – next Friday, I believe it is – and just to have a chat, and for us to show off our veggie garden, an’ all. I have keys to Doncaster, and I have absolutely no idea where I’ve put them! It’s possible that they’re in one of the drawers of the Hall Table – I sure hope they are, because if not, I’ll just have to flutter my eyelashes innocently and coo sweetly that I was certain-sure that I’d given them to Julian to look after… 😉 No, I wouldn’t do that to him, and I do know they’re here, somewhere – I also know that when we moved in, I gave them to Julian so that he could take the Doncaster keys off my key-ring, and put the Stillwater keys on it instead – but what happened to them after that, I have no idea! Anyway, that’s about it from me for this evening – drop in again tomorrow night and see if my weight did go back up again (we’re having mashed potatoes with the chicken tonight, so it should!) how the figs were, and if we did find my keys… But until then, please continue to bee good, remember that you can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on our silly weather… but most of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, it was another bit of a “bitty” day today – Julian took off early again to trundle more boxes around, and to clear out the rest of Doncaster’s “storage cage” (every apartment has a “storage cage” in the underground car park – a bit like an “attic in the basement” 😉 ) The three wardrobe boxes and one other box of “miscellaneous” items were delivered to Saint Vinnie’s, and by this afternoon the storage cage and our lovely apartment (*sniffle*) were both empty, and two of the three storage bays (bays? bins? sheds? I’m not sure of the exact terminology, and for once, neither is Julian!) that we’d needed between 2007 and 2016 – that had been jam-packed with our boxes of “stuff”, and bits of our “extraneous furniture” – have at long last been consolidated into just one storage… bays/bins/sheds (strike out those which do not apply!) And while all that was going on?

I sat and played… World of Warcraft! (gee, what a surprise!) I’m sad to say that young Boudìcca didn’t last much longer than poor Braåchaë did (I wonder if it was something to do with their names, and starting with “B”? mmmm… Nah, don’t think so!) Anyway, I now have a young Draenei Hunter called Círce, and I have determined to play her differently! When you’re playing WoW, sometimes, when you pass a level “milestone”, or reach a particular point in the game, a little exclamation mark lights up on your bottom Action Bar, suggesting a quest for you to move on to – often totally unrelated to where you are or what you’ve been doing. F’rinstance, every time I’ve played a Draenei, I’ve dutifully marched on through all of the quests and quest chains, usually boring myself silly because I know them so well. This time, being determined to do things differently, when I reached level 10, the little exclamation mark lit up, and apparently the game thought that I was ready to leave the Azuremyst Isles and go to Stormwind, in The Eastern Kingdoms. I had sort-of planned on going there anyway, as I had to go through Stormwind to get to Ironforge, so that I could go out and Tame Mangeclaw, the big white bear! So while I was on my way to turn in a completed quest – and only considering ditching the rest of the Azuremyst Isles quests and taking the game up on its offer to go to Westfall – I spotted a new quest that had suddenly appeared just outside the main door of the Exodar! It was a Goblin, who wanted me to go to Stormwind to chase up some shady dealings that were being conducted by another Goblin over there. “Fate” obviously wanted young Círce over in Stormwind, and who am I to argue with Fate, hmm?! So I accepted the quest, and went to Stormwind – chasing up the nefarious Goblin was a “fun” little quest, following up clues, getting information from various sources, blowing up a wagon load of rockets (that was fun! 😉 ) Then I went on to Ironforge, and made my way up the mountain to find Mangeclaw, whom I then Tamed! And silly idiot me forgot to change where I was Hearthed, didn’t I! (the place that you always magically go back to when you use your Hearthstone) I had Hearthed myself in Azure Watch, and I fully meant to change that, and Hearth myself in Stormwind, because that was going to be my new “home base” for a while – but I forgot, so I had to “hoof” it (quite literally – Draenei have hooves, not feet!) all the way back to Ironforge, or end up back in Azure Watch, on the other side of the world! Tomorrow (or tonight, whichever comes first), I’ll catch the Tram back to Stormwind and Hearth myself there. Yes, there is an underground (and undersea) “Tram” between Stormwind and Ironforge! It’s called the “Deeprun Tram”, and although you can fly between Stormwind and Ironforge, most people take the Tram, because it’s faster!

Wynterthyme and her Garrison are doing fairly well – I think – and just to get other Guild members in on the act, I’ve made Círce a Skinner and a Leatherworker, so even if I can never get her into the Garrison itself, at least I can send her leather to work on 🙂 And there’s another, very big difference between WoW’s Garrisons, and Rift’s Dimensions – with Dimensions, if it’s a Public one, anyone can enter it, explore, have a look around, and admire your hard work (naturally, of course, they can’t do anything, touch anything, or take anything, but at least they can look around and admire! 😉 ) With Garrisons, as far as I’ve been able to see, you are the only person who can enter it – even your Alts (your other characters) can’t get in – which seems a damn waste, really – what’s the point of having this way-cool Garrison, that only you ever get to see and enjoy?!

So, on to food stuffz: well, we didn’t have the lamb backstraps for dinner last night, or the frenched lamb cutlets, or the chicken, we had sausages! King Island Beef sausages, with green beans, chips, and the usual half tomato! Tonight we’re having the lamb backstraps, cooked with lemon and pepper! (*drool*) probably with the usual accompaniments – mashed potatoes would be nice, but chips will be easier and quickest – poor Julian is pretty exhausted after his two days of shifting heavy loads! For dessert last night I had another of those weird but nice (nicely weird?) Dark Cacao Chia Pods – which really do have a strong chocolate (as in a cocoa, not a block chocolate) flavour! I had a really delicious sandwich for lunch today, with bread (obviously – it was a sandwich, not a wrap) basil pesto hummus, quinoa tabouli salad, and I think ham, and perhaps some Halloumi cheese – but whatever was in it, it was delicious! 🙂 I wonder if my scales will notice it or not… Oh, and talking about “delicious”, you know what I’ve been seeing a lot of lately? My very, very, most favourite “treat” in the entire universe! I reckon I could probably glug myself back to 134 kilos in twenty-four hours (or less) if left alone in a room full of them! I first met them in las Vegas in 2004, and of course, I ate them. They were the most fantastic, delicious, wondrous substance invented by mankind! They were simply heaven incarnate, in small patty papers! And they just simply weren’t available here in Australia! Oh, how I mourned for them! Then, gradually, gradually, little by little, they started coming into the country, in little, slow, dribs and drabs… Now that I’ve lost all this weight, all of a sudden, they’re everywhere! Looking accusingly at me, as though to say, with tears in their little, rich voices: “You don’t love us any more!” But I do! I do! I just won’t eat you any more, because I would become undone! What??! Oh! You want to know what they are! 🙂 They’re Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups! 🙂 have one for me – you won’t be sorry! (well, actually, you might be – because you just won’t want to stop eating them, ever!)

Weigh-in this morning. I think I should have asked Julian to bring me two chocolate cakes smothered in cream – or maybe just a large box of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – because I went down another two points this morning – from 62.2kg to 62.0kg! I can’t really say that I’m all that pleased! Sure, I want to be “slim”, but I don’t really want to be “skinny”! Looking at myself this morning I suddenly thought: “I think I must be entering my second childhood!”, because when I was little – between about the ages of 3 and 10 – I was so skinny that the neighbours worried about me and kept inviting me in and feeding me jam-filled or chocolate biscuits (which believe me, were very expensive back in those days – they only appeared for “special” occasions – or when you thought that one of the children in your street was unhealthily skinny!  ) Mum always said that when I was born, I looked just like a skinned rabbit! (how’s that for a back-handed compliment, eh?! 😉 ) So, how did I come to get so fat? Well, it’s a long story, but suffice to say that in my early teens I became very ill, and the medication the doctors gave me changed my metabolism – I didn’t particularly care, and the weight just went on… and on… and on. It took Dr. Y. to wake me up and make me care again, which is why although I long to – I’ll never eat another Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, because they are my favourite thing to eat in the entire world, and the temptation to start “not caring” again might just be too strong, even for me! 😉

I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow – Clarke is supposed to be coming over to fix my shower door and my vanity unit drawers that are very stiff and recalcitrant, and to show me whatever plans he has drawn up for our pigeon loft – but I haven’t heard back from him, so… who knows? So in my infinite spare time, I might take Círce off to Westfall and start her off on some of the “Human” quest chains, and after that, just take her wherever the magical flashing exclamation mark tells me to take her – but at least it shouldn’t be dull and boring! 🙂 Anyway, once again that’s about it from me for tonight – but do call in again tomorrow night – I’m quite sure my weight will be back up to where I think it ought to be (about 63.5kg?) by tomorrow, and you’ll be able to find out if Clarke did turn up, and if my shower door and drawers have been fixed, and if I finally have a fixed plan for the pigeon loft! So there’ll be lots here to entertain you all, so make sure you don’t miss out on all the latest! 😉 Until then, please do bee good, remember that it’s idle to dread what you can’t avoid, and don’t forget to keep cool – or warm – depending on your preferences, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, I suppose I’m starting relatively early – it’s been a mucky old day today – very piecemeal! Julian went off to pick up the van that he’d hired for a few days (it goes back on Friday night) to cart boxes and “stuff” between Doncaster, the Storage place in Mitcham, and here – it’s taken him all morning, and he’s brought back a couple of boxes of clothing from when we moved in 2007 (Winter rolls her eyes – no wonder I have nothing to wear! It’s all been in storage!) a very large box of assorted photographs, which will take us at least a week to sift through… and at the moment, I’m in pain! I somehow managed to scratch my lower left gum with a toothbrush bristle this morning – it’s a new toothbrush head, and still fairly soft (it’s for “sensitive” teeth) so I thought nothing of it at the time – not that there was anything I could have done about it, anyway… *shrug* Well, it’s decided to develop into a lovely, big, painful ulcer, on the inside of my gum, about where the wisdom tooth would be, if I still had a wisdom tooth! I do get very fed up with my body, but there are two parts which regularly give me a lot of grief – my feet, and my gums! My feet get blisters if I even look at them, and my gums will develop ulcers if I eat something sharp which nicks them, snag them with a toothbrush, and before I got my implants, I’ve even been known to break a tooth off eating Corn Flakes! Now, where was I, when I so rudely interrupted myself! Ah yes, Julian shifting boxes around. He’s just gone back to the Storage place to pick up his trolley, which he forgot to put back in the van when he left… So he’s been busy running backwards and forwards with boxes, and what have I been doing?! Playing World of Warcraft, that’s what I’ve been doing! Wynterthyme has upgraded all her Garrison buildings to Level 2, and she’s finally finished off the somewhat badly explained Fishing Quest, so she now also has a “Fishing Shack” just outside the Garrison – only Level 1 at this stage though. The mine is going well – it’s doubled in length, and more than doubled the amount of ore I can get out of it! 🙂 Mouselet will be pleased, too – Wynterthyme doesn’t mine – she’s a Skinner and Herbalist – but she can mine in her own mine – Mouselet is a miner though, so apart from the stone that she gets to create “Work Orders” for her mine, she gives the rest to Mouselet 🙂 I’ve also been riding around marking certain trees, which a nice little wood-cutter then comes along and chops down for me, so I can take it to the Lumber Mill for processing and “Work Orders”! 🙂 (So what are “Work Orders”? I don’t really know, but they provide me with goods to stack up and sell, or for which I’m given “Garrison resources”!) Oh, remember last night I said I’d created a Pandarian? Well, I didn’t have her for very long I’d just got her all set up and ready to go, so off I went to invite her into the Guild, and send her some bags, and money, etc… only to be told that I couldn’t – because she was the “wrong” faction! Pandarians, as I think I mentioned last night, are neither Alliance, not Horde – they get the best of both worlds, or so I thought – and I was proved to have been wrong mistaken! They get the worst of both worlds, because their “friends” and alts (alternate characters) can’t send them anything! *pout!* Anyway, disgruntled yet again, I deleted poor Braåchaë… counted up through all my characters on Quel’Dorei, and discovered that I didn’t have a single Human amongst them! I rectified that little oversight, and created Boudìcca, a pretty young Hunter with auburn hair (and she has a dog wolf as a Pet! He’d better not put his paw… on my shoulder…! 😉 ) *sigh* I don’t much like the Human “form factor”, but I suppose I can live with it (until they allow Gnomes to be Hunters, anyway!)

Hmm… I’ve just had a short break away from the keyboard – there were three boxes of clothing altogether – they’re special “wardrobe” boxes that are long enough for a fairly large shirt to hang comfortably, and a bar across the top to hold coat-hangers – and we’ve just been going through them (I still haven’t seen any sign of my cotton “60’s” indian kaftan, but I don’t remember throwing it out…) All the clothes seemed to have been packed immediately after coming back from the Dry Cleaners (well, they were all clean and pressed with little Dry Cleaning tickets pinned to them anyway!) And apart from half a dozen T-shirts and jumpers that we kept largely for nostalgia’s sake, we hung everything back in the boxes, and Julian will drop them off at Saint Vinnies on his way over to Doncaster tomorrow – they were all w-a-y too big for us! 🙂 Julian also brought in an old wooden box with broken hinges – I really hope it can be repaired though, because I’ve always loved that box… and I intend to keep it, broken or not! There’s quite a bit of jewellery in it – a lot of it is utter junk, but there are some real gems in there too (pardon the pun! 😉 ) There are two pairs of broken earrings which absolutely must be fixed, and if a jeweler says they can’t be fixed, then I’ll keep taking them to jewelers until I find someone who can repair them!  There’s a pair of coral and gold earrings that my Nonna gave to me when I was about four, and a similar pair with tiger’s eye instead of coral in them – they were the pair of earrings that I always wore at school – the ones I had to get special permission to wear because we girls weren’t allowed to wear any jewellery or adornment except a wrist watch! There’s another pair of coral and marcasite earrings that belonged to my Nonna, and a matching bracelet in silver and coral. There’s a few other pieces in there that I treasure, and of course, the whole lot needs to be thoroughly cleaned (some of the silver things are absolutely black!) – so although the day was very piecemeal, it has been exciting, enjoyable, and interesting! 🙂

Food stuffz: for lunch today I had another absolutely delicious wrap, with sliced sandwich chicken, basil and pesto hummus, some of the quinoa tabouli salad, and some chunks of Halloumi cheese – they’re so nice that I sometimes think “why do I have to eat anything else? I could quite happily live on these for the rest of my life!” – but I think my weight might suffer, just a little bit… 😉 I have no idea what we’re having for dinner tonight though – I know we have lamb backstraps, frenched lamb cutlets, and chicken, all of which we’d be having with green beans, chips, and the ubiquitous half a tomato (store-bought – ours still aren’t ripe enough) so if I’m given a preference, I’ll opt for the lamb backstraps, or the frenched lamb cutlets 🙂 As for the sandwich for lunch, the veal schnitzel and mashed potatoes for dinner last night, and that really, really nice Chia Pod Dark Cacao gloopy stuff – remember how I said I was a bit nervous about getting on the scales this morning? Well…

Weigh-in this morning. It was with fear, trembling, and great trepidation that I approached the scales this morning… timidly I stepped up onto them, fully expecting to hear sirens, alarm bells, and the diet police wielding Optifast bars like truncheons, descending on me… I got off, and got back on again. I turned to Julian and said: “Julian, get me a chocolate cake! Any sort of chocolate cake, I don’t care, as long as it’s smothered in cream!” – I’d gone down nine points! or, more succinctly, one point off a kilo! From 63.1kg to 62.2kg! I was quite nonplussed! I know it always takes a few days for my fluid retention to settle back down again after I finish with those wretched pills, but… almost a kilo? Overnight? (and why can’t I do that every day, when I need to?!) But never fear – it’ll go back up again tomorrow! It always does – and I do think that 62kg is just a bit too low for me… besides, if the worst comes to the worst, I’ll just eat a second chocolate cake, smothered in cream! 😉

And so that was my day today! Tomorrow will probably be very similar, so I’ll be able to tell you how all my Garrison enterprises are going, and how young Boudìcca is coming along – I tell you what though, I’ll be in a real hurry to get to level 11 or 12, so that I can go off and Tame Mangeclaw for myself – dogs (and any other canine-type Pet, including the cute little Foxes) are forever scratching themselves – I’ve even seen them do it in the middle of a battle! It makes them look as though they have fleas, or the mange, or both! Anyway, that’s about it from me for tonight again – but do drop in again tomorrow night – find out if I need a second chocolate cake, or if my weight just short up again in spite (it does do that, you know! It can be terribly spiteful…) There’ll be all sorts of news, anecdotes, trivia, and gossip, so don’t miss out! 😉 In the meantime, do try very hard to bee good, remember never to let inexperience get in the way of ambition, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on your preferences… but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Here I am – on time for a Tuesday for a change – Julian has just left to take my favourite eldest daughter home, and here I am, putting fingers to keyboard once again! It’s been a quiet but interesting day – I did quite a bit of work with my “Followers” on WoW this morning, and have learnt a bit more about how to outfit my Garrison. I’ve swapped my Enchanter’s Studio for a Tannery, because I have more characters who can skin dead animals and create leather goods than I have people who can DE (Disenchant) items to the components needed by Enchanters, for enchanting gear, weapons, and just about anything that you want enhanced, so the Enchanter’s Studio was of little use to me – and I also swapped my Inn for a Lumber Mill, because once more I have more use for enriching my Garrison’s resources than I do picking up weird and wonderful quests. Oh well, “say lar vee”, as the French say! 😉 Julian will probably spend the majority of tomorrow cleaning the rest of our guff out of Doncaster, which means that I should have ample time to fold the washing (I bet he thinks I’ve forgotten that I’m supposed to do that! 🙂 ) as well as advancing my Followers and my Garrison assets! I now have a Mine, which is doing very well, and I hope to be able to upgrade it to a Level 2 mine (which will lengthen the depth and therefore the veins of mineable ore in it) by sometime tomorrow. I have a Herb Garden, which grows Gatherable Herbs and Flowers that are used in quite a few of the Manufacturing Professions for me, the Tannery, which I’ve already upgraded to Level 2, which can create special hides used in Leatherwork, the Lumber Mill, which will allow me to harvest the local trees to add to my resources, and last but not least, I have a few more “fetch” quests to complete in order to get a Fishing Professional to assist my local Fisherman with bringing in the best of the local produce – again, to enrich the Garrison’s resources – so it’s all going well… at the moment! 🙂 And if I get bored doing all of that, I’ve created another character (yes, again!) a Pandaran, this time. “Why?!”, I hear you all sobbing into your handkerchiefs “Why have you created another character! Don’t you have enough?!” – well, yes… and no. Once upon a time, there was a mystical city that everyone wanted to get to, even though you were supposed to be very high level to be able to get there – it was called “Shattrath”, which means “City of Light”, and the reason everyone wanted to go there was because it contained instant “portals” to every major capital city in Azeroth. It was so very handy! You’re in Ironforge, but you need to get to Darnassus, on the other side of the world, quickly? Easy Peasy! Instead of having to run down to the harbour, wait for a boat, and sail across to the other side of the world – if you’re Hearthed (or “home based”) in Shattrath, you just have to go home, and run down to the Portal! Quick and simple! People, even little baby level one’s, used to pay good gold to “bribe” a Mage to magically “call” them to Shattrath! And then Blizzard went and closed all the Portals down (except for one (I think!) to Stormwind) and there was no longer any point in being Hearthed in Shattrath. What had been a vibrant, dynamic, bustling and busy city became a ghost town – it was very sad! I don’t think anyone ever goes to Shattrath anymore, except to follow quest chains… Then Blizzard created Dalaran, exactly the same as Shattrath, only with a different name and in a different place, and it too had Portals to everywhere, and of course, the same thing happened, with everyone wanting to go there, and getting there, and then Blizzard closing all the Portals again, because all the main capital cities were ghost towns, with everyone was in Dalaran! So now both Shattrath and Dalaran are largely deserted! So, can you guess what Blizzard did next? Yes, that’s right! They created another beautiful city, this time in the new area, or “zone” of Pandaria, in “The Vale of the Eternal Blossoms”… with ruddy portals to every main capital city, again! One set for the Alliance, and another set for the Horde! Anyway, when we heard about the Portals, Wynterthyme and Mouselet couldn’t get there fast enough, and they hastily “Hearthed” themselves at the Inn there – which is why – in a round-about sort of way, I decided to create a Pandarian character! Pandarians are neither Alliance, nor Horde, and they don’t have to choose which Faction they want to belong to until they’re about to leave Pandaria (once again, I think!) so until then, with all those nice Portals to choose from, they’re free to roam and enjoy the best of both worlds, which I thought would be rather fun! 🙂 And so Braåchaë the Pandarian Hunter was born! 🙂

My favourite eldest daughter and I watched one episode of “Supergirl”, one episode of “The 100”, and one episode of “The Shannara Chronicles”, because we only had one new episode of each – and we watched a couple of episodes of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, which were all good! 🙂 So we had a great day, and I learned quite a bit about Garrisons, and the fact that there’s a multiple Portal area in Pandaria – I wonder how long it’ll be before Blizzard close them down? Actually, they might not! Shattrath and Dalaran both had two Banks, and one or two Auction Houses – so does this city in Pandaria – but! Blizzard have removed the Auction Houses there, meaning that people will still have to go back to the main capital cities in order to make use of the Auction Houses, so…. with a bit of luck, the Portals might remain this time! Let’s hope so, anyway! 🙂

Food stuffz: well, I had a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch today – and a very nice sandwich it was too! Then for dinner tonight we had a reprise of the veal schnitzels, done in the seasoned flour and the lemon juice, along with mashed potatoes made with plain low-fat Greek yoghurt, green beans, and half a tomato. For dessert, I had another of those Chia Pods – this one was “Dark Cacao” flavoured, and it was really nice! It had a really nice strong chocolate flavour – nothing bland or wishy-washy about this one – with the same weird type of almost-crunch from the teeny sago-sized bobbles in it (which I think are Chia seeds? – what is Chia, anyway?!) … (apart from some sort of seed!) So what with the sandwich yesterday, and today, plus the mashed potato, and the flour coated, cooked-in-oil schnitzels – goodness knows what’s going to happen when I get on the scales in the morning!

Weigh-in this morning. Went a lot better! I went down four points, from 63.5kg to 63.1kg – a really nice little drop! However, as I said above – goodness knows what the scales will say tomorrow morning! Still an’ all, it is encouraging to see that although I do go up – sometimes alarmingly so – I then seem to come down again. If I were still trying to actually lose weight, I’d be worried and upset, but I’m not trying to lose weight any more, I’m trying to maintain my weight – “around about” where I am now… and so far, anyway, it seems to be working (touch wood, cross fingers, eyes, ears and toes!) Does this mean that I’ve (more-or-less) become “stabilised”?! I think that the answer to that question has to be “maybe”, or “goodness knows” – ask me a year from now, and if I’m still more-or-less within the same weight zone, I think I’d still tell you “Maybe!” – methinks that this has to remain an ongoing project for the rest of my life… which won’t upset me unduly – I can still eat what I want, when I want, as long as I understand that the only person who has to live with the consequences of doing so, is myself! 🙂

So hopefully tomorrow I can get back into WoW, and upgrade a couple of my Garrison resources, and perhaps work on my new Pandarian Hunter, Braåchaë (pronounced “Brar-kay”, by the way!) I have played a Pandarian before, but never taken them very far – to tell you the truth, they’re a little too “cutesy” for my liking – I much prefer “pretty” to “cutesy”, anyway! The starting area is the newest, and therefore the least well known (by me!) the scenery is pretty, and I get a nice little Turtle (or is it a Tortoise? It’s a bit hard to tell…) as a start-out Pet, which is nice. The Pets I prefer are the Ghost Saber-tooth cat, the orange and black striped cats (like tigers) the orange and black spotted cats (i.e. Dishu) Bears, and Turtles/Tortoises. The foxes are really sweet and pretty, but like all the “dog” type Pets, they’re always stopping to scratch themselves – which makes me wonder about fleas! And, on that somewhat itchy note, I guess I’ll say goodnight to you all! 🙂 Don’t forget to stop by again tomorrow night to find out all the latest – just how much will my weight go up after the mashed potato? Will I still have a Pandarian Hunter? And lots of other bits and pieces of trivia for your reading enjoyment! Until then though, please try to bee good, do keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final, and remember to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, to look after yourselves, and to drive carefully… but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Boy, am I going to have to write f-a-s-t to get this up before midnight! 😉 What a busy day! Our cleaning lady was here this morning, and yes, I did remember to ask her to clean the glass bricks in my bathroom window, which has been done, and they do look a great deal better! 🙂 However, most of my morning was taken up with getting my young Blood Elf up to level 11, so that I could haul her all the way to Loch Modan, the very beating heart of Dwarven territory, to tame for herself the mighty Mangeclaw! Oh boy, was that fun! Think of a map of New Zealand. Blood Elves are right up at the very tippy-tippy-top of the North Island. Loch Modan is about two-thirds down the length of the South Island, and just about everything in between wants to kill you on sight! I Stabled my original Pet, and set off from Silvermoon City, the Blood Elf capital. When I got to Silverpine Forest, I Tamed myself a temporary Bear, and continued on my way…. and all went fairly well, until I got to the Hillsbrad Foothills – about the equivalent of Napier on your handy-dandy map of New Zealand – and ran into some very nasty Worgen, the first one of which jumped on me – I ran away, leaving my valiant temporary Bear to sacrifice himself on my behalf – or that was the theory, anyway, but “TB” (“Temporary Bear”) lasted little more than a quarter of a second, and that damned Worgen was after me again. I died! Well, at least it was quick! So, I rezed in the local Graveyard (because I would have had to retrace my steps quite a long way to get to my body – I was better off putting up with the resulting rez sickness and continuing on! So I did…) I ran on a little way, resurrected my Pet, and continued. Another Worgen jumped me, but this time there was another player around who unwittingly aided and abetted my Pet in fighting the damn thing, and I almost got away with that one. Alas, my Pet got killed – again – and I don’t know what happened to the other player, but the Worgen was not going to let me get away again! So I died. This time I did run back to my body (it was actually ahead of me this time) and after a few more narrow escapes (thank you, TB! 🙂 ) at long last I made my way to the border wall between Hillsbrad Foothills and the Arathi Highlands (think “around about the Wellington area” on your map of New Zealand!) a much more dangerous place than the piddly little Hillsbrad Foothills! (no, I’m not just being sarcastic!) I actually fared a lot better there, which surprised me a lot, because all the nasty beasties there are a much higher level than those in the Hillsbrad Foothills. At about this point Julian very kindly brought in a couple of his high level characters to give me a bit of protection, and I think I only died once there – killed by a Human this time… Almost at my goal, I eventually got to the Wetlands, where I jumped into the sidecar of Thuglet’s motorbike, and we turned left (read: “South”) towards Loch Modan and Dun Morogh (think Mt. Cook, on the South Island of New Zealand!) Well, the Wetlands were a breeze – and even the first tunnel or two on the way to Loch Modan were fairly easy going – but boy! Those damn Dwarves sure pack a wallop! Exiting from one of the higher tunnels, a couple of Dwarves spotted us speeding out of the blackness (the light they’d seen in the tunnel wasn’t an oncoming train, it was Thuglet’s speeding motorbike!)and gave chase! One of them took a swing at me in the sidecar as we raced past, and I fell out – dead! This happened a couple more times (see?! I wasn’t kidding when I said that those Dwarves sure packed a wallop!) before Thuglet got tired of having to stop and wait while I ran back to my body, so instead of attempting to speed past these pesky little Dwarves, as soon as we saw some, he’d get off his bike, and just go and whack ’em – and then they died instead! 🙂 Much more betterer! 🙂 We finally found Mangeclaw – who was unfortunately dead – but death is such a fleeting thing in World of Warcraft (and Rift) so after a short time, Mangeclaw appeared again, and I Tamed him! Thuglet and I both Hearthed back to our respective cities, and… I logged out, because Clarke had arrived.

We spoke about a couple of problems in my bathroom (like water coming out from under the shower door, and my vanity unit drawers sticking) and I showed him the pictures of how I thought our aviary should be built, and we talked about that for a bit, and we discussed fantasy films, series and books and stuff, and then he left, and we had lunch. Clark will be here again on Friday to fix my shower door (hopefully!) and adjust one of my vanity unit drawers – which is good, because when Josh arrived this afternoon and I showed him the picture of the aviary I was thinking of getting Clarke to build, he could see a lot of problems with it – so he did a few rough sketches here, which I was going to show Clarke on Friday – but this evening he sent me some more drawings which are a bit better than the quick sketches he did this evening, so I think that between the four of us, we’re going to end up with something eminently suitable and where our birds should be pretty happy! 🙂 Thanks, Josh! 🙂

Food stuffz: lunch today was a reprise of the chicken tikka wrap, only this time it was a sandwich instead, and it was just as delicious! There are a few more tomatoes ripening on our plants? Bushes? What do tomatoes grow on – these ones aren’t vine ones – whatever! Anyway we should have some more tomatoes in a day or two – and possibly even some beans! Yes! Our little baby bean plants had flowers, and now they’re starting to grow baby beans! The peas aren’t doing so well though – I think they got a bit sunburnt… Anyway, dinner tonight was a fairly quick meal – steak, chips, fresh green beans (not ours yet, fresh store-bought ones though) and half a tomato – because we were expecting to get some boxes from Adelaide delivered tomorrow, but the removalists rang and said could they deliver them tonight please, around eight o’clock? Which sort of chucked a bit of spanner into our dinner-works, so to speak. But, the steak was beautiful, the beans were fresh and a bit crunchy (“al dente”, anyone? 😉 ) and it was all good – so was our dessert tonight! Coles, bless their little hearts and souls, have developed a new sort of low-calorie “rice pudding” – along the lines – sort-of – of the now defunct “Le Rice”, once upon a time made by Yoplait, so Julian decided to get a tub of it to see what it was like. Normally we’d steer clear of the “You’ll love our new Coles blah-blah-blah whatever”, but the calorie count seemed low enough, and it was a bit of a change from yoghurt, so he got some, and we tried it tonight…  I really hate to have to say this, you know – it goes against all my principles – but… it was very, very nice! Hopefully, it’ll also be “very, very nice” to my weight, when I get on the scales in the morning! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Slowly… s-l-o-w-l-y… going down… I went down another point today – from 63.6kg to 63.5kg – hopefully I’m sinking back down again – though after that yummy sandwich at lunchtime, and that very nice rice pudding for dessert tonight… Oh well, this is my silly body we’re talking about – so it’ll probably just do whatever it feels like doing, as it usually does! Hopefully it’ll continue to do what it’s been doing for the last couple of months, and waver up and down between 62.5kg and 63.8kg for the next 30 or so odd years! 🙂

Tomorrow my favourite eldest daughter will be over, and I know we have the next of the Shannara Chronicles to watch, but I’m not sure what else we have at the moment… I also have to pick her brains about Garrisons and where to put what (in the way of buildings, etc. in them) It’ll be a good day, and at least we won’t have the interruption of the boxes arriving from Adelaide, because they already came tonight! 🙂 And that, dear peoples, is about it from me again this evening! Do drop in again tomorrow night to catch up on all the latest from chez nous (or from casa nostra, whichever you prefer) how’s my weight going? Up or down – or stuck! What did my favourite eldest daughter and I watch? Where will I put my lumber mill? And… have we had any more ripe tomatoes off our tomato plants? All these questions and more will be answered here for you tomorrow night – but until then, do please try to bee good, remember to keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather… but most of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

So, Happy Saint Valentines Day! 🙂 I don’t know about how all you lot spent your Romantic Day, but we spent our Day in Draenor, rushing hither, thither and yon, trying (sometimes unsuccessfully!) to make sense of the often horribly obscure quest instructions. Oh, sorry! What quest instructions?! At one point, you’re told that a comely young Mage is going to accompany you. You’re not told why – she says “Ready when you are!”, and you’re supposed to go off and… do what!? Oh, before you were introduced to the blonde Mage, you were given three tasks to complete, but never, at any stage, is it ever mentioned that those three tasks are the quest, and that the blonde Mage is actually the quest giver! So you dribble on down the road a ways, with your ditzy blond Mage in tow, and kill some large, bi-pedal purple monsters, which do at least drop one of the items on your “Three Tasks to Complete” shopping list. The road then comes to an end. The only way forward seems to be a very long, long drop, straight down, which you understand will lead to your immediate demise, so you straggle back up the road, killing more of the large, bi-pedal purple monsters, completing one of your three tasks. That’s where it dawns on you that the blonde Mage is the quest giver, because she suddenly develops a rather painful looking bright yellow question mark over her head! There’s a magickal portal at the other end of the road, so at your wit’s end, you step into it – and find yourself instantly transported to… a place that looks strangely like the place you’ve just come from – only it isn’t, of course – so it must have been my eyesight or something. Julian was doing another quest – the annoying thing about Garrisons is that they’re “individual” – as soon as you get your Garrisons, you and your team-mate are flung into exactly the same Garrison, only in different instances! We can see eachother’s little blue “team” dot, but we can’t interact with eachother – we can type to eachother in the Chat window, and of course we can talk to eachother because we’re both sitting in the same room in Real Time – and depending on how you’ve set your individual Garrison up, and depending on your individual talents, we often get given different quests which we can’t help eachother with. Some of them we can “Share”, when we meet up outside the boundaries of the Garrison, and some we can’t. Depending. So he was off doing one of his special quests, and I was off doing that stupid one with the blonde Mage, and I just got so fed up and frustrated that I went and played Solitaire until Julian finished his quest and could come and do that part of my quest for me to see what I was actually meant to be doing. I did get it done in the end, but not before cursing Blizzard to always wear their socks twisted – just enough to be mildly uncomfortable! Another quest we had to do, which was actually inside our Garrison (individually, in that we couldn’t see or help eachother) was to defend our Garrison against a large-scale invasion. Julian said to me, from his desk a few feet away, that it was imperative that I kept my Pet alive – I grimaced, because in order to keep my Pet alive, I have to keep sending it very weak “healing” spells, and of course then I can’t fight because I’m constantly sending off these (almost ridiculously weak!) healing spells. Well, the fight was quite chaotic – it was dark (as in night time) there were hundreds of these invaders – if I fired off just one shot, my Pet was left “slivered”, so I just stood there, getting attacked from all sides, while I manfully (or should that be “womanfully”?) kept Boo going… and I, of course, died… Julian (Mouselet) was even worse off than I was – same scenario, same attackers, same everything – except that he didn’t have a Pet to help him fight (not that I managed to do much fighting!) or even take the focus off him, so he died quite a few times. Still, we both dinged level 96, and I upgraded my Garrison “Storeroom” (where my personal Banker was) to level 2, with the addition of access to the Guild Bank from within the Garrison – hmm… I must find out if there’s a way to get an Auctioneer into the Garrison! I’d never have to go back to one of the big capital cities again! 🙂 So apart from a few death experiences, and my vast annoyance at some of the idiotic quest instructions (or rather the lack thereof!) that Blizzard come up with (they do it all the time – you’d think that I ought to be used to it by now, but no… it still riles me to the point of apoplexy!) we had a great day, and really looking forward to next Sunday’s “bash” 🙂

Food stuffz: dinner last night was sausages (King Island Beef), half a tomato, chips, and green beans, with a low-fat passionfruit yoghurt for dessert… and just before our lunch-break today, Julian went up the street to get some bread with which to make sandwiches for lunch, while I did my lunchtime treadmilling. You know, I think it really does make a difference if I walk before, or after lunch? I think I should always try to get my lunchtime treadmilling in before lunch – every time I do, my weight seems to go down (a little bit) more, the next day (of course, I could just be imagining it, or not remembering properly – I am getting old, you know!) We had ham, low-fat cheese, and home-grown tomato in our lunchtime sandwich, which was very nice indeed. And for dinner tonight we had omelets, with Halloumi cheese, onion, ham, red capsicum, and chopped parsley – I think Julian really makes the best omelets! 🙂 For dessert tonight I had one of those really weird “Chia Pods” – it’s weird because it’s sort-of “gloopy”, but it’s not “liquid” – it’s gelatinous, but then again, it’s not like a jelly… it’s ever-so-slightly “crunchy” (I suppose it’s crunchy the way I imagine caviar would be? Never having had caviar, of course, because I’m allergic to any form of sea-food) but it’s really too small to be really “crunchy” – it’s mild, almost bland – but it tastes “pleasant”, and it tastes “cool”, like chilled custard – and it doesn’t stick to the container or your spoon – it sort-of just slides off it… see? weird! But I do like it… and it seems to be pretty low in calories/kilojoules…

Weigh-in this morning. Well, I was really expecting to go up a few more points today – after eating that yummy wrap for lunch, and then sausages, chips, and a low-fat yoghurt at dinner – but in fact I went down one point – from 63.7kg to 63.6kg (and I did my lunchtime treadmilling before lunch yesterday, too!) Then again, my weigh-in yesterday could have been slightly “off” – it was done two hours earlier than usual… but we shall see what the scales have to say tomorrow morning… because I did have a very nice sandwich for lunch instead of Ryvita crispbreads, and a reasonably big omelet for dinner (not to mention that weird Chia Pod dessert!)

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day! Our cleaning lady is coming in the morning (and this time I must not forget to get her to clean the glass brick window in my bathroom! Paul was supposed to have washed it down, but it’s really grotty – and I’ve been meaning to get K. to clean it every fortnight when she comes, but I keep on forgetting!) Clarke will be coming over sometime around midday (I think!) so I’d better have some sort of diagram or drawing/sketch ready for him regarding the aviary, and then Josh will be over in the evening to do my hair – shame he and Clarke won’t be here at the same time, because Josh knows what’s needed, and I don’t! Oh well, I’m sure I can find something amongst all the pictures I’ve been looking at! The trouble is, I know what I want built, but I don’t know how to draw it, or explain it properly in centimeters and square meters and stuff – when I said that I was “totally non-technical”, I wasn’t kidding, or just being modest, you know! I really meant it! So… tomorrow night’s blog could be quite entertaining (not to mention “colourful”, if I forget to get K. to clean my bathroom window – again!) And so once again, Gentle Readers, that’s really about it from me for this evening! 🙂 However, do call in again tomorrow night – to see if doing my lunchtime treadmilling really does make me lose more weight (or if I’ve gone disgustingly up again!) whether or not I was able to convey to Clarke what I actually wanted in the aviary, and if I remembered – this time – to get K. to clean the glass bricks in my bathroom window! However, until tomorrow night, remember that patience is a virtue, so do try to bee good, don’t forget that Motivation is what gets you started, and Habit is what keeps you going! and remember to look after yourselves, to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather, and to always drive carefully… but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, I finally managed to start writing! It would have been a wonderful opportunity to start really early this afternoon, with Julian in Adelaide for the day, Flipper sound asleep in her Cat Cave instead of wailing piteously that Evil Mummy was depriving her of Vitally Important Daddy Pats by hiding him away somewhere, and Why Wouldn’t I Bring Him Back for her! (actually, she started that little accusatory tantrum about five minutes ago, parading around the house, demanding that I bring Daddy back, Immediately, if not sooner! She’s only just quietened down a bit!) No, the reason I’m starting as late as I am tonight is because we had such an early morning (5.00am) that not long after lunch I was starting to get to the stage where I was in grave danger of getting my new character (yes, I did end up re-rolling one of my newest Horde girls! I kept her name though – Akåsha) killed off, because my eyes kept closing in a few (!) micro-mini naps… so I thought “[censored] it! I might as well go and read, then if I drift off, it won’t matter!” – so I did! Yes, I re-rolled the least attractive of my two Horde girls, and so Akåsha the Troll is now Akåsha the Blood Elf, and I managed to get her up to level 6 before having to succumb to fatigue. I read a bit, and snoozed a bit, and yawned my way out of bed again around four thirty, or thereabouts. All in all though, it’s been a fairly quiet – alright, very quiet – day. I got Calypsõ up to level 21 though, and took her off to The Ruins of Mathystra to hunt for her Ghost Saber-tooth Pet, which she found hiding in the seventh Cat Figurine that she examined – then I whisked her back to Darnassus, dusted her down, and left her and her new Pet to rest for a bit. You know, it’s not only appearance that moves me to re-roll characters so much – though sometimes (read: “often”) it does – it’s also the Starting Off areas that you, well, start off from. Some of the areas I’m totally bored with because I’ve done them all so often – I know every quest, I know all the tricks in the book – the easiest and quickest way to complete quests, where the supposedly “random” monsters patrol, and how to avoid them, or to dispatch them – you could almost say that I could run the starting areas with one hand tied behind my back, my eyes closed, and still be able to whistle “Dixie”, whilst playing “Advance Australia Fair” simultaneously on a harmonica! So I tend to avoid rolling Night Elves, Blood Elves, Draenei, and Humans, where possible, because those are the starting off areas that I know better than the back of my own hand! On the other hand (isn’t it just so lucky that we have two of them! 😉 ) I don’t really care for the appearance of the characters who start off in some of the much more interesting areas… like the Goblins, Trolls, Forsaken, Orcs, Gnomes, Dwarves, and (shudder) the Worgen – nothing, just nothing on earth looks more ridiculous or absurdely grotesque, than seeing an heroic looking “human”, in absolutely the very best armor, gear and… a cape… that gold can buy, suddenly transform into a hairy wolf and gallop off down the street, still wearing the armor, cape and gear! And the female Worgen are even worse, because they have those vapid, cutesy, Disney-esque type faces! You know, the big innocent-looking eyes with the ultra long lashes – a bit like Bambi! And there they are – galloping down the street on all fours, cape flapping in the wind, robes (if they’re wearing robes!) dragging on the ground, boots looking just – wrong – on dog-type hind legs! On occasion, I have created a Worgen, but I’ve never actually played one – I just can’t bear the thought of running off down the road looking so utterly stupid! You know, looking down the list of playable Races, there are very few really nice looking ones – most of them don’t look (to me!) very… attractive! That’s why I liked Rift so much, I think – all their playable Races are… attractive 🙂

And the second reason I was so late starting this afternoon was because… I was reading an article in The (good old) Age (again! Just a glutton for punishment, that’s me!) However this article was perhaps a trifle better written than most of them, and it was about Fiona Patten, the leader of The Sex Party. This time, as you can see, I have put in a link, as it’s quite a good article – especially if you’ve always shunned the Sex Party because you’d always thought that it was just another one of those “Huge, Unfunny, Joke Parties” – well, actually it’s not like that at all! It might have started out as a “bit of a lark’, but unlike most of the other H.U.J.P’s, The Sex Party has evolved and grown into something that in truth could be called “The Common Sense Party”, or “The Truly Sensible Party” these days. I strongly encourage all of you to read that article – and then to go and peruse their website – I think that maybe some of you might be in for a surprise. Frankly, I think this “Two Main Parties, fighting and squabbling like seagulls over the last potato chip, to see who gets enough preferences to Govern the country” is a stupid, idiotic, and totally unworkable way to run a nation! But, at the moment it’s all we have – so like it or lump it, we have to make the best of a bad “hand”. This is why we need parties like The Sex Party – not to “keep the bastards honest” (which was the catch-cry of the Australian Democrats – and where are the Australian Democrats today, hmm?) – because no-one can keep a politician “honest” – but to at least try to introduce a word of caution… of sanity… and of fairness to all Australians, not just a few in whichever Faction happens to hold the balance of power this week! I like to think of myself as reasonably well educated and well read, and I don’t consider myself totally stupid (as my late Uncle Joe used to say – “I may be silly a lot of the time, but I’m not stupid!”) Julian’s the same. We both did our homework and research before the last Federal election and chose – wisely, I think – to vote “below the line” (that is, to number every box, and not just vote the way a particular Party wants you to vote, with preferences going where they want them to go, not where you’d prefer them to go!) My favourite eldest daughter is as well educated as I am, she’s certainly well read, and she’s most definitely not stupid – she actually joined The Sex Party, and in fact stood for them twice in Glen Waverley – once for the Lower House, and once for the Upper House – at the last two State elections. With a Federal Election looming on the horizon, unless you want more of the same, never-ending circus – I implore you all – start looking for a better way – not necessarily The Sex Party, but just anything that isn’t Liberal, Labor, or The Greens! (and which doesn’t give their preferences to any of them!)

By the way – that wasn’t a “rant”, that was a “call to arms”, so to speak 🙂

Food stuffz – just quickly, as Julian’s on his way home from the airport and I’d like to get this finished before he gets home – lunch today was a wrap, which Julian made for me before he left this morning because we’d run out of bread for a sandwich. Because it was going to be sitting in the fridge for a long time and he didn’t want it to get soggy, he put a small smear of butter over the flat bread, underneath some of the basil-pesto hummus, then some (Coles brand) sandwich chicken tikka chunks, and some red capsicum batons – it was truly delicious, but I’ll bet my weight goes up tomorrow! Tonight we’re having more of the King Island Beef sausages, because he wants something “quick” to prepare and cook, and I’ll have to have one of his low-fat yoghurts tonight, too, as I had my last made-up diet jelly last night… so… I don’t think I want to get on the scales tomorrow, especially as…

Weigh-in this morning. I don’t think my anti-fluid pills are working properly – I’m still not shedding any fluid, and my feet are still swollen and puffy! (not my ankles or my legs, just my stupid feet!) Anyway, this morning I was hoping that I might have gone down a little – but instead I’d gone up another two points, taking me from 63.5kg to 63.7kg! I’ve been doing all my walking, I haven’t been eating anything I shouldn’t (but I have been nibbling – just a little bit – on salt from the salt shaker while waiting for my dinner – would that make a difference?) So I think you can see why I’m not terribly enthusiastic about getting on the scales tomorrow, after a delicious wrap for lunch, sausages and chips for dinner, and low-fat yoghurt for dessert! Oh well… it’ll be what it’ll be – but I should start coming back down again soon…. I hope!

And… tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day, so “Happy Saint Valentine’s Day” to all of you reading this! 🙂 I hope you all have a wonderful day with the people you most care about – and for those who can’t be with those they care about tomorrow, have yourselves a very happy “Saint Valentine’s Day” when you do see them next, instead! 🙂 We’ll be wallowing around up to our necks in quests and Garrison provisioning in sunny, downtown Draenor, where we’ll try not to die – too many times, anyway! 🙂 And once again – that’s about it from moi this evening! Do call in again tomorrow night to find out just how much my weight went up, and how many times we died in Draenor (and what killed us each time! 😉 )  Flipper’s doing well – sulking at the moment, because Evil Mummy hasn’t brought Daddy back – and she’s hungry, for food, and “Daddy Pats” – and not necessarily in that order! 😉 So until tomorrow night, please try to bee good, don’t forget that worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy… and remember to drive carefully, to keep cool – or warm – depending on the outside temperature in the shade, and to look after yourselves… but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

As I have the Podiatrist coming around about 4.30 this afternoon, I thought I’d (a) get a really early start, and see how much I could get done in just under an hour, and (b) make a slightly more “sober” and sophisticated header for this Template, using the font I saw this morning that I just had to have – so I resisted for all of three seconds, and then I bought it! (it’s called “Brunette“, and you can get it from My Fonts for $29) So let’s see now… the latest on the Flipper front! She’s just come back from her post-op checkup – they’re very pleased with her progress, and don’t need to see her for another two weeks. I’m afraid she looks very “moth-eaten” at the moment – they were going to remove a lot of her lumps of matted fur while she was still under the anesthetic on Tuesday, but they forgot! Anyway, they removed them today – and while she’ll be a lot more comfortable with them removed (the tangled and matted hair pulls on the skin and can get quite painful) she does look as though she’s been picked up and chewed a bit by a very large dog, and then spat out again – she looks very bedraggled and unkempt! She also had to undergo the indignity of having her temperature taken, so she’s giving us dirty looks and not speaking to us at the moment – but you can bet your sweet bippy that the second Julian gets up and goes and sits on the couch, she’ll be up there like a shot, demanding “Daddy Pats”!

We hung another couple of pictures this morning – we managed to get the gi-normous one, the gargantuan “Sunset on the Torrens” up, but it took the two of us to wrestle it into a semi-safe position from which to hoist it onto the wall! From memory, it weighs 18 kilos! It doesn’t look too bad where it is, but if nothing else is ever done to it, the frame really needs to be professionally cleaned and restored – it’s in a very parlous state! We also managed to put up “PB In His Floral Dress” – he’s looking very pleased with himself, sitting on the wall to my left, next to the window 🙂  Oh, and we’ve found a fairly nice clock to put on the wall in the kitchen, right above the pantry doors, so now if I’m sitting in the lounge-room reading, it won’t matter if I’ve forgotten to put on my watch! 🙂 But apart from those few things, today’s been very quiet – Julian’s been busy doing “Office-y” things, and I’ve been busy leveling up Calypsõ, who’s now level 20 and riding a big cat! Now I just have to get her up to level 21, and I can go out and Tame one of the Ghost Saber-tooth cats from the Ruins of Mathystra 🙂 Once I’ve got her up to that stage, I might give her a bit of a rest for a while and play one of the two new Horde girls I created a while back! They’re both Hunters, one’s a Troll, and the other is a Forsaken (Undead) and amazingly enough, they’re both quite good looking, even though it’s extremely hard to make either of those two races look “pretty”. They’re only level 1 though, so I might still change my mind and re-create them as something else… 😉

Food stuffz: well, the gorgeous-looking home-grown tomato that we had with our dinner last night, was just as good as it looked! 🙂 Very juicy, lovely flavour – there was only one thing that I could say I wasn’t too keen on, and that was the size and width of its “core” – where the tomato “stem” enters the fruit – it was very large, thick, and tough, but I think that’s probably because it was an “Heirloom” tomato, which quite often turn out to be a little “misshapen”, and of course, no respectable home-grown tomato is ever as uniform or as symmetrical as their store-bought cousins! I wonder how many tomatoes we can expect to get from our three tomato bushes/vines? Each one is a different “breed” (breed? is that the right term to use for a fruit or vegetable? Maybe a better term would be “species”?) Yeah, each one is a different “species” (that sounds better! It’s just as well that I don’t write for The Age! I wouldn’t have bothered to try to clear that up if I did! 😛 ) so I wonder how many tomatoes we’ll get, total?! We had the King Island Beef sausages with our half tomato, along with chips, and sugar-snap peas – all delicious! Once again, I had one of my diet jellies, and Julian had one of his low-fat yoghurts… For lunch today, we both had cold corned silverside sandwiches – my sandwich also had some of the new low-calorie Bulla “Real Dairy” sweet chilli spreadable cheese, which according to Julian – whose eyesight is still good enough to be able to read the fine print on the back of the tubs – contains less calories than the equivalent amount of Philly Light! It’s quite nice – maybe a bit bland? but it definitely had a good, chilli “bite”! You wouldn’t want too much of it though – just a light spreading/smear across the bread is enough 🙂 Verdict? The sandwich was delicious! Tonight we’re having chicken – I’m not sure how it’s being cooked, and we’ll no doubt be having chips, sugar-snap peas, and half a tomato (probably of the store-bought variety this time though) I’ll be having another of my diet jellies, and Julian will no doubt be having one of his extremely nice low-fat yoghurts…

Weigh-in this morning. Well, not surprisingly after my stint with the chocolate cake yesterday, I did go up – but only two points – from 63.3kg to 63.5kg. I think I’m finally starting to shed some of the fluid I’ve been guarding so jealously, but not enough – my feet were both very noticeably swollen this morning – and that’s as soon as I woke up, after a good night’s sleep with my feet up! However, I did get both my 1.5 kilometer walks in today, so who knows? Maybe that will help… Actually, I’m more concerned about my feet being swollen first thing in the morning, than I am about a few points of weight here or there, and if my feet are still swollen by Monday, I might have to take them to the Doctor (though why  I should take them to the Doctor I have no idea – it’s not as though they can actually do anything about them!)

Julian’s off to Adelaide for the day tomorrow – he’s meeting up with his sister for a last clear-up around the house, so I’ll be rattling around this place like a dried pea in an empty metal tea caddy – I’ll probably alternate between reading, playing World of Warcraft, and just generally doing what I’m so damn good at doing – wasting time! 😉 Sunday is Saint Valentine’s Day, and no doubt Julian and I will be busy questing, and hoping to pick up some worthwhile rewards, loot, and exotic goods for our Garrisons! 🙂 You may all be wondering why I put in a somewhat oblique comment about not writing for The Age, well, I’ll tell you! I’d just finished reading two articles, by two different journalists, and I swear, at one point I thought I’d traveled back in time to when I first started frequenting Bulletin Boards (the forerunners to forums on the Internet, right?!) There was a guy on Melbourne P.I.E. who wrote quite a lot of messages, and really, sometimes you had to read the messages two or three times, in order to be able to work out what he was talking about… because he never used punctuation, or capital letters. Well, one of the articles that I read in The Age this afternoon was like that! Four lines, and not a single punctuation mark! Remarkable… and the other article was probably worse, because the grammar was excruciating, and there was no attempt whatsoever to get words, spelling, or tenses into context! I tend to blame spell checkers, and cost-cutting practices – spelling checkers, because they don’t understand grammar, and they’ll judge a word spelt correctly, even if it’s the wrong tense, or in the wrong context – and cost-cutting practices because the Editor responsible for getting the paper ready won’t hire proof readers because it costs too much! I’m bitterly disappointed in The Age – once upon a time it was an esteemed and respectable publication – a Broadsheet reporting the “news”, as opposed to a Tabloid, which “reported” the gossip and the scandals – but I guess there’s no money in news these days – people only seem to want to read badly written and shockingly edited articles about who’s sleeping with what, or who’s likely to get the Republican Nomination for the next US election! I really don’t know which “news publication” I should look to now, if I feel like catching up with the rest of the world, and the really saddest part about it is – that no-one, not the Australian public, nor any other “public” for that matter, really care anymore – everyone’s too wrapped up in their own little smart-phone, social-media cocoons, or fighting to stay alive in war-torn countries – so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that no-one notices the bad grammar, or the shitful spelling, of journalists who should be sacked for the appalling work they hand in as being “fit for publication”! OK, end of rant! 🙂 Sorry about that, but I was just so… completely taken aback – aghast, even – at the sub-sub-substandard of those two articles tonight* that I just couldn’t keep quiet about them! My English, and my spelling ain’t all that crash hot, but I’m not a trained journalist working for a newspaper (of sorts, I suppose!) and at least I make an effort to get things right, and if I don’t know the name of something, or how to spell something, I look it up – and then I re-read and edit my writing at least twice, to make sure I haven’t mixed up my tenses, or put things out of context – and if I do make mistakes, it’s usually deliberately intentional (otherwise Julian points them out to me and I correct them as quickly as possible!) Anyway, that’s about it from me for tonight – apologies again for the rant – however do call in again tomorrow night – no more rants, I promise – just a fun read of all the news, chez nous (and all the mischief I got up to while Julian was in Adelaide! 😉 ) Until then though, please at least try to bee good, and remember, if you really want to do something, you’ll find a way – and if you don’t, you’ll find an excuse… however, don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather… but above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*no, I’m not going to put in a link to them – I’m too fed up with The Age to want to link anything to them!

Yes, yes… I know… I’ve gone and changed it all again! I don’t know – the last one sort-of irritated me for some reason, so I’ve just spent the better pat of an hour, looking for something better. This is a “Free” one, so it won’t cost me anything if tomorrow I decide that I don’t like it afterall – but for the moment, it’ll have to do – it was getting later and later, and I found that was constantly muttering “I’ll just look at another three…” (they display three Templates to a row, you see…) and then I found this one, looked at the time, panicked more than a bit when I saw how late it was, and thought “Uhhh… this one’s not too bad! Let’s see how quickly I can knock up a header!” – so using an old, previously used (and far too big!) header, it took three tries to get this one to a stage where I could live with it – so here it is! 🙂 What do you all think of it?

We went out on an “errand” this morning, and then went on to The Glen to do a bit of shopping. We’d run out of Flipper food, and as she won’t be allowed to eat her favourite pussy biscuits (or any pussy biscuits, for that matter!) for at least a couple of weeks – Vet’s orders – I would have thought maybe a few days, perhaps, until her mouth feels more comfortable – but the Vet doesn’t want to run the risk of her hurting herself, or damaging the stitches in her jaw – the abscess under that rotten tooth was so big, and had left such a large “crater” in her gum that it required several stitches! Poor Flipper – she must have been in a lot of pain! We queried the Vet on that, because she hadn’t shown any outward signs of pain or distress – and he said that with animals – and especially cats – if the pain starts gradually and builds up over a long period of time – as this rotten tooth and abscess would have done – they tend to be able to cope with it reasonably well – so… poor little Flipper – she’ll still have a sore mouth for a few days, but nothing anywhere near as painful as she must have been putting up with, and at least this pain will get better every day, until she’s pain free, at last! The Vet wants to see her again tomorrow, just to give her a check-up, so she’s going to be furious at having to go back to that horrible place where they stick needles in her legs, and thermometers up her backside, and chop lumps of fur off her tail, tummy and under her chin, but she’ll be coming straight home again, so she might forgive us, if we sit on the couch and pat her for, oh… four or five hours? 😉

I’ve decided that I don’t really like The Glen all that much any more – there’s not much there, really, and I don’t need access to Autograph or My Size shops – I think I’d rather go up to Knox City, which is just down Burwood Highway from our place now. Yes, The Glen is closer, but there’s much more store variety at Knox – they’ve got all the places we like to shop at – except for David Jones, which is at The Glen, but according to fairly reliable sources, they’re pulling out of The Glen, which will be a blow! I like shopping at David Jones – that is, when you can find anyone at a POS to take your money! It just seems a little bit more “refeened” than Myer, for some reason – and cleaner, somehow, and less “cluttered”… There’s also a Hardly Normal Harvey Norman and a Howards Storage World at Knox, too. But anyway, I digress! We went to The Glen, visited The Shaver Shop to get another packet of “sensitive” toothbrush heads for our Philips electric toothbrushes, and I had a look around for a place that sold inexpensive silver rings – I really need to get several “guard” rings, to stop all my rings from falling off and getting lost, until we can decide on exactly where to take all my “good” rings to be re-sized! My gold watch needs to have its clasp repaired, too – the hinge has “cracked”, and needs to be either replaced, or soldered (?) – or something! Unfortunately there weren’t any nice little “silver ring” kiosks there – well, there was one place, but the rings they had looked more like stainless-steel than silver – and there was nothing at all like the “Butterfly” silver kiosks that seem to be popping up all over the place – however, looking for that link I just added, I see that Butterfly at Doncaster has closed! I’m surprised, but not surprised, if you know what I mean – a lot of shops at Doncaster have been closing – apparently the shop rental is a killer, and according to one shop owner (who sold his business and moved out!) not only is the rental that Westfield Doncaster charge prohibitive, but Centre Management demand that if the Centre is open, your shop must be open too, whether it’s a Public Holiday or not! So I didn’t find my silver “guard” rings, but we did get our toothbrush heads, I found quite a nice nightgown with long sleeves at David Jones, and I managed to get the sort of “fancy box” I’d been looking for! 🙂 And then we came home, and had a well-earned cup of coffee! 🙂

Food stuffz: last night we had our slow-cooked corned silverside – and it was a beautiful piece of meat! Perfectly cooked, there was virtually no fat at all on it to have to cut off, and it was tender, juicy, and delicious! Plus there’s a lot left over for sandwiches, crispbreads, and wraps! the “perfect meal”, you could say! 🙂 With it we had mashed potato, made with low-fat, plain Greek yoghurt instead of butter and milk (and/or cream) sugar-snap peas, and half a tomato – store-bought, not home-grown – however! Julian just sent me this! Plucked from our very own tomato plant, just minutes ago! Isn’t it gorgeous! 🙂 He brought it in to show me, and it smells just beautiful! 🙂 For lunch at The Glen today – we ended up going upstairs to the Food Court because both The Arena, where we sometimes eat, and The Shingle Inn were both jam-packed solid! We’d managed to arrive right on the busiest part of lunchtime! Anyway, we went upstairs and had a ham, cheese and tomato toastie each – Julian had a muffin for dessert, and I had a …somewhat large-ish piece of extremely nice, moist, chocolate cake, with lovely, thick, sticky, gooey, rich, chocolate icing on it (why else do you think I chose it! 😉 ) He had a cappuccino, and I had a long black with a small container of skinny-milk… Tonight we’re having King Island Beef sausages, chips, probably some more sugar-snap peas, and we’ll each have half of that beautiful tomato that Julian picked a short time ago! I’ll let you all know tomorrow what it tasted like! I’ll be having one of my diet jellies for dessert… anyway, today I was really only naughty with the chocolate cake – so I don’t think I did too badly… I only got the one 1.5 kilometer walk in this morning, however I did walk the length and breadth of The Glen, two and a half times this afternoon – which should help with the large-ish piece of chocolate cake… well, hopefully, anyway! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Considering the mashed potato for dinner last (which I didn’t eat all of, by the way) I went up one point, from 63.2kg to 63.3kg – no doubt the chocolate cake today will pile on a few more points, but I’ve finally finished with those nasty little pills for a while, so what I pick up in calories from the cake, hopefully without those wretched fluid-retaining pills I’ll now be able to lose enough fluid to compensate! Well, that’s the theory, anyway! 😉 Let’s see what the scales say tomorrow!

So Flipper has a followup visit to the Vet tomorrow morning, there are still a few pictures to be hung (and the family crest rescued from the storage dungeon!) and I have a bit of washing to do – but apart from all of that, I should have a bit of time to get further ahead in WoW! 😉 I’m sorry that there are no photos yet of the pictures “in situ”, but we’ve been out for most of today, and there simply hasn’t been the time – besides, there are still a few pictures to be placed – but they will be forthcoming in a cuppla days, honest! 🙂 So, once again, that’s about it from me for tonight – please drop in again tomorrow night to catch up on all the latest news from chez nous, to get the latest Flipper bulletin, and to see just how much difference a small piece of chocolate cake with lovely, thick, sticky, gooey, rich, chocolate icing can make to a person’s weight! Until then, though, please continue to bee good, remember that art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it… and don’t forget to keep cool – or warm – depending on what the weather’s decided to present to us, to look after yourselves, and to drive carefully… but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Julian has just left to go and pick up Flipper, who by all accounts was the star attraction there at the Veterinary Hospital! She’s eating well, and seems quite happy, so they’re allowing her to come home – we’re not to give her any of her favourite “chewy” pussy biscuits just yet – so, sorry Flipper, but it’ll be “soft food only” for a couple of days, until your mouth is properly healed! It’s been terribly quiet around here for the past 24 hours without Flipper noisily demanding that “Daddy” drop whatever he’s doing, and go and sit with her on the couch in the Den so that he can pat her!  – I think I’ll almost be glad to hear her raucous yowls for attention again 🙂 Anyway, today has been what could only be described as “quietly busy”! I only had time to sort through Wynterthyme’s Garrison “Followers”, and send them off to perform other Missions for her, before it was time to “hang the pictures! (I’d rather play WoW!)” 😉 Julian had by this time cleaned most of the frames (which look a lot better for it, too!) so we started off with “Circe Invidiosa”, which we hung on the wall opposite the Den double doors, so that all I have to do is turn my head to see her (I think it’s about my most favourite picture, ever!) “Bert’s Bath” has been hung on the wall between the exercise room (I just gotta think of a better name than that for it! ♦) and my bathroom, leaving enough room on the exercise room side of the wall for two or three smaller pictures – I did think of putting “PB in his Floral Dress” there, but it’s a very colourful and “fun” poster print, and I think it’d clash rather horribly with “Bert’s Bath”, which is a “dignified” black and white photograph. The two Michael Parks prints have been hung in Julian’s office, behind his desk – where they look pretty stunning! We haven’t hung the gi-normous “Sunset over the Torrens” yet – I think Julian intends to hang it when he gets back with Flipper – but we’ve decided to move it from the wallpapered “feature” wall in the main corridor, to the stretch of clear, white wall opposite the Office entry. The two modern “Poppy” canvases have been hung over the couch in the lounge-room, and the copy of the Japanese screen painting of the “Portuguese Merchants Arriving in Japan” has been hung centrally above the camphor-wood chest, which is to the left of the television (if you’re sitting watching television, that is!) We’ve even hung the silver-gilt mirror above the hall table with the bronzes! I was originally planning on hanging it horizontally, but the placement of its “suspension” chain meant that it would have involved a lot of fiddling around to be able to do that, and even more fiddling around afterwards, if it turned out that we didn’t like it that way after all! Anyway, we tried it out in its vertical position (the way it used to hang in our bedroom in Doncaster) and it looked fine like that, so I decided that we’d leave it that way! We always had a couple of glass and crystal, sort-of New Age type “dingle-dangle” thingies, in Glen Waverley and in Doncaster – simply because the looked pretty – so Julian got a couple of suction cup hooks which he’s attached to my big bathroom mirror, and the glass and crystal, sort-of New Age type “dingle-dangle” thingies are now hanging from those, and looking …er…. nice? However, I’m not completely convinced that that’s the right place for them… I dunno – I expected them to look a lot more… something, but I sort-of feel that they’re wasted there… So, apart from the gigantically huge “Sunset over the Torrens”, I think there are only another couple of pictures here to find places for, some of which I’ve “bookmarked” possible locations for, and some, like our family crest which is still in storage, I have absolutely no idea where to put! Of course, there’s still a lot of art-work to go through, and we’re simply not going to have the wall space available to hang all of them – especially considering that we still have to have several acres worth of bookcases to find room – and wall space – for! No photos have been taken as yet – I’ll get Julian to take some when he gets home, and I’ll post the appropriate links as soon as I get them! 🙂

Food stuffz: last night for dinner we had cold cuts – there was turkey, pastrami (I thought at first it was corned silverside, but it was too spicy and peppery for silverside, so I’m betting that it was pastrami, which I love!) ham, and a type of salami, with a spoonful of (commercial) potato salad, and a spoonful of (equally commercial) quinoa tabouli salad, and half an ordinary tomato, and I had one of my diet jellies for dessert. For lunch today I had two Ryvita crispbreads, spread with Philly Light, with some of the left over turkey from the cold cuts last night, and some sliced tomato. Fruit-wise today I had one small apricot, and one small nectarine – and although it was next to impossible to extract the stone from the nectarine, it was quite delicious! 🙂 Tonight we’re having slow-cooked corned silverside, mashed potato, sugar-snap peas, and half a tomato, which I’m very much looking forward to – especially as there’ll be a nice lot of cold meat left over for wraps, or Ryvita, or even a (gasp! shock! horror!) sandwich! 😮

Weigh-in this morning. Was a trifle disappointing – when you consider the amount of standing around (which is really cruel to my back!) I’ve been doing, and the walking about (which isn’t), and my three treadmillometers per day (in two 1.5 kilometer lots though), as well as cutting out the wraps and the yoghurt – I would have thought that I’d have gone down a little bit more…  but I stayed the same as yesterday (so at least I didn’t go up!) and went from 63.2kg to 63.2kg – mind you, I took my last horrible pill this morning, so hopefully things will go better for the next two months, until I have to start taking them again! But looking at my weight graph, for approximately the last two months, the highest I’ve gone is 64kg (on January 28th) and the lowest I’ve gone is 62.3kg (on February 03rd) the rest of the time I’ve just been see-sawing up and down between those two weights! So, I guess that as long as I stay somewhere between those two weights, I can pretty much say “Mission accomplished!” – I’ve lost the weight, and I seem (so far, anyway) to be staying pretty stable between 63kg and 64kg – which in no way means that I can relax my game! I can’t ever afford to relax my game again – yes, I can “splurge” from time to time, because too much denial just leads to resentment, and that’s when you fail, and go back to where you came from – and I ain’t never doin’ that again, no-way, no-how!  I’m still getting the My Size and Autograph emails, and this morning I thought that perhaps I should remove myself from their mailing list, because I really hate seeing the pretty, smiling faces of the models, in those dumpy, horrible-looking clothes that I once thought were so nice – and I thought, “No! I need those emails! I need to have those images thrust in my face to remind me of what I was, and what I could very easily become again, if I’m not careful!” So it’s now my new goal – to stay as much as humanly possible between 63kg and 64kg! (and I suppose, having now said those words, tomorrow when I get on the scales, my wretched body will have sent my weight skyrocketing up to 64.8kg or something! Simply for the fun of seeing me crying and humbled! 😦 )

Tomorrow we have a few errands to run, and on the way home from those I want to stop off at the Storage place to see if we can pick up the family crest, and whatever other pictures we can find – I also need to get to a $2 Shop for a specific type of box, and maybe some drawer dividers (although Howards Storage World is probably my best bet in that department!) We’ll see, anyway… then when we get home, I suppose it’ll be back to walking and standing around again as we hang up some more pictures, so maybe Friday I’ll be able to get a bit of WoW-ing in! 😉 I also have to talk to Clarke about building our aviary – I’ve been looking at a few aviary plans and designs, and Josh has also given me some good ideas to incorporate into the final product – now all I have to do is draw it so that Clarke will have some idea of what I want! Yanno, I’m an artist, but for the life of me, I can’t draw a cube with proper perspective! Gimme a flower, or a face, or a geometric design of some sort, and I can reproduce it faithfully! Ask me to imagine, and then draw or paint, a face, or a flower, or to create a repeating pattern that “tiles” properly, and I’ll do a perfect job! But! Put a vase in front of me, or a building, and say “draw that!”, and it’ll come out looking like a very bad piece of abstract modern art! I’m simply not a designer, or an engineer, and I have absolutely no idea of metric measurements or distances. *sigh* Still, I’ll do my best… Anyway, that’s finally about it from me for this evening – I’m afraid you’re all going to have to wait for tomorrow to see where we’ve put our art work, as Julian’s had to go out again – he’s just remembered that he’s run out of his cereal, and he has nothing for breakfast tomorrow! But do call in again tomorrow, to see what we’ve been up to – and to see how Flipper’s getting on, now that she’s back home again – though until then, do try to bee extra good, don’t forget that science is organized knowledge, and that wisdom is organized life… and do remember to drive carefully, to keep cool – or warm – depending on your preferences, and to look after yourselves… but most importantly, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

♦the “Marathon Room”? the “D.D.”? (short for “Dull Dungeon”) the Mill Room?