Well, today was quite a busy day, despite the fact that Clarke didn’t turn up after all – it seems he had a slight touch of gastro, so he’ll be here tomorrow, instead. Perhaps. However, I busied myself with young Arisnoë, and finally managed to hit the magic level of 90! I quickly Abandoned all my listed Pandarian quests and took myself off to Draenor – which, let me assure you, is completely different – from a Horde perspective! When you, as an Alliance member, finally arrive in Draenor, you’ll see that it’s a green and (mostly) pleasant land, almost an idyllic setting for, say, Beethoven’s 6th symphony (the Pastoral), populated by strange looking Heffalumps, stinging butterflies, neon green wolves, and other such strange beasties. Lots of trees and flowers, tinkling brooks, pretty waterfalls – I think you get the picture. It’s pleasant, it’s pretty (not as pretty as Pandaria – nothing is as pretty as Pandaria!) and the quests aren’t too onerous. When a member of the Horde arrives, it’s on the other side of Draenor – it’s as bleak, cold, and hostile as the Alliance side is pretty, green and habitable. Instead of a neat, orderly, and dare I say it, almost civilised Garrison, where people sound “normal”, you get a makeshift, grotty, snow-swept camp ground, filled with tattered tents, smoky camp fires, and everyone either grunts at you in gruff broken English (the Orcs), or sounds like a Ferengi fugitive from one of the Star Trek movies! (the Goblins) The quests seem to be a lot harder (not helped by the snow-covered landscape and the gloomy, overcast weather) or maybe it’s simply because this time I’m playing solo, and not as a group. It’s turning out that as a solo player, I have entirely the wrong type of Pet – a Ghost saber-tooth cat that I’ve had and loved since he was a tiny little kitten (well, not really – Moonshadow was 21 when I got him, the same as I was – but you know what I mean! 😉 ) He’s trained for Ferocity, and he got killed about 25 times this afternoon… whatever we were fighting simply gave him one swipe, and he was dead – then they’d turn around and come at me! After I’d died about four times, I quickly learnt that as soon as my Pet died, I’d have to “Feign Death”, or face another death, and another long run back for my body. S’not fun! My favourite eldest daughter was over this afternoon having her hair cut, and she says I really need a Spirit Beast Pet, as they have a “self-heal” trait. I know of a couple that I can Tame, so I think that if I get time tomorrow, I shall go out and get myself one, and I shall train it for Tenacity, not Ferocity (I could train Moonshadow for Tenacity, but I think I need that “self-heal” trait, and the tougher and more rugged physical mass of a Bear or a Tortoise) At the moment, Julian is training up his Horde Deathknight, called Thuglet, so maybe we can join up later on…
Meanwhile, back in civilisation, Wynterthyme is still trying to get her Lumber Mill, her Storehouse, and her Mage Tower up to level 3 – but there are so many specific quests that need to be completed first, I can’t see it happening any time soon – still, the Mine and the Herb Garden are both doing very well for her, so I suppose I can’t complain too much! So now that Arisnoë has reached level 90 and has a Garrison of her own, and Wynterthyme (now at level 100) has no more experience-gaining constraints, I may be able to take her out on her own to see if I can complete these ruddy damn quests. Wynterthyme does have one Spirit Beast Pet – a rather strange looking cat with glowing aquamarine eyes, and a white body covered in different sized question marks! It looks like a large, white, cat-shaped version of The Riddler, from Batman – but I know there’s a Spirit Bear out there in World of Warcraft-land that shouldn’t be too hard to find and Tame, so I might see if I can get something a little “hardier” than a cat, with or without a self-healing trait!
Food stuffz: last night being Sunday night, of course we had an omelet each – Julian always makes extremely good omelets, and last night’s offering was one of his better ones! I had an apricot and another low-fat yoghurt for dessert, leaving one more apricot for tonight. For lunch today I had another two Ryvita crispbreads – this time with some of the basil-pesto hummus (yum! 🙂 ) a slice of sandwich ham on each crispbread, and a dob of quinoa tabouli salad on top. Once again, very messy to eat (the crispbreads always tend to break apart when you bite into them) but delicious. Dinner tonight was pan-fried chicken, “sea salt and rosemary” chips, half a tomato, and some very nice sugar-snap peas. Unfortunately, the apricot that I’d left for dessert tonight had “turned”, and I had to throw it out, but luckily I’d got Julian to pick me up some more apricots this morning while he was out, so I still got my apricot for dessert, plus a big bonus! Julian found a ripe fig hanging over our back fence this afternoon, so I had that too! And then I got greedy and had a Dark Cacao Chia Pod as well 🙂 (but they’re terribly low-calorie!) I’m still only doing one treadmilling per day, but now instead of just walking a distance – 1.5 kilometers – every morning (before breakfast) I’m walking a length of time – I was going to make it thirty minutes, but I’ve turned up my walking speed one notch, to 3.6 kph, instead of 3.4 kph – and I’ve found that walking at that speed I can do 1.8 kilometers in 30 minutes, or 2 kilometers in 32 minutes – so I’m doing the latter, or a total of 14 kilometers a week (or approximately 3.7 hours per week)* which should be enough to keep me healthy (I hope!)
Weigh-in this morning. Not too bad, considering what a naughty girl I’ve been! 🙂 I went down two points this morning – from 63.8kg to 63.6kg. Hopefully it might be a little lower again tomorrow – but I won’t grizzle too much if it’s not – I’ll only grizzle if I go back up more than two points! 🙂 Maybe I’ll worry another couple of points off, because of my visit to Dr. Y. on Wednesday… Not really much more to say about my weight, is there? I started on Maintenance in November last year, and since then it seems to have been relatively steady within the 62kg – 64kg range – so here’s hoping that that’s about where I should be!
I’m not too sure what’s happening tomorrow – Clarke is supposed to be here – but I’m not going to hold my breath! He was supposed to be here last week (or was it the week before? I fergit!) then today – well, he’ll either be here or he won’t – whatever! I’ll probably be working with Wynterthyme for most of tomorrow – and see if I can somehow knock some of those quests for level 3 buildings over… The air conditioning service man came today and found quite a lot of things wrong with our unit, which he’s now fixed, thank heavens, so we shouldn’t have to swelter too much if this horrible heat sticks around – although I must say that sitting out on the back decking this afternoon while my favourite eldest daughter had her hair cut was… quite pleasant! I must also say that Lee’s hair looks a lot better now – very, very short back and sides, with a little more length on top – Josh really is a very talented hair stylist! 🙂 Oh! Remember before that I’d said that Julian found a nice, ripe fig hanging over our fence, and which I ate as part of my dessert tonight? Well, he also found a beautiful big tomato on one of our plants – one of the heirloom ones, and although it’s not a ripe “tomato red” yet (it’s almost the same colour as the apricots that he got this morning!) he picked it and brought it inside, before the birds noticed it! 🙂 My favourite eldest daughter also showed me how to make a line graph – I think it may have to be broken up into two-monthly “sheets”, because otherwise it’s going to be too big to turn into a graph, and it’ll most certainly be too big to print out, if we ever do want to print it (which we probably won’t – but you never know!) So I’ve made a second start on my weight-loss record chart, and I’ve almost done two month’s worth of entries – who knows? I might even get it finished, one of these days! And on that note, that’s about it from me for tonight! Do drop by again tomorrow to see if Clarke did turn up, if my weight went up, down, or stayed the same, and how my hair turned out for my Birthday and for my visit to see Dr. Y. – both on Wednesday! 🙂 Until then, please try hard to bee good, don’t forget to begin doing what you want to do now – you are not living in eternity, and remember to take care of yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather… but above all, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
*Apologies in advance if the maths is incorrect, which it very well might be – maths has never been my strong subject!
My Word! 