So, what’s been happening today, apart from me trying not to burst out singing “When the Easter Bunny comes hop-hop-hopping along…” and nonchalantly pretending not to care two hoots, but secretly longing for tomorrow morning, to see if Mr. E. Rabbit Esq. has left anything sort-of a bit chocolaty for me… “I think that’s him, a-coming now! (anxiety bedewed her brow)”¹ You know, for a serious chocolaholic like myself, Easter Sunday – or as it is often referred to these days – “The Official Chocolate Eating Day”, is a day to anticipate and salivate for, all year – and of course last “TOCED”, I was in the throes of my Optifasting regimen! I just had to ignore the chocolate that surrounded me, threatening to overwhelm me, whenever I went into a shopping complex, and I’d grit my teeth, muttering my favourite dietary mantra: “This isn’t forever, next year I can participate too!” And this year, I can! 🙂 Yayyy! 🙂
This morning we did leave fairly early – Julian and I both had our “walkies”, and then we had our delicious Hot Cross Bun breakfast, and pretty much went off to do our shopping! Ferguson Plarre and the Supermarket first, then Bunny’s, where I got two small hand-basin sized “sink-strainers”, which… don’t work. After all that effort to get them, they’re just as bad as the pushmi-pullyu plugs! The pushmi-pullyu plugs are screwed into the plug hole, and due to a “design fault” (the whole pushmi-pullyu plug is a “design fault”, if you ask me!) the screw part causes an air-lock in the waste pipe, preventing the water from draining out of the basin… so if you’ve left the tap running while you’ve turned your back for even a few seconds, the fairly shallow basin very quickly over-fills… and you find yourself mopping up the ensuing flood! And as for the little “sink-strainers”, Julian says that the water going through the strainer part gets held back by surface tension, because the little holes are too small. We did find that unscrewing the pushmi-pullyu plugs almost to the point where you could lift them out, did help a bit – with cold water, anyway – though I’ve found, from bitter experience, that hot, or even warm water, makes the screw part of the mechanism swell – just enough to narrow the pipe even more, and make the air-lock it causes even harder to get rid of! The person who invented those pushmi-pullyu plugs should be tarred and feathered! (*grrr*)
I did get a fair amount of WoW-ing in this morning before we left – enough to get Wynterthyme’s Followers sent off on new Missions, anyway -and when we got home I got onto my second account and started leveling up Wïnter, my new character, who’s just reached level 10 (all in one day, too! 🙂 ) On the advice from my favourite eldest daughter, I’m going to level her up to 60 in the two Professions she’s chosen – Skinning and Herbaling – she’s already past 60 in her Skinning, and is quite quickly getting up there with her Herbaling. Once she gets to 60 in Herbaling, I’m going to boost her to level 90, to see how she goes with a Garrison to look after! 🙂
When we went shopping this morning, first of all we went up to “Burwood East One”. That, I learnt today, is the name of the large Coles/K-Mart complex on the corner of Burwood Highway and Blackburn Road. While Julian drove around looking for somewhere to park, I went and had a look to see if Ferguson Plarre had anything not too wicked that we could have as dessert for our Easter Luncheon tomorrow – all their stuff is excellent, so it was a tough choice! In the end I bought a very nice looking “Flourless Chocolate Cake”, and if it’s anything like their little, bite-size flourless chocolate cakes, it’ll be exactly what’s needed to finish off a lovely family lunch! There was also an equally delicious-looking “Chocolate Truffle Cake”, which I eyed off at first, but I decided against it for various reasons… one being that it was probably a bit too rich, after a big lunch. We’d decided to make our own salad, rather than a store-made one – Nandos do make a very nice Greek Salad, but we wanted to use low-fat fetta cheese, and we also had a lot of the salad ingredients at home anyway. So after getting everything we wanted from the Supermarket, including a box of “after dinner chocolates” (well, it is “The Official Chocolate Eating Day”, after all! 😉 ) Julian went to Nandos to order the chicken and chips for tomorrow, and we headed off for Bunny’s and Officeworks. Well, I did find my little basin strainers at Bunny’s, but as I said earlier, they were a big disappointment! I also got another non-slip shower mat, Julian got two hose-reels and some wood putty, and we finally got our kumquat tree tub! It’s a nice big, rectangular, off-white, fiber glass tub, with an embossed border vertically down one side. I hope our little kumquat tree likes it! I also saw exactly the sort of fish pond “mould” (I dunno – should that be “mold”? I looked it up in the dictionary, and it used both spellings in the same context, which just made me think that it was as confused as both Julian and I were! I always get “mold” and “mould” confused – sorry!) Anyway, I saw a black plastic in-ground pond shape “thingy” which would be ideal outside, under a spreading chestnut fig tree! It had ledges to plant pond plants and a deeper part to plant water lilies, and I reckon it’d look right purdy! 😉 Oh, I saw, and I bought (because we can’t find the other half of the one my favourite eldest daughter and her spouse gave me!) a very nice little desk-top fountain, which I’ll get Julian to set up on my desk later on. Then we went to Officeworks, where I got some more magazine holders, as all the ones I had are already full… And then we came home and had lunch! 🙂
Food stuffz: last night we had a very nice boneless lamb roast, with roast potatoes, roast pumpkin, half a tomato, and snow peas. All very delicious – the lamb was so tender it almost fell apart! For dessert I had some of the yummy Coles brand very low-calorie Rice Pudding – and I’d better start eating my figs and my Corella Pears soon, before they go off! While we were out this morning, we stopped at Ferguson Plarre for a cup of coffee (whenever I’m out, and wherever we end up having coffee, I always have a long black, with a small jug of skinny milk) and I tried one of their “new” lemon tarts, which was just as good as the rest of their fare, so today for lunch I had two Ryvita crispbreads, with low-fat ricotta cheese, and some chopped up left-over lamb roast from last night – extremely delicious! 🙂 Tonight we’re having – not the King Island Beef sausages this time, a new one – Cleaver’s Beef Sausages, which I reckon were on a par with the King Island ones! If you see them in the Supermarket, you really should try them! We had all the usual suspects with the new sausages – chips, half a tomato, and “something green”. I’m not sure what I’ll end up having for dessert – possibly one of my pears, if they’ve ripened up enough, and definitely one of my figs… We still have a few breakfast’s worth of Hot Cross Buns – I’ll be very sad when we eat the last of them – they’re really beautiful!
Weigh-in this morning. Well, from the look of my fingers and feet, I think the fluid might be starting to “retreat”, though from what my scales are telling me, you’d never guess it! At least I didn’t go up again today (I will on Monday though! 😦 ) I went from 63.2kg to 63.2kg… so I stayed the same, despite all the extra walking and exercise I’ve done over the last couple of days! 
Well, it’s better than going up again, I suppose…
Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day – the kids will be over between noon and 12.30 (unless they’re running late!) and the chicken is to be picked up around 12.45 (I think!) so from about noon onwards, I’m going to be so busy, trying to eat all of my Easter Eggs before the…. ! What am I saying! No! I mean I’ll be so busy enjoying having both of my favourite daughters together for a change! I wasn’t thinking about eating Easter Eggs at all! Hot Cross Buns, maybe, but certainly not Easter Eggs! 😉 (psst! Wanna buy a bridge? Real cheap!… only one owner…) 🙂 I don’t think I’m going to get much of a look-in at WoW – oh, I’ll prolly be able to organise my Followers and my Fleet, if I’m lucky, but I’m really looking forward to tomorrow, whatever the scales tell me in the morning! Anyway, once again, that’s about it from me for tonight! Do call in again tomorrow though, and find out how our day went, and whether Mr. E. Rabbit Esq. paid us a visit in the wee small hours of the morning (I hope he doesn’t make a noise and upset Flipper, who’s now taken to sleeping on our bed every night! You know, I don’t really mind her sleeping on the bed, it’s the lumps of long tangled fur that she leaves behind that bug me!) However until tomorrow night, please bee good, and leave a carrot out for you-know-who! 😉 remember to always do the right thing – it will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, and to always drive carefully… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
¹From: “King John’s Christmas” – with apologies to A. A. Milne!
My Word! 