Back again – reasonably early, and quite exhausted! I’ve just come from an extremely hectic, hour and a half marathon “battle” with the Blackfangs – brutish wolf-men, lightning fast, and as mean as they come – all Gold Elites, too! And you know what? We went up more than six bubbles in Reputation, and we didn’t die once! Not even when we fought their really nasty “Warboss”, who would split himself into three, and then re-form, making us lose our target on him – my poor Pet then had the onerous job of keeping him busy whilst we re-targeted him! He was a real horror to kill, but kill him we did, and the Reputation for killing him was more than worth the effort! Just killing that “Warboss” was  the equivalent of killing about twenty of the “ordinary” Gold Elites – I reckon we should go out and kill him again tomorrow! 🙂 Actually, I think our fighting technique is improving – it’s not taking as long to get one of these beasties down, especially if we’re only fighting a single one (which is very seldom! They always seem to come in packs of three or more!) I think the solution is to concentrate on one at a time – when you’re being mobbed by three or more, it’s very easy to panic, lose your concentration, or attempt to start fighting the one that’s snuck up behind you and is clobbering you from the rear – but you just have to ignore everything except the one in front of you, get him down, and then perform a sort of a mental “triage”, so to speak, chose the one who poses the most danger, and work on that one until he’s down – then rinse and repeat until you’ve cleared the area!

So what else have I been doing all day? Well, I found this Template – I sort-of like it – and at least it has a reasonably wide text column – hmm – but I’m not entirely happy with the Heading I made this morning – it seems to be “missing” something, somewhere… I’ll probably try and re-do it sometime this evening – I know I can do better…. Unfortunately I’ve been hampered all day with a [censored] sore right elbow – it’s been sore for weeks now, and I’m getting very tired of it – my left arm is sore too, but only when I try to move it sideways. I think it might be the arms on my chair – but anyway, I have to go up to the Doctor’s on Monday to have my blood pressure checked and to pick up a repeat prescription, so I’ll mention my arm and see what she says (it’s probably only “Tennis Elbow” and will be all better by Monday morning!) We did think of going off to have a look at fishes and fish tanks today, to see what sort we’d get, and what sort of a stand a larger tank would need, but we both decided that we’d rather go during the week. We’re also almost out of my coffee pods (I almost exclusively drink the Ciocattino ones) We decided we’d get them online this time, as the only place within reasonable travelling distance where we can get Nespresso Pods is Doncaster, so until they arrive I’ll have to be very brave and drink Julian’s, which is in a whitish-cream coloured Pod called “Vanilio”, I think. I was just looking at the Nespresso site, and according to their “ordering” list, they still have the really delicious, “Limited Edition” Ciocco Ginger Variation available! It’s like the Ciocattino one that I normally have, only with a strong ginger flavour added – it really is my favourite, so maybe we could get one or two “tubes” of that, as well as my “normal” coffee… (Winter looks sadly into her coffee cup, which is depressingly empty… *sigh*) We do have some more Dry Cleaning to pick up over at Doncaster, so maybe it would be better to get the coffee there when we’re out on Monday, rather than ordering it online… Ah well, we’ll see, I guess..

Food stuffz: last night we had chicken sausages, with chips, steamed snow peas, and half a tomato. Neither of us are quite sure what brand of chicken sausages they were, because when he gets them home, Julian usually re-packages them for the freezer, so that they don’t get the dreaded “freezer burn” if there’s too much air in the package – I’d like to know what brand they were though, so as not to make the mistake of getting that particular brand again – they not only put out a lot of fluid into the frying pan, but they also started to hemorrhage chicken “paste” out each end, which is not really a desirable occurrence! Still, they tasted nice enough, and I suppose that’s the important thing when making dinner. For dessert, I had one of my new Corella pears, and a slice of cake. I was a trifle dubious about the pears – they did feel very firm, and if I’d been going on feel alone, I would have said that they were definitely not ripe enough to eat – however, I cut one open, de-cored a piece, and popped it into my mouth. It was ripe! Still very firm, and not terribly juicy, but certainly ripe enough to eat – so I shall have another one tonight! 🙂 For lunch today I had a very yummy wrap in that nice Coles-brand “fresh-baked” flat bread – with basil-pesto hummus instead of butter, Halloumi cheese, ham, and freshly picked but moments before, sweet green capsicum batons! It was an extremely nice wrap! Every time I have a sandwich, or a wrap for lunch, I gobble it all down because it’s so nice, and then it’s all gone, and I feel sad that I didn’t eat it slower, and savour every bite – and I always tell myself that next time, I’ll eat it slower – and when the next time comes? I forget all about eating it slowly and just gobble it all down again! I think I’m just a glutton, in thin clothing! Tonight we’re having pan-fried chicken breast, on a bed of rice with finely chopped spring onions (hopefully home-grown!) and the ubiquitous half a store-bought tomato. For dessert I’ll reprise last night’s dessert, with a slice of cake and a Corella pear – though I am tempted… I’d asked Julian to look into dates and dried figs when he went out to do the shopping a little while ago, and he’s come back with some dates – both from the dried fruit aisle (supposedly pitted, or de-stoned) and some bigger and juicier-looking ones from the deli section (still with their stones, or pits) – but he said that he couldn’t find any dried figs! Anyway, it’s probably been more than 20 years since I’ve eaten a date, so I’m quite tempted to have one of the larger ones from the deli, even though I can only have one (they’re higher in calories than the pear!) I’ll let you know tomorrow night what I decide to do! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Was very disappointing! I went back up again – from 63.5kg, where I’d been sitting for the last two days, to 64.0kg, where I was the day before the day before yesterday – I was a most unhappy little Vegemite this morning – especially seeing as I’m going back on those wretched fluid-retaining pills again tomorrow! When I got on the scales this morning, I turned to Julian and said “See? I just don’t have any control over my weight any more! Why?!” – a largely rhetorical question – and a bit like the “does my bum look big in these jeans?” question – because there really is no “correct” answer – say “yes”, and you’re horrible – say “no”, and they’ll think you’re lying to please them! *sigh* Oh well, ten [censored] days of hoarding the fluid coming up… 😦

Which brings me to tomorrow – Sunday! A day for “Dashing Daringly around Draenor”, “Doing Daring Deeds in Draenor”, and “Dangerous Deeds Done in Draenor”, and so forth! 🙂 It’ll probably be more of what we were doing this afternoon – dashing around killing Gold Elite Blackfangs for Reputation points! However I think we’re going to do the Ahn’Quirj (pronounced “arn-Kirarge”) Dungeon after lunch – to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never set foot it in, and Julian’s only ever been in there once, so it’ll be something new for both of us! I’ll let you all know how we went, and whether we died or not! 🙂 And that’s really about it from me for this evening – what do you think of this new Template? Is it worth keeping, or should I keep looking? Don’t forget to call in again tomorrow night to find out what my weight is up to (though let’s hope it’s “down” to!) and how we fared in Draenor and Ahn’Quirj. Until then though, please try to bee very good, remember that a person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm – or cool – depending on your preference, and to always drive carefully – but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

04.42 pm

Well, here I am again, my hair all nice and bright again! 🙂 I absolutely love the colour, and I’ve been trying, not terribly successfully unfortunately, to think of the right way to describe it – yes, it’s red, but it’s an unusual shade of red – it’s not “fire-engine red”, or what used to be called “pillar-box red” (like the old post boxes) it’s more of an… oh, I don’t know – the inside of a blood plum, perhaps? Anyway, I think it’s gorgeous – and Julian likes it – I almost feel like going back to The Glen and scouting around to see if I can find the lady who came over and chatted to us the other day, so that I could say to her: “See? This is what it’s supposed to look like – do you still like it?”, and after a longish pause while she fiddled around in her handbag for her Peril-Sensitive-Sunglasses, and put them on, she’d say something along the lines of “Oh my goodness! It is bright, isn’t it! Yes, it’s a wonderful colour dear, and it really suits you!” – or words to that effect! 🙂 I’m going to try very, very hard to eschew all hair spray for the next couple of months, so that the colour won’t fade so quickly! Mind you, it’ll mean going out with messy hair, especially if it’s windy, but it’ll be worth it to keep the colour for longer! Thank you Josh – once again you’ve done a fantastic and superlative job! 🙂

I suppose by now you’ve all noticed that I’m using a second new Template in as many days? Well, every afternoon when I get onto Word Press to do my nightly scribbles (when I can actually get on to Word Press, that is! *scowl*) I always look to see if there’s anything new in the way of Templates – the one I was using last night is actually an old one that I’d used before, but this one is new, and it didn’t look too bad, so I thought I’d give it a go – what do you all think of it? I know that Julian liked the old one with the notepad and pencil theme, but I wasn’t happy with the line spacing on it – there was something about the amount of space between the lines that just… niggled me, know what I mean? And it didn’t seem to matter whether I used a slightly larger font, or a slightly smaller font, that annoying “space” still remained the same. This particular Template, however, is border-line, I suppose you could say – the text column is so damn narrow! One of the things I keep looking for in a Template is – how much area do I have to write in, as in what is the width of the total text column. What I would like to find in a Template is (a) the ability to make your own header, (b) a “Footer” for the Widgets (calendar, archives, etc.) and most importantly, (c) a three centimeter margin at each side of the “page” (read: “screen”!) with everything in between the margins as your text space – where you do your actual writing. I’ve been looking for such a beastie for years now – since before I even started keeping this blog – and I’m beginning to reluctantly come to the conclusion that alas – I’m never going to be able to find one, because they simply don’t exist! 😦 However, I’m an extremely stubborn old woman, and I’ll keep on looking for a wide text area blog Template until I’m too old to be able to write one and a half thousand words per night – so gird your collective loins, and prepare yourselves to be seeing a lot more abrupt Template changes, over the coming days, months, and years! 😉

I’m not exactly sure what’s happening tomorrow – I’d like to go off to the aquarium place to look at some larger fish tanks – so that we’ll know how big a stand we need to get  to support it safely – and that, of course, depends on how many new “friends” we decide would be appropriate to put in with Auric and Dapple. I think we should only get another two, for a total of four, but we’ll definitely need to talk to the aquarium people about that, as I have absolutely no idea whether fish get upset if you introduce a new fishie into their little world, or whether they’re territorial enough to fight any new fish that you put in with them. Crikey, I hope not! On a completely different topic, Mouselet and Wynterthyme have finished all but one of their bits of “pre-requisite” hoop-jumping to get their Draenoric flying licences – all we have left is the Reputation side of things – which isn’t going to be quite so quick – one of the Reputations we have to get only has a Weekly quest, instead of a Daily one – although you do get a lot more Reputation points for doing it than you do for Dailies, so, swings and roundabouts there – or you can go out killing lots of Elites in the right area – we did a bit of that last night, and I’m still aghast that we managed to knock off about nine of the blighters, in lots of three, without dying! I think you get 50 Reputation points per Elite, so it’ll either be a long, slow haul killing Elites, or a long, even slower haul waiting for the Weeklies! And on an associated topic, Bobranda, one of Julian’s first ever characters on World of Warcraft, gave Wynterthyme a beautiful and very thoughtful gift today! He made her a motorbike with a side-car, so now she can take Mouselet around with her, instead of him always being the one to take her around! The real beauty of that gift is that all of Wynterthyme’s “siblings” can also use it! 🙂 So, thank you very much, Mr. Randa! 🙂

And on to the interesting bits of today’s blog –

Food stuffz: last night we had what I’d thought were going to be the very last of the left-over and frozen packets of the delicious Lamb & Harissa Lasagne we’d had the other night – but as usual, I’d thought wrong, hadn’t I! According to Julian, there are still two more dinners-worth of it left! Talk about “value for money”! Well, it was still just as nice, and I’m looking forward to the next time we have it! For dessert we had a low-fat fruit yoghurt and a slice of Julian’s latest cake, which was just as delicious as I’d hoped it would be! Today for lunch I had a Baker’s Delight, sesame-seed crusted, whole-meal sandwich, with basil-pesto hummus instead of butter, and sandwich chunks of tandoori chicken – it was quite delicious! I know it’s disgraceful, but if I thought I’d be able to get away with it, I’d have had a second sandwich as well, it was so nice! Tonight we’re having chicken sausages, with either mashed potatoes, chips, or rice (rice might be nice tonight for a change!) and for dessert, it’ll most likely be another slice of the cake, and either another low-fat yoghurt, or another small bowl of Coles-brand, delicious, very low-calorie Rice Pudding, with a couple of slices of the peaches in natural juice on top. I’ve printed out another couple of recipes for Julian to try making, and just as soon as I get them transcribed, they’ll be available here for you all to try, if you’re game enough! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Was really very boring! I went from 63.5kg to 63.5 kg – which of course means that I stayed the same Still, I suppose it’s better than going up again! I’ve been remembering to take my anti-fluid tablets, too – although last night I was a really naughty girl and forgot to take not only my ruddy Warfarin, but everything else I’m supposed to take, as well, including painkillers for my arthritis! No wonder I woke up in the middle of the night with sore and arthritically aching feet! Oh well, I won’t forget them again – for another couple of years, anyway! The last time I forgot to take them was a couple of years ago, and I really knew all about it the next day, having missed out on the anti-inflammatories and pain killers – so I guess it’ll probably be another couple of years before I do it again!

Which brings me to tomorrow, and as I said, I don’t really know what we’re doing – I wouldn’t mind going to the aquarium shop, and I wouldn’t mind running around Draenor trying to get our last two lots of Reputation points a bit closer to “Revered” – but for now, that’s about it from me for tonight! Don’t forget to drop in again tomorrow night, and find out if we went fish tank hunting, or worked on our Reputations, or simply sat and twiddled our thumbs all day! 🙂 And of course, you’ll all be dying of curiosity to know which way my weight jumped! But until tomorrow night, I trust that you’ll all try very hard to bee good, don’t forget that every day you spend without a smile, is a lost day, and remember to look after yourselves, to keep warm and dry (or cool and wet if you feel like going for a swim!) and to always drive carefully… but most importantly, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

03.56 pm

Well, Word Press has finally decided to behave itself – for now! That doesn’t mean that I’m not getting the hell outta here just as soon as  can find a suitable blog host though! I went back and had another look at Tumblr last night, thinking that perhaps one of their “free” template thingies might make it look a little better – but I don’t think that’s terribly likely. Tumblr seems to have one very skinny column in which to write, and the rest is ads or rubbish that I don’t need or want – and yes, I am aware that I can pay for “Premium”, which will take away the horrible ads and logos – or so they tell me – but it’s just going to give me the same stupid skinny column in which to write, and a whole lot of empty waste space that I can’t use! Why is it that nearly all blog templates give you a mingy little column for your text, even when you put all your Widgets in the “footer” area!? Please don’t try to tell me that it’s to accommodate all browsers, all fonts, and all screen resolutions, because the program (or script) they use should be able to adjust automatically Oh well, I’ll keep on looking! I believe that it’s possible to run a Word Press blog from our own host or server – Julian says that we can run one from our file drive, where at least I’d be able to access it without getting cut off at the knees – but apart from that, I don’t know whether it might make things even worse (Visit Counter, access to new Templates, etc., etc.) However, as I said before – I’m still looking! (and whistling Dixie while I’m at it! )

This morning Julian took Mouselet out to do a bit of “general farming”, while I galloped Wynterthyme around Shadowmoon Valley and south Gorgrond, looking for Treasures! This is how these sorts of things usually go, when it comes to these “Farming” type sessions: it took me all morning to find 20 Treasures… it took Julian and Mouselet about twenty minutes to pick up forty of them! I think he’s now finished all his Treasure hunting (I last heard him very smugly crowing “99!”) while I still have about another thirty to go! S’not fair! *pout* Oh well, I’ll see if I can talk him into coming around with me this evening so that I can get the rest of my Treasures… cos I won’t get much of a chance tomorrow – Josh is coming over tomorrow morning and I’m having my hair re-coloured, which always seems to take “forever”, but looks fabulous when it’s done 🙂

Not very much else has been happening around here, though this morning I made the mistake of reading an article in The Age about how the (so-called!) “experts” have now declared that the evidence proving that smacking children leads to everything from diminished learning capabilities and mental disorders, to resorting to violence to solve problems when they become adults, is now considered to be incontrovertible. The thing that got me annoyed enough to send in a reply to this article was the fact that in one breath they’re talking about “a smack”, and in the next, they’re talking about administering “a spanking”. I felt obliged to ask them to please define a “smack”, as opposed to a “spanking” – because if they’re talking about a single, smart, not-too-hard “smack” to the fully clothed backside as doing all this harm to children, then I have to very strongly disagree with them. If, on the other hand, they’re referring to a “spanking”, where the child is upended over the adult’s knee, their pants pulled down, and a series or a succession of hard smacks are dealt to the bare buttocks, then they just might have a valid point. Anyway, to send in my reply to the article, I had to register with their Facebook page – which annoyed me all over again. I know that in this day and age you can’t be too careful about who you allow to write on your Timeline – but what’s the point of sending the latest post on your Parenting Page to The Age, for publication, if you’re going to insist that anyone interested in putting forward their views register on your Facebook page? After all, the person responding to your post has to be registered with The Age, in order to be allowed to reply to any article in that Tabloid – er, sorry, I meant “newspaper”! 😉 Whatever happens, I’ll be quite interested to see if anyone replies to my reply…

And now to some more interesting bits and pieces!

Food stuffz: last night for dinner we had chicken breasts, dipped in beaten egg and then in seasoned flour, then shallow fried in a mixture of olive and canola oils. The trick is in the seasoning you use in the flour! 😉 which is usually an ancient family secret, passed down from father to son, or from mother to daughter, for generations! I don’t know what herbs and spices Julian used (because it’s a secret, remember!) but whatever they were, the chicken was delicious! With the chicken we had green beans, chips, and the ubiquitous half a store-bought tomato. For dessert, I had another small bowl of the lovely Coles-brand, very low-calorie, delicious Rice Pudding, with a few pieces of sliced peaches in natural juice spooned over the top. Julian didn’t make a cake yesterday, he made one today, so we’ll both have a slice of that for dessert tonight. Unfortunately, I think my Corella pears are going to take another day or two to be fully ripe, so I’ll just have to be patient a while longer. Today for lunch I didn’t have another sandwich, I had a wrap, basil-pesto hummus, ham, tomato, red capsicum batons, and Halloumi cheese – very delicious, but also very messy to eat, as everything wants to fall out the other end of the wrap! For dinner tonight we’re having a reprise of the left-over Lamb & Harissa Lasagne with Feta and Oregano – I think it’s the last of it, but I’ll get Julian to make another one soon! As soon as I get the recipe for it transcribed, I’m going to post it, along with a few others 😉 to a new Page I’ll be creating, called “Recipes” – look for it in the top menu, real soon! For dessert we’ll have a slice of Julian’s new cake, which I believe is his version of the mixed peel one that I made last time – and we’ll both probably have a small tub of low-fat fruit yoghurt.

(ow! I was just trying to get comfortable on my chair and I banged my knee on the edge of the desk – *sigh* and another bruise is born! *pout* that’s the trouble with Warfarin – you bruise so terribly easily!)

Weigh-in this morning. Was much more betterer, because I did remember to take my second anti-fluid tablet at lunch time yesterday! So I went from 64.0kg to 63.5kg – down a whole five points! Those anti-fluid tablets are a bit like the proverbial “horse-shoe nail” – so many unwanted consequences arising from such a small moment of thoughtlessness and I’m very happy to be able to report that I did remember to take my second anti-fluid pill today! 😉

So that brings me to tomorrow – as I said, I’ll be starting early and having my hair re-coloured (I can’t wait, cos it’s looking a little faded and “wan” at the moment! 🙂 ) Hopefully my second short cape should be arriving tomorrow too – I got an email yesterday saying that it had been dispatched, and I think it only has to come from Richmond (well, Richmond is where the My Size “Seconds” shop is anyway, so I would presume that their warehouse would be somewhere near by…) But yanno, isn’t it always the way! When I bought that short cape, it was cold, and it kept me nice and warm and toasty, and I didn’t grizzle and complain about being cold while we were watching television that evening – which was why Julian told me to get a second one – and since then, it’s been too ruddy warm to need a cape in the evenings! It’s quite an annoyment! *frown* So anyway, that’s really about it from me for this evening! Flipper is well, Auric and Dapple are also well – it’s fun to see the way they swim over and up to the surface when I come over to their Fish Home – they know my shape, and that that’s the shape that puts dinner in their water, and they get all excited, coming up and blowing bubbles on the surface, waiting for their food! 🙂 For ordinary old goldfish, they’re really very pretty, especially Dapple (s/he’s the smaller of the two) with his or her little “silver dollars” on his or her flanks! Anyway, don’t forget to drop in again tomorrow night, to see how my weight’s going, whether my second short cape arrived, and how my hair turned out! 🙂 Until then though, please try extra hard to bee good, remember that freedom is not overcoming what you think stands in your way, it is understanding that what is in your way is a part of the way, and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on where you are and what you’re doing… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

09.43 am

I am so angry with Word Press that it almost defies belief – if I could find another semi-decent blog host I’d be outta here so fast they wouldn’t even be able to see my dust! When I wrote my blog on Monday night, everything was fine – no problems – all hunky-dory – but last night, when I went to write, I found that I couldn’t connect to Word Press – the page kept timing out – so I went and did something else for a while, thinking that everything would be back to normal in a few minutes. Half an hour later, nope, same problem. However, Julian could get to the site – and to my very favourite eldest daughter’s blog, and anywhere else to do with Word Press – it was only me that couldn’t – very strange! At first he thought it must be a “dns” problem (dns = domain name services – Google it, if you really want to know, but I’m too angry to fossick around for the information at the moment!) which does happen – though rarely – and is eminently fixable, but in this case, “fixing” it didn’t do anything – because the problem wasn’t the dns, it was [HEAVILY CENSORED] Word Press! We don’t know what they’ve done (their “Visit Counter” hasn’t been working properly for months!) but I can’t get to any part of Word Press at all, with anything other than Microsoft’s [censored] Explorer – which many years ago I vowed never to use again (it’s a long story for another time – maybe!) so not only have Word Press done something to prevent me from accessing my blog with any other browser than Microsoft’s Explorer, they’ve also made me break a vow, which is something that I will never forgive them for – ever!

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that yes, I am still alive, and no, I haven’t abandoned my nightly ramblings. We’re still working on the problem – I doubt that I’m the only blogger at Word Press suffering their latest debacle – and in the meantime, if any of you out there in Reader Land know of a decent blog host that has semi-decent themes and templates, or will let you design your own, please, please, let me know!

I’ll post this now, but will be back later this afternoon to fill you in on yesterday and today’s events! ciao for now – moi! 🙂

04.34 pm

This is just crazy! I’ve just tried to come back to add more to today’s writing, and once again, Word Press is being – is continuing to be – unresponsive and uncommunicative! It’s taking up to 45 seconds to locate my cursor, and over one minute to load the [censored] page! NOT good enough, Word Press! Today’s the last straw – I don’t really like Tumblr, but I went back to have another look at it this afternoon… and maybe… just maybe, it’ll be workable. It has free Themes as well as Premium ones (I wonder if they’re as expensive as the Premium Themes from Word Press!) When I do change my blog site (because now it’s not a matter of “if” I change my blog host, it’s a matter of “when” I move away from Word Press – I’m just fed up with them!) I’ll let you all know, OK?

Now, what’s been going on around here… yesterday, Tuesday, my very favourite eldest daughter came over, reasonably early, and we fairly quickly retired to the lounge room where we watched one episode of “Supergirl”, one episode of “The 100” (oooer! It’s getting really gruesome at the moment! The “bad” AI has taken over all the adults, another couple of favourites have been killed, and it’s not looking good for our young “tribe” of feisty adolescents!) another episode of “Orphan Black” (which is really an awesome show!) We had lunch, and then watched “Flash” and “Arrow” until Neale arrived to take Lee home – and by then it was dinner time, and that’s when I found out that Word Press had gone to live in la-la land and I got a little… upset with it.

After dinner (and television until 09.00 pm) Julian and I came back here to the Den, determined to start working really hard to get our Draenor Flying ability – and really, we’re doing terribly well! (well, so far, anyway!) There are five parts to it – the first is “Explore Draenor”, where you have to visit a certain number of places in each zone – we have completed this. Second, “Loremaster of Draenor”, in which you have to complete a series of quests in five of the seven zones (well, there’s Ashran as well, but I don’t think it’s a zone, per se.) – we’ve completed that, too! The third task is called “Securing Draenor”, in which you have to complete twelve “Assaults” on Enemy Strongholds around Draenor – we finished that off this morning 🙂 The fourth, which we’re two-thirds of the way through at time of writing, is called “Master Treasure Hunter”, which is in three parts: “Treasure Hunter”, where you have to find ten Treasures from around Draenor, except for the Tanaan Jungle (any Treasures will do – there are no “named” Treasures that you have to get in any of these three quests) “Expert Treasure Hunter”, where you have to find another 40 Treasures around Draenor (except the Tanaan Jungle) to make a total of 50 Treasures, because the first ten Treasures do count towards the total – they’re the “two-thirds” that we’ve completed. The last section is called “Master Treasure Hunter”, which is to collect 100 Treasures from around Draenor (once again, except for the Tanaan Jungle!) and again, the fifty Treasures that we’ve already collected count towards the total, so we only have another 50 to find! The fifth and final part of the grind to get our flying licences in Draenor, is called “Tanaan Diplomat”, and is the part that involves “Reputation”. You have to reach “Revered” status with three Tanaan Factions: The Saberstalkers, Order of the Awakened, and Hand of the Prophet… and as you all know, I finally reached “Exalted” with Hand of the Prophet, the day before yesterday, and was able to upgrade my Trading Post to level 3. Getting my Trading Post to level 3 means that I get an extra 20% to any Reputation that I earn in Draenor, and as I was already “Exalted” with Hand of the Prophet, that was one down, two to go (“Exalted” comes after “Revered”, you see 🙂 ) So we also worked on our Reputations today – so far I managed to tick off Hand of the Prophet, and I’m 71.4% through The Saberstalkers part, and 72.9% of the way through Order of the Awakened, so there’s not too much further to go before we can fly in Draenor! Not only that, but when Wynterthyme and Mouselet earn their wings, all of our other characters will be able to fly in Draenor too, without having to jump through all these hoops!

Anyway, on to the more important bits! 🙂

Food stuffz: yesterday for lunch I had a sandwich with basil-pesto hummus instead of butter, ham, low-fat Jarlsberg cheese, and tomato, made with the delicious Baker’s Delight whole-meal bread (did I ever mention that the crust is covered with sesame seeds? I love sesame seeds!) and for dinner we had re-heated left-over Lamb & Harissa Lasagne with Feta and Oregano, which was perhaps even nicer than it was when Julian first made it, because all the flavours had had a chance to permeate through everything! Delicious! 🙂 For dessert I had a small bowl of Coles-brand, very low-calorie, extremely delicious, Rice Pudding, with four little pieces of “peaches in natural juice”, and the very last piece of my cake (I’d though there was none left, but apparently I was mistaken! There was one piece still left over – not enough for both of us, but which Julian very generously allowed me to have last night – so “Thank you, Julian! T’was much appreciated!”) Lunch today was another ham sandwich – same type of bread – very tasty – with the basil-pesto hummus instead of butter, the ham, and this time the cheese was low-fat Halloumi, which I think is really one of the nicest cheeses you can get! Tonight we’re having chicken – I’m not sure how it’ll be cooked – probably pan-fried, with chips, beans, and the ubiquitous half a store-bought tomato. For dessert, I’ll have one of the Corella pears that Julian got yesterday, if they’re ripe enough, and either a low-fat fruit yoghurt, or some more sliced peaches on top of that yummy Rice Pudding. Julian didn’t make another cake today – we’ve been too busy working on our Draenor flying pre-requisites – but hopefully he’ll be able to make one tomorrow (otherwise I’ll have to make another one! 😉 )

Weigh-in yesterday morning. Was not good. I was most dejected… I went from 63.4kg to 63.7kg – up three points! I have absolutely no idea why – I haven’t done anything different, I haven’t eaten anything different – I guess my body suddenly just… felt like putting on three extra points of weight! I was not happy…

Weigh-in this morning. Was terrible! Well, it was partly my own fault, I suppose – when my very favourite eldest daughter is over, and we sit in the lounge room watching television, I don’t usually come into the Den until after she leaves in the evening, and yesterday was no different. And I forgot to take my second anti-fluid tablet at lunch time with quite disastrous results! I went from 63.7kg – which was bad enough – to 64.0kg! Another three points! Well, I most certainly remembered my second anti-fluid tablet today, but it’ll probably take a couple of days to get rid of the excess fluid that I retained by forgetting it – and what’s even more worser is the fact that I go onto those horrible little fluid-retaining pills again on Sunday morning! I’m not happy! 😦 What with the Word Press fiasco, and forgetting that [mutter] tablet yesterday, I’m in a definite “Oh! Woe is me!” mood! *scowl*

Which brings me, finally, to tomorrow… I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow – probably a bit more of the same as today, but not too much, because I know that Julian has a great deal of office work to do, and I’m also hoping that he’ll have time to make a cake. There are a lot of Treasures lying around doing nothing in particular in Shadowmoon Valley, and should be easy enough to find and get on my own (we have a special Addon which shows where all the Treasures are! 😉 ) The main reason we’ve been going around and getting them together is because (a) Julian navigates a lot better than I don’t, and (b) we can both get them at the same time which means that neither of us gets ahead of the other. It’s a type of Farming, I guess, and I’ve never been terribly good at Farming (I very quickly get too bored with it!) while Julian is a real whizz at it – so if he’s going to be “office-ing” tomorrow, I might just mosey around Shadowmoon Valley looking for Treasures – at least until I get bored, anyway 🙂 And that’s about it from me for tonight – I think I’ve pretty much caught you all up to date on what’s been happening around here – but do drop in again tomorrow night and see what we’ve been up to – hopefully I’ll have been able to set something up on Tumblr (or maybe not – last time I tried to organize something on Tumblr I just managed to get totally confused – we’ll see, anyway – but I am, truly, sick to death of Word Press!) Find out if remembering to take my second anti-fluid tablet has whittled my weight down a bit or not, and how much further we have to go to get our Flying licences in Draenor! Anyway, until then, please do try to bee good, remember that any progress that occurs is because some people dare to be different, don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on what part of the world you live in… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

09.37 am

Posted in a fury this morning for continuity’s sake. See above!

 

April 25th, 2016 – ANZAC Day – “Lest we forget…” (good one, channel 7! 😦 )

Only one more bubble to go! One more bubble to “Exalted” with Hand of the Prophet! I can hardly believe it! This time tomorrow, I might have my level three Trading Post! (Winter hums softly to herself: “One more bubble to ding… so shut up and grind (grind, grind, grind…)”) This morning Mouselet and Wynterthyme finished off the awful quest that they began last night – supposedly rescuing Arakkoa prisoners from Skettis. If this daily comes up again, I don’t think I’ll take it – it’s just too fraught! There are as many mobs as there are grains of sand on the beach – and as tightly packed – they’re lightning fast, and some of them attack in groups of five or more. They’re easy enough to kill – there’s no problem about getting them down, it’s just that there are so damn many of them! What you’re supposed to do is kill anything that has a red name plate over its head, and collect four keys from them. Then, you’re supposed to click on a very small round leg-iron ball at the end of a chain on four Arakkoa prisoners, who then join you in romping around a very small, already overcrowded and confusing area, freeing more “prisoners” – who also join you! Then you have to escort them across the compound to an NPC waiting outside, to complete the quest – all while fighting off the easy to kill, but frustratingly numerous mobs! The other fly in that quest’s ointment is the time you turn up to do it. The server, or realm, Quel’Dorei, is on the US West Coast, and because of the time difference between their PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) and our EST (on weekends and holidays especially!) it means that our evenings are usually their peak periods, and the place was not only crawling with hostile mobs, it was also overrun by other players! The keys that the mobs drop are not prolific – even the scrolls lying on the ground that we had to pick up this morning were as scarce as hen’s teeth – and it was often a matter of shooting at a whole lot of mobs that you really couldn’t handle in one foul swoop, but simply to “tag” them (so that no-one else could shoot it before you did!) We got ourselves into trouble quite often doing that – and don’t worry – all the other players were doing the same thing! The whole thing was a real nightmare! Picking up the scrolls this morning wasn’t too pleasant, either – same scenario, different objective – we did get through it, but there were a few very frayed tempers before we finished We worked on Dailies until lunchtime, when Julian went off to do a bit of real work, and muddled around a bit more with Wynterthyme, and completed another Fishing daily – I was going to go off and work with Arisnoë for a bit, but decided to start transcribing the Lamb and Harissa Lasagne recipe instead… but all that happened was that I got furiously fed up with Word, because it wouldn’t let me make “neat” fractions! You can get the ½, ¼, and ¾ ones, but you can’t make a 2/3, or 1/5, or any other fraction – and you can’t in Word Press, either! (*very annoyed look at screen*) I tried everything I could… you can sort-of kludge them by using Word’s Equations function, but they don’t line up properly with the other characters on your page, and they look clumsy and “not quite right”… so I went searching for a font that would give me all the fraction permutations I was after. Naaaah! Apparently no such animal – or font – exists! By this stage I was seething, hating and detesting Word from the bottom of my soul! Surely I can’t be – in fact I refuse point-blank to believe that I am the only person alive who wants to insert a “2/3 of a cup” that will match up with the “½ a cup” above it in the Ingredients list?! It shouldn’t be so hard! In this so-called enlightened and supposedly “educated” age, the “information” age, a program like Microsoft Word, that’s used all over the known world, should be able to create any fraction you can think of, just like that! (Winter snaps her fingers) I know that the world has largely turned decimal, but believe it or not, Microsoft, people do – every now and then – still use those archaic little anomalies called “fractions” – admittedly, not terribly often these days, but often enough to warrant inclusion in your oh-so-superior document creator, Word! So after a great deal of wasted time – wasted trying to find ways and means, or even a work-around, for inserting fractions into a recipe – I flung my hands up in the air in disgust, and downloaded LibreOffice Writer – which, by the way, is Free – and I’ll give that a go. It’s still not at all easy, putting in a fraction, it’s really only a modicum better than Microsoft’s stupid program – and it does take a bit of getting used to the way it looks (i.e. very “klunky” and “kludgy”) but… we’ll see how it goes… And that’s really about all I’ve had time to do today – so, on to the “important bits”, eh? 🙂

Food stuffz: Because last night was Sunday night, we had omelets for dinner – vegetarian ones this time, as we’d run out of ham and bacon, and I really didn’t think that cold roast sandwich beef would go all that well in an omelet… It had store-bought tomato in it, Halloumi cheese, home-grown spring onions, home-grown capsicum in it, and it was quite delicious! For dessert I had a slice of my cake, and a small bowl of the Coles-brand, very low-calorie, and extremely delicious Rice Pudding. Tonight we’re having chicken sausages, with mashed potatoes, half a store-bought tomato, and… home-grown green beans! Julian managed to eke another small bowl full of them this afternoon! For dessert, silly me forgot to ask Julian to get me some more Corella pears when he went shopping this afternoon, so I’ll just have to rough it with a last slice of my cake, and either a low-fat fruit yoghurt, or some more of the extra delicious Coles-brand Rice Pudding. Ah well, my very favourite eldest daughter will be over tomorrow – maybe Julian can pick me up some more pears then… (Winter thinks: “hmm… we have some peach slices in natural juice in the fridge now, thanks to my nagging – maybe I can have a few of those – with my Rice Pudding! Yeah! That’d go down a treat, I reckon!” 😉 )

Weigh-in this morning. Yet another surprise awaited me when I stepped onto the scales this morning! I went from 63.2kg… to 63.4kg! I went up two points! (down one point, up two – down two points, up one – bounce, bounce, bounce!) It’s almost as good as playing Snakes and Ladders, except without the rolling the dice, to see how far you move! No rhyme nor reason – just the luck of the snake scales, in this game of weight and see!

Which brings me to tomorrow, and the arrival of my very favourite eldest daughter! We should have some more of “The 100” to watch, plus at least one episode of “Supergirl”, and one of “Orphan Black”, as well as “Arrow” and “Flash”, so we should be kept well occupied in the loungeroom tomorrow! 🙂 The fishies, Auric and Dapple, are doing very well so far, and really, neither Julian nor I have the heart to put them back into the outside pool when it’s finally clean enough and ready, after all they’ve been through. The small pond out the front will get some plants, and some water snails to help keep it clean, and the larger pond that will be going in the back yard will get a fountain of sorts – possibly a waterfall one – some plants, and probably a few fish as well – if we do put fish in it we’ll put some sort of discrete netting over it so that the birds won’t be able to get at them – but Auric and Dapple will remain indoors with us – we’ll get them a nicer, bigger tank, with gravel in the bottom, some sort of rocks or whatever, so that they can play “hidey”, and some nice little plants. Anyway, that’s about it from me again tonight – don’t forget to call in again tomorrow night to find out what Lee and I watched, what tricks my weight played on me in the morning, and how Wynterthyme is going with her “Exalted” Reputation! 🙂 Until then, however, please try to bee good, remember not to strive to be a success, but rather strive to be of value, and don’t forget to keep warm – or cool – depending on whether you’re going to be indoors or outside, to look after yourselves, and to always drive carefully… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.24 pm

Well, I’m starting this a little earlier than I expected to be this afternoon, which is good – but it’ll probably still end up as a two-parter (in other words, I don’t think I’ll finish before dinner time!) We’ve had a good day today, both in “The Black Temple” – the 25-player Dungeon from the Burning Crusade expansion that we ran this morning – and in Draenor this afternoon, starting out on our own personal quests to achieve flying capabilities! Running around the countryside trying to farm minerals, trees, and herbs is a pain in the proverbial, from either Cat or Wolf-back, and running around enormous chains of mountains to find a way up is the absolute pits! We’re actually not too far away from completing the pre-requisite “tasks” for flying in Draenor (“tasks”, because they’re not really quests, per se.) First of all, we had to go through the six zones (areas) and thoroughly “Explore Draenor” [“tick!” √] Then we had to complete all the story-lines for five of these zones, to finish “Loremaster of Draenor” [“tick!” √] Next, we had to complete twelve “Bonus Objectives” – they’re sort-of quests, but they’re not given to you by a quest giver – they usually just pop up when you enter an area – usually an area where you do have a specific quest to complete (though not always!)  And they do actually “pop-up” at you! All of a sudden the words “Bonus Objective” will appear on the screen in front of you, with a very brief explanation of what it is you have to do (like “kill 25 Iron Horde Snake Charmers”, or whatever) and there’s a little bar graph thingy under it that shows you what percentage of the task you’ve completed. Anyway, we had twelve of those to do, and we’ve completed four of them – so no ticked box for that one yet! Only another eight to go… 😉 After that, there’s “Master Treasure Hunter”, in which you have to discover Draenor Treasure (excluding the Tanaan Jungle, for some reason!) The first one is just called “Treasure Hunter”, and you have to find five of them. The next is called “Expert Treasure Hunter”, and you have to find fifty of them, and lastly, “Master Treasure Hunter”, where you have to find one hundred treasures… now at time of writing, I don’t know whether it’s accumulative (find 10, you’re a Treasure Hunter, find another 40 (to make 50) and you’re an Expert, then another 50 to make 100, and you’ve finished the task) or whether you have to find ten, pretend you haven’t, and go out to find fifty, and then forget about them, and go looking for 100, making a total of 160 treasures. I dunno… anyway, at least I’ve done the first part, and found ten of the blighters, so I’ve done one-third of that particular “task”. Looking on the bright side though, you can get “treasure maps” – either from “drops”, or I think that you may be able to buy them (for a really exorbitant price, of course!) And last, but not least, you have to gain a “Revered” Reputation with three Tanaan Jungle factions. That should be pretty easy, really – I’m already “Revered” with “Hand of the Prophet”, and in fact only two and a bit bubbles away from “Exalted” with them, and I’m also extremely close to “Revered” with the other two, thanks to all the Dailies we’ve been doing there (and to think! I thought I was doing those Dailies for the 600 Barrels of Oil that I got from doing one of them! 😉 ) And according to the Guide, when we’ve done all of that, we should be able to fly! (I can’t wait!)

And that’s pretty much how we spent our day today – neither of us died, doing the Dungeon was really a lot of fun – it’s really sooo much more nicer, being able to waltz on in and actually see the Dungeon, instead of spending every second fighting for your life! When Burning Crusade was first released, it was the last Big End Battle, against the last Big Scary End Boss, Illidan Stormrage – later on, Blizzard added a secondary Dungeon after it, but it isn’t – or wasn’t – a twenty-five player Dungeon for levels 58 to 70, without good reason! Of course, all the big scary mobs were no match for us Big Scary Level 100’s 😉 and we mowed them down like nine-pins – even Illidan himself! And all of the loot – so precious at those lower levels – was useless to us, and it just goes against all your instincts to just…. Vendor it, as trash! Anyway, that’s another “old Dungeon” done and dusted, and under our belts – and fantastic to be able to see everything in them, untroubled by pesky little mobs trying to kill you all the time! 🙂 I’m not sure what we’ll be doing next Sunday, but there is one Dungeon I’d like to see the inside of – the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj! I’ve heard so much about it, and never even had a peek through the front door, so to speak! Maybe… anyway, I think I should have reached “Exalted” with Hand of the Prophet by then, which will allow me to upgrade my Trading Post to level 3, which in turn will allow me to get a bonus percentage on my Reputation points, so we can get through more of the pre-requisite Flying quests and Achievements!

Anyway – as I suspected before I started writing this afternoon, tonight’s blog will have to be a two-parter, as dinner is almost ready! Back soon! 🙂

09.48 pm

Right – back again, and it’s time to move on to the important bits of the day’s doin’s!

Food stuffz: last night we had Lamb & Harissa Lasagne with Feta and Oregano – a recipe wot I found in the latest “Delicious” magazine, on an Ardmona ad page, of all places! It was really delicious, and there was tons left over, which Julian put in the fridge overnight and has now carved up into portions which he put into the freezer this morning – there’s enough for at least another two meals out of it! I’m going to transcribe and print the recipe (it didn’t scan very clearly!) and we’ll laminate it, as the recipe is a definite “keeper”!  It does call for an awful lot of Harissa, which can be pretty fiery – but just like the Persian Lamb Pilaf, which called for so much cinnamon that we were a bit dubious that the Pilaf would be edible, there’s so much of everything else in the mixture that you really don’t notice it – in fact both the Pilaf and the Lasagne would have been pretty boring without it! Yes, it was a bit spicy, but not overly so – I really don’t like over-spiced food, but that Lasagne last night was just about perfect. For dessert last night I had a slice of my cake, and my last Corella pear, which as it turned out, did benefit from me leaving it to ripen for another day. I’ll have to get some more in on Tuesday, seeing as tomorrow is a Public Holiday! Today for lunch I had another sandwich made with Baker’s Delight whole-meal bread, this time with basil-pesto hummus instead of butter, tandoori chicken sandwich chunks, and slices of Halloumi cheese – most delicious! And of course, tonight being Sunday night, we had omelets for dinner – vegetarian ones this time, as we’d run out of ham and bacon, and I didn’t really think that sandwich sliced cold roast beef was really “omelet-y”! As a matter of fact, I thought that the plain, “vegetarian” version was maybe a bit nicer, with the taste of the Halloumi cheese a little more noticeable. For dessert, I had another slice of my cake, and a small dish of the totally yummy Coles-brand, very low-calorie Rice Pudding. Alas – there’s only enough cake left for a small slice each tomorrow night – and then it’s Julian’s turn to make the cake again, as I’ve made the last two! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Was quite surprising! I was really quite worried as to how much weight I might have put on, after the caramel slice I’d eaten on Friday, and the Lasagne I’d consumed last night – so my eyebrows shot up a bit when I got on the scales this morning! I reiterate – I don’t seem to have any control over what my weight does anymore – I went from 63.3kg to 63.2kg – down one point! Not that I mind, of course, it’s just that I don’t understand it! So, here I am again, bobbing around in the choppy waters of the weight and see, in the bottom half of the 63kg zone… I wonder what it’ll be tomorrow morning!

Tomorrow should be a fairly quiet day – I’d like to get some more work done with Wynterthyme, but I suspect that Julian will want to take advantage of the Public Holiday and get a bit of  -hopefully uninterrupted, for once – office work completed – in which case, I shall continue to work on Arisnoë, and try to get her a bit closer to level 98. And that, gentle readers, is about it from me for this evening! 🙂 Do call in again tomorrow night to find out how our day went, and what my weight decided to do, as well as lots of other bits and pieces of both interesting and boring trivia! Until then though, please do try to bee good, remember that the most important things in life aren’t things, and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to keep warm – or cool – depending on your mood, and to look after yourselves… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.43 pm

Well, here I am, finally! Some family friends from Adelaide dropped in a while ago – mainly to drop off some boxes from the old house there – they didn’t stay long, only about ten minutes, but of course, not knowing how long they’d be here, we’d run around like chooks with their heads cut off, tidying the house and making sure it looked “nice”, and worrying that we didn’t have anything to offer them other than tea or coffee. Anyway, they’ve dropped off the boxes, filled us in a bit about the renovations that are currently taking place at Julian’s old place – it sounds most interesting! Apparently they’re making some really radical changes to the layout – but it sounds like it might be a huge improvement. Melissa, Julian’s sister, is keeping in touch with the new owners, so hopefully we may be able to learn a bit more from her. I’d really love to go and see it when they’ve finished, but… I doubt that we’ll be able to.

Now, the reason I didn’t get anything written last night is because my Podiatrist didn’t get here until about a quarter to six, and by the time she left, it was pretty late – just as well we were having the reasonably quick-cooking pan-fried chicken last night! We were out most of the day, too – I had to have my Warfarin blood test done – all is well in that department, my INR has gone down a bit from what it was last time, my dosage is staying the same (5mg Monday to Saturday, 4mg Sundays), and they want me to have another test in a fortnight. Ho-hum! After that we went off to Glen Waverley, to see if we could get my name changed on my Medicare card. That was quite straightforward, and we should get our new cards within a week or so. For some unknown reason, I’m on Julian’s Medicare card, and he’s on mine, so we’re both getting new cards! Then we went on to The Glen, to go through the same process at BUPA, and once again, we can expect our new cards within a week or so. Now all we have left to change my name on are my Passport, the Tax Department (for my Tax File Number) the Electoral Roll – ‘specially as it looks like we’ll be having a Federal Election within a few months and of course, a couple of Shares Registries… Anyway, by the time we’d finished with BUPA, and been to Target to get a pedestal fan – er… “why does she want a pedestal fan at the beginning of winter?” I hear you all muttering – well, it’s because when I’m doing my treadmilling in the morning, I get hot, even though I walk in my undergarments. Just uncomfortable hot, not sweaty hot, but before I turn the machine on, I hop up onto the belt, open the window, and turn on my remote control Dyson fan. Yes, on, off, temperature and speed, can all be controlled manually, or by remote control – I love it! 🙂 I originally got it for the bathroom over at Doncaster, which because it was in the middle of the apartment, got either blisteringly hot in summer, or freezingly cold in winter, and that fan was fantastic! When we moved here, it was the middle of winter, and once again, I relied on the fan to keep me warm in that dreadful old bathroom before all the renovations. However, by the time they were finished, it was high summer – the bathroom stayed fairly cool, but I desperately needed the fan in the Treadmillery, where my hands would get so slippery with sweat that I was afraid they’d slip off the treadmill’s handle bars, and I’d end up in a melted puddle on the floor. So we brought the fan in, and set it up so that when I started to get too hot, I could just touch the remote control and have a lovely, cool breeze blowing on my face. But now that it’s starting to get cold again, I need the fan back in the bathroom – so rather than buy another (rather expensive!) Dyson, we thought we’d get an el-cheapo pedestal fan from Target – on sale now that it’s no longer summer – and a third-party remote control with which to turn it on and off – alas, no speed or temperature controls on this one, but on and off is all I really need to keep me cool. So after BUPA, we went to Target, and got our fan for the vast sum of… $12.00! I then wanted to have “a quick look” in My Size, because I’d seen their new May Catalogue just that morning, and they had what looked like an extremely nice short knitted cape – with arm holes in it so that you didn’t have to fiddle with openings and what-nots. There was one in their window, so we went in to see what they were like close up – now, I’d received the email Catalogue earlier that morning. This was new stock – never before seen in My Size – and they only had two left, including the one in the window! I said I’d like to try it on, and the one in the window was the only “Small” one they had. I tried it on. It looked fabulous, so not only did I get it (and wore it!) but Julian said that seeing they were selling so quickly, I should order another one online when I got home (so I have!) A spare to wear when the other one’s at the Dry Cleaners! I actually wore it last night while we were watching Grantchester, and it was the first time I’ve been able to sit in the loungeroom in autumn (or spring, or winter!) without shivering with cold! It’s a lovely cape, and it looks really smart, too! 🙂 So by the time we’d done all of that and were coming down the escalator again, my knees were beginning to feel distinctly “rubbery”, and I decided that maybe I should sit down for a bit. Last time we went up to see the doctor – just to get a repeat script – she took my blood pressure and was a bit taken aback that it was very low! She told me that I should go back and have it tested again the following week, which of course we didn’t do. I had been intending to, but life sort of got in the way a bit, and then I forgot about it – until yesterday! I shall definitely go back next week to have it tested again. The doctor seemed to think that I’d lost so much weight that I probably didn’t need to be on blood pressure medication any more… so we’ll go and see what’s what – the “rubbery” knees may have been simply because I was in desperate need of a cup of coffee! 😉 Well, we were right in front of The Shingle Inn, so we decided to have lunch there as it was pretty close to lunch time. We’d just about finished eating, when an elderly lady came up to us (elderly? So what does that make me? She was probably only a couple of years older than me! ) She apologised, but wanted to know if I was of European descent – and so we got talking. I told her that I wasn’t, but my father was Italian – then there was a bit more conversation – quite a lot more conversation, actually – but the upshot of it was that (a) I looked Jewish (no, I don’t have a big nose!) (b) I was a truly “free spirit” (which I suppose I am, really…) and (c) (Josh, you should get a bit of a smile out of this!) she loved the red streaks in my hair – they really suited me, blah, blah, blah… I told her that they’d faded a lot, but that I was having them re-done next week 🙂 Then she said that she was running late to meet her cousin, and off she went, leaving Julian and I both feeling a little bemused by the encounter!

erm.. my dinner’s ready… back soon…

09.08 pm

Back again… Where was I? Oh yeah – the strange lady who came over and chatted to us. It’s truly amazing how many people like my hair colour! 🙂 Anyway, we had lunch, did a bit more shopping – my knees weren’t feeling “rubbery” any more, thank goodness – and we came home. I sat down at the computer, checked Wynterthyme’s Followers and her Fleet, quit, and started on some editing work for a sort of an “ye olde blog word lyste” type of thing (names, expressions, spelling, to save having to look things up all the time) I’d been meaning to do it for ages, and I was just getting stuck into it when Julian walked past the Den door saying “Don’t forget the Podiatrist will be here in about twenty minutes!” – well, of course I had, so I hastily saved all of that and thought “I’m so tired – I’m never going to get my blog written tonight!” – and sure enough, I didn’t! Sorry! mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, and all that… but better late than never, eh? 🙂 So, now to the important bits…

Food stuffz: yesterday for lunch at The Shingle Inn, I had my usual BLT on Sourdough bread (toast, really) a long black with a little juglet of skinny milk, and a gorgeous, sticky, gooey, delicious caramel slice – it’ll take me at least a fortnight on the treadmill to work it out of my system, but it was worth every single sinful and gluttonous bite! 🙂 Dinner last night was pan-fried chicken breast on a bed of steamed rice that was flavoured with finely chopped home-grown spring onions, and our usual half a tomato. For dessert I had a slice of my cake, and a low-fat strawberry yoghurt, instead of my Corella pear – I thought I’d give it one more day to ripen properly. Today for lunch I had a really delicious sandwich – rather a small one really, because the Baker’s Delight whole-meal bread loaf seemed to be quite a bit smaller than usual – with cold sliced roast beef (sandwich roast beef, that is, not really-truly roast beef!) with Beerenberg Tomato and Cracked Pepper Relish (which is really yummy!) and low-fat Halloumi cheese, and for dinner tonight, Julian made (for the first time ever!) a recipe I found in the latest “Delicious” magazine, called “Lamb & Harissa Lasagne with Feta and Oregano”. I saw it in the magazine, and although we both looked for the recipe online, we couldn’t find it – probably because it seemed to be part of an Ardmona ad! In the end he had to scan it to be able to print it out, but it’s not a very good scan so I’ll have to transcribe it, so that we can print it out properly and laminate it – this one is a definite keeper! It was totally scrumptious! That’s what we had for dinner, and because it freezes so well, there are three more small meals of it left, so it’s also damn good value for money! Once I’ve transcribed it I’ll put a link in the blog to wherever I put it, OK? It’s easy to make, too… And for dessert, I had my last Corella pear – I was quite right to have left it to ripen for another day – and another slice of my cake.

Weigh-in yesterday morning – Friday the 22nd. I went up two points, from 63.1kg on Thursday, to 63.3kg. This morning, Saturday the 23rd, I went from 63.3kg to 63.3kg – that is, I stayed the same… so it looks like I’m back to the gentle yo-yo bounce, up a couple, down a couple, up one, down two, bounce, bounce, bounce – as long as I don’t fluctuate up and down too drastically, I’ll stay happy! 🙂

And so to tomorrow, Sunday! Of course, being Sunday, it’s our “The Dashing Duo’s Day in Draenor”, or “The Daring Dungeon Duopoly” – or whatever else we decide to do tomorrow, for a change 😉  Whatever we decide to do though will be a lot of fun – however, the usual warning applies – “Warning! Blog contents may settle be a bit late” – depending on what time we finish! Julian has flushed out the small pond in the front garden, and it’s absolutely amazing what a difference it’s made! The water is actually clear, for a change, and you can see the bottom! He’s taken all the stones out – they’ll need to have a bit more of a thorough scrub, but not all of them will be put back – apparently there were far too many of them? He’s also put some “anti-fungal and anti-algae” stuff in the water, which is still going to have to be flushed and re-filled a few more times to get it really back to what a pond should be like, and because there used to be an underwater light in it (but which had sprung a leak and died) he’s put in a new one. I haven’t seen it at night yet – it’s supposed to be a blue light, but when I saw it inside, it looked to be different colours depending on what angle it was on! So it’s unusual, and pretty! 🙂 And that’s about it from me again this evening – sorry it’s so long, but there was a lot to tell you all! Don’t forget to drop in again tomorrow night for a much shorter missive – and find out what we did, what my weight did, what Auric and Dapple are up to, and whether Flipper has noticed them yet! Until then though, do try very hard to bee good, remember that the measure of who we are is what we do with what we have, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

12.37 am

Sorry! I got caught up! Will tell all tomorrow – promise! (*cheesy grin*)

04.37 pm

I’ve only now come in from the kitchen, where I’ve just finished making my cake… with a few hiccups. I wanted to make this one a “citrus-y” one, with orange zest, mixed peel, and almond extract. I got everything ready, whizzed all the ingredients except the flour and the orange zest around in the food processor, sifted the flour into a bowl, and popped the orange zest in with it, to await the nice slurpy mixture from the food processor. I said to Julian “I’ll want the mixed peel in a minute,” and he said “What mixed peel? You should have told me earlier, and I would have had it ready!” So he went looking for the mixed peel. I looked for the mixed peel too. But despite me remembering that I’d put a packet of mixed peel in the trolley, the last time we went shopping together, it had apparently vanished, as completely as an iceberg about a week after it had floated into the tropical waters of the Bahamas! By this time I was a trifle put out! Julian seemed to think I was going senile or something, and I was equally as positive that I’d grabbed the packet of mixed peel off the supermarket shelf with a self-satisfied smirk, and put it in the shopping trolley – and in the meantime, the cake was rapidly going nowhere! Julian stomped off to drive up to the shops and get some mixed peel for me, and I fretted and fumed over the loss of the mixed peel. When he got back, I re-whizzed all the stuff that was still sitting forlornly in the food processor [small interlude: the kitchen timer just went off, telling us that the cake was probably ready – I dashed off to the kitchen, and guess what! We couldn’t find the skewer that we use to test cakes etc.! In the end, I had to use a small, sharp knife! The cake, however, wasn’t ready… the timer has been put on for another five minutes. We will now return you to your normal reading…] poured it into the flour and orange zest, and started mixing! When everything looked well combined, I poured half the mixture into the prepared cake tin, and scattered small handfuls of mixed peel over the top of the batter, trying hard not to get any on the sides of the tin, then we poured the rest of the mixture over the mixed peel. I say “we” because Julian had to help me by turning the cake tin around as I stood there pouring. The glass mixing bowl is quite heavy, and thanks to arthritis, my hands aren’t quite as flexible and as dexterous as they once were Anyway, the cake was finally ready to go in the oven! Naturally the kitchen timer went off again, just as I finished the small interlude above, and I had to dash off again to re-test the cake with the small, sharp knife. And Julian is indeed right! We do need more than one rather small skewer in the kitchen! I shall add them to the shopping list right now! Done! Well, the small, sharp knife came out clean this time, meaning that the cake was ready, so we tried to turn it out onto the cake rack… nope, it liked being in the tin. We gave it a bit of a sharp shake downwards, to loosen it, and tried again. The cake said “I’m comfortable where I am, thank you very much – I’ll stay in here where it’s nice and cosy and warm!” We shook it again – a little harder, this time. The cake said “Zzzzz…” from its nice, warm tin. Well, we gave it quite a hefty jolt downwards, almost slamming it down against the heavy chopping board that lives on the kitchen bench, and this time, Julian felt something “give” a little… He upended the cake tin a last time, and the cake slid free… leaving a healthy chunk of it behind in the tin. I guess I must have managed to get a bit of mixed peel against the side of the tin, after all! 😦 However using a bit of gentle persuasion, Julian managed to get the stuck part out in one piece, and it was duly placed over the “bald” bit, reunited with the rest of its cakey family. It actually doesn’t look too bad, and by the time it’s cooled, and had the icing sugar sifted over the top of it, I don’t think it’ll even be noticeable from a distance – of about three city blocks with skyscrapers in the way! 😉 Anyhoo – we’ll eat that part of the cake first, so no one will be able to see the broken bit!

This morning I played WoW again/as usual, and after settling Wynterthyme’s Followers and Fleet, I switched over to Arisnoë, and took her questing – I’m now in a hurry to get her to level 98, when she can upgrade her Trading Post to level 2 – Everything else is already level 2, but Blizzard seem to have this “thing” about the Trading Post, and not being able to upgrade it as quickly and as easily as all the other Buildings! Oh well, I’m just barely more than half way through level 96, so only two and a half more levels to go, or “This time next year… in Jerusalem”… With Arisnoë on her own though, questing is really hard – one forgets how spoilt one’s been, playing in tandem the way Wynterthyme and Mouselet have been – it sure is a lot easier and quicker with two of you, mowing down the Mobs! But, she’ll get there in the end…

And now on to the more important part of the blog! 🙂

Food stuffz: last night for dinner we had home-made hamburgers, which were really more like rissoles, or very tiny, individual meat loaves, or even very large meat balls – but whatever you want to call them, they were absolutely delicious! As it turned out, we didn’t have them with potatoes, boiled, mashed, or chips, we had them with steamed rice, flavoured with our very own home-grown spring onions (and a bit of Soy sauce) We didn’t even have our customary half a tomato! (gasp, shock, horror!) but there was, I think, tomato in the hamburgers. For dessert I had a small tub of low-fat strawberry yoghurt and a few pieces of tinned peaches (from a plastic jar! So should I be calling them “jarred peaches”, or “peaches in jars”?) I had a sandwich for lunch today, made from the extremely nice Baker’s Delight whole-meal bread. Julian used hummus with pine-nuts instead of butter, and the last two “hamburgers”, which were just as nice cold and crumbled up in a sandwich, as they were last night on a bed of rice! 🙂 Tonight we’re having King Island Beef sausages for dinner, with chips, half a tomato, and either green beans or Brussels sprouts (Julian hasn’t made up his mind yet! 😉 ) and of course for dessert, I’ll be having a slice of my new “citrus” cake (with no cream!) and one of the Corella pears, which should be ripe enough to eat tonight! I’ll let you all know tomorrow night what it was like (not the Corella pears, the cake!) 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Maybe things are slowing down? I sure hope so… this morning I went from 63.1kg, to 63.1kg, so I stayed the same. This is a good thing, and a bad thing, I suppose, but definitely more good than bad, because at least I didn’t go up again – though I’ll probably do that tomorrow, especially after licking the spoon a few times when I was making the cake! 😉 It’s only bad because continuing “no worries” weight results can tend to make you complacent, and then you eat too much, and immediately feel guilty!

And so to tomorrow! I was thinking that I was going to be having a fairly free day tomorrow – I know my next Warfarin blood test is due, and I was thinking of getting it done in Glen Waverley, and then going along to the Medicare office up near the Library to change my name on my Medicare Card (no, we still haven’t gotten a round tuit yet – they are very rare, you know! It’s almost impossible to source a good one…*Winter shakes her head sadly*) And then, this afternoon I received a phone call from my Podiatrist’s Receptionist, to remind me that I had an appointment tomorrow afternoon, around 5 o’clock – and I saw my “free day” escaping through the Den window, even though it was shut at the time! This probably means that my blog will be late tomorrow night, as I doubt that I’ll have enough time to start writing before dinner – sorry! And really, that’s about it from me again for this evening! Do call in again tomorrow night though – fairly late, unfortunately – and find out what my “citrus” cake was like, whether my weight went up, or down, or stayed the same for a third day, and how Arisnoë is going with her attempts to get to level 98! But until then, please bee as good as you can, remember to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final, and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to keep warm – or cool – depending on what the weather’s like, and to look after yourselves… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂