04.35 pm
Well, here I am again – if not “bright and early”, then at least early enough that I stand a fair chance of getting finished before dinner (if we have a reasonably late-ish dinner? 😉 ) Anyway, it’s been quite an interesting day – as I mentioned yesterday, my very favourite youngest daughter was coming over, after she’d dropped her husband Terry off at work. Kate is at the moment a “lady of leisure”, having been made “Redundant” on Monday. She’s been with the company for two years – one day off two years, actually… Apart from the fact that it’s a bitter blow to them – they’ve been pretty much relying on her salary to keep going, as Terry’s not very well at the moment – she’s now going to have to look for a new job – not all that easy in today’s job market! However, for all that, I’m actually very relieved that she’s no longer a part of that company – I felt that they were, well, shonky and dishonest, and I’m so glad that she’s not a part of it any more! She worked for Jenny Craig for 15 years – she started off as a client, joined the company as a Consultant, and worked her way up through Centre Management, to Trainer, to Head Office, writing manuals for the Trainers! Then when Nestlé’s bought out Jenny Craig and tried to change things to “Truth, Justice, and The American Way”, things sort-of fell apart a little for the Australian side of Jenny Craig, as we tend to approach things somewhat differently from Americans… (thank heavens!) They decided to rely very heavily on Tablets for communication and training, and after fifteen years, Nestlé’s threw all Kate’s experience out the window, and made her redundant. So am I allowed to feel just a little smug about the fact that Jenny Craig hasn’t really been doing all that well since Nestlé’s took them over, and decided that the American system was far superior to the Australian one (simply because it was American, no doubt!) Kate still has friends that work there, so she hears a lot of gossip “on the grapevine” about how things are going at the moment, and the news isn’t very good, so I don’t think she’ll be approaching them for a job… One of her friends who works there has been made redundant, and then a couple of months later, re-hired… then a few months after that, made redundant a second time, and then re-hired again… she says she doesn’t really feel “secure” in her job any more… hmm… I wonder why?! Anyway, Kate’s out of work, and looking for a job, which means that until she does, hopefully we might get to see a bit more of her! (clouds, silver linings, an’ all that! 😉 ) The first thing she’s got to do before even starting to look for work, is bring her CV up to date, and then we can all cross our fingers, toes, eyes, and legs for her!
Still, we spent a pleasant morning chattering, drinking coffee, and having a piece of the Babka that Julian made yesterday – there’s not much of it left, now 😦 She’s also car-less at the moment – someone ran into the back of her car, damaging it quite badly, so it’s now off at the Insurance company, being pulled to pieces to see whether or not it’s possible to repair it, and more importantly, whether or not it’s even worth repairing – so for the foreseeable future, she’s driving Terry’s car, and dropping him off and picking him up from work. Those poor kids have had a terrible run of bad luck lately…
This morning before Kate arrived, I took Wynterthyme off to do her “Stable Dailies”. Apparently there’s an Achievement that you can get with gives you… er… extra something, I think, and perhaps a new Title or something. First you have to catch and Tame six different mounts – which I’ve done. Then you have to Train your mounts, by going out and killing Big Scary Mobs while you’re riding them – and lastly, you have to kill five different Big Scary Mobs, while mounted on each of your six mounts – twice! In other words, while riding each of your six mounts, you have to kill each of the five Big Scary Mobs – twice! (“Oh!”, says Winter sarcastically “I can’t wait!”) Anyway, everything’s going relatively well in Draenor – and elsewhere in Azeroth – except that poor old Arisnoë is not having any luck whatsoever in finding Arcturis (the Spirit Bear) in Grizzly Hills (not that Arisnoë spends a lot of time looking for him, mind you!)
This evening I might spend a bit of time looking through back issues of magazines online, trying to find the Almond Cake recipe that was so nice… I know we have it somewhere – it might even be with the sheaf of recipe print-outs that I’ve seen in the Pantry Cupboard recently (I’ll get Julian to have a look next time he goes out to the kitchen!) otherwise I’ll just have to make my Babka! Though he might have to do a bit of shopping before I do… I intend to stir finely grated orange zest into the mixture, and put spoonfuls of marmalade in the middle of the cake… or I could use “dribbles” of mixed, dried fruit! (or sultanas! I know Mum often used to put a small handful of sultanas into the mixture – they were great!) Anyway, we’ll see 🙂
Food stuffz: last night we had Lee and Neale over for dinner, and we had some wonderfully tender, very tasty, slow-cooked Corned Silverside, with mashed potatoes, green beans, and half a store-bought Roma tomato (Neale didn’t get his half tomato – he doesn’t like tomato!) And you know what? There was still enough of the Corned Silverside left over for our sandwiches at lunchtime today! That’s what I mean about Corned Silverside being excellent “value for money”! For dessert, we all had a slice of Julian’s latest culinary creation, the Babka, with a small amount of thickened, low-fat cream poured over it. Our sandwiches at lunchtime were made with the Coles-brand multi-grain, seeded-crust bread, lightly buttered, with some of the left-over sliced Corned Silverside and a little tomato sauce, though I’m not sure if Julian had tomato sauce, or mustard! Tonight we’re having pan-fried chicken breast, with steamed rice and finely chopped spring onions. As I’ve already had my slice of Babka today, I’ll just have either my over-the-fence fig, if it’s ripe enough, or one of my new batch of Corella pears (again, if they’re ripe enough!) and possibly one of the Dark Cacao Chia Pods…
Weigh-in this morning. I’m really cross with myself! I usually take two anti-fluid pills per day – one in the morning, and the second one around lunch time. Yesterday, because Lee and I were in the lounge room watching episodes of “Arrow”, I forgot to come in here and take my second anti-fluid pill! I didn’t realise I hadn’t taken it until around about 11.30 pm, when of course it was too late to take it, or I’d have been up and down all night, like a Jack-in-a-Box! So I wasn’t looking forward to clambering up onto the scales this morning! Mashed potatoes, made with butter and milk! (well, only a little butter, and it was the A2 low-fat milk, but still…) and the Babka, with a bit of cream… but the most damning of all was me forgetting to take my second anti-fluid pill yesterday at lunchtime! (I must have been awash with excess fluid – well, that’s my excuse, anyway) so of course, I did go up again, didn’t I! I went from 63.5kg to 63.9kg – up four points! 😦 Well, I made a particular point of taking my second anti-fluid pill this afternoon, though my stomach was gurgling well before lunchtime – so much so that Kate made rude comments about it! 🙂 So, let that be a lesson to me, to never forget to take my lunchtime anti-fluid pill, ever again! (Oh! The shame of it all!) 😉
Tomorrow Julian is off to the Dentist – not just for a check-up this time, but to have three fillings done – his Dentist wants to replace all his old amalgam fillings with nice, new, hygienic and non-toxic “white” resin ones, so I think that’ll put paid to use going out shopping afterwards, as he’ll be pretty doped up with Novocaine (I’m not even very happy about him driving at all, actually – if he’s too doped up with Novocaine to go shopping, he’s really too doped up with Novocaine to drive! I think he should taxi there and back! But Julian will be Julian, and you can’t tell him…) Anyway, I’m not too distraught – it gives me the whole day to stuff around looking for the Almond Cake recipe, working on a new bookmark desktop wallpaper, trying to up Wynterthyme’s Reputation with one of the Draenor Factions, so that I can upgrade my Trading Post to level 3, and making him copious cups of coffee. And that, Gentle Readers, is once again about it from me for this evening! 🙂 Do drop in again tomorrow night though, to find out how Julian got on at the Dentist, what Wynterthyme’s been up to all day, whether or not I found the Almond Cake recipe, if I’ve finished my new bookmarks desktop wallpaper, and how many cups of coffee I ended up making for the Novocained Julian! 😉 But until then, please try terribly hard to bee good, remember that if you smile at someone, they might smile back, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, and to always drive carefully… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 