04.49 pm

Here I am, finally! Yes, I know I’ve been slack – and I really should have started writing this today a lot earlier than I haven’t, and I’m sorry for that, because it means I’m probably going to have to finish it after dinner and television tonight, as I now have three days worth of adventures and excitement to catch you all up on! 😉 So… to re-cap (so to speak)

Sunday was our Traditional “Breaking Heads in the Broken Isles” – and of course, we did just that – only managing to die oh… about half a dozen times? One thing we did do though was change the appearance of our second Pet, Hati! Julian/Demelzae changed his/her Pet into a second Spirit Bear, so s/he now has two of these trotting dutifully by his/her side – I shall attempt to get a screenshot of them together later on… Wynterthyme (me) first changed her Hati into a second spirit cat, and she looked very spiffy and intimidating, strutting around town with the two of them flanking her protectively! However, out in the wilds, fighting for her life (and very often losing it!) they were hard to see and tended to “blend into the scenery” too much… so I changed them. I’d been under the impression that once you’d changed Hati’s appearance, that was it – you couldn’t pull a second change, so you had to be careful which Pet you chose to copy… I was wro… wrrr… in error! Apparently, as long as you hang onto your “Essence Changer”, you can swap Hati’s appearance over again, as many times as you like! And not only that, but if you do happen to inadvertently lose it, you can get another one – simply by asking the original quest giver’s offsider! So I asked myself “What’s the most striking looking Pet that you can tame? Hmm… Difficult choice! Some of them certainly look extremely striking, but either I didn’t find them visually “appealing”, like Gorillas, or some of the two-headed dogs – or that would be too hard to find and Tame if I didn’t already have one to “copy”! Personally, I’ve always liked tigers – and there are two “Special” tigers that I could have gone after – a Saber Tiger called Shango in the Sholazar Basin, or an “ordinary toothed” Tiger called Sin’Dall in Northern Stranglethorn. Because Wynterthyme is level 110 – compared to which the two tigers were pretty wussy little things – I went after both of them, because being “Specials” it was quite possible that I’d have trouble finding them both. I went after Shango first, and found him within seconds of reaching the area that he patrolled, and of course, being level 110, I had him eating out of my hand before you could say “Sholazar Basin”! Hmm… his teeth did look awfully long! What if they got tangled up in the undergrowth in the Broken Isles? Worse! What if he, and the Shango-looking Hati both got their long teeth tangled up in the undergrowth in the Broken Isles! At the same time! That could spell certain death for Wynterthyme! I put Shango in the Stables, and went looking for Sin’Dall, who had ordinary “tiger-length” teeth. Once again, I found Sin’Dall straight away (aren’t maps that give x – y coordinates great! 😉 ) It was all too easy! I zapped back to Dalaran with a gentle and amenable Sin’Dall by my side to make my decision… the “normal length” tiger teeth won out, and this is how Wynterthyme gets around now! We went out to do a bit of Herb Questing that I had to do (please don’t ask! It did not got well, and I had to call in Demelzae to give me a hand to get the damned thing finished!)

Sunday food stuff. For lunch we had a really scrumptious seeded sourdough sandwich, with pepper-rolled sandwich-sliced pork and some of our favourite basil-pesto hummus, and as usual for Sunday nights (which is “Omelet Night” in Winter-speak) we had a really delicious omelet – even though there was no bacon! We’d spoken about the bacon on a couple of shopping trips last week, and Julian had said that we did have bacon – only we didn’t, so we had to have sizzled-up smoked ham as a bacon substitute – which really turned out not to taste too different (because, well, they’re both pork, I guess!) There was also the usual pre-fried diced onion, diced green capsicum, tomato, and Cheddar/Tasty cheese, just barely melted…. For dessert I had a brown Nashi pear, and a Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt.

Weigh-in on Sunday. Wasn’t nice! Words were said at the Physiotherapist this morning, about the effect those damned little pills have on me – but more on that later! I went from 69.3 kg on Saturday to 69.6 kg on Sunday. I can’t begin to tell you all how horribly disheartening it is – your intellect is telling you “don’t panic, it’s only fluid – it’ll go once those bloody pills leave your system!”, but when you’re standing there looking down at the readout on the scales, your emotions burst into tears as your brain screams “You lazy pig! You’re getting fat again!” at you! Not good!

On Monday, my very favourite eldest daughter came over. We’d taken a “rain check” for Tuesday, the day she usually comes over, because I had my next appointment at the Physio – and she wasn’t going to be free for the rest of the week because it’s her and her husband’s Wedding Anniversary, and they were going up to Sydney, by train, to celebrate! So as usual when she’s over, we retired to the loungeroom early to watch episodes of “Arrow”, and “Legends of Tomorrow”. We usually alternate episodes of “Arrow”, “The Flash”, and “Legends of Tomorrow”, but for some reason which I didn’t quite catch, because she was muttering, we had to watch three episodes of “Legends of Tomorrow” back-to-back, and so we never got to see any of “The Flash”, except when Barry made a brief, cameo appearance at a funeral, in “Arrow”. We had a good day, probably because we didn’t get into a really “in-depth” discussion of the US Election – if we had, the discussion would probably have ended in blows and tears The only reason I had hoped that Hilary Clinton would win was primarily because I totally detest the man who is Donald Trump. I think he’s a churlish boor, with a totally abominable attitude towards women, and non-Christians of any ilk. I don’t think he’s anti-Semitic like his newly appointed Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon – and I don’t think he’s as homophobic as his Vice President-to-be, Mike Pence – or at least I hope to goodness he’s not – but then, who can tell with Donald Trump?! He says one thing one day, and the opposite the next… *shrug* maybe he doesn’t even know himself? (now, there’s a frightening thought – someone who’s going to be President of the USA, and who doesn’t even know what he thinks or believes in?!) I’m not even sure that Trump will be all that powerful, in the long run – I think the people he’s appointed so far, plus his Vice President, Mike Pence (especially Mike Pence!) will be the ones to watch out for! Apart from all of that, in some obscure small way, I’m almost relieved that Hilary didn’t win. Sacrilege? 🙂 Maybe not… I’m sure everyone reading this is all too familiar with the problem we have here in Australia with our two main political parties… They’re the same! Neither of them has any real vision for the future, or in which direction Australia should be guided – so it doesn’t really matter who’s in power – nothing really changes – we just get more of the same… nothingness! And so it would have been with Hilary in charge. Just more of the same, with very little – if anything – being done to redress the problems of the jobless and the once reasonably prosperous middle classes. No, something had to give there – I’m just terribly disappointed that it had to be Trump – but there was no-one else. I don’t even think Bernie Sanders would have been able to change very much – especially with Congress and the House so firmly ensnared by the Republicans. Anyway, enough of politics! I’m writing a blog, not a manifesto!

So on Monday we idled around and watched television, and as my very favourite daughter walked out the garage door on her way home, Josh walked in through the front door 🙂 Once again, by the time we finished with my hair and chattering, it was little bit too late for me to do any writing, because it was dinner time! 🙂

Food stuffs Monday. For lunch on Monday we had really yummy ham, cheese and tomato sourdough Toasties, and they were totally delicious! For dinner we had pan-fried marinated chicken breasts (marinated in Dijon mustard and mayonnaise) on a bed of plain steamed rice mixed with finely chopped spring onions. For dessert I had a smallish yellow peach and a smallish yellow nectarine, followed by an Apple Le Rice.

Weigh-in Monday morning. Was pretty much the same as Sunday 😦 I went from 69.6 kg to 69.5 kg – within the magical, mystical “margin of error” – I hoped for better things this morning…

And here we are, Tuesday! 🙂 I bet you never thought I’d get here, did you! 😉 Well, this morning I had my second visit to see Polly, the Physiotherapist. She was quite pleased with my exercise progress, but growled at me because I didn’t do my treadmilling on Sunday (because my feet were so swollen, all I wanted to do was go into the loungeroom at put them up! Walking was difficult and painful!) and I didn’t do my treadmilling yesterday because my very favourite eldest daughter was over… and to tell the truth, I didn’t do my treadmilling today, either, because for some reason I was totally exhausted and just simply… fell asleep! Oh well, I will get back to it tomorrow! Polly’s given me another exercise to do – another one I can do in bed in the morning – and she gave my foot a bit of a massage to try to press out some of the fluid. It’s a bit of a vicious circle – the tendon is inflamed because of the pressure of the fluid around it – and the more inflamed it gets, the more fluid accumulates! I may have to go onto stronger anti-fluid tablets when I’m taking those horrible little pills – but that’s something for Dr B and Dr. Y to decide. So anyway, there’s Polly standing there talking to us while she’s trying to squish some of the fluid out of my foot, when she says “I’m going to use an acupuncture needle now – you’ll probably get quite a bruise there, because of the Warfarin…” I nearly leapt off the table in terror! I hate needles, and I really didn’t appreciate having one sprung on me like that! So, she’s talking soothingly to me, asking me if I’d ever done any sewing, and what sort of needles I’d used, etc., and then she goes on to say (while keeping a very firm grip on my foot, so that I couldn’t flee in panic) still in what I’m sure she thought were soothing tones (and my mind is busy yelling “no! no! no! don’t do it! no, no!) “Well, this needle is a lot smaller than the ones you would have used sewing” – and with that, she jabbed the ruddy needle into my foot! Arrgghhh! It hurt! I yelled “Owwww!” – er, quite loudly, I’m afraid (well, it did hurt! a lot! Did I ever tell you all that I was a devour coward, and that I have an extremely low threshold of pain? No? Well, I am, and I do! And I was quite annoyed about it!)

I fear that dinner’s ready – I shall continue this later…

09.30 pm

Right… back to the saga! 🙂 You know, I’m reasonably used to having needles stuck in me, with all my regular Warfarin tests, and when you come to think about it, a needle used for taking a blood test is a lot bigger (thicker, chunkier, whatever, because it has to be wide enough for the blood to go through!) than a (supposedly) thin little whisker of an acupuncture needle – and I know I put on a bit of a song and dance routine when I go for my Warfarin tests, but it’s more in fun than anything else – but that ruddy acupuncture needle hurt about 350% more than the blood test needles! It felt about as thick as a ruddy chopstick, and about as blunt as one, too! (actually, I was quite shocked! I’d always heard, read, and/or been told, that acupuncture needles were so fine that you hardly felt them at all, so having a blunt chopstick suddenly stabbed into my foot was… shall we say, a bit of an “unpleasant surprise”?) Now, having grizzled on about the horrible acupuncture needle for as long as I felt I needed to, to salve my wounded sensibilities, you know – I can finally add the “BUT!” that you all knew would be following, didn’t you! 🙂 As Polly removed the offending chopstick, and twiddled my foot a bit more, she noticed that all of a sudden, the fluid was moving out of my foot a lot faster and easier, and as she stood there, twiddling my foot every which-way, even I could tell that it had a lot more movement in it, and a lot less pain – so I suppose one could almost mangle a metaphor and say that what you lose on the swings of pain, you gain on the roundabouts of movement and comfort? Anyway, I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about, and have been there, and done something similar in the past (or are sure to in the future! 😉 ) You might also be interested to know that the acupuncture needle didn’t leave a bruise, after all – and even the much bigger needle used in the blood tests usually doesn’t leave a bruise – but if I bump any part of my anatomy against something like a desk leg, a cupboard, or a door knob, I get the biggest bruises, as though someone had manhandled me! Go figure!

So we got back from the Physio around lunchtime, and I spent a bit of time after lunch “wasting time” (I’m very good at that because I practice diligently, every day!) and then I went and put my feet up for an hour (why waste all of Polly’s excellent massaging!) had a cup of coffee – and started writing!

Food stuffs Today. We checked the PO Box on the way home from the Physio, which happens to be right next to the very excellent Barker’s Delight up at Vermont South, and as it was almost lunchtime, we got our lunch there. As usual, I had half a savoury “pizza”-type roll, and half a savoury Danish, and one of my very favourite fruit and white chocolate scones. Yummy! 🙂 For dinner tonight we had a Beak & Sons “The Godfather” Classic Pork & Beef Sausages, with steamed and mashed Butternut pumpkin instead of potatoes, steamed green beans, and our usual half a tomato. For dessert I had another smallish yellow peach, and another smallish yellow Nectarine, as the Corella pears that Julian got the other day still aren’t ripe enough to eat, and a Blueberry CHOBANI yoghurt.

Weigh-in this morning. This might give you all just a small glimpse of exactly what those unmentionable little pills do to me! As usual, it always takes about four days after taking the last one… Yesterday I weighed in at 69.5 kg… This morning, I weighed in at 68.4 kg. A whole kilo, those bloody little pills made me gain! Do you wonder why I hate them with a passion?! I’ll probably go back up a bit – a bit more than a kilo is a lot to shed overnight – the stupid thing about this whole drama is that I haven’t done anything right, or wrong, or even slightly differently – you’ve read my blogs – we have pretty much the same things to eat all the time – we don’t go out, we don’t drink or smoke – how can those damnable little pills cause so much angst?! (yes, I do know the answer! “only because I let them”, right? Well, surprise, surprise! I’m human, and I can’t help it!)

We noticed tonight that (a) as usual, Flipper hardly touched her dinner. Hopefully she’ll drift back to it throughout the evening! and (b) Auric is a very naughty boy! He had another bout of “Floaties” this evening! Maybe I gave them too much dinner, but I thought that the pellets I gave them this evening were pretty much the same as I always do – hopefully turning their lights out and letting them go to sleep will settle him – I guess there’s not much we can do though! I’ll try to feed them a little less, tomorrow night! And that’s about “it” from me for this evening (“at long [censored] last!” I hear you all chorusing! 😉 ) As for tomorrow, I’ll have my “fasting” blood test, as well as my Warfarin blood test, and probably get the results of the “fasting” test early next week. Apart from that, I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow! I guess you’ll all just have to wait until tomorrow night to find out what we did, or didn’t do! 🙂 Do call in again tomorrow night to hear all the latest news and gossip, as well as how much my stupid weight went up (or, hopefully, down!) but until then, do try to bee good, don’t forget that success is a journey, not a destination, and remember to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry – or cool and dry – depending on the weather… but most importantly, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂