03.52 pm
Well, well, well! Will wonders never cease? 🙂 Here it is, dab-bang-smack in the middle of November, and here I am, starting early for a change, and what’s more – starting in on my Christmas-y type decorations! Well, Headers, anyway! I bought a new “Vector Christmas graphics” file this morning, called, of all things, “Fa-la-la”, and I bought it because of the really cute deer that you can see in the Header, and of course, I simply had to have it! For well under $20 I got about 15 to 20 images – including snowflakes, the deer 😎 , Christmas Tree baubles, stars, fancy ribbons, string (!), lots of other little bits and pieces, and about a dozen seamless patterns, which I have yet to have a close look at, but will probably use a lot, even if I do have to re-colour them to achieve the effects I want – so I reckon it was a bargain at half the price! They’re all “vector” images which means that they arrive absolutely gi-normous, but re-size perfectly to any size you want, with no loss of clarity or detail! Whoever invented them deserves to win the Nobel Prize for Graphics! (and if there isn’t one, well, there ruddy-well should be!) I’m afraid I’ve mostly frittered away my day, doing a little bit of “this”, a little bit of “that”, and quite a lot of “not much at all” – but I’ll blame the unseasonably warm weather for that, plus the fact that this morning was a really mad scramble! It was quite literally leap out of bed (actually it was more like a slothful stagger!) race (hobble) to the bathroom, race (limp) back to the scales, throw on (struggle into) some clothes, and into the car! I was having that “fasting” blood test done this morning, along with my “eat anything you want as long as it doesn’t contain Vitamin K (like nice, healthy, ‘leafy greens’!)” Warfarin blood test. However going without tea or coffee first thing in the morning is…. really Not Nice, or conducive to becoming Happy Little Vegemites – and I wanted to get the two blood tests over and done with as quickly as possible, so that we could get home to have our “fix”! After that, we more-or-less muddled along, until my very favourite eldest daughter rang – her computer wouldn’t boot! “This looks like a job for SUPER-Julian!” we cried, so Julian hastily put a pair of underpants on over his trousers, and after we’d both had a cup of coffee, he sprang into his automotive chariot (his cape was still at the Dry Cleaners, so he couldn’t fly!) and went over to see what he could do. Naturally he was able to get it going again, but it’s not a very happy little computer so she’ll probably have to bring it with her when she comes over next week.
I just received another of those annoying and tiresome letters (snail-mail, not e-mail) this time from Taste.com Magazine – telling me that I have just one issue left in my Subscription, and that I’d better renew it now, or I’d (heaven forbid!) miss out! Now, ordinarily one would think that this was very nice of them, to send me such a thoughtful reminder – and here’s the “BUT” that you again knew was coming! BUT! After allowing two of them to run out – because they were sending me double copies – one to our old Doncaster address, which was being re-directed to here, and the other one was being sent to our Vermont South PO Box, as well as to the house address! I’ve tried to correct this “abnormality” online – but all that seems to do is make things worse! I thought that I’d sorted out the other magazines, but I’m now starting to get double copies of “Women’s Weekly Food” and “Delicious” – and now “Taste” seems to think that my recently renewed subscription is about to run out! I think I know why it’s happening though. Most of them are handled through a crowd called “Magsonline”, where I have an account. There’s another crowd called “Magshop”, to which I also have an account, and which handles some of the other magazines that I get. I’m beginning to suspect that they work in concert, and that my accounts, which both have the same mailing address (because I think it has to be the same as what’s on my Credit Card?) Anyway, the only way I can see of straightening the whole mess out is to cancel my accounts with Magsonline and Magshop, allow the magazine deliveries to “peter out”, and then, when nothing has arrived at either address for a total of two months, start again from scratch, and from now on, totally ignoring any and all “panicked” letters begging me to renew my subscription, now! Before it’s too late! Grr! Anyway, I’m just sick of the begging letters, and I’m heartily sick of double deliveries!
Flipper went back and ate about maybe a tenth of her dinner? She’s getting so thin now… She does eat her pussy biscuits, though she’s not getting the medication that she should – I’m going to have to search for that syringe… Auric was suffering a rather bad case of the “floats” last night – as soon as he actively stopped swimming, his little body would just bob up to the surface, and he appeared to be having a bit of a struggle getting back down to the middle of the tank again. This morning though, he was fine! Sitting on the bottom, hovering mid-tank – no problemo! So thanks for scaring us last night, you naughty boy! 😡
So that’s what we’ve been up to today – I still haven’t got my Warfarin results back (I would have thought we’d have heard by now! We were very early this morning at the collection centre!) Stop Press! Warfarin results have just come in – everything’s pretty much the same as last time, though I would have liked my INR to be a little higher than 2.2 (down from 2.3 last month – the thumb-nail rule for INR is that it should be low – around 1 – for normal people, and people like me who suffer from blood clots should be around 2.5!) My Warfarin dosage is to stay the same, and my next test is due on December 14th, a date we can’t forget because it’s our Wedding Anniversary! 🙂 I have an appointment to see Dr. B on Tuesday at 1.20 pm to get the results of my “fasting” blood test – and hopefully we’ll be able to work out some way of dealing with my fluid retention and swollen feet! Oh, I did do my treadmilling this afternoon, and was quite surprised! My right foot, although still quite swollen, really did have a lot more movement in it than it did before Polly poked the chopstick into it! I’ve also been persuaded to try an alternative approach! Cabbage! Google “Cabbage” and “swollen feet”, and you can see for yourselves. Anyway, I’m game to give it a go – because the worst it can do is not work, right? I got Julian to bring me home a cabbage this evening, only it’s a red cabbage, not a green one, and I think you’re supposed to use a green one – but maybe it’ll work anyway?
And now on to the “good” bits! 😉
Food stuffs. last night for dinner we had the Beak & Sons “The Godfather” Pork and Beef sausages, with steamed and mashed Butternut pumpkin, steamed green beans, and our usual half a tomato. For dessert I had a smallish yellow peach, and a smallish yellow nectarine, with a Blueberry CHOBANI yoghurt. For lunch today we found that we’d run out of bread! Julian had thought that there was another loaf of bread in the freezer, but there wasn’t… so we had a wrap for lunch, which was just as nice – if not nicer, because it was a change from the usual! In the wrap there was our favourite butter substitute, the basil-pesto hummus, Halloumi cheese, cold, sandwich-sliced roast beef, green capsicum batons, and some of the Beerenberg Hot Tomato Chutney – wraps are usually pretty messy to eat (things tend to fall out of the “other end” all the time!) but for once I only managed to drop one tiny piece of cheese as I was eating it, and it fell onto the plate, anyway! 🙂 Tonight we’re having some lovely looking pork steaks, delicately pan-fried with a little bit of home-grown, organic rosemary. With them we’re having steamed green beans, mashed potatoes, and once again, our usual half tomato. For dessert I’ll try one of my Corella pears, though I’m still a little bit dubious about their ripeness, and an Apple Le Rice.
Weigh-in this morning. Wasn’t too bad, considering… I went from 68.4 kg…. to 68.4 kg! Er… I stayed the same, which is really a lot better than going back up again! (that’s happening tomorrow!) So I shall just take it one day at a time, and see what the results of my “fasting” blood test this morning reveal…. which will probably be nothing new, but one has to jump through all the hoops first, doesn’t one! 
And that pretty much brings me around to tomorrow again! Julian wants to look into our tomato planting a bit more – and this time we really should start a journal, or a log, of what we plant, how it turns out, and whether or not it’s worth-while repeating the exercise – because we can’t really remember which types of tomatoes we planted last year! All I can recall is that one was called “Black Russian”, and another one was called “Heirloom” – but I have no idea what the third sort was – perhaps it was “Big Red”? I can’t remember! I’ll probably fiddle around with graphics, and play a bit of WoW, and that’s about as much as I can tell you all! So, I’m afraid that that’s about “it” from me for this evening again! Do call in again tomorrow night to find out what my weight did (it’ll probably got up tomorrow!) and what the two of us got up to during the day. Until then though, you’ll all just have to try very hard to bee good, remember that it’s not enough to be nice in life, you’ve got to have nerve, and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to keep warm – or cool, depending on your preferences, and to look after yourselves… but above all, please – don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 