04.37 pm

Sorry, I’m a bit late today – I’ve just sat down from directing the placement of the “furniture” in Auric and Dapple’s Fish House 🙂 Julian was going to change their water and clean their walls yesterday, but ran out of time – so after going and getting his shoulder folded, spindled and mutilated this morning by the charming and energetic Polly, and doing some shopping on the way home (because, shock! horror! I was almost out of my very favourite “Linzer Torte” Nespresso pods!) he then decided that Auric and Dapple couldn’t wait any longer to have their house cleaning done (after all, we had ours done yesterday!) But to start from the beginning…

Sunday of course was our WoW day – at first we weren’t sure which way we’d go with things – whether we’d do one Dungeon, then switch to our two “newbies”, or just run Dungeons all day. We ended up staying with the Dungeons, of which we managed to do nine! We’d started Naxxramas last Tuesday, but it’s a very big Dungeon (one of the largest!) and we weren’t able to get through all of it in one day, so we finished it on Sunday. Some of the very Big Dungeons are called “Raids” – Naxxramas is one – and they re-set every Tuesday, so if you can’t get through it all in one sitting, as long as you go back in before it re-sets the following Tuesday, it’ll be exactly as you left it. We did it as a normal 25-man Raid, and it was really all too easy! I was just talking about it to Julian and we were saying that we really should have done it in either “Heroic” mode (supposedly harder than “Normal” mode) or “Mythic” mode (supposedly the next Difficulty notch up from “Heroic” mode) I dunno – I wouldn’t mind doing Naxxramas again, in Mythic mode! After that we did a Dungeon called “The Vault of Archavon“, in “Normal” mode, followed by the Dungeon “Gundrak“, which we did twice. Once in “Normal” mode, so that we could do it in “Heroic” mode to get a special buff and Achievement, and you can’t do it in Heroic mode straight off – you have to do it in Normal mode first! (*rolls eyes*)  After that we did a set of three Dungeons in “Mythic” mode (and they were dead easy, too, even in “Mythic” mode – we were still one-shotting most mobs!) in an area called “Icecrown“: “Forge of Souls“, “Pit of Saron“, and “Halls of Reflection“… and I think that’s about where we broke for lunch! After lunch we went on to do “Trial of the Crusader” and its accompanying “The Icy Depths“, in both “Normal” and “Mythic” modes, and then finally, “Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom“, which was pretty big too, but we managed to get through it… so we both had a very good “Dungeon Run”, had great fun one-shotting mobs, even in “Mythic” mode, “ooh-ing” and “ahh-ing” at all the fantastic scenery and art work – and neither of us even came anywhere near dying, not even once! In my opinion, that’s the only way to run Dungeons, and still enjoy them! 🙂 Alas, by the time we Hearthed back home and dusted down, there really wasn’t enough time to write anything! Sorry! 🙂

Monday was a reasonably quiet sort of day, that seemed to go in a second – our cleaner was here in the morning, and Josh was over in the afternoon – so once again, no writing got done…

But here it is today, and I’ve caught you all up on the most important bits of the past two days, so you haven’t really missed out on anything! It was all a bit of a weird this morning – I mean, everything was going quite smoothly and the same as usual – we got up, I got weighed, we had breakfast, Julian got ready to go out, and we had a cup of coffee… Julian had sent me a few funny photos and cartoons to look at, and I was busy laughing at them, and he was sitting on the couch behind me, watching and laughing too. At that stage it was about three minutes to eleven. His appointment with Polly, the charming and energetic Physiotherapist, was at 11.30 am…. in Blackburn! All that time that he’d been sitting there on the couch laughing at me laughing at the cartoons he’d been thinking “My appointment’s not until 11.30 – I have plenty of time…” until he realised, to his horror, that he didn’t have “plenty of time”, he was going to be “plenty late”, instead – so off he raced. I’d been thinking “he must have plenty of time” (even though I knew his appointment was at 11.30 am! – and I’ll let you all in on a small secret here – just between you, me, and the gatepost – once I sit down at the computer, my eyes very rarely stray from the screen in front of me, so I tend to miss seeing things like the time, what’s going on in the room around me, and people trying to get my attention in Chat when I’m playing WoW!) “because he still has to put the corned silverside in the slow cooker, for our dinner tonight…” Anyway, needless to say, we’re not having corned silverside for dinner tonight! Or tomorrow night either, because once again he’s got an early start – to go over to our back-door neighbour’s place. That is, she used to be our back door neighbour when we lived in Glen Waverley – she’s now the back door neighbour of my very favourite eldest daughter and her husband, who are currently living there. Anyway, this next door neighbour is a very nice lady, and we all get on extremely well together – and because she’s on her own now, Julian’s sort-of taken on the role of “General Fixit” (a five star one!) and “Major Organiser of Anything and Everything Pertaining to Property Maintenance”. A while back, her garage ceiling fell in, blocking her access to her car, amongst other nuisances, and Julian organised to have it repaired. Now he’s organised a painter to come and pretty up the repaired ceiling, and of course, someone has to be there to supervise, and to lock up afterwards, because our neighbour will be at work, and I believe that my very favourite eldest daughter will be at Gridiron practice! As the corned silverside needs to be set up “first thing in the morning”, we’ll have to miss out on it tomorrow night, too… What’s that? Why don’t I set the corned silverside up for him? Err… would you believe “because I can’t reach everything I’m going to need”? Because I’m afraid that’s the horrible truth… I’m too short to reach things! (just call me “Stumpy”!) I have to stand on tip-toe just to get a cup out of the cupboard, and I can only j-u-s-t reach them with the tips of my fingers…. if they’re right at the front of the cupboard! (this house was actually built for giants!)

And now that about covers today as well, really – I checked my Auctions on WoW ( 😥 I didn’t sell anything 😥 ) and worked on a new, Christmas themed desktop wallpapery thingy, which turned out reasonably well, but I can’t help feeling that it’s a bit…. bland? Pale? Wan? I might have another go at it tomorrow…

Now for the “good bits” that I can remember…

Food stuffs Sunday. For lunch we had wraps, with some of our favourite basil and pesto hummus as a butter substitute, triple smoked ham, Halloumi cheese, red and green capsicum batons, and tomato, and for dinner we had our Sunday Omelets – an “experimental” one this week, with red and green diced capsicum, “lightly crushed” capers, finely chopped olive herb, smoked bacon and diced onion, both pre-cooked before being added to the omelet, and squares of Cheddar/Tasty cheese – and it was most delicious! For dessert I had a Corella pear and a dark cacao Chia Pod.
Food stuffs Monday. For lunch we had a wonderful sandwich made from bread that Julian had baked that morning! A plain white loaf this time, and it was just as good as the other loaves he’s made lately – wonderful texture, great taste, and a slightly crunchy crust! Just fantastic! 🙂 It was a fairly plain sandwich – nothing too fancy; a smidge of butter, triple smoked ham, Cheddar/Tasty cheese, and tomato – a yummy, yummy sandwich! For dinner last night we had chicken breasts marinated in Dijon mustard and mayonnaise, pan-fried and served on a bed of plain steamed rice with finely chopped spring onions. For dessert I had a smallish white Nectarine and a smallish yellow peach, and a Strawberry and Banana CHOBANI yoghurt, which was actually extremely nice! (I usually don’t like banana flavoured yoghurts, but CHOBANI have a rather different way of presenting some flavours, one of them apparently being banana!)
Food stuffs Today. Julian stopped off at Doncaster on his way home from the Physiotherapist, to get me some more of my flavourite coffee, and he also picked up our lunch from Baker’s Delight. I had half a ham Danish, half a flat, spicy pizza roll, and a chocolate flavoured scone with chocolate chips in it, and a bit of some sort of sweet glaze on it. It was delicious! 🙂 Tonight we’re not having the corned silverside 😥 we’re having something equally as delicious though – lightly pan-fried steak, chips, steamed green beans, and out usual half a tomato. For dessert, I’ll have an “ordinary” green pear (most likely Packham) and an Apple Le Rice.

Weigh-in Sunday. Wasn’t too bad really, though I went from 68.6 kg on Saturday to 68.8 kg on Sunday – two points overnight 😦
Weigh-in Monday. Going up in two’s, it seems! I went from 68.8 kg on Sunday to 69.0 kg yesterday. Not happy!
Weigh-in Today. Whoopee! I didn’t go up! (that’ll happen tomorrow!) I went from 69.0 kg on Monday to 69.0 kg today! 😉

And that brings me to the end of today! I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow – hopefully the ruddy Christmas Cards will get posted! All they need now are their stamps, so it’s a distinct possibility! Everyone cross your fingers, toes, and eyes that we’ll get the Christmas Cards posted sometime tomorrow! Julian has the paining of our neighbour’s garage ceiling over at Glen Waverley to supervise, but I’ll prolly be sitting here playing WoW, or fiddling with my new, more Christmas-y desktop wallpapery thingy wot I think is a bit too… boring? Anyway, do call in again tomorrow night to see what my weight ended up at, especially after my somewhat carb-heavy luncheon today, and what other escapades we got up to. Until then though, do try hard to bee good, don’t forget… always tell the truth – it’s the easiest thing to remember, and remember to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather and your inclination… but most importantly, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

04.39 pm

I’m back – sorry for my somewhat longer than usual absence, but both of us have been a bit shook up by Flipper’s passing on Monday, plus a sore hip and stiff muscles from too much exercising (me) and a molar extraction (Julian – the tooth that he had a root canal in not so long ago split in half and had to be removed!) …so it’s been a fairly quiet and unhappy time for us here Christmas is galloping towards us at a rate of knots, and although we have got everything more-or-less sorted out, I feel as though we’ve barely started organising for it (panic, panic, panic!) I wrote out all the Christmas Cards this afternoon, and now it’s Julian’s turn at them – sticking on all the addresses that we ended up printing on sticky-backed paper! I wasn’t kidding when I said that I’ve grown so accustomed to using a keyboard that my handwriting has – quite literally – “gone to hell in a handbasket”! If you’re lucky enough to get one of our Christmas Cards, you’ll see what I mean by my atrocious scribbling, in an attempt to pass on our “Best Christmas Wishes” to the lucky recipient(s)… Still, they’re all done now – or my part in “The Great Christmas Card Production Line” is – now it’s up to himself! 😉 We’ve ordered the Christmas cake, the Christmas Pudding, and three dozen mince pies from Ferguson Plarre, to be picked up on December 15th (the day after our Wedding Anniversary) We’ve made a reasonably good start on amassing the necessary Stocking Fillers, and two of the main Christmas presents have been either ordered or accounted for… so I don’t know why I’m starting to feel panicked about it – I just am… I even have a few ideas of what to get Julian, and to that end, my very favourite eldest daughter and I are going shopping next Friday, which will be the…. (Winter starts counting on her fingers, because her toes are under the table-desk where she can’t see them, let alone reach them) the 9th… Good, because if I can’t find what I want then, I’ll have to try again, on my own, the following week… Unfortunately we still have no idea what to get for my very favourite youngest daughter, or her husband Terry! It seems that every time I ask her, somehow or other the subject gets turned around, and by the time I think “Wait! She still hasn’t told me what they want for Christmas!”, it’s too late, and she’s either gone home, or hung up the phone to go and feed the rabbits! Arrgghhh! I shall call her again tonight and wring it out of her! We also don’t know if my very favourite eldest daughter and her husband will be here for Christmas Dinner or not! They were here last Christmas, so by rights they should be going over to his parents this year – but… who knows?

You know, every year, without fail, I say “Right! We’re not doing Christmas this year! It’s just not worth the hassle!” – and every year, without fail, we jump through all the same old hoops, get totally frazzled, and go through all the rigmarole that is Christmas! Sometimes I feel a bit like “Tevye” in “Fiddler on the Roof”, singing the opening number “Tradition“, with all that “tradition” implies in our lives…

Enough about Christmas! What else has been going on around here then… umm… not much, really! I’ve alternated between poking around with two new WoW characters on my Tinselfluff account (as opposed to my primary Wynterthyme account!) and halfheartedly fiddling around with graphics and fonts for different Headers, which I abandoned because I really wasn’t interested in them.

My very favourite eldest daughter was over yesterday, so we spent the day slopping around the loungeroom watching “Legends of Tomorrow”, “The Flash” and “Arrow”, and I really think that sitting for most of the day with my feet up helped me – remember I said in my opening that I had a sore hip and stiff muscles from exercising too much? Well, I’ve been religiously doing the exercises that Polly set me, but being the weird, topsy-turvy person that I am, instead of the exercises getting easier as my muscles got stronger and more used to doing them, they got sorer and more stiff! That is actually par for the course for me – that happens every time I start exercising, even if I’ve been doing them for months – but I always optimistically expect that this time it’ll work! This time my muscles will strengthen and stop feeling as though a steam-roller has just run over them… So I did my exercises, and waited patiently until my muscles strengthened up and stopped aching… and instead, not only did the backs of my thighs feel as though someone had cut all the tendons there, and my ankles feel as though maybe they were broken or something – my ruddy left hip started aching and making horrible grating noises and I could only hobble around slowly – I tell you, this week’s been totally miserable! I haven’t been able to do my walking, either, so that’s been another set-back! However, sitting with my feet up all day yesterday helped a lot – by yesterday evening I was walking freely for the first time in days, and without the pain in my hip, so maybe all I needed was a day with my feet up! My muscles still ache a fair bit – especially the back of my thighs – but hopefully that’ll loosen up too in the next couple of days, because I really need to get back to my walking! I have to “limber up” for all the walking that my favourite eldest daughter and I are going to be doing next Friday! 😉 I can’t decide whether to go to The Glen, or Doncaster… I’m more familiar with Doncaster, and I think it has more “variety” there – I’d actually like to go to Chadstone! It’s terribly big, but I reckon I could get around Chadstone OK, if I took it fairly slowly… you know, it’s been over a year since I used my wheelchair?!

Look, I know you’re all going to be terribly disappointed, but tonight I’m not going to go back over all the “good” bits of the past three days, and what we had to eat an’ all – I’ll just go back to last night this time, as three days worth is too much to try to remember! 😉

Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had a semi-reprise of the lamb backstraps with harissa that we had the other night, only we didn’t have the orange and cumin couscous this time, we had plain rice, steamed with an infusion of home-grown olive herb – which was very unusual, and extremely nice! Once again, the lamb backstrap was tender and delicious – I don’t know whether we’ve just been lucky with the backstraps that we’ve had lately, or whether marinating it in harissa “tenderises” it in some way, but you could have cut it with a spoon! For dessert I had a Corella pear and an Apple Le Rice. Julian had been out doing the “Big Saturday Shop” up at the Blackburn Road/Burwood Highway Shops and brought some Ferguson Plarre goodies home for lunch today – so we had half a sausage roll and half a Tiddly Oggie each, plus half an orange and white chocolate muffin, and Julian had a Vanilla Slice, and I had a Zesty Lemon Tart – it was all scrumptious! 🙂 Tonight for dinner we’re having Coles-bought “Farm Foods Beef, Caramelised Onion and Pepper Sausages” – we haven’t had those before, so I’ll let you know what they were like tomorrow night. With those, we’ll be having chips, steamed green beans, and our usual half a tomato, and for dessert I’ll have an “ordinary” green pear (most likely Packham, I think) and another Apple Le Rice, as Julian forgot to get more CHOBANI or Vaalia yoghurts today!

Weigh-in this morning. Was a bit better than it’s been for a couple of days! I went from 69.0 kg yesterday to 68.6 kg this morning… but don’t worry, it’ll be back up again tomorrow!

And that brings me back to tomorrow again, and it’s a Sunday! So…. guess what we’ll be doing tomorrow! 😀 As Julian puts it, we’ll be saving the world… one Dungeon at a time!” 😆 So there’ll be plenty to tell you all next time I make an appearance – hopefully tomorrow! But for the moment, that’s really about “it” from me for this evening – as I said, it’s been a very quiet and somber week, with a lot of the “bounce” having gone out of our steps… but do drop in again tomorrow night (maybe!) to see how our “Dungeoneering” went, what my weight went back up to, and whether Auric has stopped being a greedy little pig-fish and let poor hungry little Dapple get a crust or two for a change! Until then though, please remember to bee good – it’s so close to Christmas that you don’t want to get on “you-know-who’s” Naughty List – remember that man may have discovered fire, but women discovered how to play with it, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on the circumstances… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂