Oh dear, here I go – this is the third night in a row that I’ve started writing so appallingly late – but, such is life, and as they say in the classics, “better late than being hit in the stomach with a wet fish”! er… I mean, “better late than never”, actually 🙂 Clarke was supposed to be here again this morning, then he messaged to say he’d be late, then he messaged again to say he’d be even later, and finally the doorbell rang – only it wasn’t Clarke, it was Paul! It seems that Clarke is still under the weather, so he sent his “neatest correct entry” instead – Paul! (Clarke had been telling us earlier that Paul had been losing weight, and I must say, he was right! Paul is looking quite slim and trim! 🙂 Perhaps I inspired him… 😉 ) Anyway, the work in my bathroom is at least half done! The shower door has been raised slightly, and a small strip of silicone applied along the floor under it to act as a “dust water catcher” – hopefully it’ll be enough to prevent the water seeping out and flooding the rest of the bathroom floor – if not, it’s back to the rolled up towels again, until another solution can be found. As for my recalcitrant vanity unit drawers, they’re still at “stage 1” – despite all Paul’s efforts today, they’re still not closing properly, and that weird and wasteful deep drawer, with its totally useless sloping base (I still have no idea why anyone would make (build?) a drawer like that – unless they thought it was going to be used as some sort of giant scoop?) has had to be taken back to the Cabinet Maker, to have a proper, sensible, flat base put on it instead, so that it can actually be used for storage, and not just as the glorified waste-paper basket holder that it currently is! Paul also told us that the Cabinet Maker is going to have to come out to have a look at exactly what’s going on with these supposedly self-closing drawers that don’t! So…. that’s where my bathroom’s currently at! “Watch This Space!” 🙂

As for me today, I mucked around with both Wynterthyme and Arisnoë, vainly attempting to get them both set up with a Spirit Beast Pet. Well, Wynterthyme already has one – “Loque’nahak” (please don’t ask me how to pronounce it! Just call him “Pangur Bán“, like I do!) the white “Riddler” cat I mentioned last night. However, I thought I’d take Wynterthyme out to try to Tame Arcturis, the Spirit Beast Bear in Grizzly Hills, because being a bear, he’s a lot stronger and hardier than a cat. So, after a great deal of dithering around and getting side-tracked, I eventually got to his spawn place… only to find three other Best Master Hunters pretty much lined up there, waiting for him to spawn! Two level 100’s, and one level 96! I sat around and waited for a bit, but the bear didn’t turn up – so I left Wynterthyme there and logged off, to go and see if I could find Pangur Bán with Arisnoë. This was a bit complicated, as I had to go from my Garrison in Draenor, to the Sholazar Basin in Northrend. This meant that I had to get myself to Dalaran, where I used to be Hearthed, because it had Portals to everywhere. When Blizzard closed the Portals (*cry*) I switched my Hearth to Orgrimmar, and later on to Pandaria, so getting to Pandaria was easy – but then I had to get myself to that magical Palace/Inn/whatever where multiple Portals, including one to Dalaran, still exist. It was a long, slow, haul, as I hadn’t done much of Pandaria before I fled to Draenor and my Garrison, not did I learn to fly in Pandaria before I left (and the Licence costs 2500 gold, which I didn’t have, and neither did the Guild Bank – so I decided that I didn’t really need to fly in Pandaria, after all!) so I had to “hoof” it. Long Story Short, I died a lot of times, and finally Thuglet had to come and rescue me and fly me to the Portal Palace. I Hearthed myself there, got myself to Dalaran, and flew off to the Sholazar Basin with hope in my heart. In the past, when I’ve hunted this Spirit Beast Cat, I’ve had absolutely no trouble at all in locating him, and he has multiple spawn points. Do you think I could find him?! Not on your nelly! There were, however, numerous people flying about – probably hoping to Tame him, or possibly looking to kill him (there’s an Achievement Award for killing him, you see) So, frustrated beyond belief, I left Arisnoë there and went back to Wynterthyme, who was still waiting patiently in Grizzly Hills. Guess what! Two of the same three Hunters were still sitting there on their Dragons, and the third one was still sitting in the same place as when I left, hours before! Again, I hung about for a while, but there was no sign of the bear, so… I left. All in all, I hunted for those two Spirit Beasts, swapping backwards and forwards between Arisnoë and Wynterthyme, all day – and apparently my little friends in Grizzly Hills did too, because they were still there late this afternoon when I checked back… I’ll try again later in the week – but I’m not feeling particularly hopeful! In the meantime, I’ve dug Pangur Bán out of Wynterthyme’s Stables, and taught him Tenacity, instead of Ferocity. I’ve since gone out hunting with him a bit, and he seems to be able to heal himself fairly well… I really hope I can find him for Arisnoë to Tame! he could make all the difference for her…

Food stuffz: last night we had pan-fried chicken, steamed sugar-snap peas, half a tomato, and a mixture of different frozen chips, and for dessert I had an apricot, my fig, and the Dark Cacao Chia Pod. For lunch today I had a whole-grain sandwich with some basil-pesto hummus and tandoori chicken sandwich chunks – really yummy – and for dinner tonight we had King Island Beef sausages, half a tomato, chips, and Brussels sprout, with an apricot, and a small tub of rhubarb and vanilla yoghurt for dessert. Très délicieux! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Was quite astonishing! I went down seven points, from 63.6kg to 62.9kg! Innat amazing! I only hope I can go down just a few more points tomorrow morning – say down to 62.5kg – that’s a nice “round” number to rattle off to Dr. Y. when I see him tomorrow morning! 🙂 I’m feeling a trifle more hopeful though – I goes up, and I goes down – so maybe I’m now as stable as I’m ever going to get? (unless I go and do something really stupid, like eating a whole box of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts every day for the next six months! – hmm… I have actually thought about doing that, you know… not that I would, of course, but I have thought about it…)

Josh came over today to do my hair for tomorrow – perhaps I should sleep sitting up tonight, so as not to mess my hair up…  but I think it’ll be alright as long as I’m extra careful… So, apart from being as nervous as all get up, I’m off to see Dr. Y. tomorrow morning… and I needed a new referral, which I forgot to get! Never mind – I’ll see if Dr. B. can email it through for me (I think that’s how she did the last one, actually!) What a shame it’s so hot – I would have liked to have stopped off somewhere for lunch, on our way home, seeing as it’s my Birthday an’ all – but we’ll see what happens… And that’s about as far as I’ve got with thinking about tomorrow – after I’ve seen Dr. Y. we’ll just “play it by ear”, as they say in the classics – and so that’s really about it from me for tonight! 🙂 Do drop by again tomorrow night to see how my Birthday went, how I got on at Dr. Y.’s, and did we end up stopping off for lunch somewhere on our way home. What happens in the afternoon will depend largely on how the morning events went – so there’ll be lots of news and interesting bits and pieces for you all tomorrow night! 🙂 But until then, make sure that you continue to bee good, remember that the best teachers impart knowledge through sleight of hand, like a magician, and don’t forget to keep warm – or cool – depending on what you prefer, to always drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, today was quite a busy day, despite the fact that Clarke didn’t turn up after all – it seems he had a slight touch of gastro, so he’ll be here tomorrow, instead. Perhaps. However, I busied myself with young Arisnoë, and finally managed to hit the magic level of 90! I quickly Abandoned all my listed Pandarian quests and took myself off to Draenor – which, let me assure you, is completely different – from a Horde perspective! When you, as an Alliance member, finally arrive in Draenor, you’ll see that it’s a green and (mostly) pleasant land, almost an idyllic setting for, say, Beethoven’s 6th symphony (the Pastoral), populated by strange looking Heffalumps, stinging butterflies, neon green wolves, and other such strange beasties. Lots of trees and flowers, tinkling brooks, pretty waterfalls – I think you get the picture. It’s pleasant, it’s pretty (not as pretty as Pandaria – nothing is as pretty as Pandaria!) and the quests aren’t too onerous. When a member of the Horde arrives, it’s on the other side of Draenor – it’s as bleak, cold, and hostile as the Alliance side is pretty, green and habitable. Instead of a neat, orderly, and dare I say it, almost civilised Garrison, where people sound “normal”, you get a makeshift, grotty, snow-swept camp ground, filled with tattered tents, smoky camp fires, and everyone either grunts at you in gruff broken English (the Orcs), or sounds like a Ferengi fugitive from one of the Star Trek movies! (the Goblins) The quests seem to be a lot harder (not helped by the snow-covered landscape and the gloomy, overcast weather) or maybe it’s simply because this time I’m playing solo, and not as a group. It’s turning out that as a solo player, I have entirely the wrong type of Pet – a Ghost saber-tooth cat that I’ve had and loved since he was a tiny little kitten (well, not really – Moonshadow was 21 when I got him, the same as I was – but you know what I mean! 😉 ) He’s trained for Ferocity, and he got killed about 25 times this afternoon… whatever we were fighting simply gave him one swipe, and he was dead – then they’d turn around and come at me! After I’d died about four times, I quickly learnt that as soon as my Pet died, I’d have to “Feign Death”, or face another death, and another long run back for my body. S’not fun! My favourite eldest daughter was over this afternoon having her hair cut, and she says I really need a Spirit Beast Pet, as they have a “self-heal” trait. I know of a couple that I can Tame, so I think that if I get time tomorrow, I shall go out and get myself one, and I shall train it for Tenacity, not Ferocity (I could train Moonshadow for Tenacity, but I think I need that “self-heal” trait, and the tougher and more rugged physical mass of a Bear or a Tortoise) At the moment, Julian is training up his Horde Deathknight, called Thuglet, so maybe we can join up later on…

Meanwhile, back in civilisation, Wynterthyme is still trying to get her Lumber Mill, her Storehouse, and her Mage Tower up to level 3 – but there are so many specific quests that need to be completed first, I can’t see it happening any time soon – still, the Mine and the Herb Garden are both doing very well for her, so I suppose I can’t complain too much! So now that Arisnoë has reached level 90 and has a Garrison of her own, and Wynterthyme (now at level 100) has no more experience-gaining constraints, I may be able to take her out on her own to see if I can complete these ruddy damn quests. Wynterthyme does have one Spirit Beast Pet – a rather strange looking cat with glowing aquamarine eyes, and a white body covered in different sized question marks! It looks like a large, white, cat-shaped version of The Riddler, from Batman – but I know there’s a Spirit Bear out there in World of Warcraft-land that shouldn’t be too hard to find and Tame, so I might see if I can get something a little “hardier” than a cat, with or without a self-healing trait!

Food stuffz: last night being Sunday night, of course we had an omelet each – Julian always makes extremely good omelets, and last night’s offering was one of his better ones! I had an apricot and another low-fat yoghurt for dessert, leaving one more apricot for tonight. For lunch today I had another two Ryvita crispbreads – this time with some of the basil-pesto hummus (yum! 🙂 ) a slice of sandwich ham on each crispbread, and a dob of quinoa tabouli salad on top. Once again, very messy to eat (the crispbreads always tend to break apart when you bite into them) but delicious. Dinner tonight was pan-fried chicken, “sea salt and rosemary” chips, half a tomato, and some very nice sugar-snap peas. Unfortunately, the apricot that I’d left for dessert tonight had “turned”, and I had to throw it out, but luckily I’d got Julian to pick me up some more apricots this morning while he was out, so I still got my apricot for dessert, plus a big bonus! Julian found a ripe fig hanging over our back fence this afternoon, so I had that too! And then I got greedy and had a Dark Cacao Chia Pod as well 🙂 (but they’re terribly low-calorie!) I’m still only doing one treadmilling per day, but now instead of just walking a distance – 1.5 kilometers – every morning (before breakfast) I’m walking a length of time – I was going to make it thirty minutes, but I’ve turned up my walking speed one notch, to 3.6 kph, instead of 3.4 kph – and I’ve found that walking at that speed I can do 1.8 kilometers in 30 minutes, or 2 kilometers in 32 minutes – so I’m doing the latter, or a total of 14 kilometers a week (or approximately 3.7 hours per week)* which should be enough to keep me healthy (I hope!)

Weigh-in this morning. Not too bad, considering what a naughty girl I’ve been! 🙂 I went down two points this morning – from 63.8kg to 63.6kg. Hopefully it might be a little lower again tomorrow – but I won’t grizzle too much if it’s not – I’ll only grizzle if I go back up more than two points! 🙂 Maybe I’ll worry another couple of points off, because of my visit to Dr. Y. on Wednesday… Not really much more to say about my weight, is there? I started on Maintenance in November last year, and since then it seems to have been relatively steady within the 62kg – 64kg range – so here’s hoping that that’s about where I should be!

I’m not too sure what’s happening tomorrow – Clarke is supposed to be here – but I’m not going to hold my breath! He was supposed to be here last week (or was it the week before? I fergit!) then today – well, he’ll either be here or he won’t – whatever! I’ll probably be working with Wynterthyme for most of tomorrow – and see if I can somehow knock some of those quests for level 3 buildings over… The air conditioning service man came today and found quite a lot of things wrong with our unit, which he’s now fixed, thank heavens, so we shouldn’t have to swelter too much if this horrible heat sticks around – although I must say that sitting out on the back decking this afternoon while my favourite eldest daughter had her hair cut was… quite pleasant! I must also say that Lee’s hair looks a lot better now – very, very short back and sides, with a little more length on top – Josh really is a very talented hair stylist! 🙂 Oh! Remember before that I’d said that Julian found a nice, ripe fig hanging over our fence, and which I ate as part of my dessert tonight? Well, he also found a beautiful big tomato on one of our plants – one of the heirloom ones, and although it’s not a ripe “tomato red” yet (it’s almost the same colour as the apricots that he got this morning!) he picked it and brought it inside, before the birds noticed it! 🙂 My favourite eldest daughter also showed me how to make a line graph – I think it may have to be broken up into two-monthly “sheets”, because otherwise it’s going to be too big to turn into a graph, and it’ll most certainly be too big to print out, if we ever do want to print it (which we probably won’t – but you never know!) So I’ve made a second start on my weight-loss record chart, and I’ve almost done two month’s worth of entries – who knows? I might even get it finished, one of these days! And on that note, that’s about it from me for tonight! Do drop by again tomorrow to see if Clarke did turn up, if my weight went up, down, or stayed the same, and how my hair turned out for my Birthday and for my visit to see Dr. Y. – both on Wednesday! 🙂 Until then, please try hard to bee good, don’t forget to begin doing what you want to do now – you are not living in eternity, and remember to take care of yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather… but above all, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*Apologies in advance if the maths is incorrect, which it very well might be – maths has never been my strong subject!

Woo-hoo! 🙂 We made it! Level 100! Goodbye Experience Bar – hello Reputation farming! (if we want to earn our Draenor Flying Licences, that is!) We actually hit level 100 fairly early on – after all, we only had a tiny way to go – and then it was straight back to our Garrison(s), where I’m afraid I felt a little bit gypped! Yes, at level 100, we now had access to buy the level 3 building “plans” so that we could upgrade all our Garrison buildings – BUT! We had to have completed certain quests in order to get the “Achievement” associated with each building we wanted to upgrade – f’rinstance, to upgrade my Lumber Mill to level 3, I needed to have the Achievement called “Upgrading the Mill” – which needless to say, I’d never heard of, and didn’t have! I should have it by tonight though – it was just a matter of getting “X” number of Work Orders through the Mill… I was able to upgrade my Mine though, and my Herb Garden, but to upgrade my Storehouse (where my Bank and the Guild Bank reside) I need an Achievement called “Got My Mind On My Draenor Money” – that is, I need to Loot, or to have looted, 10,000 gold on Draenor, and I have no idea how close I am to that amount! I could look it up if I logged on, but I can’t at the moment, because I’m writing this, and if I do log on, I’ll get distracted and never get this finished! Anyway, I think that Julian’s already received that particular Achievement, so I can’t be that far off it, surely! We also get the opportunity to create another three buildings – one large, one medium, and one small. I’ve decided to create a “Gladiator’s Sanctum”, because when I get it to level 2, I’ll get Safe Fall (no more dying from falling off cliffs and tall buildings!) and Underwater Breathing (no more expensive and hard-to-get Water Breathing potions!) I’ve also decided on the Dwarven Bunker and the Salvage Yard, because of the extra resources they’ll allow me to get…

Anyway, we spent a bit of time upgrading ourselves and our buildings, then we trundled off again, questing mainly for gold, but – and I don’t know about Julian – I’m also trying to keep track of the Factions we need to raise our Reputations with, for this Draenor Flying thingy. Reputation is a funny thing – as you go through the game picking up quests, you gain a “Reputation” with the group of faction who are giving you all these quests. The only thing I can liken it to is, say you go to Surfer’s Paradise for a holiday. While you’re there some of the locals tell you that some pets have gone missing from their back yards – they think that they might have been let out deliberately, and – because they’re terribly busy standing at their front gate looking worried, they ask you to see if you can find them. Well, you’re on holiday, but you’re bored, and they’ve offered to pay you, so you say “OK”, and start cruising around the streets looking for these missing pets. They’re not very hard to find, and they’re tame and co-operative enough to let you pick them up and take them back to their owners. You get your reward, and the locals think you’re a really nice person, and your reputation with them rises. If you do things like this often enough, pretty soon the “locals” think you’re a pretty special sort of person, and before you know it, you go from “Hated”, to “Hostile”, “Unfriendly”, “Neutral”, “Friendly”, “Honoured”, “Revered”, and finally, to “Exalted”. Quite a lot of Achievements and “Special Rewards” (like a special Mount, or a Faction Tabard) depend on your level of Reputation with a particular Faction (of which there are hundreds, by the way!) So if you’re after that extra special snazzy “XYZ” flying and riding Mount that everyone is coveting this week, which requires you to be “Exalted with A-Faction”, you’ll go and do as many quests as you can in A-Faction’s area, in order to build up your Reputation with them. I might add that Julian and I have never really gone down the Faction Reputation road, unless it’s been to get something like this “Riding and Flying Licence”, so it’ll be quite a novelty for us – if that’s what we decide to do.

So we had a good day – Julian died once, by falling off a cliff because he wasn’t looking where he was going – I was forced to “Feign Death” a couple of times to get the mobs off me, but I didn’t actually die 🙂 I’m really looking forward to getting back into things with Wynterthyme – poor old Arisnoë might have to take a back seat for a day or two until I get all this Garrison Building stuff sorted out and set up properly – but then it’ll be full speed ahead to get Arisnoë’ to level 90, and my first Horde Garrison!

Food stuffz: last night we had pork fillet cut up into little “rounds” – cooked beautifully, and while the pork was cooking, Julian steamed some sliced water chestnuts. Just before the meat was ready, he sautéed the steamed water chestnuts in the pan with the pork, and boy, did it make all the difference! 🙂 With it we had half a tomato, and steamed rice with finely chopped spring onions and a little bit of soy sauce mixed through it. For dessert, I had one apricot, and a low-fat yoghurt. Today for lunch I had two Ryvita crispbreads with low-fat ricotta, a slice of sandwich ham on each crispbread, and a spoonful of quinoa tabouli salad on top of the ham. They were a bit messy to eat, but very yummy! Tonight being Sunday night, we each had an omelet, made with Halloumi cheese, bacon bits, red capsicum, and spring onion. I had another apricot for dessert, with another low-fat yoghurt…

Weigh-in this morning. Batman is pointing up at his “Bat-Sign” in the sky with one arm! Yes, I went up again – four points! (disgraceful! hence the Ryvita crispbreads – probably for the rest of the month! Naughty Winter! No more berry crumble and chocolate mud-cake with gooey frosting for you!) However, I really do feel as though I was getting back into the range where I feel I should be – getting down to 62.3kg made me feel anxious, and getting down to 61.8kg really scared me a bit. Anyway, as I said, I went up four points this morning, from 63.4kg to 63.8kg, and I’d like to stop right there please, Mr. Music! My feet are still a bit puffy, though not as bad as they’ve been over the last couple of days, when they looked more like hams with fingers, than feet at the end of my legs, so I’m probably still carrying too much fluid… I really hate hot weather 😦

I spoke to Clarke this morning – he’ll be here tomorrow between 10 and 10.30am – which means he’ll be fixing my shower door and loosening up my recalcitrant vanity unit drawers. I hope. I also hope he’ll still be here when Josh arrives – I’d like them to have a chat about our aviary – because with me being the totally non-technical sort of person that I am, I’m afraid I don’t explain those sorts of things very well. I understand the principles and concepts involved, and I can see how it all goes together and why, but I get totally lost and tongue-tied when I have to try and explain or describe it to someone. Anyway, it’s been a long day, I have Followers to send off on Missions, and (hopefully) a Lumber Mill to upgrade – so once again, that’s about it from me for tonight! Don’t forget to call back again tomorrow night, to see if my weight is holding steady, or if it’s still on the rise (if it is, I’ll probably be panicking!) whether the design for our aviary has been sorted out or not, and if I have a level 3 Lumber Mill and Storehouse or not. But until then, do continue to bee good, remember that we are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems, and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather, and to look after yourselves… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Good grief! Is it the weekend already?! Why is it, that when you’re a child, time seems to pass with agonising slowness… It seems forever, until next Christmas, or your next Birthday – but as you grow older, the time seems to speed up, passing faster and faster every year, until you get to my age – Christmas was yesterday, and you wake up on Boxing Day morning, to find that it’s the day before Christmas, a year later, and you haven’t even started the Christmas Shopping yet!! And because time seems to pass in such a blur, you find yourself in danger of missing out on things, like Julian’s “Big Birthday Bash”, which oversight we’ve managed to explain away by saying that Julian and I are going to have a joint “Big Birthday Bash” on Sunday, March 20th (aren’t we, Julian! *glare*) at one of our favourite Eateries – either The East Empress Bistro, in Glen Waverley, or The Tender Trap, in Doncaster. Either will do – just book it! We also put off our Saint Valentine’s Day dinner because we didn’t want to go out for dinner to be given a “Special” much shorter menu, with very few choices, lights so dim that you need to bring a torch with you in order to be able to read it, and an atmosphere of totally false bonhomie – we prefer to go out together a week or so later, when we can read a full menu and enjoy ourselves without all the brouhaha of a totally commercial “celebration”. Well, we haven’t been yet – but we will, we will…

This morning we went out reasonably early – we had to go and get a couple of prescriptions renewed – and as we’d run out of cereal and stuff for dinner tonight, we stopped off at The Glen on our way home, did our bit of shopping – and had lunch there, where once again, I probably ate too much. So much for getting my weight down as low as possible before Wednesday morning! Anyway, when we got home, I jumped straight into World of Warcraft – I’m supposed to be working on a spread-sheet of my weight loss, going right back to August 18th, 2014, and I did start, but then I realised that I was going about it all wrong, and that I should have been doing a line graph, which my favourite eldest daughter had shown me how to do several months ago, only I couldn’t remember what she’d said now. Julian growled at me, and told me to look it up on Google – which I had, but I couldn’t get my head around it, so I think I’ll just wait until Lee’s over here next week, and she can show me again… So I didn’t bother with that today, I did all my bits and pieces with Wynterthyme and her Followers, then I picked up where I’d left off with Arisnoë. That went quite smoothly, and I got a fair way with her – I could probably have even made it to level 89 this afternoon, but her bags were full, so I thought I’d just make a “quick trip” back to Orgrimmar to empty out her pockets, and then go back to my ever lengthening quest chain. Arriving in Orgrimmar, I went to the Guild Bank, but my bags were so full, and the Guild Bank was in such a mess, that I didn’t have any room to sort through things. In short, we needed another Guild Bank Vault. Well, we had the money in the Guild Bank, from when I’d sold Mouselet (I think it was Mouselet!) a slice of Watermelon (worth about four copper pieces!) for 3500 gold on the Neutral Auction House in Booty Bay, but… I wasn’t the Guildmistress, was I, so I didn’t get the option to buy another Guild Bank Vault. Bother. I logged into my secondary account, located the Guildmistress, bought the new Guild Bank Vault, swapped the Guildmistress-ship over to Arisnoë, and Bob’s yer uncle! I went back to Arisnoë, with whom I spent the remainder of the afternoon, rearranging the entire Guild Bank into a more logical and easier to manage order – four items at a time, because that was how many bag slots I had left! You know, it’s only just occurred to me, as I’m writing all of this, that I could have (should have!) transferred the contents of my bags into my Personal Bank – I’d have been able to move the Guild Bank things around a whole lot faster with more empty bag slots – and moved everything I’d temporarily stored in my Personal Bank back to my bags afterwards! Why couldn’t I have thought of that three hours ago?! …So much for the “quick trip” back to Orgrimmar! Anyway, the Horde Guild Bank on Quel’Dorei is now all sorted out and nice and neat and tidy, Arisnoë’s bags are nice and neat and mostly empty, and she’s all set up for the run to level 89 tonight! Hopefully! Tomorrow, of course, Wynterthyme and Mouselet will take over, in their bid to reach level 100! They’re so close now – only about two and a half bubbles left to level 100 – no excuses will be accepted, from here on in, it’s “Level 100 or Bust!” Mind you, I don’t know what we’re going to do when we do get to level 100 – we’ve never been Raid or Dungeon-type players – so I suppose we’ll just concentrate on building up our Garrisons, and improving our armor and gear for the advent of the next Expansion, “Legion”, supposedly going live in September! If there’s one thing that Blizzard does do well, it’s the expansion “trailers”, and this one for “Legion” is one of their best! – they really inspire you to pre-pay, and buy the expansion – we haven’t yet, but I have a feeling that we will… (because we always do!)

Food stuffz: last night we had lamb backstrap, pan-fried (but not marinated this time) with half a tomato, “sea salt and rosemary” chips, and green beans, and for dessert, I had one large-ish apricot, and a Dark Cocoa Chia Pod (my flavourite! 😉 ) Today we had lunch at The Glen, upstairs in the Food Court – this time we both chose “Muffin Break” food – I had a chicken and lettuce sandwich, followed by a diet-breaking, weight-making, sinful chocolate mud-cake slice, with really thick, gooey, absolutely delicious chocolate frosting! I can almost guarantee my weight will be up in the 69kg mark tomorrow morning! (well, hopefully it won’t go up that high (6 kilos, in one foul swoop? It’d better [censored] not!), but my weight certainly won’t be going down tomorrow, that’s fer sure!) Tonight we’re having pan-fried pork fillet, with rice, spring onions, half a tomato, and green beans, and once again, I’ll have one large-ish apricot, and a Blueberry Chia Pod. I also think that I’d better not go out for lunch for the next week, but eat a couple of Ryvita crispbreads with low-fat ricotta and tomato for the next five or six days! mia culpa, etc., etc… (and yes, that chocolate mud-cake slice was worth it! 😉 )

Weigh-in this morning. Wasn’t pretty! What with the berry crumble yesterday, and the chocolate mud-cake today, it’s going to be even uglier tomorrow! But I am suffering from fluid retention at the moment, and my weight will go down again… However today I went up five points – from 62.9kg to 63.4kg – and I have a feeling that I can expect the same tomorrow morning. Well, I’m the one who’s been saying that I thought being in the low 62kg zone was too low, and that I’d prefer to stay in the 63 to 64 kg zone, so I guess I can’t complain too noisily now that I am in the mid 63kg range, can I! 🙂

I must say I’m looking forward to tomorrow, and reaching level 100 – for one thing, it will (should, anyway!) open up level 3 Garrison opportunities – to upgrade my buildings and Followers, thereby bringing me in more Garrison Resources, which appear to be “Garrison-speak” for “currency”! Whether Wynterthyme and Mouselet will go on to attempt to gain their Draenor Flying Licences or not, I’m not sure – my favourite eldest daughter did leave me a very detailed list of all the Draenor Flying Licence requirements in a Blog Comment a couple of days ago – it certainly makes for very interesting, if extremely daunting, reading! Anyway, once again that’s about it from me for tonight – but do drop in again tomorrow night, and see just exactly how much my weight did go up in the morning (probably a lot! ) and whether Wynterthyme and Mouselet did make it to level 100, if they died getting there, and if they did, what was it that took them down – as well as what boosts, advantages, and/or rewards did they receive when they finally did ding 100! Until then though, do be patient, and please try to bee good – remember that the best way to predict the future is to create it, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on what the weather decides to give you… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Here we go again! YANH! (Yet Another New Header! 😉 ) What do all think of it? The background is one I made years and years ago, and has been a good stand-by ever since – the rest I cobbled together from various bits and pieces. I thought it looked quite nice – but there you go, I’m back into my “Violet” movement again – I wonder if it’s because when we were out this morning, I wandered through an Apothecary, and they had a very attractive stand of room reed diffusers (reed room diffusers? *shrug* …I dunno) – you know, those pretty perfume-type bottles with half a dozen sticks of cane poking out of them? Right, well Julian and I don’t think much of them – they start off scenting the room nicely, but after only a day or so, the smell vanishes and you’re left with a rather forlorn bottle that has about half a dozen oily and somewhat dusty sticks of cane poking out of it. Oh, I’ve been told that you really have to rotate, or twiddle, the cane sticks every day to get the best effect, and I’ve been told that you should thoroughly wash and dry your cane sticks at least once a week for them to work properly, and lots of other variations on the same theme – and I’ve tried them all! Sadly, none of them really work – so when I saw them all lined up in the Apothecary today, naturally I stopped and sniffed at each one, to see if any of them would be worth getting… They were all “alright” – nothing there really grabbed my fancy, but then I noticed that, hey! They had candles, too! I’m looking for candles at the moment, as the one that I’m currently using in the bedroom has almost reached the un-burnable stage. Now, as I said, Julian and I don’t think much of the room reed diffusers (or reed room diffusers – whatever!) even if I do always go and sniff them, to see if any of them smell nice enough to be worth experimenting with again… we also don’t really like soy candles, and that’s about all that anyone sells anymore! Why don’t we like soy candles? Well, despite what the chandlers always try to tell you, they don’t burn as well or as evenly as the paraffin wax ones. When you light them, the soy wax melts into a horrible yellow oil, which when cooled, becomes a horrible yellow layer of soft, greasy soy wax on top of the as-yet un-melted white soy wax underneath! But of course, soy candles are sooo popular! Everyone wants soy candles! (because you can’t buy the paraffin based ones anymore! That’s the reason why “everyone wants them”!) Anyway, getting back to the Apothecary this morning, in amongst all those diffusers were four or five boxed candles – soy ones, to be sure, but they had fairly promising names, like “Citrus Woods”, and “Hibiscus Flower”, and “Lemongrass”…. and…. “Violets”. I had to sniff all of those, too… I don’t much like the smell of Lemongrass, but I sniffed it anyway, and as usual, I wrinkled my nose and moved hastily on to the next one… the Hibiscus scented one was disappointing – it lacked “body”, and was so faint that you really had to stick your nose into the box to be able to smell it at all. The Citrus Woods was another disappointment – it smelt more like our camphor wood chest, than anything “citrus-y”! I saved the Violet one till last, as I love the smell of violets, and it was in a pretty mauve glass container, too (what was I saying earlier? 🙂 “Oh gosh, I wonder what on earth could have put me into a “Violet” frame of mind”, hmm?! 😉 ) Well, I guess that sometimes a violet just doesn’t smell like a violet – and this was one of those times, because whatever it was that it did smell of, it certainly wasn’t violets! It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t violets, either. I left the Apothecary with some mousewash, some fluffy soap, and a tube of toothpaste…

We left straight after breakfast to get my Warfarin blood test done, then we went up to Knox City, where I went to Butterfly and bought a couple of silver guard rings – as soon as I can locate my “good” rings, I’ll see if they’re going to work or not – but they look quite good on their own anyway, with just my original wedding ring between them. We had lunch up at Knox, and when we came home I did a bit more running around with Wynterthyme – I got her to two and a half bubbles to ding, went back to Stormwind, and turned off my experience bar – Julian got to about the same  point, and turned his off, too – so between now and next Sunday, we can both go out harvesting anything we can get our greedy little paws on, without getting ahead of eachother 🙂 Next Sunday, with a bit of luck, we should both ding level 100 at around about the same time, and then experience bars will be a thing of the past, until the new expansion goes live, around about September!

Food stuffz: last night we had King Island Beef sausages for dinner, with green beans, half a tomato (store-bought – none of ours are ripening! There are plenty on the plant, and they’re getting nice and plump – but they’re not going nice and tomato-red yet!) and we had a new and different type of chip – not the “sea salt and cracked pepper” this time, they were “sea salt and rosemary”, which were very nice too! Not quite as good as the cracked pepper ones, but nice enough to warrant getting them again. For dessert I had an apricot (they’re large ones, otherwise I would have had two) and some of the delicious Coles brand low-calorie Rice Pudding that we both like so much. For lunch today I had my usual “lunch in a shopping centre somewhere” – which is nearly always a BLT, with some sort of “cake slice” to follow for dessert. Today’s “cake slice” was an extremely nice “berry crumble” – no cream or anything, just the berry crumble, but it was really yummy! Tonight we’re having lamb backstraps, pan-fried, with all the usual suspects – half a tomato, green beans (or sugar-snap peas) and probably more of the “sea salt and rosemary” chips. I hope so, anyway. As there are no more figs ripe enough to pick yet, I’ll have another apricot for dessert, with maybe a Chia Pod because they’re fun to eat 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I’m still confused… anyway, this morning I went down two points, from 63.1kg to 62.9kg, so Batman is starting to grow a cape under his right-hand pointy ear 🙂 I do know one thing though – this weather definitely isn’t good for me! I’m starting to retain fluid again, and my feet are getting quite puffy and swollen. I think I need to move to Tasmania, or New Zealand – or anywhere that’s cooler and has less humidity than here, anyway! 😦 So – I wonder what my weight will do after the BLT and the berry crumble? Go up again, I suppose – but I would like it to get down to, say – 62.8kg or a bit lower? for next Wednesday – just so that I can smirk smugly at Dr. Y. when I tell him what I weight now! 😉 (and to think – all the doctors – including Dr. Y. – said that I wouldn’t be able to do it, without having drastic – and permanent – weight loss surgery! …I think I have every right to smirk smugly at them all!)

I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow – I know we have to front up at the doctor’s to pick up some new scripts, but apart from that, I think tomorrow’s relatively clear – I hope so, anyway – as I haven’t had a chance to do anything with poor old Arisnoë today – she’s probably moping around Pandaria feeling very neglected! I’ll have to see if I can run her through a couple of quests tonight, to make up for neglecting her today. I must find time to file my nails down tomorrow, too – they’re getting long enough to interfere with my typing, and that means that they’re going to start breaking, very, very soon! Besides! I want them to look nice for next Wednesday! 🙂 And having said that, I think it’s also about time for me to say “…and that’s about it from me for tonight!”, so I shall! 🙂 …and that really is about it from me for tonight! Do stop by again tomorrow night though, to see if Batman’s cape is going to turn into an antenna after all, depending on what my weight does with the BLT and the piece of berry crumble that I had for lunch today – and I’m sure you’re all very eager to find out how Arisnoë is progressing on her quests towards level 90! One thing’s fer sure though – there’ll be lots to tell you all tomorrow night, so make sure you don’t miss anything! 🙂 However, until tomorrow night, do your very best to bee good, if not gooder, remember that intolerance betrays a lack of faith in one’s cause, and don’t forget to stay cool – or warm – depending on your preferences, to always drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Oh well, here I am, still trying to create the “poifeckt” header for the blog – yanno, they really look fantastic in Photoshop, and I feel really pleased with my work – but some of these templates enlarge everything (to different degrees!) some of them “muddy” up my colours because the [censored] template has an automatic “header shading” effect written into it – so it’s a very rare template that is truly “WYSIWYG” (i.e. What You See Is What You Get) rarer than hen’s teeth, actually! So I does me best, and as I said – they look great in Photoshop, so I upload it, and the [censored] template stretches and enlarges it until it doesn’t look very much like the way I designed it. This is one of those “stretchy” templates, and what you see in the header is nearly three and a half times larger than my design. “So, make it smaller, then!” I hear you laughing. Don’t think I haven’t tried it, because I have! Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. If I make the font size any smaller than the one I’m using now, I can hardly read it – which also means that I have no way of knowing how the effects I use on said fonts are going to look! I’ve made the text and text effects on this one as small as I possibly can and still be able to read what I’ve written, but it’s still too big…

Anyway, this morning I organised Wynterthyme’s Followers into their Mission Teams and sent them off to “do things” and bring me home some nice Garrison Resources, then I went back and picked up Arisnoë in Pandaria – I tell you, trying to find your way around Pandaria without being able to fly really sucks, big time! I don’t know if any of you have seen any of those beautiful old, Chinese scroll paintings, depicting tall “fingers” of mountains, their tops covered in bright green mossy-looking grass, and studded with quaint “bonsai” looking trees, lush plants and flowers, tiny streams that turn into majestic waterfalls, as they drop over the sides of these remarkably tall, skinny mountains – it’s extremely pretty – it looks as though it should be peaceful and idyllic, but you’ll find extremely lethal but handsome latte and dark chocolate tigers, vicious jade green tigers with glowing eyes, cute, harmless little critters that look like a cross between a beaver and a porcupine, small racoon-like squirrels – there are lots and lots of little animals running all around, and there you are, trying to get from Point A to Point B, with a big, fat gold arrow pointing in the direction you’re supposed to be going. I say “supposed” with good reason! You can’t go over the mountains – they’re un-climbable. There are roads through them, here and there, but once again, most of the time you’re obliged to go around the bases of the pretty mountains to find them, which sometimes takes you so far out of your way that you turn back, thinking you must have become lost! And most of the time, you have! (become lost!) The quests themselves are relatively easy, as long as you don’t have a gaggle of players all doing the same quests at the same time – re-spawn time is fairly slow, and hanging around twiddling your thumbs whilst awaiting your turn to kill the Boss Mob gets very boring, very quickly! Leveling up is fairly slow, too – so for goodness sake, don’t make the mistake I made this morning, and look at your experience bar! It’s really very discouraging, to see it creep along at less than a snail’s pace! It’s all pretty slow at the moment – at level 98, Wynterthyme and Mouselet are leveling at more than twice the speed that Arisnoë is, but she did manage to get to level 87 this afternoon! 🙂 Going back to Wynterthyme, whose Garrison had quite a nice level 2 Tannery, I found I was getting an awful lot of “Burnished Leather”, a crafting material used by Leatherworkers. I had nearly 400 of the ruddy things, but Wynterthyme isn’t a Leatherworker, and nor are any of my other girls! This Burnished Leather is “Soulbound”, meaning that you can’t sell it on the Auction House, so what was I going to do with it all? All I could do with it was Vendor it for a pittance – what a waste! If I hadn’t turned all the results of my Skinning into Work Orders at the Tannery, at least I could have sold the unprocessed skins on the Auction House, for around 1 gold each! Ouch! Anyway, after a bit of discussion with Julian, I decided to swap my level 2 Tannery for an Enchanter’s Study, which I used to have, but I got rid of it because I wasn’t able to DE (Dis-Enchant) things… then my favourite eldest daughter told me that I could DE things in the Enchanter’s Study, but only things that I’d either found, or been given, on Draenor! Whoops! And although I’m not an Enchanter (and I don’t think any of my other girls are either) I can most certainly sell the proceeds of my Dis-Enchanting on the Auction House! What’s more, if Mouselet gets anything he can’t use, he’ll give it to me for DE-ing, or if we come across a “drop” item (from something we killed) that’s “Bind on Pickup” (which makes it Soulbound) Mouselet will “Pass” on it, so that I’ll get it by default, and which I can then DE as soon as I get back to my Garrison! Well, making the switch back to the Enchanter’s Study was going to cost me valuable Garrison Resources, but I went and did it, anyway! Oh no! I clicked on the wrong “shop” to change! I clicked on my level 2 Storeroom, where my Banker, and the Guild Bank were situated! Arrrggghhh! *sigh* so, sacrificing yet more Garrison Resources, this time I clicked on the correct “shop”, and turned the Tannery into another Storeroom! It’s ironic, really! The Enchanter’s Study was opposite the Storeroom, and I didn’t have a Tannery. Now the Storeroom has become The Enchanter’s Study, and what used to be The Tannery has become the Storeroom… The Storeroom and the Enchanter’s Study are once again opposite eachother (only on different sides this time) and I no longer have a Tannery! This ably demonstrates the fact that – if there’s a long and convoluted way of getting something done, I’ll find it! 😉

Food stuffz: last night we had the rest of the Julian-burgers, with half a tomato, ordinary old chips, and green beans – and I’m already looking forward to having more of those Julian-burgers 🙂 For dessert I had a small fig, an equally small apricot, and some “mixed berries” low-fat yoghurt. For lunch today I had a whole-meal sandwich, with a bit ‘o betta butter, and some sandwich “tandoori chicken” chunks (Julian and I both reckoned that the last time that chicken saw the inside of a tandoor oven was probably several incarnations ago…) Tonight we’re having sausages for dinner (I’m not sure what sort though!), with all the usual – chips, half a tomato, and green beans or sugar-snap peas. We don’t have any more figs at the moment, so for dessert, I’ll have an apricot, and some of the extremely nice “Coles brand” (very) low-calorie Rice Pudding. After quite a bit of discussion, Julian and I have come to the conclusion that I really don’t need to do my lunchtime treadmillathon – as my favourite eldest daughter said yesterday, I only need to do half an hour, three times a week, to remain fit and healthy. As my 1.5kg walk before breakfast only takes 26 minutes, I’ll lengthen that to a full half hour, and skip the lunchtime walk. The early morning walk is very important though, as it helps kick-start my metabolism for the rest of the day – there’s no way I’m going to wriggle out of that one (unless I’m desperately ill, of course!) besides, I don’t want to wriggle out of it! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. See-saw, Margery Daw! Back up again today – from 62.8kg back to 63.1kg – or, as I like to put it, “putting the point on Batman’s ear”, because on my graph chart, it looks like I’m drawing the silhouette of batman’s cape, with the two little pointy ears on top 🙂 So… let’s see what I’ll be drawing on my graph tomorrow morning! Maybe an antenna, if my weight goes up again, or maybe the edge of Batman’s cape, if it goes down! I’ve started setting up a spreadsheet on which to record this weighty business – but really, I don’t know very much about Excel, and how to set up spreadsheets – I’m pretty sure I could get the program to do it all automatically for me, if I knew how to work out the formulas – but I don’t, so I’m having to do it all very laboriously, but hand! It’s taken me since August 2014 until now, so that’s how many dates I have to put in, one by bloody one, and it has to range between 134.7kg an 61.5kg (or thereabouts) with every point in between listed, so that’s going to take a long time, too! Oh well, it’ll get done when it gets done, I suppose!

Tomorrow I have my next Warfarin blood test, but apart from that, I don’t think much else is happening – at the moment, the air conditioner is working again – goodness knows what’s wrong with it – we have a technician coming out to look at it – hopefully tomorrow afternoon, but at least it’s working for the moment! 🙂 Well, dinner is almost ready, and it’s really about it from me again for tonight anyway! 🙂 Don’t forget to look in again tomorrow night to find out if the air conditioner really is fixed, or if it needs some terribly obscure part that has to come from a remote little village in Siberia where they don’t even have email, before it can get fixed properly, if I still have any blood left after the Vampyre Nurse attacks me in the crook of my arm with a blunt and rusty syringe, and whether Batman will have to have an antenna or a cape hanging off the pointy ear of his cape 🙂 But until then, do behave yourselves, and bee good! Remember that every exit is an entry somewhere else, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on Melbourne’s weird weather – but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Ho-hum, late again! But… that’s because my favourite eldest daughter came to visit me, so that we could chat and watch TV shows together 🙂 She went in to uni this morning and joined a whole heap of clubs and what-nots, and her teachers (?) say that she’s on-track to do an Honours degree, or to get her Master’s degree next year, as this is her last year of her Bachelor’s degree course, and both types of degree would require her to write a Thesis on her chosen subject… er… I hope I got all that right! (I probably didn’t, and if so, blame Google, not me! 😉 ) Before Lee came over this morning, I dealt with all Wynterthyme’s Followers, then proceeded to work with Arisnoë, who is now in panda-monium prone Pandaria. She’s been able to find her first Flight Point (but she can’t go anywhere because she doesn’t know anywhere else to fly to – yet!) and a nice, comfortable Inn, where she’s now Hearthed herself, as there’s a very handy Portal to Orgrimmar close by – and so far, everything’s going according to plan. Unfortunately I can’t fly in Pandaria until I’m level 90, and boy, do I miss just being able to zoom straight up into the air, to see the lay of the land, and be able to find places easily, instead of getting lost amongst the impassible hills and gullies, and trying to make my way down lethally steep cliffs and around mountain ledges! Oh well, I dinged level 86 yesterday – only four more levels to go! And when I do get to level 90, I should be able to get to Draenor – where I still won’t be able to fly until I’ve done a whole lot of tiresomely difficult quests, and jumped through numerous deadly hoops! Still, I’ll have my Garrison to keep me occupied, and maybe, with a bit of mutual help, Mouselet, Wynterthyme, and Arisnoë can all get their Draenor Flying Licences together – unless Blizzard, in their infinite wisdom, decide to make it easier to learn to fly in Draenor, once the new expansion comes out. And pigs might learn to fly, too!

This afternoon my favourite eldest daughter and I watched one episode of “Supergirl”, and one episode of “The 100”, where things are starting to get very complicated indeed! The new Chancellor is a bit loopy and is determined to kill any and all “Grounders” (people left behind on Earth that survived the nuclear holocaust) because he’s convinced – and has convinced most of the people from the space station – that the Grounders will kill them, if they don’t kill the Grounders first! Of course, it’s not true – currently there’s a very uneasy and fragile “truce” between the two groups, but the wholesale slaughter of the Grounders by this new Chancellor is making things very difficult indeed. In the meantime, there’s the equally loopy ex-Chancellor, who has found an AI (Artificial Intelligence) – “thing” – (for want of a better word!) which manifests itself as an extremely shapely and attractive young brunette, in a tightly fitting red dress and red stiletto shoes… This AI construct somehow alters a person’s brain chemistry, removing all physical pain and mental suffering – and now, apparently, it’s removing memories, too! Of course, this “pain-free” and blissful life makes the AI’s offer of “salvation” very attractive to an awful lot of people – but this AI is looking for something – something perhaps hidden deep in the programming of the crashed space station’s computer system? Lee and I are both very suspicious of this rather gorgeous AI – what exactly does it want, and more importantly, why?! I wish we could get hold of more episodes, instead of getting them doled out, one episode per week! After that we watched the first couple of episodes of Season 2 of another of Marvel’s comic-book turned TV-series, “Agent Carter” (loosely based on the “Captain America” story-line) We also have about six episodes of another of Marvel’s TV series, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, but we haven’t watched those yet… maybe next week… 🙂 Actually, I don’t know if we’ll be able to watch anything much next week – Lee’s back at uni, but she’ll be over here on Monday afternoon – too late for watching anything though. Still, it’ll give us a chance to grab hold of some more Shannara Chronicles, I hope, for the following week! 🙂

Food stuffz: last night for dinner we had a beautiful piece of steak – King Island fillet – and it was cooked to perfection! We also had green beans, half a tomato, and the last of the “sea salt and cracked pepper” chips (of which we must get some more!) I had the second of the three figs, and one of the apricots for dessert, which left one fig, and one apricot for tonight. For lunch today I had a wrap – made with the basil pesto hummus, some of the quinoa tabouli salad, some Halloumi cheese, and sandwich ham. I only managed to get one treadmillathon in today, because my favourite eldest daughter was here – according to her, I really only need to do half an hour, three times a week, on the treadmill to get as much exercise as I need – well, so she says, anyway – she thinks I over-exercise… Well, I missed out on my second walk yesterday, because the accountant was here, and I missed out again today, because my very favourite eldest daughter was here… but tomorrow, I should be able to get both walks in, so… we’ll see how things go! For dinner tonight we had the rest of the hamburgers that Julian had made the other night – the mixture made a dozen, and he cooked six of them the other night, and froze the rest, which we had for dinner tonight, with ordinary old chips, green beans, and half a tomato. The remaining fig, although ripe, was very small, and so was the remaining apricot, so I had a low-fat yoghurt as well (alright, so I was greedy!) so I guess we’ll see what the scales say tomorrow! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Was good – I think… I went back down three points – from 63.1kg to 62.8kg. I have my next appointment with Dr. Y. next Wednesday, and I’m confused – I don’t know whether I want to be under 63kg or over it! I know my “end goal weight” was going to be 70kg, because that’s what Dr. Y. thought my weight should be – but I wanted to get down to 65kg, so that I’d have some “wriggle room” when I hit Maintenance. Then finally, on the morning of November 28th last year, I did get down to 65kg, said “Hallelujah”, went on Maintenance, and started eating “normally” again. Then to my great surprise, and quite a bit of consternation, instead of going back up towards 70kg, I just kept going down – in fact, I’ve zig-zagged and see-sawed my way between 65.5kg and 61.8kg ever since! Now, as I’ve been saying for the last couple of nights, I don’t know whether I should start eating voraciously, to try to get somewhere closer to that 70kg marker, or whether to just shrug my shoulders, keep on going the way I am – not getting too worried if I “splurge” occasionally – but keeping an eye on my weight and more-or-less letting my body settle wherever it wants to – as long as I never go over that 70kg “ceiling”. I think that the latter is probably the most sensible thing to do… Oh well, I hope so, anyway. Julian thinks I should collate the whole diet trip in a spreadsheet, as I haven’t really kept a diary of my progress, just my daily graph sheets. It’ll be a bit fiddly, but it could prove interesting… I’ll think on’t! 🙂

Well, tomorrow is going to be hot again – and our air conditioner is playing up. Julian’s first job tomorrow morning is trying to locate a technician to come out to fix it – our only other options are to (a) melt, or (b) keep moving my Dyson Bladeless Fan around from room to room as needed, which will be a bore and a chore, but definitely better than melting! I have washing to fold and put away, and a lot of running around Draenor and Pandaria. Hopefully the house won’t get too hot before we can get the air conditioner fixed – we’ve got all the windows open at the moment to try to get it as cool as possible before tomorrow… Anyway, once again that’s about it from me for tonight – don’t forget to drop by again tomorrow night to find out if we melted or survived, and whether we’ve had the air conditioner fixed or not. Learn whether my weight “jumped” for joy at not getting a second treadmillathon for two consecutive days, and also how close Arisnoë is to level 90 and a Garrison of her own. There’ll be lots of news and interesting trivia for all of you, so make sure you don’t miss out! 🙂 Until then though, please continue to bee good, remember that we choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them, and don’t forget to keep cool – or warm – depending on your inclination, to look after yourselves, and to always drive carefully – but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, ’tis the first day of Autumn, and how did I spend it? Huddled inside over a keyboard and mouse, playing WoW! However, I did mange to get a fair bit done – I ratcheted up Wynterthyme’s logging, skinning, and flower-picking skills, and got in a nice lot of Work Orders, which should net her some well-deserved Garrison Supplies. To get my Garrison up to level 3, I think I just have to have 5000 gold, and 5000 Garrison Supplies – there doesn’t seem to be any “lock” on it (like having to be level 100, or anything) and the 5000 gold I have… unfortunately, even after I raided the Garrison Cache, I only have about 1500 Garrison Supplies! The trouble is, to get (win) Garrison Supplies, you have to send your Followers off on Missions, and each Mission costs you between 10 and 20 Garrison Supplies! Occasionally there’ll be a Mission that gives Garrison Supplies as a reward, if the Mission is concluded successfully, but you never win enough of them to make up for the Supplies that you spent in sending your Followers off on the Mission in the first place! Mind you, you can also pick up Garrison Supplies as quest rewards, and very occasionally, you’ll get some from a monster that you’ve killed – but methinks it’s going to take me a l-o-n-g, l-o-n-g time, to amass 5000 Garrison Supplies! But as soon as Mouselet and Wynterthyme reach level 100, we’ll lose our experience bars altogether (as opposed to going all the way to Stormwind to turn them off!) and then the two of us can go off on our own, killing, bludgeoning, creating havoc, and Gathering (skins, flowers, lumber, fish and ore) to our heart’s content, without fear of getting too far ahead of eachother in the experience department! Then, when the new expansion goes live, if Blizzard have raised the level cap, we’ll get our experience bars back again – but that won’t be until about September, and anyway, we don’t even know if they are going to raise it! When I got sick of “Farming”*, I went off and played with Arisnoë for a bit. Unfortunately I’ve reached one of the “doldrums” sections, where leveling up slows down to a veritable snail’s pace, so I haven’t really progressed very much further towards level 90. Still, she’s doing OK – I died four times doing one quest though – I had to put on some sort of “invisibility” disguise in order to be able to sneak into the enemy camp and sabotage their explosives. Unfortunately there was a rather nasty Elite Dragon patrolling the area who could see through my “disguise”, so he managed to kill me twice, and his equally “Elite” Troopers also managed to see me – or I got too close to them – same difference though – I got killed another twice! I finished the quest in the end, but I had to pay 29 gold in repairs! I left Arisnoë about to accept a new quest with Harrison Jones, so we’ll see – if I don’t have too much work to do with Wynterthyme and her ruddy Garrison, tonight I’ll try to hop aboard Harrison’s little plane to shoot up the nasties as they try to force us down!

Julian went off to the Dentist this morning – just for a clean and a polish, mostly, and no new cavities were found – but “lucky Julian” had a nice new “dental plan” mapped out for him – the Dentist wants to replace all his old amalgam fillings, which are nearly all cracked and damaged, with composite resin – so he has three brand new appointments all booked in for April and September! 🙂 All my teeth, of course, are titanium, resin, and porcelain – so I should never have to suffer the pain of a Novocaine injection ever, ever again! He didn’t get back home until fairly late, and we had to pretty much gobble down our lunch and get ready for our accountant, so I didn’t get my second treadmillathon in today, I’m afraid – I’m sure I’ll pay the price tomorrow, though! Our accountant arrived pretty much right on time this afternoon, and so the three of us sat around the dining room table, talking about Bank Statements, dividends, what we’ve been doing in the last six months since we saw him last – all general stuff, really, then we gave him a big pile of papers to work on, and off he went! After he’d left, I went back to my graphics, and spent a bit more time looking for patterns – I’ve found quite a few – in fact, I’ve actually found a hell of a lot! Now comes the not-oh-so-exciting task of sorting the wheat from the chaff, and weeding out the ones that aren’t going to be of any use to me. This is going to take some time, but I don’t mind – it’s the sort of thing I’m good at, and while most people would find it as boring as I find “Farming” in WoW (or Rift!) I find it immensely interesting, and spend quite a bit of time mucking around with the “not so good” patterns, trying to improve them by running them through various filters, and so forth. Sometimes I succeed, but mostly I just remove them from the “pattern collection” file.

Food stuffz: last night we had “cold cuts” and a couple of store-bought salads for dinner – sliced ham, and sliced turkey, with a bit of potato salad and some quinoa tabouli salad, and then I had one of the figs which had ripened rather nicely, and an apricot for dessert. For lunch today I had a whole grain sandwich, with sliced ham, tomato, low-fat Swiss Cheese, and some quinoa tabouli salad – it was quite delicious! 🙂 Tonight we’re having steak, with either sugar-snap peas or green beans, half a tomato, and (hopefully!) some of those very nice “sea salt and cracked pepper” chips! Another of the figs has fully ripened, so I’ll have another fig, and another apricot for dessert again tonight (if both the figs are ripe enough, I might have both figs, and an apricot! 😛 )

Weigh-in this morning. Was really boring! I went from 63.1kg to 63.1kg! or in other words, I stayed the same…. *sigh* Well, at least I didn’t go up again, so I suppose that’s something – though I probably will go up again tomorrow morning because I didn’t have my second, lunchtime treadmillathon… I still haven’t been able to work out exactly what I do want my body and my weight to do – or perhaps it’s just that I like grizzling and complaining a lot! 😉 I do know what I don’t want, though! I don’t want to get fat again, like I was before – but I don’t think there’s very much chance of that happening, unless every single food outlet in the entire universe turns into a McDonalds!

So, tomorrow my favourite eldest daughter is coming over – she has to go to uni first thing in the morning, then she’ll jump on the tram that runs along Burwood Highway, and when she gets to Vermont South she’ll give us a ring and Julian will go and pick her up from there. Well, we have a few things to watch – mostly Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but that’s OK. She goes back to uni next week (and I’ve twisted something in my right shoulder, which is making typing very awkward and painful!) I’m not too sure what’s happening for the rest of the week – probably just more of the same-old, same-old. Julian reminded me this afternoon that we still haven’t had our Saint Valentine’s Day dinner yet, so we might go out for dinner on Thursday or Friday night (more calories!) – though both of us vaguely remember that something’s supposed to be happening on Friday, or that someone’s supposed to be coming over, but neither of us can remember what it is (or who it is!) – it’s also the fact that the date “March the 4th” rings a bell with both of us, for some reason… So… I dunno – I guess we’ll find out on Friday – or not, as the case may be! Anyway, that’s about it from me again this evening! 🙂 Don’t forget to drop by again tomorrow night – to find out if not doing my second treadmillathon for the day played havoc with my rising weight, if I managed to get any further with Arisnoë before my favourite eldest daughter arrived, and what we watched on the television when she did! Until then though, please try terribly hard to bee good, remember that life is like a ten speed bicycle – most of us have gears we never use – and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep cool – or warm – as the case may be – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*Farming = running around an area killing anything that can be skinned, picking anything that can be picked, mining anything that can be mined – etcetera –  to get (a) experience, and (b) a lot of materials for Work Orders, or for sale! Personally, I find that it gets horribly boring, after about 2.5 seconds and I usually head off to do something else pretty quickly – or to play someone else. Some weird people, like Julian, seem to be able to do it for hours and hours – I can’t understand how they don’t die of boredom!

Thank goodness! 🙂 It’s the last day of Summer! Tomorrow is the first day of my second favourite season – Autumn! One can almost smell those beautiful crisp, clear mornings, with the sun shining brightly, the air clean and cold – the only thing better is a cold winter morning, the sky a soft, kindly, woolly grey, hinting of rain – but only if we’re very good, and deserve a morning of snuggling under the doona for another few minutes of warmth… 🙂 I almost feel like skipping about and singing “Summer is gone, tra la, tra lay!”, except that I know it’s going to get hot again soon, so I won’t. Not yet, anyway 😉 You know, the year is all divided neatly up into little compartments – three months of summer, starting on December 1st, followed by three neat little months of autumn, March 1st until May 31st, then we get three months of winter, until September 1st, when it becomes spring. So neat and tidy and “set” – but it’s not! How long has it been since Christmas was so hot that all you could do after Christmas Dinner was to collapse onto the nearest couch, or the floor, suffering and sweltering, hmm? When I was a child, summers were at their hottest over December and January, and winters were at their coldest and wettest in August and September – even in Melbourne we used to get the odd pea-souper of a fog, late at night. No more, though! I ‘spect it’s Global Warming or summat, but our seasons are changing! Christmas no longer drives Melbourne households into indulging in Christmas Pudding Ice Cream, because it’s just too hot to eat a proper Christmas Pudding, which has to be boiled in the cloth for several hours. The savage hot weather lasts a lot longer, into March and April, and the blossom trees start blossoming earlier and earlier every year. Summer these days lasts into mid to late March, and spring starts in early to mid August! Personally, I like to have only two seasons – Autumn, and Winter! 🙂 But anyway, all I can say is that I’m very glad that summer is officially over, at midnight tonight (but what about Daylight Saving? Is summer over at midnight DST, or does it actually last until 1.00am? And does it really even matter, because most of us are asleep then anyway!)

Our cleaning lady was here this morning, and I had her sweep both the front and back decks, and give a bit of a dust around the doors and windows to get rid of all the spider webs and dead leaves and general detritus that collects during the fortnight. I played WoW for most of the morning, but instead of trying to level Arisnoë up, I spent the time with Wynterthyme, galloping around Draenor collecting things for my Garrison Work Orders! I badly needed lumber for the Lumber Mill, so I went around marking trees to be cut down (and then putting all the wood into my Bag Of Holding*) and I went around killing a lot of very nasty wild animals because I needed their skins for my Tannery, and I went hunting Ogres because I needed lots and lots of Ogre Waystones for my Mage’s Tower Work Orders, then I went and picked a lot of flowers, because I needed the seeds for my Herb Garden Work Orders… I tell you, running a Garrison is a lot of hard work! Setting up and creating things for your Dimension in Rift is child’s play, compared to supporting your Garrison! Of course, you get experience points for all the things you kill, skin, mine, cut down, and pick, which is just as well, because there ain’t too much time left over for questing, while you’re out hunting trees to cut down! 😉 During the course of my labours this morning though, I now find myself with only about six more bubbles to ding level 100! Next Sunday should see us both reach that lofty pinnacle! I just said to Julian “Are they going to raise the level cap for Legion?” (“Legion” is the new expansion that’s supposedly going live in September – my favourite eldest daughter is in the Alpha testing team!) We both suppose that they are going to have to raise the level cap, because they raised it to 100 for Warlords of Draenor – which means that if they don’t raise it again, people who get to Draenor will have nothing to strive for, except “content”, and let’s face it – content is good, as far as it goes, but goals and rewards are better! 😉

Food stuffz: well, we had our Sunday omelets for dinner last night, which were lovely, and for lunch today I had two Ryvita crispbreads with low-fat ricotta, some sandwich ham, low-fat Halloumi cheese, and tomato. Tonight we had some sliced cold ham and sliced cold turkey, with a spoonful of potato salad and a slightly larger spoonful of quinoa tabouli salad, and for dessert I had one of the three figs that Julian picked last night, and a fresh apricot. I’m still chewing on sugar-free chewing gum, and eating (probably far too many! Just because they’re sugar-free doesn’t mean that they’re calorie free!) sugar-free boiled lolly thingies, and I’m still doing my two lots of 1.5 kilometer walks (making a total of 3 kilometers per day) on the highest incline (10) that my treadmill will do, at 3.4 kilometers an hour…

Weigh-in this morning. I don’t know whether to be pleased or cross! I was concerned that my weight was going down too low, but now I’m concerned that it’s going up more than I wanted it to! I went up another three points, from 62.8kg to 63.1kg. So, what exactly do I want?! I know what I thought I wanted, but now I’m… nonplussed! I’d like to have stayed down in the low 62kg zone, even if it was only so that I could grizzle about going down too much. On the other hand, here I am going up again, which gives me exactly the same opportunity to grizzle – about how quickly I’m going up! Arrggghhh! I can’t believe myself! I wish I knew what I did want!

Josh was over this afternoon, and as usual, my hair looks immaculate – and next week, instead of doing my hair on the Monday, he’ll do it on Tuesday, because on Wednesday morning (my Birthday) I’m off to see Dr. Y.! I can’t believe it – I thought I still had ages – weeks! to get my weight down, and to get myself looking my best – and it’s next [censored] week! I’m nervous! I’m very glad I’ve never been a nail biter, or I wouldn’t even have any hands left by next Wednesday week! And as for trials and tribulations, it’s Julian’s turn to go to the dentist tomorrow morning – Flipper can sit there and cheerfully wave her paw at him as he drives off to his appointment, with a little thought bubble coming out of her head saying: “So now you know how I felt! (*smug cat smile*)” Then, tomorrow afternoon, the Tax Man Cometh – our accountant is coming over to collect all the bits and pieces of paper to do with taxation – and oh, what fun that will be! (NOT!) And no doubt at some stage of the day, I’ll somehow manage to squeeze in a bit more felling of trees, skinning of nasty critters, and picking the wildflowers, for the benefit of my Garrison denizens. And that, gentle readers, is once again about it from me for this evening! Do drop in again tomorrow night, and see if I’ve come to any conclusions as to what I really want and expect of my weight, how Julian got on at the dentist, and whether we managed to get all our bits and pieces of paper together for The Tax Man (actually, he’s not really “The Tax Man”, he’s an accountant who prepares our tax for us) plus all the other little bits of trivia that make up my day. But until then, please try to bee good, don’t forget that success is a journey, not a destination, and remember to keep cool – or warm – depending on your preferences, to always drive carefully, and to look after yourselves, but above all… remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*Bag Of Holding – a small magical bag that’s as light as a feather, but you could put the entire universe in it, and it wouldn’t fill it up! What’s more, you can’t lose anything in it, because all you have to do it put your hand in it and think of what it is you want, and it immediately jumps into your hand! 🙂 I wish I had one…. )

Well, here we are, back from Draenor, at long last! We both died once – I think Mouselet just got overwhelmed at one point, and died – and I only just managed to “Feign Death” in time! When I did die, I don’t really know what happened – and neither does Julian, who was with me! We were just going along, doing what we always do in Draenor – killing nasties, looting, skinning, mining, chopping down trees, and picking pretty flowers. This particular time, we were simply obeying our quest givers, and killing a lot of nasty creatures – as one does – and we were doing quite well – no problems, no mob too big or too small – everything was going well… and then, all of a sudden, I was dead! I’d been keeping an eye on my health bar, and it was fine – we were in the middle of a very ordinary, run-of-the-mill fight, with the three of us – Wynterthyme, Boojums, and Mouselet – fighting against three very ordinary opponents (that is, no “specials”, or named mobs or anything) as we usually do. We were more than holding our own against them (as we usually do) and as I said – everything was progressing “as normal”, for a fight like that. Neither of us even saw what happened – one second I was killing monsters, the next, I was dead! To show you how “normal” and easy the fight had been, Mouselet was able to dispose of the miscreants on his own in very short order, brushed the dust off his jacket, and resurrected me. I’d turned off my experience gaining ability last night because Mouselet was falling behind a little – I play much more often than Julian, and because just about everything in the game is geared towards gaining experience – from picking flowers and completing quests, to killing nasty mobs – I was going up in leaps and bounds, and he… wasn’t. Anyway, I turned it off last night until he caught up with me, experience-wise, which he did this afternoon, and now we’re both about even again. We both dinged level 99, so we only have one more level to go to get to the magickal cap of level 100 – hey! Maybe when we do get to level 100, we could change our Guild name to “The 100”, just like the TV series! (nah, only kidding, Joyce! 😉 ) We finished off The Spires of Arak, the zone we’d been playing in all day, and have finally moved on to the next zone, Nagrand, where we had a quest to bump off the first Boss mob on the border of the zone, then we made a mad dash for the first Alliance Flight Point, at a place called “Talaar”. So far, most of this zone appears to be Horde, and not really knowing our way around the place yet, we were probably extremely lucky to have reached Talaar at all, as we went running helter-skelter through just about every single Horde village and town we could find, trying as best we could to outrun the trains of angry Orcs that came chasing after us! Still, we made it, added the Flight Point to our maps, and very quickly Hearthed back to our Garrison(s) Anyway, getting that Flight Point was a nice bonus – now when we play again next Sunday, it’ll be a lot easier to get back to Nagrand! So – once again, a good time was had by all, we only died once (each) and we went up a level! We are well pleased! 🙂

Our lovely cleaning lady will be here tomorrow morning, and it’ll be nice to have a clean floor again in my bathroom. I hadn’t realised, when I chose those very, very light grey, marbled tiles, that they would show up every teeny-weeny little speck of dandruff, shed eyelashes, tissue dust, and denim-blue jeans lint! Nor the fact that the equally very, very light grey and slightly marbled vanity top would be so difficult to keep clean! Oh, it looks clean alright, but if you run the palm of your hand over it, you can feel all the little bumps and lumps of “not quite shiny-slippery clean bench top surface” My mother was a great stickler for “clean”, and “neat”, and “tidy”, as well as the sort of person whose motto was “no speck of dust, no matter how tiny, has any place in my house!” Well, I’m very happy to say that although I grew up with it, that sort of attitude to cleanliness and tidiness was mostly water off a duck’s back to me – but one thing I’m afraid did stick with me, and that’s the ability to see, and feel, every teeny little bit of grit, grime, and grunge that happens to be under my hands! I spend a bit of time every morning cleaning the bathroom bench top… But I digress… I still haven’t heard back from Clarke, so one of us will give him a ring tomorrow – I’m getting just a bit tired of having to roll up a perfectly good towel to shove against the bottom of the shower door so that the water doesn’t drain out into the rest of the bathroom, and having one pretty much useless deep drawer (I was supposed to have two deep drawers, for tall bottles and cans of hairspray and stuff, but this one, for some unknown reason, has a sloping base and is absolutely no use to anyone except as a waste paper bin!) not to mention that all of the other drawers have to be really shoved hard to get them to close, even though they’re supposed to be “self-closing”! Hopefully these little flaws can be fixed sooner rather than later…

Food stuffz: last night we had Julian-made hamburgers – well, maybe they’re more like “large meatballs” than the flattish sort of hamburgers that one eats in buns with lettuce and tomatoes and stuff – but whatever you want to call them, they were very delicious! We had them with sugar-snap peas, half a tomato, and mashed potatoes. We both had some more of the low-fat “Coles brand” rice custard for dessert – it’s lower in calories than the low-fat yoghurt, and it’s very creamy and delicious – if you haven’t tried it yet, you probably should! Lunch today was another nice wrap, with basil pesto, ham, tomato, red capsicum batons, and Halloumi cheese – very, very yummy! Sunday night is starting to become omelet night, so that’s what we had tonight, and for dessert I had two small fresh apricots, and a blueberry Chia Pod. Julian also found three figs on the branches hanging over the back fence, which he picked, to save them from the birds, but they weren’t quite ripe enough to eat tonight (which is why I had the apricots!) but I think that two of them should be about ripe enough to eat by tomorrow night – I hope so, anyway! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Was a bit of a shocker! Oh well, I wanted to go up – a bit, but I certainly wasn’t expecting almost a full kilo! I went up eight points, from 62.0kg to 62.8kg, all in one foul swoop! I guess that just goes to show how many calories are in a salted caramel brownie, and a rather buttery chicken and pesto toastie, despite all the standing and walking and wrestling with the trolley… Julian thinks it’s most likely fluid, because even a buttery chicken and pesto toastie and a salted caramel brownie shouldn’t put on almost a full kilo overnight – but, we’ll see what tomorrow brings… but I’ll be back to the Ryvita crispbreads and the low-fat ricotta again for a couple of days, anyway, I think…

So, apart from the cleaning lady in the morning, and Josh’s visit in the afternoon, I think I have pretty much the rest of the day to myself. Of course, it’s Settlement Day for the Doncaster apartment around noon tomorrow, and then Settlement for the house in Adelaide the next day (Tuesday) – they’re not so much “sad” days, as perhaps “reflection and remembrance” days – time to think back on everything that happened in those two homes, the good things as well as the bad and sad things, because everything that happened in them, all our memories, even if sometimes (or even a lot of the time) our memories are a bit “rose-tinted” if not with what actually happened, but with what we imagined, or would have liked to have happened, it’s all these little memories, tinted or not, that make us the people we are today. And on that somewhat slightly whimsical and philosophical note, that’s about it from me again for tonight! 🙂 Don’t forget to drop in again tomorrow night to find out what on earth my weight thinks it’s doing, how Arisnoë’s struggle to get to level 90 is going, and whether the Settlement for Doncaster went through without any hitches! However, until tomorrow night, please do try to bee good, don’t forget that the only disability in life is a bad attitude… and remember to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather… but above all, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂