So, I made a new header, with a second new font I got today – it’s called (of all things!) “Elefantasia NF” – once again, because I liked the “W” shape and design – the rest of the font isn’t bad, either! 😉 I just wish I could use some of my pretty fonts in the body of the blog, too – and I probably could, if I knew how to write a CSS file, or whatever it’s called. Hmm – I just Googled it… it’s a Cascading Style Sheet, and I have no idea whatsoever how to write one… and right at this particular point in time, I have no great desire to learn how to, either! There’s just too much going on at the moment, what with packing everything up, and the move in general, and debating how to deal with Flipper when our lounge suite goes, because it’s going to be a couple of days before the rental one arrives… It’s going to be bad enough for us, sitting and watching television from our computer chairs, where we can’t sit comfortably with our feet up – but poor Flipper is going to be totally devastated! She’s old (20 human years old!) senile, cranky, arthriticky, set in her ways, and is prone to fits of the vapours if her set routines are disrupted, even slightly, for any reason. I said to Julian last night that until the rental lounge suite arrives, we’ll push the coffee table over to where the couch is currently… cover it over with a nice, thick, comfy blanket, and put her “cat cave” on it, so that it’s as much like her present set-up as we can possibly make it. I think she’ll be alright, as long as she gets a lot of attention and “Daddy pats” from Julian (she’s definitely a “Daddy’s girl”, and barely tolerates me!) It’s going to be a tough time for all of us chez nous, so learning how to write CSS files is fairly low down on my “Bucket” list! My name change – or should I say, name addition – has also been put on hold for now, but has definitely not been forgotten or abandoned. (Grrr! I’ve had to put on my fluffy earmuffs because my right ear has become so cold that it’s starting to ache, and I can’t be bothered getting up to find my scarf! I wonder… if I had my right ear amputated, would I be likely to get phantom cold ear problems?) Anyway, I made the new header this afternoon – what do you all think of it? Do you like the font? This morning, seeing as I had the day off from dusting, polishing, wrapping and packing, I did some Rifting. I took Chaviv up three levels to level 18, simply on quest experience rewards – because I’d spent so much time over in Freemarch (the Defiant area) leveling up my “Skills”, that I didn’t get back to Silverwood (the Guardian area, where I should have been) until I was level 15, when all the mobs were six or seven levels lower than I was, and the starting quests weren’t just grey, they were white, so I got no experience at all from killing things, and just had to rely on the meager quest experience to advance my levels. Still, three levels on such poor rewards wasn’t too bad. Hopefully I’ll be able to take him a little further tomorrow, depending on what we’re doing. I’m just looking around my desk, wondering what else has to be “tidied away” Not much, really, as far as I can see – just the silk poppies in the crystal vase, along with two glass mugs full of pens, scissors, nail files, letter openers and a pair of tweezers, plus my two desktop calendars (one Non Sequitur, and one itty-bitty cat calendar) Everything looks so stark and bare… This whole moving business is not fun, I can assure you!

I hope we do get a chance to relax a bit this weekend – it might be the last chance we’ll have for a few weeks – because starting on Monday, the real fun and games begin in earnest! On Monday, Sharron will be over to tell us what still needs to be moved out. On Tuesday, we’re off to Vermont South to measure everything (which reminds me – we must make a list of all the things that we need to measure- if we don’t, we will absolutely forget half a dozen things that we really needed to measure – until we arrive back here!) Wednesday, the furniture is being moved out – so please spare a sympathetic thought for poor little Flipper 😦 Thursday looks like being a rest day, thank heavens! On Friday, the rental furniture arrives, along with Sharron, to tell the furniture people where she wants it put. Saturday (tomorrow week) it’ll be the Cleaners turning the place upside down. On Sunday, we can bury ourselves in (or on) The Plane of Water, and pretend that life is just carrying on as usual. On Monday, the photographer is coming to take photos of the place (and I think, a Video, too?) And finally, on Tuesday, the painters turn up for any touch-ups that need doing. Then, as far as we know, the Campaign begins, with “Open For Inspections” on Wednesdays and Saturdays, until either the day of the Auction on August 19th, or until someone makes us a good enough offer that we sell before the Auction.

Weigh-in this morning. As usual, whenever I get this [<- ->] close to the next kilo zone down, everything stalls! My weight dithers! Prevaricates! Can’t make up its mind! And let me tell you, it drives me stark, staring, crazy, because it always does this to me whenever I get to the “X.2kg” mark, or thereabouts! Always! And, it’s done it to me again! Damn it to the five hells! Wednesday…84.3kg. Thursday… 84.0kg. Friday (today!) 84.1kg! Why?! Why doesn’t it do this to me in the middle of a weight “zone”? Why doesn’t it do this to me at the beginning of a weight “zone”?! Why does it always weight wait until I’m happy, and pleased with myself that I’m almost another kilo lighter, to stuff me around like this?! It’s not fair! Grrr!

What a shame that stress doesn’t make me lose weight – I’d probably weigh less than a gram by now if it did… Anyway, that was my day – a rivetingly Rifting morning, followed by a gratuitously graphic afternoon – a pleasing day all round (except for my weigh-in this morning, that is! Still, at least I have the fluid retaining pills to blame this time…) Anyway, tomorrow is another day – we’ll see what transpires… No doubt himself will potter around packing and tidying things, and no doubt I shall try and stay out of the way so that he can get on and do what he does best – organising things 🙂 But do call back again tomorrow night – find out if my weight continues to surprise me, as it usually does, and whether or not we got any more de-cluttering and packing up done. Himself has decided that the next thing to be cleaned out is “the cage” – our storage space down in the garage. He says we’re going to need it for “interim storage”, and at the moment it’s full of… well, “stuff” – some of which is undeniably rubbish and needs to go to the tip, and some of which we’re probably going to argue about for the next five years, as we have done for the last seven, about this very subject. It goes something like this: “It’s rubbish!”, “No, it’s not – it’s an old family heirloom!”, “I’m taking it down to the tip!”, “Over my dead body!”, “That can be arranged!” and so on, and so on, ad infinitum. I have to confess, this blog would have been finished before dinner tonight, but my favourite youngest daughter rang me, and we had a nice little chat, which we don’t have nearly often enough – so we chattered on regardless of the time. Once we’d finished, the news had already started, and I hadn’t done my evening Stair Walk – so I saved what I’d already written here, Julian stalled the news (put it on “Pause”) and I raced for the fire escape. It’s now 9.15pm, and I’m sorry this is late, but I’m afraid my favourite youngest daughter is a little more important to me (and of course, so is my favourite eldest daughter!) So that’s about it from me for tonight, but there’ll be lots more news and interesting bits and pieces tomorrow night, so don’t miss out! 🙂 In the meantime, please continue to bee good, remember, never be afraid to be yourself, because an original is worth more than a copy, and don’t forget to drive carefully, to keep warm, and to look after yourselves… but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, here I am – feeling a tad more human now, with my hair done properly 🙂 As soon as I got in the front door, I shed my feet and took off for the fire escape, so that’s my evening Stair Walk done and out of the way – now I can concentrate on getting this done! 🙂 Let’s see… I spent most of this morning dusting, polishing, wrapping, and packing all my little Shelf Treasures – and I have a broken fingernail and two very nice paper cuts to prove it! I even packed up 3/4 of my desk bits and pieces, too – all that’s left is my photo of my precious boy, Gingee, my prescription box, my Serenity stone, my clock, my working amethyst, and my little pink pussycat pen. The prescription box and the clock can’t be packed until the last minute, and Gingee’s photo, the stone, the amethyst, and the little pink pussycat pen won’t be packed at all. They’ll all travel with me in my handbag on moving day, but I utterly refuse to sit at my desk without those four very special items. But boy, was my back killing me! I couldn’t sit down to wrap, because it put me on the wrong angle to see what I was doing, and while I did try sitting down to dust, clean, and polish things, I was up and down constantly, which was even more tiring than just standing up, so I ended up shoving the chair away and just… leaning on the bench a lot Julian made me sit down and take a break at about 11 o’clock when he brought me some (much-needed and greatly appreciated) coffee, and again, at lunch time, I sat down to have my Berry Crunch bar, then I went off for my lunch time Stair Walk, had a cup of tea, and got back to my wrapping! We finally heard back from Julian-the-Agent this afternoon about getting measurements from Vermont South – I didn’t know this, but apparently we’re allowed two visits before settlement – one “whenever”, and another one, usually a day or two before settlement – probably just to make sure that the Vendors are leaving the place in a fit state, or something. Anyway, we’ll go and get our measurements next week, on the 7th – then we might be in a better position to go looking for furniture! That is, if we can take the time off from packing… though apart from the items that we have to get out of the apartment and into storage before all the rental furniture arrives and the whole place transformed into a “Display Home”, I was under the impression that the Removalists would be doing the packing and unpacking for us. But even packing only the things that Sharron doesn’t want on display will take a while… *sigh* I wish it was September…

On the way back from the Hairdresser we called into DJ’s – I’d only bought one pair of undergarments the other day – just in case they didn’t fit (size 16? You’ve got to be joking! I don’t fit into size 16 again surely?! But I did, and what’s more, they were comfortable!) So I went back and bought a few more… I also got myself a new handbag – as most of you know, I nearly always wear black (I like it, and it suits me!), and I have black shoes (or what’s supposed to pass for shoes, anyway) but… I have a brown handbag. A bit like a guy going to a formal “black tie” function, wearing a tuxedo with a dazzling white shirt, a black bow tie… and wearing brown shoes! Actually, I do have two black handbags, but one is too small, and the other, a very good Oroton one, is too heavy! The silver clasp on it weighs at least half a ton, I’m sure! So both of them are going – free to a good home, if anyone wants one or both of them – otherwise they’ll be donated to the local Op-Shop, or similar. Anyway I always feel more than slightly uncomfortable, especially when I’m dressing to impress, wearing all black (or all very dark colours, anyway) and carrying a light-ish brown handbag. Today I remedied that – I got myself a nice black handbag 🙂 Now I shall feel “proper” when I go out, and not feel like cringing 🙂

I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow – probably more packing – I know the two bookcases in the spare room have to be emptied out and the books packed away – Sharron wants the bookshelves emptied, and the bookcases themselves preferable gone, so we’ve told both her and the luscious Carmen that whatever they want us to do with, or to, the apartment, we’ll go along with – and even if it does make life a little less comfortable for us, it’s not forever, and we can stand a little (but not too much! 😉 ) discomfort, if it’ll get us a better price for the place. The cleaners – Sharron’s mob – came around today to case the joint, and according to Julian, they were quite pleased with the state of the apartment – one can only wonder at what sort of a state of some of the places they have to go into to clean up for sale must be like! We’ve told them that all the doors and light switches need cleaning up, and probably the skirting boards, as well ( another three areas where our cleaning lady never goes, even when we ask her to!) I think a touch of remedial painting will need to be done, too – apparently there’s a bit of rust showing on the balcony “fence” (whatever it’s called – “balustrade”?) Whoever would have thought that there’d be so much ruddy work involved in selling a property?!

Weigh-in this morning. It was a three-scale weigh-in today – the first time it went down to 84.2kg – only one point lower than yesterday, which was bit (alright, a lot!) disappointing! So I hopped off the scales, and then back on them, for confirmation… This time it went down to 84.0kg. Hmm! better weigh myself a third time, just to be sure… Hop off, hop on… down to 84.0kg again. So Correct Weight was called at 84.0kg – down three points! Hopefully I’ll hit the 83kg zone tomorrow, though it’ll be day 3 of my nasty fluid retaining pills, so who knows which way the scales will tip! 😉

Well, with a little bit of luck, I might even be able to get a bit of Rifting in tomorrow – or some graphic-ing – I bought another font today, and I experimented with it on a new proto-header while I was having my lunch. It’s another Art Deco font, and it’s quite plain, but I love the “W” in it! If I get the time to work on it, you might even get to see it in a new header tomorrow – but that all depends on how much packing away I still have to do. Arrggghhh! It’s that time again!…. Back later…

+————————–+ * Dinner & Television Break * +————————–+

Well, here I am, back again – there was nothing on TV tonight, so we watched another episode of “Person of Interest” (episode 1, Season 2), where we’be been introduced to “Bear”, learned a bit more about “Tha Machine”, and found out that Root doesn’t want to control “Tha Machine”, she wants to liberate it! Then we watched “The Checkout” – quite an informative little segment – though I wish they’d do another season of “The Gruen Report” (or Transfer, or whatever they call it next time around!) that was a really good, and very interesting little show! It looks like himself will be dealing with the spare room tomorrow, so as I said before – I might get a chance to get a bit of Rifting in, as well as a bit of graphic-ing! We’ll see what transpires! 🙂 For now, however, that’s about it from me for tonight. Drop in again tomorrow night to see if there’s a new header up, and if those horrible fluid retaining pills have kicked in yet and pushed my weight up to new heights! Oh, and I moved one of the my new characters from Laethys to Hailol last night – I wanted Chaviv and Satai on the same shard, but as yet I haven’t had a chance to do more than minister unto my Minions, let alone work on leveling Chaviv up! I’ll let you all know tomorrow night if I’ve been able to make any progress in that regard! Until then, however, please try to contain yourselves in patience – tomorrow night will come! In the meantime, please try to bee good, remember never to equate education with intelligence; nor intelligence with wisdom, and don’t forget to keep warm, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves…. but most importantly….remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Once again, my favourite eldest daughter was supposed to come over today, but… erm… she wasn’t well again. We’re both on the Optifast VLCD, and I quite like the taste of the bars and the soups – I don’t like the aftertaste of the so-called “shakes” though – they do leave a disagreeable aftertaste in my mouth – but Lee likes them. I don’t know if all of the Optifast products have the artificial sweetener, Sorbitol, in them, but apparently a lot of their sweeter things do (like the “shakes” and the “dessert puddings”, which I don’t have because I don’t like them – disagreeable aftertaste, remember?) One of the possible side effects of Sorbitol is a very upset tummy – if there’s Sorbitol in the Optifast Bars which I have for lunch, it can’t be much – I certainly haven’t noticed any chemical aftertaste, anyway – and I’ve not been affected, but I don’t have the shakes or the desserts, nor do I chew sugarless gum, or drink low-calorie fizzy drinks of any kind – chewing gum gives me a jaw ache after a short while, and the only fizzy drink I like, but can’t have at the moment, is champagne (FOC!*) Just wait until I reach my goal weight though! I shall have a half glass of champagne and a small piece of KFC (with chips) to celebrate, with a small wedge of chocolate mud cake with cream, for dessert. Then I’ll go back on my diet for two weeks to take the weight I put on eating all those yummy things back off again! 😉 And that, gentle readers, is why although my goal weight is 75kg, I’m going to go down to 70kg, so that I have a bit of leeway when I go onto a maintenance diet. Anyway, my favourite eldest daughter has got an upset tummy again, so she wasn’t over today, and I was supposed to get on with packing up all my junk in here all my little bits and pieces in here… but Julian wanted to go and get packing paper and bubble wrap, and this, that, and the other, so I Rifted instead. Oh, and he also picked up the cowl tunic jumper thingy wot I ordered from Autograph – it came in yesterday, and he picked it up this morning. It’s a beautiful sort-of dark junior navy, and it’s very long (I can now see why they call it a “tunic”! It doesn’t look this long in the ad!) Let me put it this way – it’s long enough that it feels funny when I’m walking around – it feels like I’m wearing a really short mini skirt, bumping against my thighs! Weird! But it’s nice and warm, it suits me, and I like it. I should have bought two! (but I’m not going to get another one now – the Sale is over!) By the time Julian got back, and then wanted to do a few other things, and then came in, at around three o’clock to say “OK, where do you want to start?” I looked at him and said “Is it really worthwhile me starting now? I only have three-quarters of an hour before I start my blog…” So yours truly didn’t do any packing today, which is awkward, because there’s a great deal to pack up in here, and I have a Hairdresser’s appointment tomorrow afternoon (my coffee cup is empty! 😦 ) Well, I Rifted this morning, and because of the results of my weigh-in this morning, I wrote a little “sketch” – think “Little Britain”, and Julian Clary type of humour  – which I sent off to our “off-site expert”, my favourite eldest daughter, who has written screen/radio plays so she knows what she’s about, for editing and correcting. You’ll be able to see it shortly… 🙂

I’m not really looking forward to tomorrow morning – literally everything except the veneer and varnish is coming down off the bookshelves on my side of the room (Julian’s already done his bookshelves – but he didn’t have a plethora of tiny ornaments and figurines to dust, clean, and wrap before boxing them all up!) And not only that, but these “special cleaners” who are going to scour our apartment once we get all our stuff out, are coming over tomorrow at 1 o’clock to have a look and see just how much they’re going to have to do next Tuesday! I feel all grotty, now – who ever heard of cleaners who had to come in and inspect how much cleaning there was going to be?! Carmen called it an “Army Cleanup” – I don’t know if that’s because they send an “army” of cleaners, a crate or two of actual “army ants” that will chomp their way through the apartment leaving nothing standing except the walls, or whether they clean it thoroughly enough for it to pass muster by an army Sergeant Major! (Ahhh… I now have a full cup of coffee! Thank you, Julian! 🙂 ) Our cleaning lady is a lovely person, and she does a good enough job for day-to-day living (except that she won’t dust anything, in case she drops and breaks it! *rolls eyes*) but this place has to look like a brand new display home, and a wad of Flipper fluff left under the couch would probably cause the Charmingly Delightful Carmen to have a fit of apoplexy! All I can say is… roll on, August 20th!

Weigh-in this morning went something like this (please substitute “Den” for “stage”)

---

A Darth Wynter episode – think “Little Britain” and Julian Clary type of over acted, slightly ridiculous comedy…

Curses! Foiled again!

SCENE 1

[DARTH WYNTER enters stage left, swirling her long black opera cape as she walks briskly to centre stage, revealing the cape’s startlingly scarlet lining. On her head she wears a black top hat that doesn’t quite fit her, and she’s twirling her obviously fake and not very well stuck-on moustachios. Reaching centre stage, she’s startled to see a large and overly ornate set of scales. Flinging both hands up in front of her face in a highly dramatic gesture, she gasps audiably.]

DARTH WYNTER

[Recoiling a step backwards, hisses, haming it up]

What’s this I see before me? Can it be? Yes! It is! It’s a set of scales!

[pauses, turns to the audience, and purses her lips coquettishly, but she’s not talking to the audience yet]

Shall I weigh myself?

[DARTH WYNTER now addresses the audience directly, and says, normally, in a conversational tone]

I’ve been dieting, you know – I expect that I shall have lost a great deal of weight – I’m sure I must have lost at least 4 kilos!

[turns back to the scales, and flinging one side of her opera cape over one shoulder with a flamboyant gesture, she steps onto the scales – there’s a longish pause. Darth Wynter’s mouth moves, but no words are heard. She makes to-ing and fro-ing gestures with her fingers. A horrified expression crosses her face which she quickly masks, replacing it with a look that is between a smile and a snarl. Stepping off the scales she says in an aside]

Curses! Foiled again!

[speaking directly to the audience]

Oh my! The scales appear to be broken! What a shame!

[she gives an over-bright, obviously fake, straight lipped smile, and saunters off, stage right]

---

 

And that, gentle readers, was pretty much what happened to me this morning, except that the scales are not broken, as my sometime alter ego suggested, they’re actually working just fine… it’s just that this morning, when for once I was almost positive that I would have shed at least one or two points… but…. “Curses! Foiled Again!” – I stayed the same as I was yesterday, at 84.3kg. Oh well, at least I didn’t go up! (that’s happening tomorrow!) And! And… this morning, my favourite eldest daughter reached the weight that I was when I started this diet on August 18th last year! If I’m not careful, she’ll catch up to me! 🙂 But this isn’t a race, unless it’s to see how long we can both live now that we’re getting ourselves healthier and fitter! 🙂 (and quite frankly, I hope she beats me in that! 🙂 ) Of course, the moral to this story is: “Don’t be an Optimist! Be a Pessimist because they never get disappointed!” 😉

So there it is – “Another day in the Life of…” me. Tomorrow will be interesting, if nothing else! But this desk is going to look so bare, with none of the paraphernalia and clutter that usually surrounds me – though who knows? I might like it so much that I’ll never be messy and untidy again! Ahhh… no. This is me we’re talking about here! It’ll never happen! “Mess” is my middle name! (or is it “Muddle”? I can never quite remember!) But anyway, that’s about it from me for tonight – drop by again tomorrow night to find out exactly what sort of an “army” job is going to be performed on this place next Tuesday, and whether or not I was “foiled again” by my scales – let’s just hope I don’t go up! I swear I’ll cry if I do… I’ll fill you all in on how many ornaments I managed to get cleaned and packed – I honestly have no idea how many of them there are – it might be enlightening to actually count them, for once – and it might be damn scary, too! So until tomorrow night, I shall again exhort you all to bee good, remember that a mirror does not show who you are, a mirror only shows who you pretend to be. Don’t forget to drive carefully, to keep warm, and to look after yourselves, but most importantly… don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*FOC = French Of Course!

Well, I’m starting late again – perhaps I should change that to “as usual” though, because it seems like I always start late these days! Anyway, it’s not my fault! The luscious Carmen was running late, and instead of us going to see her in her office, she came here. And talked. A lot. And eventually we got around to discussing the plans and strategies for selling this place. I must tell you, it’s a lot daunting! For those of you who have visited our place and sort-of know the lay of the land, after July 13th, you won’t recognise the place! Nearly everything is going – either into storage for later retrieval when we move, or to be sold (mostly to be sold, I think!) The delectable Carmen and her henchwoman Sharron are determined to turn our home into a display home! We have until July 12th to box up everything and ship it all into storage, while Sharron moves in a “more suitable” lounge suite, cushions, dining room chairs – even a ruddy doona cover, for heaven’s sake! The official photos for the brochures and advertisements will be taken on July 13th, and the place will be advertised in the Leader Newspaper during the second and third (?) weeks of a four week campaign, and three times in the Chinese property guide – if I can, I’ll post the photos here, too, so you can all see what a nice place this is (well, it is a nice place, and the views over the city are truly stunning!) There are only two reasons why we’re moving – the first being that Doncaster Hill is being built out with new High Rise apartments, causing the price of apartments to plummet, and due to the local Council’s greed, stands in real danger of becoming another Docklands. The second reason is that out of the entire Body Corporate committee, Julian is the only one who does the real work of chasing up contractors, organising repair work, and smoothing ruffled feathers when one of the denizens gets miffed about something that someone else has either said, or done, or not done. And as most of the residents here are “elderly”, this happens more often than you’d think! There’s so much work that needs doing, Body Corporate-wise, and we’re both absolutely and completely sick and tired of Julian being “Mr. Fixit” for every thing that’s annoyed someone, doesn’t work properly, leaks, or needs replacing, plus all the paperwork involved. It’s just as well that he retired in 2006, because other wise he wouldn’t have time to get all the Body Corporate work done! *rolls eyes* And now I guess it’ll be “goodbye” to Rifting for a while, at least for me – as we’ll both be too busy packing to play much – except for Sundays – I refuse point-blank to pack on Sundays, and give up our fun day in The Plane of Water! I actually started de-cluttering and packing up my bathroom this morning, and managed to get all the drawers and both cupboards sorted, sifted, and packed up, except for things that I use on a daily basis (toothbrush, toothpaste, mousewash, comb, makeup, etc., etc.) Oh, and toilet paper… I left that in the cupboard, too. Tomorrow my favourite eldest daughter will be over, so I’m not sure if I’ll be packing, being sociable and getting her to help me pack, or whether we’ll sit and watch our favourite shows while Julian continues packing. Tomorrow while he’s picking Lee up and bringing her over, he’ll have to stop off somewhere and get some butcher paper, or tissue paper, or bubble wrap (but preferably all three!) for wrapping “delicate” things in – you know, I don’t even know where you’d buy butcher’s paper these days – or even if that’s what it’s still called! But I have about sixty trillion little ornaments and figurines that I adore and cherish that have been given to me by various people over the years that will have to be wrapped and boxed… the last time we moved, in 2007, we had the Removalists doing the packing and unpacking for us, and they managed to break several of my little treasures, so this time round, I’m going to wrap them myself! Then if any get broken it’ll be my own fault… (Winter looks up at the shelves over her desk, with all their little “treasures”, and heaves a great, weary sigh of resignation) …and this, too, shall pass…

I bought a new font today – $10.00! I used it in the new header – do you like it? The font’s called “Mighty Ditey NF” (“NF” stands for “Nick’s Fonts” – he’s the typographer who created it, and many, many other fonts!) I was looking at a lot of his other fonts today – they’re all $10.00, and there are so many fantastic ones that I’m thinking that I might buy a couple more – if I can decide which ones I like best! They’re mostly Art Deco type fonts too, and I love anything Art Nouveau and/or Art Deco-ish! 🙂 I’ll have another look at them tonight, and see if I can chose one or two…

Weigh-in this morning. Will wonders never cease? I went down one point, from 84.4kg to 84.3kg, or to “where I was the day before yesterday” Which I suppose is better than going up again, but still… And tomorrow, I start back on those horrible little “fluid retaining” tablets again! Oh, gosh! I just realised! Only another 21 days until I see Dr. Y. again! I hope he’ll be pleased with me… I’ve already organised to have my hair done the day before… I do hope I can shed about another kilo before then, and get down into the 83kg zone – I would have much preferred to get down to the 82kg zone, but unfortunately I don’t think that’s going to be possible 😦

And now it’s almost a quarter past six – hopefully I’ll be able to get this finished before I have to go off on my evening Stair Walk! You know, everyone’s been saying and telling me how wonderful it’ll be when we move, as the house is flat – no stairs anywhere, etc… but I’m wondering how I’m going to exercise! I can’t go for long walks like Julian does – (a) I can’t walk properly in shoes (I don’t balance well in shoes!), and (b) my back gets too sore and I end up staggering and hobbling along, bent over double, like an ancient old crone! No, I need the stairs – stairs I can manage, cos I can do it bare-footed, and there’s a stair rail and wall to use for balance. Julian has talked about a stair-climbing machine, sort-of a cross between a treadmill and an escalator. Yesterday when we went on our abortive furniture hunting expedition, we saw that there was an exercise equipment shop in the same complex, so we went in to ask them about these “stair-climbing” machines… Well, they had just about anything and everything that has ever been invented and used for exercise purposes in there, but no stair-climbing machines – in fact, they didn’t even know what we were talking about! I guess these stair-climbing machines are either only for hospital or re-hab use, or prohibitively expensive…  I suppose I can always get one of those pedometer thingies and walk up and down the long corridor at the new place, but I don’t think it’ll be enough… However, we’ll work something out, I’m sure… 🙂 But anyway, that’s about it from me again for another night! Do drop in again tomorrow night to find out if my favourite eldest daughter and I spent a slothful afternoon sitting on our backsides watching episodes from some of our shows, or whether we spent a comradely afternoon wrapping and packing… you can also find out if I dropped any more weight before the fluid-retaining pills kick into action, as I begin the countdown to my all-important visit to Dr. Y. And I’m sure there’ll be lots of other things to tell you all about, too, so don’t miss out! Until tomorrow night, though, I’ll once more implore you all to bee good, remember that it only takes two people to damage a society: the one who knows and doesn’t talk and the one who doesn’t know and talks. Don’t forget to look after yourselves, to stay warm, and to drive carefully, but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, we did go furniture shopping today, but not early, as I had hoped, in fact we actually didn’t set out until almost lunch time! Forward thinking and methodical as usual, I went through the Vermont South floor plan, room by room, working out, with Julian’s input, what furniture was going to be needed for each. Good, now we had a list, so that we wouldn’t be darting holus-bolus around the furniture shops, exclaiming over pieces of furniture that looked fantastic, but wouldn’t be what we wanted or needed. Several days ago, about last Wednesday, when we were deciding whether or not we wanted to buy some of the Vendor’s furniture, and Julian vetoed the idea, blah, blah, blah – I told you all about it at the time, remember? (if you don’t remember, go back and read all of last week’s blogs and refresh your memories! That can be your punishment for forgetting something that I told you! 😉 Only kidding… 🙂 ) When he said that we shouldn’t buy any of their furniture, I said “Right! Fine! Then we’re going to need measurements, so that we know what size of tables and lounge suites we’re going to need! Ask “Julian-the-Agent” if we can have the measurements of (and Winter proceeds to read out a long list of furniture and sundry items that we were going to need the dimensions of)” “my-Julian” of course, scoffed at such a request: “We can work out the sizes and dimensions from the room measurements and the photos!”, said he, brazenly! I shrugged… “Suit yourself”, said I, but added, sotto-voce “but you will need those measurements, anyway!” Today, I was proved right. We went to only two furniture places before he realised that I’d been right. We had no idea of the size of the kitchen table – all we knew was that it fitted three chairs down each side, and one on each end. We looked at all the tables that had three chairs down each side, and which would have fitted another one on each end… and they were all different ruddy sizes! Some were obviously far too long, some looked too short, and others, well, we just couldn’t tell! The same with the lounge suites – some looked small enough to fit in the corner of the Family room, but were uncomfortable, and looked “mingy” – some were really comfortable, but looked as though they might have been too big, and some were nice enough, and might have been the right size, but only came in cloth, not leather (we prefer leather because cats don’t scratch leather lounge suites as much as they do the cloth ones) In the end Julian sat there glumly, saying “We need the measurements! 😦 ”  I was very magnanimous – I refrained from saying “I told you so!” out aloud (but as we’d just been talking to the salesman about whether or not we’d need the measurements of the things we’d just been looking at, I couldn’t help but smirk at said salesman, which was very mean of me, but after all, I do have a reputation for being a little “harsh” sometimes! 😉 ) So at about 2.15pm, we packed it in and came home to a late lunch, a cup of coffee, and a quick email to “Julian-the-Agent” requesting either a supervised visit to the place to take measurements, or for the Vendors to send us the measurements, via “Julian-the-Agent” – as we’d proved today that even armed with a specific list and photos of the types of items we wanted, shopping for household furniture without measurements is pretty pointless… After lunch I did a bit of Rifting – and (*gulp*) I created yet another male character – a Dwarven Mage this time, called “Grumblegruff” – isn’t that a good name for a crusty old Dwarf?! 🙂 He’s as short as I could make him, and he has lovely ox-blood coloured hair with bright blue tips! I’m looking forward to seeing how he goes…

We ended up not going to Office Works, either, so I didn’t even get my pencil sharpener 😦 Julian wanted to get some boxes from the Storage place in Mitcham where we still have (far too much!) stuff from our 2007 move to Doncaster stored, because we don’t have any more room for them here – we bought 20 “Archive” boxes because they were on “Special”. Unfortunately we haven’t received the “detailed list” from Sharron the Stylist, about what to move out and what to leave on show yet, so we don’t know what to start packing, or what not to pack. We’re meeting up with Carmen at her office again at 2 o’clock tomorrow afternoon – maybe she’ll have heard from Sharron… I just want to start things happening – this morning, although it proved a valuable lesson in some ways, was otherwise a waste of time – and we didn’t even see anything that we really liked! We didn’t specifically look, but I kept a sharp eye out for bedroom furniture – and it was all horrible! Most of what I saw I wouldn’t put in a derelict, condemned building, let alone in our own bedroom! For goodness sake – what’s happened to good taste these days? “Shabby Chic”? The “Distressed” Look? Just seeing it in a shop “distresses” me! And as for the “Retro” look, believe me, when you’ve grown up with it, you never want to see it again – let alone in your own house! Whatever happened to “elegance”? Whatever happened to harmonious lines, a “pleasing” colour, and… good craftsmanship?! All too much of today’s furniture and clothing can be summed up in four little words: “shoddy look, shoddy craftsmanship”!

But, tomorrow is another day – let’s see what Carmen, and hopefully by then, Sharron, have to say….

Weigh-in this morning. I think… I think… that the Big Bounce Back has started “nibbling around my edges”… Actually, that’s the wrong terminology. If the BBB was “nibbling around my edges”, I’d be getting smaller and lighter, wouldn’t I? However, I think it’s starting to edge a little closer to me – I went up one point today, from 84.3kg to 84.4kg. The beginning of the end…. of my downward course, especially considering that I go back on the “fluid pills” the day after tomorrow! *sigh*

Julian is in here with me, constructing “Archive” boxes (they come as a flat piece of pre-cut heavy cardboard) and I just asked him what was happening tomorrow, apart from our appointment with Carmen. He suggests “packing up”, so I guess the move could be said to be officially underway, with the Den rapidly filling up with newly constructed (but still empty) boxes! I think I’ll start on my drawers here in the Den tomorrow, and then move on to my bathroom – I also know that we’re going to need a lot of rubbish bin liners, if we’re not going to pack anything that we’re not taking with us! Later on, when Julian starts advertising the furniture and other things we’re going to be selling, I’ll post the links to those items here as well, so that if anyone’s interested, you can go and have a look to see if you want anything. But for now, that’s about it for me – drop by again tomorrow night to see how my weight went, whether it went up a bit more, a lot more, stayed the same, or went down again… Find out if we received Sharron’s “”detailed list”, and what the lovely Carmen had to say. I’ll be able to fill you in on all our packing up processes, and whether we found things that we’d thought lost forever (like my ever famous Recipe Book, which has now, thankfully, been found!) But whatever happens tomorrow, you know there’ll be heaps of news and interesting tidbits here to amuse you all, so until then, please bee good, remember that advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer, but wish we didn’t. Don’t forget to keep warm, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but most importantly… remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Phew! I’m quite exhausted after a busy day in The Plane of Water! We both died once – I can’t even remember who it was we were fighting, now – but I know I’d had to quaff down a Healing Potion, but Julian had been killed first, and was still on his way back (from being dead) so I ended up dying too! Why on earth didn’t I just Feign Death? I could have… I should have… but I just didn’t think of it – until now, long after the fact! We actually got a late start with our Rifting today – my favourite youngest daughter rang me to let me know that her mother-in-law was in hospital, and not doing well at all. She’s always been a fairly heavy smoker, and has been in and out of hospitals for the past few years with emphysema problems. Now, one of her lungs has collapsed, and she’s back in hospital again. She’s been intubated (basically, a tube is inserted into the bronchial passages to remove blockages and to allow air into the lungs) but unfortunately it wasn’t successful, and the hospital doesn’t want to repeat the process in case it causes further damage. Her oxygen level is only 50% (it should be close to 100% – and even when I had the multiple clots in both lungs my oxygen levels never fell below 75% (I think it’s now around 98%)) So not only is the prognosis extremely poor, but the oxygen starvation has been causing her to hallucinate.  Not good all round… On the other hand, Julian’s mother seemed a little better this afternoon, so… swings and roundabouts, I guess… Getting back to Rift, as I said, we had a bit of a late start, so neither of us went up a level – Julian is about two bubbles away, and I’m slightly less than one bubble from leveling (for those unfamiliar with gaming terms, nearly all experience bars are divided into small sections, commonly called a “bubble”. They’re used to describe how far away one is from “dinging”, or going up to the next experience level) At one point Julian asked me if I thought we should take an experience enhancing potion, in order to level up more quickly, to which I replied “to what end?” He had to concede my point – yes, we could level up more quickly, but why? So that we can get to level 65 faster, and roll new characters, so that we could start playing all over again from scratch? Much better to take the slow route and enjoy what we’re doing, rather than rushing off to do all the boring little “baby” quests, all over again! 😉 We finished off around five o’clock, and I started writing this almost before I’d logged out – I still have to do my evening Stair Walk, too, so I’m not expecting to get this finished before dinner time – sorry! 🙂

Although we forgot to go to Office Works yesterday, I decided to do a bit of “de-cluttering”, in my bathroom anyway (I use the en-suite, Julian uses the main bathroom, that way neither of us is dodging the other person’s bathroom accoutrements) I didn’t have a box to put anything in, so I basically tidied everything off the vanity unit into the cupboard underneath, apart from the Dyson heating/cooling fan, the squirty soaps and hand lotion, my jewellery box, perfume, and tissue box. Tomorrow I believe we’ll be leaving early(ish) for Office Works, to get some boxes (probably those sturdy Document boxes, plus some longer, more rectangular boxes, if such animals exist!) …and a pencil sharpener! It might be worth our while to call in at Howard’s Storage World for boxes and/or packing containers – they’ll be more expensive that Office Works, but they might have a larger, and perhaps sturdier, range. It cain’t hoit to look, anyway! And besides! Howard’s Storage World is right next door to the nice furniture store where we got our coffee table and entertainment unit from – and as we’ll also be furniture hunting, we can kill two birds with the one brick, so to speak! 😉 I think we should begin our furniture hunt tomorrow anyway, because we’ll be meeting up with Carmen early on Tuesday morning to discuss sales plans and Open For Inspection dates; my favourite eldest daughter will be over on Wednesday – I think, and I have a hairdressing appointment on Thursday afternoon – so that doesn’t leave much of the week for furniture hunting! I know that settlement date isn’t until August 20th, but I think we’re going to find the time flying past at a great rate of knots, and it’s not just the furniture hunting we’re facing, it’s also deciding on what we’re taking and what we’re selling, de-cluttering everywhere, and devising the means for quickly and efficiently boxing up stuff that we need on a daily basis, but need to store “off site” during Open For Inspection hours. I also want to go through stuff that I don’t want the Removalists to be boxing up for us – if we’re not keeping something, it ain’t comin’ with us! ….Walkies time…. Back later….

+————————–+ * Dinner & Television Break * +————————–+

Here I am, back again – walked, fed, televisioned, and ready to go 🙂 Where was I? Oh yes, not wanting to take stuff with us that we’re not going to keep. Last time we moved, back in 2007, when we moved in here, we had the Removalists pack everything for us, and unpack everything for us at this end. Well, what with one thing and another, the move started late, and the unpacking wasn’t finished at the end of the day. We told them to forget it and go home – it was late; we could take it from there… Well, we found quite a lot of broken things, quite a lot of unimportant and what’s more, unbreakable things, well and truly over-wrapped, and a lot of highly breakable and fragile things with scarcely a scrap of paper around them – but the most amazing thing of all was that they’d very carefully and tenderly wrapped up and packed a smelly and overflowing ashtray! I no longer smoked, but friends of ours did, and that one full ashtray had been overlooked in all the chaos of moving. Instead of emptying it first, or better still, asking us if we really wanted all those smelly old butts and ashes, the Removalists had simply … wrapped it up, ashes and all, and very carefully packed it for us. That will not be happening again! Actually, there were a lot of lessons to be learned from that move – probably one of the most important being that if you’re going to be having other people packing and unpacking for you, do your research first! Decide, and know, where you want everything to go! If it’s ornaments in a glass case, take photos first of how you want them put back! Decide beforehand which kitchen drawer you want the tea towels put in – silly, simple little things like that.Too many times the Removalists would say to us “Where do you want us to put this?” Well, we didn’t know – we hadn’t given it a second thought! So we’d end up saying something along the lines of “Oh! Umm! Put it over there!” and then days later we’d have to move everything all over again because we hadn’t thought to look around the new place beforehand, to decide where we wanted things… Come settlement day, I don’t know about Julian, but I’m going to be breaking my neck to move in – but you know what? We won’t be moving in on settlement day, on settlement day we’ll go over with an electric jug, a jar of Nescafe, some skinny milk, and a couple of cups, and we’ll toast our new house, and walk around it, and start deciding where we want the Removalists to put things! We’ll even take a roll of labels, and label places and things! This time we’ll take our time, and do it properly, even if it means that we don’t move in for… a couple of minutes? 😉 I’d like to believe all of that last part, but the phrase “Famous last words!” springs to mind…. 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Tomorrow, definitely tomorrow, the Big Bounce Back is coming! I went down another three points this morning, from 84.6kg to 84.3kg. On Wednesday I go back on the fluid retaining pills. I’d like to go down another couple of points before then, but…. The Big Bounce Back will strike – probably tomorrow!

And that just about brings me to the end of tonight’s blog… I’ve already filled you in on the weekly plans – subject to change without notice, as usual! As I often used to say to people, “I’m one of the most organised and thorough people you’re ever likely to find… but then the cat will throw up on the kid’s homework, or the car will get a flat tyre on the only day of the year that I’m not running early, and all my careful planning and organisation go flying out the window! It’s not my fault!” So, there it is. We’ll either go looking for furniture tomorrow, or not… as the Gremlins see fit! Drop by again tomorrow night though, and see what did transpire… did my weight bounce back up, as I predicted it might? Did we remember to go to Office Works? (and did I get my pencil sharpener?!) And did we indeed go looking at furniture, and see anything that we deemed worthy of our new home? 🙂 Find out tomorrow night! Until then, though, please continue to bee good, remember to enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and discover they were the big things, don’t forget to drive carefully, take care of yourselves, and to keep warm, but most importantly… don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Here I am, starting early(ish) for a change! I would have started even earlier, except that just as I was about to start writing, I was suddenly overcome by the strange urge to…. change the header! So I did that first, and now I’m ready to begin. We did indeed go shopping this morning, but not before himself and I had a long chat about our new house, and where we were going to put what, and what were we going to do with most of the furniture we already have. I’m getting the feeling that Julian wants to start out with as clean a slate as possible, and he’s not really very keen on buying much – if any – of the furniture currently in the house – most of which turns out not to be on offer anyway, much to my great annoyance! However, I do see his point. It’s going to be our house, so we shouldn’t start out with someone else’s “junk” – we should start out with our own “junk”, n’est ce pas? I told him that I was only trying to save us some money, to which he replied “Well, don’t!” – d’ya reckon that I should take this as a “carte blanch” directive to get a whole lot of nice new stuff, then?! 😉 I reckon…. 🙂 Anyway, the furniture they were offering us first dibs on were their two big televisions (one of which was mounted on the wall in the master bedroom) the smaller of the two lounge suites, and the occasional table in the hallway (does “occasional table” mean that the table wasn’t  a table all the time? That it was “occasionally” something other than a table? Like, maybe a chair, perhaps?The English language and terminology is “occasionally” very stupid indeed!) Regarding televisions in bedrooms, mounted on the wall or otherwise: No! Not going to happen! I have never, ever had a television in the bedroom, and with the exception of televisions mounted on the wall in a hospital ward, I have no intention of lying in bed watching television! Reading in bed is OK, watching television is not! So maybe we won’t buy any of their furniture, after all! We have the floor plan and the room dimensions – we should be able to work out what sort of furniture we’ll need from that. From the photos, the kitchen table seats eight (three chairs down each side, one at each end) Julian has spotted the identical furniture that they have on their deck, so we know where to get that… Ready-potted palms might be a problem, but I’m sure there are nurseries that sell large, already established, potted palms and so forth (there was only one over there at Vermont South anyway, and I wanted more than just the one – besides, it’d get lonely, all on its own, poor little palm! 😉 ) Anyway, we’re going furniture shopping next week – we want to see what we can pick up in the End of the Financial Year Sales! 🙂 We must think of a suitable name for the house, too. I suggested “Still Water”, because of the water feature at the front of the house, and because of the saying “still waters run deep” – well, the house is “deep“, in that it’s big, and goes back into the block a long way, and also “deep*“, because we are… (or at least I like to think that we are!) Julian, for some obscure reason, seems to think that a house name should end in an “ie” (or “ee”) sound (e.g. “Sans Soucie” – literally, “Without a Care”) *shrug* But I’m sure we’ll think of something appropriate and suitable 🙂

After quite a lot of discussion, we headed out – we went to The Pines, to see about those cowl neck “Tunics” – they only had the one left, and it’s not a deep purple, it’s a navy blue (well, really it was more like a dark Junior Navy – which is not as “black” as a true “Navy Blue”), but they didn’t have one in “Small”, so I’ll order it online and have it sent to the Autograph shop at The Pines, and we’ll pick it up from there. I got one piece of underwear at DJ’s – would you believe size 16? I haven’t worn a size 16 since I was in my early twenties! I only got one, because I simply can’t believe that I’ll fit into it! If I do (fit into it) when I’ve picked myself up off the floor after I faint from shock, I’ll go back and get some more… I also bought a couple of pairs of bras – also size 16! What is the world coming to?! Winter, wearing size 16 again, after all these years! 🙂 Then we went on to do a bit of “ordinary” shopping, had a cup of coffee at Jones The Grocer, and finally came home – having completely forgotten that we were going to go to Office Works! We’ll have to go there on Monday, before we head off to cruise the Furniture Shops along Whitehorse Road between Box Hill and Ringwood… because I really do need a pencil sharpener…. 😉

The rest of the afternoon I’ve spent Rifting – Chaviv has reached level 10 – I’ve decided to keep him, and get rid of Nox. Poor Nox – it’s not his fault that I just don’t like him – I’m feeling very guilty about him actually… maybe I should level him up to 15 and move him to another shard… We’ll see…

Weigh-in this morning. Another big surprise awaited me when I hopped on the scales this morning! I went down another three points, from 84.9kg to 84.6kg! Hopefully I won’t bounce drastically back up again, and I’ll be able to get down to 84.3kg, or 84.2kg by Wednesday, when I start those horrible fluid retaining pills again…

Tomorrow, of course, is our sacrosanct Sunday in The Plane of Water – I think we’d decided to each take one of the experience enhancing potions to try to level up a little faster – we’re both level 62 now – and leveling up has been so s-l-o-w! Still, only another three levels to the cap, at 65! (and then what do we do? Start off another two newbies of the opposite faction, or stick around and try to run some Dungeons or Instances? If I recall correctly, the last time we tried that with our first level 65s, it was a truly dismal failure!) Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to level up so quickly… perhaps we should take our time… stop, and smell the roses, or the coffee… spend more time exploring… Take up fishing, and do some Fishing Dailies…  and in general, just enjoy ourselves. Goodness knows, with this move looming up on the horizon, plus acute problems with Julian’s mother, it promises to be a “very exciting time” for us!

And that, gentle readers, is about it from me for tonight! A short blog,for a change – will wonders never cease?! (mind you, I haven’t finished yet! 😉 ) However, check back tomorrow night and see how we fared in The Plane of Water – did we end up taking one of those experience enhancing potions, or did we decide to saunter through the watery landscape, unenhanced, and braving the terrors of the deep with just our magical weapons, our tissue-thin cloth armor, and our naked wits to protect us? Did we die, and if so, how many times? Or did we survive, unscathed?! Have I truly deleted Nox, or will he end up languishing on another shard, like “Survivor” contestants, voted out of the Tribe and banished to Exile Island until they can redeem themselves through combat? What will my weight do? Bounce back up to untold heights, plunging me into deep melancholy, or will it sink, gracefully and gently, down towards my ultimate goal weight? The answers to these questions, and more, will be revealed to you all tomorrow night – so don’t miss out! 🙂 Until then, however, I shall once more plead with you all to bee good, remember that one word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success, don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully, but above all… remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*Synonyms for “deep”: recondite, mysterious, obscure, profound, sagacious, wise, shrewd – and between the two of us, we’re all of those things, plus a few more, besides! 😉

Well, there’s no way I’m going to get this finished before dinner! I’ve started really late – when Julian left to take my favourite eldest daughter home, I, of course, saw them off at the lift, and then went on my evening Stair Walk. When I got back, I couldn’t be bothered waiting for Julian to get home for a cup of coffee, so now that I know how to use the coffee machine, I decided to make one myself. Which I did, and am now enjoying immensely! 🙂 Then I came down here and decided to move my monitor a little bit (read: “a lot”) closer – these new “computer glasses” of mine only seem to work properly when the screen is about four inches away from my nose – well, alright, about a foot and a half away from my nose – but it feels as though it’s only four inches away (and at least I can see the screen properly!) Then I decided to quickly check my mail… which also involved creating a new filter for something, which I got wrong and had to delete, and re-do it from scratch. So here it is – almost six o’clock, I’ve finished my coffee, Julian’s not home yet, and I’ve only just begun to write! Never mind, the blog will be posted before breakfast time tomorrow morning – promise! 😉

Did any of you go and have a look at the Bored Panda link I entered in the “As Seen On….” page late last night, with the wonderful men’s hair and beard colouring? If you haven’t seen it yet, do go and have a look – the colours are absolutely fabulous! I just wish I could talk Julian into having something like that done to his hair – maybe in electric blue and hot pink – though I don’t really think he’s a hot pink sort-of guy… maybe electric blue and purple… Mmm…. 🙂

I had to race off and have my Warfarin blood test done this morning – I was supposed to have had it yesterday, but daily events stuck a spoke in the wheels of that little plan, so we thought we’d go today – early, because I’d planned on doing a little shopping before himself went off to pick up my favourite eldest daughter, and I had to be home for when our cleaning lady arrived, so time was slightly of the essence! We raced through showers and breakfast, and whizzed off to the lift, where we waited. And waited. And then we waited a bit more (I was starting to get damned cold, too!) Some people downstairs were moving out today, and no-one had bothered to tell the Removalists that they were not allowed to prop the lift doors open while they stuffed it full of furniture. There’s only the one lift in the building, and there are a lot of other people who need to use it too – like us, this morning! While I was waiting, I sat in my wheelchair facing the lift and read my Kindle, while Julian paced up and down behind me. Eventually the lift doors opened, and I trundled through them, thinking that Julian was right behind me. He wasn’t. Unbeknownst to me, he’d stomped off down the front stairs to “have a few words” with the Removalists (who told him that they’d thought that there were another “couple” of lifts, so it didn’t matter – I wonder just where they thought these other “couple” of lifts were?! Hiding in the basement, maybe?!) Finally we made it to the car park, where would you believe it, we ran into the Electrician, who was replacing some light globes! So he and Julian had a discussion of what needed doing, where, why, and how the Electrician couldn’t do it because there was no ceiling access, and he needed that access to do whatever it was that he had to do. Once again, I’m left sitting there looking decorative, with icicles hanging off my nose. Finally, we moved on, and I’d just got to the car when I realised that I’d left the form for the blood test behind – Julian had to race back upstairs to fetch it, and that was it. We finally managed to get out of the garage and on our way. Late. I went in to have my blood siphoned off – Julian took a phone call from his sister regarding their mother – things are not going well at all in that department, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, the lady taking my blood was in a very chatty mood, and it’s a trifle hard to get away from someone who has a tourniquet around your arm and a rather large syringe in her hand! It took Julian to poke his head through the door to see what was holding me up before I could make my escape (to be fair, we were discussing cats, the longevity of cats, and common feline ailments and diseases, so I wasn’t trying all that hard to get away – it was a very interesting conversation! 🙂 ) By then it was far too late to do any shopping – Julian drove me home and pretty much threw me out of a moving car, while he took off to pick up my favourite eldest daughter. As it turned out, I wasn’t late for the cleaning lady, she was late getting here – she lives in Upwey, and apparently it’s been kinda windy up there, resulting in a tree coming down on her back fence – she’d had to call her landlord and arrange to have the fallen tree removed – so I probably could have stayed and done my shopping, after all! I think we’re going shopping tomorrow… 😉

Weigh-in this morning. I’m perplexed, but thankful for medium-sized mercies, this close to going back on those wretched fluid retaining pills again! Of course, I’ll pay the price tomorrow or the next day – but I went down – from 85.3kg to 84.9kg – a drop of four points – a bit too much of a good thing, in my opinion (and experience!) This means that I’m now only 9kg away from my final “goal weight” of 75kg – though I am planning on going down to 70kg, so that I’ll have five kilos to “play with” when I go onto my maintenance diet. I’m getting there! I’m getting there! 🙂 Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could get down that much before August 18th this year – that’ll mean that I’ll have lost 59kg in under a year! I’m pretty sure that I won’t make 75kg before August 18th, but wouldn’t it be cool if I could! 🙂

Lee and I watched the last few episodes of Season One of “The 100” this afternoon – luckily we have one or two episodes of Season Two left to watch, as well as the last episode of whatever Season of “Orphan Black” we’re currently watching, so we do have a bit left to watch for next week! 🙂

This morning while I was waiting for Julian to get back with my favourite eldest daughter, I did a bit of Rifting again. For some reason or other, I wasn’t really happy with Nox, the male character I’d created yesterday – I didn’t delete him out of hand (just in case) but I did transfer another one of the girls on that shard, only temporarily, so that I could create a second male character. When this one’s level 10, I’ll decide which one I want to keep, delete the other, and bring back the girl I transferred today. However I sorta-think it’ll be this new one – his name is Chaviv 🙂

Thought so…. Sorry!  Back in a bit!

+————————–+ * Dinner & Television Break * +————————–+

Here I am back again, after watching the last of “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” – I do hope they continue the series, they’ve been a lot of fun (and it’s been lovely to see the Melbourne of the late 1920’s portrayed “as they should have been”) but alas, I fear we’ve seen the last of Phryne Fisher 😦 Anyway, that was pretty much my day that was – frustrating in the morning, but fun in the afternoon spending time with my favourite eldest daughter, whose weight is also continuing to drop steadily! (goodonya, kiddo! 🙂 ) Tomorrow, I have a small amount of shopping to do – undergarments, and Autograph have some nice looking jumpers (fancifully called “tunics”) with cowl necks that I’m interested in… We also need to start getting our packing paraphernalia organised – especially getting hold of some of those sturdy cardboard “Document” boxes, for things that we’ll need to scoop up and “hide” when people are coming through looking at this place, and then put back again when they’ve all gone home (goody! That means a visit to Office Works! 😀 ) So that’s about it from me for tonight – do call back again tomorrow night – find out if my weight went back up again, continued going down, or stayed the same. Will I have bought one of those jumpers? If they have a deep purple one in my size, the answer will be yes – they’re on Sale! And will we have spent a long time in Office Works, buying lots of storage thingies (I need a good pencil sharpener, too!) You can find all that out tomorrow night, but until then, bee good, remember to be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are; don’t forget to drive carefully, to keep warm, and to look after yourselves, but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*There’s another update on the “As Seen On…” page tonight – from Bored Panda – a definite “Must See” item! 🙂

It’s a bit later than I wanted to start, actually, but we’ve had Sharron (the “Stylist”) here, telling us what she wants done with the apartment. She’s going to send us a detailed list before next Tuesday, and I gather that she (or Carmen?) organises everything, from the storage of our furniture that she doesn’t want on display, to the hiring of furniture that she does want on display. Like our blue lounge suite – it’s a “no-no”! Apparently we need something more… neutral, like off-white, or cream, or soft grey… I hope we’re allowed to have a lounge suite with recliner chairs! 😦 Basically, though, we need to “de-clutter” everywhere, but especially in here (the Den) where she wants to make a “feature” of the mottled chocolate caesarstone benches/desks around three of the walls. One of the two display cabinets in the hallway has to go into storage (or get sold!) and we’re going to need a few more rugs, and a mirror for that eyesore of a pillar between the dining area and the lounge room. I can’t wait to see the “detailed list” she’s going to send us! (*rolls eyes*) The penthouse upstairs goes to Auction on July 7th, and I think this place is supposed to be ready for people to come and look at a couple of days before that, so that Carmen can steer people who either missed out on the penthouse, or didn’t like the penthouse, but liked the position here, this way. So it looks like we’re largely going to be camping out in our own apartment, once all the de-cluttering and re-organisation has been done, until we move! Oh well, as I keep saying about this diet – it’s not forever, and we can surely put up with a little bit of inconvenience for a few weeks! Oh, and I’ve coloured in another day on my “countdown” calendar… 😀

This morning I got stuck back into Rift. I re-rolled that female character, and he’s now a male character called “Noxangelus”, or “Nox”, for short – it means “Night angel”, or “Dark angel”. All the other names I wanted to use were already taken Anyway, he’s a Mathosian (human) Mage (what else! 🙂 ) and is just about to leave the starting area for Silverwood, where I’ll quickly whisk him off to Freemarch to level up. I used to have the same problem with names already being “taken” on WoW (World of Warcraft), except there I was able to use “fancy” foreign letters, like ö, and â and other such accented letters, to get around the name problem. Rift, unfortunately, won’t let you, and in fact I think it’s only recently that the European shards have been able to use them. The “rules” had to be “modified” because there’d been so many complaints – those accents are pretty much essential for even fairly common names over there, so they ended up having to allow them after all… I wish they’d let us use them too… (*sigh*)

We had a look at our new place via Google maps last night – it was quite fascinating, as you can go right back to 2009 and before, so we were having a look at the changes that have been made to the block over the years. It started off as a teeny house on a very large block in 2005 (I think!) Then in 2009 that was knocked down and a new and much more bigger house built. Then it went through several transitional phases, as the children (perhaps?) grew up and had different needs and interests – there was a large wading-type pool approximately where the outside entertainment deck now is… then I think a large trampoline was installed for a while (or did that come before the wading pool? No, after it, I think…) Then a large, above-ground swimming pool was installed in what was left of the backyard. That, surprisingly, stayed there for a few years – and was only dismantled and got rid of somewhere between February and May this year! It was very interesting, watching an almost “time-lapse” aerial view of the block! However, apart from a small vegetable garden, I don’t think anyone in the future will see much change to the block after we move in 🙂

The “complete first season of The 100” has just arrived from Amazon! Julian is going to rip it tonight (copy it onto the File Server) so that my favourite eldest daughter and I can watch it tomorrow when she comes over. I wish I could remember which episode we were up to, though! Luckily, I think Lee has it noted down somewhere… (ahhh… coffee!) Mind you, I’m not quite sure how much of it we’re going to see – our cleaning lady will be bustling around with the (extremely noisy) vacuum cleaner and the (somewhat more silent) mop. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t see if she can do the cleaning every week while the apartment is going to be “Open For Inspection”… Flipper does shed a lot of hair…. 🙂 poor little girl – she’s not going to like it one little-itty-bit! Her furniture will be… gone! And a lot of new furniture that doesn’t smell right it going to be there instead! Daddy’s “Patting Chair” might not be the recliner she’s so used to hogging, and horror of horrors – worst of all – every time the apartment is going to be “Open For Inspection”, she’s going to be bundled up into her much hated, despised, and detested cat-carry cage, and carted off next door! She’s probably going to scream her head off, which may alarm – but hopefully not turn off – the prospective buyers, and will almost certainly displease the neighbours, whose apartment we’re going to be hiding in whenever the apartment is going to be open! Oh dear… Julian was wondering if we shouldn’t see if the Vet will give her some Clomicalm “for the duration”, but I said no… whenever we’ve had to give it to our cats, for whatever reason, it’s “zombified” them, made them dopey and miserable, and really hasn’t done anything much to alleviate the problem that led to its prescription in the first place! I think she’ll be alright, as long as we’re with her and reassuring her, and if we can stick as much as possible to her usual routine. She certainly won’t be happy, and she’ll probably yowl a lot (which she tends to do, anyway!) but I’m sure she’ll survive the move, and the lead up to it (says she, crossing all her fingers and toes! (have you any idea how hard it is to type, with all your fingers crossed?!)) We’ll all get through it… 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Well, I went down one point, to where I was the day before yesterday, at 85.3kg, which is a lot better than going up another notch! However, it’s only five more days until I go on the fluid retaining pills again… (and it’s only twenty six more days until I see Dr. Y. again – c’mon weight, shed! Pretty please, with chocolate icing on top!)

(I finished my coffee 😦 ) I’ve been spending a bit of time looking up Australian Mist breeders, too – but looking at the lists I’ve found so far, an awful lot of the sites are defunct, or haven’t been updated for years… Not a good look!  So then I thought of my Raycee Marmalade (a spotted Tabby Point I had many years ago, from my Chocolate Point girl, Siwa) and I thought – what about a spotted Tabby Point? So I thought I’d look up my old club – The Royal Sacred Siamese Cat Club, and I can find lots of references to it being in Doncaster, and one map which claims that it’s within walking distance from here! There’s a phone number (lots of phone numbers, actually!) but no website or other tangible information. I shall have to investigate further, if I want to go that route looking for “spotted” cats… But that’s a job for another day. And that’s about it from me for tonight – but do drop back again tomorrow night, to find out how my weight went, if Nox has made it safely into Freemarch, and how many episodes of which shows my favourite eldest daughter and I watched 🙂 But until then, I shall once more beg you all to bee good, remember that whatever you believe about yourself on the inside will manifest itself on the outside; don’t forget to keep warm, drive carefully, and look after yourselves, but most importantly…. remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*There’s another update on the “As Seen On…” page tonight – from the Goodreads “Quote of the Day” site…hope you all like it too…

Well, I made that calendar to count the days left until settlement, this morning – it’s really quite pretty, though it doesn’t look all that good in the scan… Julian scanned it for me because all our attempts at taking a photo of it seemed doomed to failure!The flash failed too many times to mention, neither of us could get it quite straight, and neither of us were able to fit the whole thing into the frame without it looking too small. Even the scan is a bit wonky (i.e. not quite straight), the text looks fuzzy, and I haven’t quite re-captured my colouring-in skills yet! Still, here it is, for what it’s worth! 🙂 For anyone interested in fonts, the title and the relevant numbers were done in “Guttenberg MF” which I downloaded when I was doing my search for Art Deco fonts and dingbats the other day. Personally, I’d call it an “Art Nouveau” style, rather than an “Art Deco” one, but I’m only an artiste, so what would I know? 😉

Once again, my favourite eldest daughter wasn’t able to come over – she’s much more better, but Yarra Valley Water were working on the pipes outside – yet again – and the water was off from between 9.00am and 2.00pm. We eventually decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and that she’d be better off coming over on Friday, instead. So this morning, I Rifted – just for a change – and then I created my little calendar and printed it out. It turned out that my colouring pencils weren’t in the square box on the top shelf of the bookcase, after all – they were in a box under my weight-loss graph book and the diary in which I keep track of my Warfarin doses, in one of the drawers next to me. And as you can see, I really must hone my colouring-in skills if the calendar is going to look decent. I think I’d do better with a soft-ish surface under the calendar, too, rather than the bare desk top… and I also need to get myself a good pencil sharpener – most of the pencils in my set have never been used, which means that they’ve never been sharpened – and I dislike the sight of pencils roughly hacked at with a Stanley Knife to create the point! I probably do have a pencil sharpener – several, most likely – but it’ll be easier and quicker to go out and get a new one from Riot, or the nearest Supermarket 🙂 (never turn the house upside down looking for small, elusive objects, when it’s far, far easier to go out and buy another small, elusive object, that you know damn well will run away to join the others, just as soon as your back is turned! 😉 ) Then I went back to Rift. I’ve brought Kresta back from Freemarch, and dusted her down – now I’m looking at another character – she’s only level 10 and has done virtually nothing – so I’m thinking of re-rolling her as another male character (hmm… is this why I’ve been looking through lists of female names, perhaps?!) Tsk! Oh well, the re-roll will be whatever it turns out to be. Hopefully another male…but who knows? 🙂

Oh, regarding the Auction last Saturday! We did get a clue as to why there were so few Asians at the Auction, and so few bidders… According to “Julian-the-Agent”, who’s Asian himself, it was the house number! “24” – apparently the word(s) for “24” in Chinese sound similar to the word(s) for “easy death” or some-such! Isn’t it strange how some people can put so much faith? Belief? in simple word-play, or a superstition… (*plants tongue firmly in cheek*) I mean, I always cross my fingers if a black cat crosses my path, and I make a point of never opening an umbrella in the house – and did you know that if you see a white horse, you should make a wish and cross your fingers? but you mustn’t uncross your fingers until you see a black dog! But that’s different, isn’t it… 😉 (*removes tongue from cheek*)

Weigh-in this morning. Today was another “three times on the scales” for me. The first time, it went up to 85.6kg – up three points to where I was the day before yesterday. I was resigned, though – I’ve known that this bounce back was coming… and it was only three points. However, I stepped off the scales, and back on again for my “confirmatory” look at the scales. They went very firmly down to 85.4kg. Hmm.. Make up your mind, scales! “Come on, one more go to see which one it’s going to be!” said Julian, so off I hopped, and back on again I clambered – straight down to 85.4kg again – so we called “correct weight”, and I dutifully entered it into the graph, and wrote it down in the diary, next to tonight’s Warfarin dose.. so I’ve really only gone up one point today… The rest will pile back on again tomorrow morning. It’s gotta go up again after the big losses I’ve had over the past few days! I just hope it doesn’t ooze back into the 86kg zone…

(my coffee cup is empty again 😦 ) Anyway, I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow – I keep getting the urge to go and do some graphic work, but there’s not much to do, now – I can’t use backgrounds on this new blog template – I can make headers, but there’s only so much you can do with the amount of room/space that I have for making headers… I suppose I can make a new Wallpaper-y thing – I’ve been working on a lace-like frame – it’s really quite spectacular, if a trifle “heavy” (I’m working on it! I’m working on it, already! 😉 ) Oh, hnag on a minute, I forgot! Carmen’s “Stylist” is coming over tomorrow afternoon to talk to us about what she wants to do with this place. (Oh good! my coffee cup is full again! 🙂 ) Julian seems to think that I’m going to have trouble with letting pieces “go”. Now, I have tried explaining this to him before, but he just doesn’t seem to “get it”! So I explained it to him again. I have no problem whatsoever, getting rid of things we no longer need or want, OK? But what I do have a very big problem with is his wanting to cart it all off to the tip! You don’t take things that are a bit shabby, but still good and usable, that someone, somewhere would love to have – especially antiques – to the ruddy tip! You sell them, or you donate them to the Salvos, or the Brotherhood of St. Lawrence, or your local op-shop! It just requires a bit more effort than loading them into the car and driving them to the tip! There’s too much waste in the world today! We should all be re-cycling and re-using as much as possible! I’m not talking about ruined or broken things – if they can’t be repaired sensibly, take them to the tip, by all means – but if Julian thinks he’s going to be taking our old “grandma and grandpa” chairs down to the tip, just because they’re old and need re-covering, and he doesn’t particularly like them, it’ll be over my dead – and just as old – body! So bring on the Stylist – if she wants us to “remove” certain items that we want to keep, they can be put into storage. The things that we don’t want to keep can be put aside until we have a full van’s worth, and trucked off to the Salvos, or wherever – fair enough?! However, I might end up having a problem with any rental furniture that the Stylist wants to put in here to impress would-be buyers! …If it’s really nice, I’ll probably want to keep it! 😀 (I think my middle name must be “pack-rat”! 😉 )

And that’s about all from me for today – it’s been a good, if quiet day, and though I may not have accomplished terribly much (apart from my count-down calendar 😉 ) I’m pretty happy with life at the moment. Do call back again tomorrow and see whether my weight is continuing its upward trend (hopefully not!) and what Carmen’s Stylist had to say (and how much “stuff” we have to get rid of, one way or another!) Don’t you just wish, sometimes, that you could insert small musical “emoticons” into whatever you’re writing? A bit like the organ music that they used to play during the old silent movies (and no, I’m definitely not old enough to remember it personally!) I think reading blogs would be a lot more entertaining if blog writers could insert chords, or short passages… Oh well, that’s something for the programmers of the future to create/write/whatever! In the meantime, I’ll simply tell you all to bee good, remember that you’re not obligated to win, you’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day; don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – but most importantly… remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂