My favourite eldest daughter didn’t come over today as planned – she had a touch of tummy flu, so with no episodes of “Orphan Black” or “The 100” to watch, I’ve been able to start early(ish) again today 🙂 I did have a bit of a chat with said daughter this morning – apparently she and her husband went and did a “drive-by” of our new house – not that you can tell much from the outside, but she said that they thought it looked great. I haven’t created that calendar yet, but I think I will make one – just for the fun of colouring in each day until settlement date. Childish, I know, but it’s exciting, too, to see the “used” days being “gobbled up” by the blocks of colour! I’m in two minds… should I do it with Photoshop, and just open the file and add the colour every day (or Word – it would probably be easier to do it like that in Word, or Excel… hmm…) Or should I just do what I used to when I was little – rule it up on a piece of paper and colour it in with coloured pencils every day – that way I can stick it on my “stand-up” clipboard and see it every time I turn around to get a tissue (I have a touch of hay fever at the moment and my nose has been running like a tap left turned on!) And speaking of colouring things in, what do you all think of my new header? I took a screen shot of the blog, and took the colours from the actual pictures – if you’ll notice, the header background colours are the same as the little box with the blog date in it – and the colours of the  “My Word!” text are straight from the little sun, and the “smilies” 🙂 I was thinking “how am I going to…” when I thought “take a screenie, stupid!”, so I did 🙂 As I was just writing that, and thinking that I can be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes, it reminded me of an incident years and years ago, when Siwa, my first Siamese queen, was a little kitten. She was a really nice chocolate point, with a very, very pale creamy coat (she won “Best Kitten In Show” that year for her colouring!) and we’d bought her a beautiful deep blue velvet collar, to match her eyes… However, being a very playful and skittish kitten, she must have decided to have a bit of a chew on the collar and had managed to get her bottom jaw stuck underneath it. I found her struggling madly to extricate her bottom jaw, which she was in real danger of dislocating. What to do! I grabbed her and tried to hold her still, while reaching for the phone to call the Vet – and I was succeeding at neither, when it hit me like a bomb shell! “Cut it off with the scissors in front of you, ninny!” I mentally yelled at myself … and would you also believe, that for about one millionth of a second I actually thought back at myself “Yes, but I’ll ruin the collar!” … naturally, I ruined the collar and saved the kitten from a painful injury. However we did not buy her a new collar! 🙂

So I worked on the header this morning, and at least I’ve learned exactly how much room I have on this template for header graphics and text – and there’s not much space for text, believe me! Julian was at the Physio this morning, so after I’d done the new header, I headed off into Rift for a bit. I ran my Guardian Dwarf, Kresta, around Freemarch (the Defiant home turf) leveling up my Mining, Foraging, and Butchering, closing “baby” Rifts and picking up lots of Artifacts – none of which are possible to do easily or quickly on the Guardian’s side of the bay! Anyway, I got most of her Skills up, and I got her the coveted “Merchant of Death” title. I left her still over there in Freemarch – I must remember to bring her back tonight… (my coffee cup is empty 😦 )

So I guess I’ll be having today tomorrow, if my favourite eldest daughter is well enough by then to come over – otherwise I’ll have my today on Thursday. She says there’s only one episode of “Orphan Black” left to watch, and I’m not sure how many episodes of “The 100” we have left. Julian said that “we” discussed it last time Lee was over, but I must have been on my Stair Walk or something, because I don’t remember the discussion – but it appears that “they” decided to bite the bullet and buy the first season  of “The 100” from the States. It’s only just been dispatched, so perhaps we’d better watch something else until it arrives… maybe “Lost Girl”, or “White Collar” – we never really watched enough of either of them for me to get really into them. “Lost Girl” is a supernatural drama television series that started in 2010 and ran for five seasons. It follows the life of a succubus named Bo, as she learns to control her supernatural abilities, help those in need, and discover the truth about her origins. It’s not bad, if you’re into “classic” supernatural fantasy (I have to admit that I much prefer the “Mage hurls fireball at evil Wizard, as the famished T-Rex ambles menacingly towards them” type of fantasy…) “White Collar” is more of a “cops and robbers” type series – Neal Caffrey, a con artist, forger, and thief, is captured after a three-year game of cat and mouse with the FBI. With only months left in serving a four-year sentence, he escapes to look for his girlfriend Kate, who has mysteriously vanished. Peter Burke, the FBI agent who initially captured Caffrey, finds and returns him to prison. This time, Caffrey proposes a deal with the FBI, as part of a work-release program. After some hesitation, Burke agrees. They begin an unconventional arrangement in which Caffrey helps Burke apprehend dangerous white collar criminals. I think we only saw one or two episodes, but I wouldn’t mind having another look-in at it – maybe tomorrow, if luck is kind…

Weigh-in this morning. That wretched Big Bounce Back is definitely lurking in the shadows, trying to lull me into a false sense of security, before it pounces on my with all its sharp teeth and claws scratching and biting… I went down another three points – from 85.6kg to 85.3kg. The scales were most firm about it this time – I hopped on the scales, and they went straight down to 85.3kg – no wavering or see-sawing before hand, just straight down. I hopped off, and hopped back on again, for my second “confirmatory” weigh-in. Exactly the same – the scales went straight to 85.3kg again, so I guess I have to believe them – it’s only a week until I start those horrible tablets again, so I suppose I should be grateful that I’m going down so much and so fast while I still can

So that’s about it from me for tonight – my friend and I are still having massive problems with Facebook – he can’t find me, and I can’t find him. They’re both new accounts, so I suppose it’s possible that it might be “permissions” – I went and checked mine just before I started writing this evening, and sure enough, I had to make it so that “Everyone” could see me and send a “Friend Request”. So now, fingers crossed, at least he should be able to find me (that… person who invented and wrote Facebook has a hell of a lot to answer for! I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes when he fronts up to the Pearly Gates, that’s for sure!) and hopefully everything else will get sorted out soon… Julian just came in to show me the latest financial figurings – and so far, everything’s going to plan – though he won’t be happy until all the cash is safely in the bank waiting for settlement day 🙂 I think I’ve decided how to count the days until settlement! I’m not going to “rule” up a sheet of paper for my count-down calendar with a pencil and ruler, as I used to in the days before computers, I’m going to design a pretty little Table in Word and then print it out. Then I’ll get Julian to climb up on the desk and get my coloured pencils down (I think they’re in the square box on the top shelf of the bookcase…”think” being the operative word!) so that I can colour in each day until settlement! 🙂 I’ll keep the calendar sheet on my “stand-up” clipboard on the desk (my coffee cup is now full again! 🙂 Thank you, sweetheart! 🙂 ) Anyway, now that I’ve made that most important of decisions, and informed all of you of my intentions, I can safely bid you all to bee good, remember that if you can laugh at the end of a hard day, you have succeeded, and don’t forget to take care, keep warm, and drive carefully – but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*There’s another update on the “As Seen On…” page tonight – from imgur…Totally fantastic art work!!”

Well, here I am, starting early, for once! Wow! Does this mean that I’ll get this done before dinner time? 🙂 We’ll see… For my part, not much has been happening today – however, I did buy this template, and spent money that we can’t really afford right now (it cost quite a bit more than the other templates that I’ve bought in the past) so Julian has extracted a promise from me that I’d keep it for at least three months before discarding it – so get used to it! 😉 I’ll be using it at least until September 22nd! (that’s a month after we move – as you can probably guess – just about everything is now in terms of “until we move”, or “until August 20th”, etc.) Oh, we got a phone call from “Julian-the-Agent” this morning – he’ll be liaising between us and the Vendors until settlement day. The Vendors want to know if we’d like to buy any of their furniture! I’m so pleased – they must have read my mind! It’s not new furniture, by any means (though some of it looks pretty new!) but it’s in “as new” condition, it’s ideal for the style of house, and we’d have had to have bought an awful lot of new furniture to fill that large house if they hadn’t offered. We will be getting some new furniture, but the thing with buying new furniture is that you usually have to wait for it to be made – sometimes up to a couple of months, depending on how busy the manufacturer is – and it’ll be getting close to Christmas, their very busy period. Sometimes, if you’re extra lucky, they’ll have stock in the warehouse, but they won’t hang onto it until you’re ready to move – and what are the chances of finding something that you really like, in stock, a week before you move? Virtually nil! Anyway, we sat down and drew up a list of furniture we’d like to buy from them… The furniture on the entertainment deck, for starters, and the large potted palm (or whatever it is) The dining table and chairs between the island bench and the family room – Julian didn’t want to take those at first, but we have an antique (extendable) round table, with ancient chairs that came out of the Ark*, and I told him that because the “lines” in that part of the house are all in parallel, and the decor and furniture are modern(ish) – if we stuck  an antique round table with ancient chairs in there, I could virtually guarantee that within a month we’d be shopping for a long, rectangular table with matching chairs! He saw my point – we’ll buy their kitchen table and chairs. We would like to buy the little hall table, but not the mirror, and the lounge suite in the family room. I’m insisting on the full length mirror in the master bedroom – it goes with the wallpaper very nicely, and it’d be hard to get a better fitting or matching mirror for that position. I can’t remember what else was on the list, but it’s now “my-Julian’s” job to go pricing equivalent new furniture, comparing similar furniture on Gumtree (or wherever!), and working out a reasonable sum to offer them for the things we’d like.

Anyway, as I was saying, I bought this blog template. It’s rather austere and plain, but I quite like the little mountains and trees decoration (which I can turn off if I get tired of it!) and I can change the background colour and header fairly easily. I can only change the colour of the background though – I can’t put in any sort of pattern (but I can on the header! 😉 ) so it’s pretty much “foolproof”…. I wish I hadn’t written that! So I spent most of the morning fiddling with different blog templates, buying this one and setting it up… and I did a bit of Rifting… and that was about it!

Weigh-in this morning. Again, I hopped on the scales three times – I wish they could make their mind up! First time – the scales registered 85.6kg. Second time – the scales registered 85.7kg. Bugger! Third time – the scales registered 85.6kg again. Best two out of three – 85.6kg – down two points on yesterday! At this stage I should perhaps point out that I don’t usually weigh myself three times. I usually only weigh myself twice, the second time being simply a confirmatory “check”. Only if the two weights are different do I weigh myself a third time. But I don’t know where the expected bounce-back after the big drop the other day has got to – no doubt it’s sneaking up behind me, getting ready to ambush me when I least expect it! 🙂 I have to rule up another graph page tonight – I reached the bottom of the current one this morning! (I also need to go and get some new clothes…. especially underwear – everything’s starting to swim on me… again!)

“my-Julian” just came back with the mail from downstairs… there was a notification from Yarra Valley Water in our letterbox that the water here will be off (again!) on Wednesday, between 9.00am and 2.00pm. This place has water problems and outages on an average of once every three months, and sometimes more often! Another reason to move! *glower at Yarra Valley Water* grrr!

Tomorrow my favourite eldest daughter will be over – it should be a bit easier for her to get to us when we move to Vermont South – but then, maybe not! She lives in Glen Waverley – she can catch the bus down to Burwood Highway, and then hop on the tram to the Vermont South Shopping Centre – but… I’m not sure how she’d get from there, to our place! Maybe there’s a bus… Surely there’s a bus that goes through that area… I guess we’ll just have to do a bit of “research”. Anyway, she’ll be over tomorrow, and we’ll probably head off to the lounge room to watch “Orphan Black”, or “The 100” – and probably to discuss “Waterstone” (which is what I’ve named the new house, because of the water feature by the front door! 🙂  There are actually three small red and white pond goldfish swimming around in the bottom of the water reservoir!) at great length 🙂 I must get “my-Julian” to take us up to Vermont South Shopping Centre – I used to go there quite a bit, but I haven’t been there in yonks! I wonder how much it’s changed, and what’s there now? And I guess we’ll probably be changing our main shopping centre allegiance from Shoppingtown to The Glen – though I’ll still come over here to the Hairdresser! Major changes! Lots of adventures! 🙂 At the moment I’m just wishing that we were moving sooner, but experience tells me that the time will pass all too quickly, and we’ll be moving before we’re really ready to go! I find myself looking around and trying to decide where I’ll put things, or whether we’ll even keep this… or that… or whatever it was that my eye happened to have fallen on at that particular second! But whatever we take, whatever we keep or don’t keep, this move will be a major lifestyle change, that’s for sure! 🙂

And that, gentle readers, brings me to the end of another blog! Whoever would have thought that I’d ever actually keep a blog going for so long! Goodness knows, I’ve started plenty of them, but they never really seem to last more than a month or so. This is different though, and I find that I actually enjoy writing down all the things I’ve been doing, what I’ve been thinking (well, I don’t really write down a lot of what I’ve been thinking – I’m sure you’d all be totally shocked and appalled if I did! 😉 ) but it’s fun, and gives me something at least semi-constructive to do. So once more I shall bid you all to keep on beeing good, remember that making mistakes is better than faking perfection; don’t forget to keep warm, to take care of yourselves, and to drive carefully… but above all else, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*Ancient chairs that came out of the Ark: when I was a little girl growing up in Oswin Street, East Kew, I remember Mum and Dad buying a table and chairs. The table was square and extendable – it’s long gone now – but the chairs… are the same ones we have today. They’ve been re-upholstered three times, and are still in “reasonable” condition, but I think it’s time for us to move on… 🙂

Here I am again – the day after the day before – having been merrily prancing and dancing through The Plane of Water, where neither him nor me died, not even once! 🙂 But let me start at the beginning…

Naturally, a lot has been said and discussed about the Auction (or the seeming lack thereof!) yesterday – but who cares?! We got the house and the lemon tree, and that’s the main thing! 🙂 The penthouse upstairs is up for Auction on July 8th, and we don’t want to “cramp Carmen’s style” by putting this apartment on the market before then – well, it’s up to her, really – but we do know that she’s already lining up people for our place – sort-of hinting to them that she “knows that a beautiful apartment just one floor down from the Penthouse will be available soon!” sort-of thing. We also know that within a week or two she’s going to start pressuring us to clear out the clutter, and allow her “stylist” in to re-arrange and re-decorate the place. If anyone reading this is familiar with our place here, they’ll know that there’s a very large, awkward pillar that blocks the view off from the dining area. We always wondered why that pillar was put there (apart from the fact that it has wires and electricals running up the middle of it!) as it’s in a really awkward position and quite spoils the view and appearance of the entire lounge room area. Well, we found out that it was originally the corner of the kitchen, and that a kitchen bench and cupboards used to run from the pillar to the other side of the kitchen, in a very sensible layout which created an open kitchen, meals, and lounge area, all overlooking Melbourne. There was a door between the kitchen and Julian’s office – which was originally supposed to be the “formal” dining room. Unfortunately, the first owners decided to change things, leaving any following owners with the problem of what to do with the pillar! Oh well. Not our problem for much longer! 😉 Actually, I’d really love to hate Carmen! She had an absolutely brilliant idea of how to disguise, or make the pillar semi-disappear! I do so wish that I’d thought of it first! *pout* The idea? Cover the pillar, floor to ceiling, with cut to measure mirrors! It’ll increase the amount of light coming into the dining area – which is inclined to be a bit dark as the pillar blocks off a lot of the light coming from the lounge room windows – it’ll make the place look bigger, and it’ll draw people’s eyes away from the fact that there’s a whopping great, ugly pillar where there oughtn’t to be one! Anyway, as I said – not our problem for much longer. Did you see the pictures I put up last night on the “As Seen On…” page? What do you think?! Nice?! 🙂 I want to see if we can get the floor plans blown up  – er, I mean made bigger – so that we can start to plan furniture placement and stuff (ahhh… coffeeeee!) The last picture in the series of photos is the room where we signed all the papers – It’s right off the kitchen, and it’s a big room – bigger than our current “Den”/computer room, anyway. Well, that’s the room that I have earmarked to be our new “Den”/computer room. The room next to it, and overlooking the entertainment deck outside, will probably be stuffed full of bookcases and become the library. The photo shown on the right of the floor plan is on the right hand side as you walk in through the front door – this will probably become Julian’s office, and will also be stuffed full of bookcases. In fact, just about all of the “family-type” rooms will have bookcases (we have a lot of books! You think you’ve seen a lot of books here? there are boxes of books still in storage from when we moved in here, in 2007! Finally we’re getting a house that can hold them all (I think!)) Yeah, so there’s lots of plans afoot, and an extraordinary amount of things to do and get done by August 20th (settlement date)

So this morning, being Sunday morning, we slept in… until about 8.15am. After breakfast we got into Rift, and apart from a lunch break and my midday Stair Walk, we’ve been playing all day, finally finishing off around 4.45pm, when I finished off this new header, and got it online. As I said, we were frolicking around the Plane of Water – really fairly easy quests today, so neither of us died, or even came close to dying – even though we did have to (a) find a “tear”, and (b) open a Fire Rift with it, and (c) then close said Fire Rift – just the two of us I’ve always hated Fire Rifts – it’s not that they’re harder to close than other types of Rifts (Nightmare Rifts are just that! Nightmares! And the Hell Bug Rifts aren’t much better!) No, the reason I hate Fire Rifts is because I can’t see anything properly! There’s always a lot of action in Rifts, but when the principal colours are black and orange, with occasional flashes of red and yellow… *shakes head* I can’t find the wretched cursor, or see what I’m doing, or whom I’m fighting! Targetting is next to impossible – how in hell do you see a red circle on the ground around an enemy, when the ground is black and red and orange, with occasional streaks of yellow?! Arrggghh! I hate Fire Rifts! Anyway, we got it done, and thank goodness we didn’t have to open up and close any more! And that was about the most strenuous quest we had all day! We both went up a level, to level 62, but honestly, leveling past level 60 is so horribly slow… we’re thinking that we might both take an experience boosting potion before we start playing, next Sunday!

Weigh-in this morning. Strangely enough, I didn’t bounce back up again this morning – although at one point I thought I had! I hopped on the scales. 85.8kg “hmm…” says me. So I hopped off the scales, and back on, as I do every morning. 86.0kg *frown* Off the scales, and back on the scales, for the third time. 85.8kg. Two weigh-ins at 85.8kg, and one at 86.0kg. I’m calling “correct weight” in at 85.8kg!  I stayed the same. I guess I’ll probably do a massive bounce-back tomorrow… We’ll see…

I’d just like to leave a quick message for Josh, if you all don’t mind – Josh, if you’re reading this, please check your email! 🙂 Sorry about that little diversion… we now return you to the normal state of confusion and chaos that you’ve all grown to love and appreciate! 🙂 Where was I? Oh yes… I hate to have to say it, but… it’s that time again! I started writing late, because we didn’t finish playing Rift until quarter to five, and then I had to finish off the header, and now it’s time for my evening Stair Walk and a short break for dinner…

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

My goodness, wasn’t that quick! 🙂 But, here I am back again! Tomorrow the work of moving from one house to another starts in earnest. First though, we have to notify all the nice little Estate Agents who’ve been sending us snail mail and email, SMS’s and phone calls, that as we’ve just purchased a property, we no longer need their services. Julian has some more financial things to tinker with, and when all that’s done, we can start looking at furniture and packing things that we’re not likely to need or use between now and settlement date. I feel like doing what I used to do when I was younger, and computers didn’t exist. That is, rule up a calendar so that I can colour in the days, and/or cross off the days between now and moving day. Of course, I don’t have to do that now, but I feel like doing it, anyway! I don’t know if we’ll be actually moving into the new place on settlement day – it’s a Thursday, I believe, so we might leave it until the following Monday – it depends on too many things, really… Anyway, that’s about all from me for tonight. Do drop in again tomorrow night though, as there’ll be lots more to tell you, like whether my weight has bounced back up, or whether it’s still maintaining its downwards trend – and there’ll be lots of interesting bits and pieces to tell you all as the effort to start sifting, sorting, packing, throwing, and donating gets underway. Until tomorrow night, then, please continue beeing good, remember that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, don’t forget to drive carefully, keep warm, and take care of yourselves, but above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*The house photos and floor plan are now online on the “As Seen On…” page! Enjoy! 🙂

Ladies and gentlemen…. we have a Lemon Tree!

That’s “lemon tree“, as in the plant that grows in one’s back yard, not “lemon” as in something that’s not quite right! And seeing as we now have a back yard, it’s only fitting that it should have a lemon tree in it, with lots of big lemons on it 🙂 That’s right, we bought the Vermont South property this afternoon – settlement in sixty days 🙂

For some unknown reason, we’d both thought that the Auction was to have been at 11.30 this morning, but to be on the safe side last night, Julian not only looked it up on the ‘net, but he SMS’d the Agent as well. No, the Auction was at 2.30 this afternoon – open for viewing at two, Auction at two thirty. We arrived around ten to two and sat in the car and read until the house was opened up, when we dutifully trooped in, and I said a mournful “goodbye” to the place. I was so positive that we wouldn’t stand a chance of getting it – so many people had turned up – and one didn’t know who was a sticky-beak, and who was a potential bidder! I really didn’t know who to look daggers at! 😉 Anyway, the Agent came and spoke to us, and then this other guy came up and started chatting to us – he turned out to be the Auctioneer, possibly sent over to sound us out by the Agent (whose name was also Julian!) Two thirty arrived, and everyone traipsed out to stand around in the freezing cold while the Auctioneer went through his “audience warm up” and spiel – I leant against the letter box and tucked my hands under my armpits in a vain effort to keep my fingers from dropping off the ends of my hands like icicles. There were an awful lot of people there for the Auction – Julian reckons about 80, but it might have been more – on the nature strips, the road, in other people’s gardens… everywhere! Once the Auction itself got underway, no one was willing to make the first bid – in the end, the Auctioneer had to start off the bidding with a “Vendor bid”! Still no-one said anything! All those people, and no bidders? I couldn’t believe it! Finally Julian put in a bid, and again… not a single counter bid! There were a couple of people across the road being “jollied along” by the Agents, and they finally put in a teeny increase on our bid. More haranguing from the Auctioneer: what a wonderful property it was, this, that, and the other… you don’t want to miss out… etc., etc., and Julian put in another bid, putting the ball back in our court. The people across the road were pretty much badgered into making another, very feeble bid, which the Auctioneer didn’t accept – instead he put in his second “Vendor bid” (from memory, he was allowed two) Again! No response from the crowd! Our bid still stood. The Auctioneer and his henchpeople went inside to talk to the Vendors. I was incredulous! That wonderful property! All those people standing around in the freezing cold, and no-one seriously bidding except us? Unbelievable! The Auctioneer came back, kept the Auction going for a few more minutes for a completely unresponsive crowd, and because it had failed to reach its Reserve price, finally passed the property in. As the last bidders, we were entitled to go in and “negotiate” with the Vendors, so in we went again – I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t think of anything to say! We were settled in one of the lounge rooms (there are two “lounge rooms”, plus a family room) while the vendors conferred with the Agents in the kitchen. The Agent came back with a price. We “negotiated”. The Agent went back to the Vendors, and came back with another price. Julian was sitting there like a stone statue with a bad smell under its nose. The Agent started appealing to me! I said “Don’t ask me! He’s the one negotiating this!” (my) Julian said “Yes, but she’s the boss!”, to which I said something along the lines of “I. Am. The. Boss. Of. You!” [which is a direct quote from one of the many “Zork” games! – “Zork Grand Inquisitor”, actually] and making a “handing over” gesture, indicated that it was “back to you, darling (*big winning smile*)” After quite a longish pause, Julian the Agent, like Oliver Twist, started pleading for “just a little more”, until (my) Julian snarled (he really should be on the stage you know!) “alright…$XXX… and don’t ask for any more!” Julian the Agent went bustling off to the Vendors again… and came back with a great big smile, saying “Congratulations! You have the house!” (or words to that effect – I really can’t remember, I was so stunned!) And then we sat there and signed heaps of papers for a while – Mr. Vendor then came in with an enormous grin on his face and shook our hands, and that was it! We’d bought ourselves a lemon tree… in a back yard… with a house attached to it! 🙂

Back in the car, (my) Julian could drop the stern, tough negotiator image and become himself again (thank heavens!) We got the house for a good price – had the Auction gone differently, we would have gone a little higher, but things turning out as they did, we’ve largely negated the Stamp Duty that we’d budgeted for. Settlement date is August 20th, so now I suppose we start slowly packing things up, and shopping for furniture – the new house has a lot more rooms than this place, so we’ll need furniture for all the extra rooms – plus a nice sturdy outdoor setting and one of those gas patio warmer thingies. We’re going to need bookcases (we’ll probably wait until we move and then have them “made to measure” in the room(s) that I have earmarked for a “library” and an “office”) rugs, another lounge suite… beds… and a tumble dryer (we’ll leave this one here for whoever buys the apartment) So… lots of things to sort out, think of, and do! I’ll see if I can get Julian to grab the house photos off the ‘net before they’re pulled down, and scan the floor plan, so that I can give you a “preview” of our new home! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I guess it just goes to show what worry can do for weight loss – either that, or I have cancer – but I went down five points – half a kilo – overnight! From 86.3kg to 85.8kg. I know I’m going to bounce back from that massive drop – all I can do is hope and pray that I don’t bounce back too much!

So here I sit… hardly daring to believe that everything turned out as it did today! From the number of people who turned up for the Auction, to the almost total lack of bidders – it’s almost as though it had all been arranged before hand, and today was just a “staged event” to make it look like a “genuine” Auction! Everyone knows that I’m the original “Luck Child”, but this time I seem to have surpassed myself! I hope I don’t wake up in a few minutes to find myself sitting in the car outside the property, and that it’s all been a dream – that the Auction will be starting in half an hour, so we’d better get out of the car and take our places by the letterbox! That would just be too cruel!

And that’s about it from me for tonight – now we have to let all the other Agents we’ve been talking to know that we’ve bought a property and won’t be needing their services or suggestions any more – but that’s Monday’s job! Tomorrow, I think we’ll probably be happily romping through the coral reefs and underwater world that is The Plane of Water, whilst wondering which room in the new house we’ll turn into “Flipper’s Fabulous Folly” 🙂 Drop by again tomorrow night for all the latest news on how much my weight bounced back up, how many times we died, or came close to dying, in? on? The Plane of Water, and about our fabulous new purchase (I’m sure I’ve forgotten heaps of things I meant to tell you about it, but have forgotten in all the excitement!) – as I said, I’ll try to get the floor plans on-line, and some interior photos. But until then, I shall simply remind you all to bee good, remember that the average person thinks s/he isn’t (better look in the mirror when you remember that! 😉 ) and don’t forget to keep warm, drive carefully, and take care of yourselves… but above all… remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

 

Here I go again – another blog entry, another blog header! What do you all think of this one? I feel that perhaps the two “boxes” (for want of a better word!) on each side need to be further apart – that is, I feel that there should be more space between the top and bottom “boxes” – what do all of you think? Opinions, please! (as long as they’re polite! 😉 ) Here’s a bit of doggerel I made up on the spur of the moment, so if it doesn’t rhyme properly, it’s because it was a rush job! 😉

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“The Fateful Eve” (by Winter, with apologies to Clement C. Moore)

T’was the night before Auction, and all through the house, Winter was pacing, as quiet as a mouse. Julian sat – at his computer he stared – by this time tomorrow he’d know if he’ dared, to bid lots of money to buy a fine house, and if all the finances would still balance out. The house, it was big and had lots of rooms, they’d need lots of chattels to furnish it out! The fridge, would it fit? And the rug for the floor? If they had to buy too much they’d end up quite poor! But the house was so nice, with much storage space, and a tiny small garden, with enough room to grace the vegetable garden he’d promised to make. And so as they ponder, on this Fateful Eve, we’ll leave you to wonder just what they’d achieve! 😉

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This time tomorrow night we’ll know if we were successful in our endeavours to buy Vermont South. I am so nervous about it, I feel like pacing like a demented mongoose! However, I spent the day graphic-ing and Rifting, making notes for my other blog (which will not be in chronological order – memories, thoughts, feelings will all be put down as and when they occur to me) and discussing financial matters with Julian – that is, he expounded, and I listened – hopefully some of it will have stayed inside the nice, clean, fluffy, white cotton wool between my ears, where it can keep nice and warm. But mostly I’ve just been “marking time”, waiting for tomorrow. I did get that recalcitrant frame to work in the end – my cheat “short cut” was to copy and paste one of the little “leg” bits that was correct on top of the one I couldn’t get right and “graft it on” (by merging the two layers) and from there it was easy to pick up the right order to get all the lines the right colour. Unfortunately it’s not suitable for use on this blog template – this one insists on magnifying everything  to more than double its size, while still keeping everything in the same position (work that one out, if you dare!) so I have to make everything twice as small in order for it to look right – but if I made the frame small enough to look right on the screen, I wouldn’t have had any room left to put in the text! But I’ll keep the frame handy for the next time I decide to change the template 🙂 (which could be next week, next month, or as soon as this evening! You all know me – never satisfied with the status quo! 😉 )

When we paid our visit to Carmen yesterday, what she was really doing was fishing for us to confirm that she’d get the sale of this place, now that she knows that we intend to bid on the Vermont South place. At this point in time. she (probably) will get the sale of this place, but we’re not going to confirm or deny anything at this point – we especially won’t put anything in writing yet! She’s already told us that she wants to get her “stylist” (read: “interior decorator”) in to set the place up to get the best possible price (and I have to admit – she does do a fantastic job! The houses we’ve seen that she set up look like something from a “Home Beautiful” magazine) But we’ll have to clear out the “clutter” (read: “just about everything!”) and she wants to rent some suitable furniture, rugs, and what-nots, though she wants us to leave lots of books in the bookcases. I told her that if we’re successful tomorrow (but I’ll bet we’re not!) that we’d probably start slowly packing anyway – implying, but not going so far as to actually say it – that she’d be able to start re-decorating our home soon-ish, rather than later-ish. Of course, first we have to buy the house! We’ll need to buy a lot of extra furniture, too – Vermont South has a lot more rooms that we do here… so I’m thinking of pinching “borrowing” Carmen’s “stylist” for a week or two and picking her brains as to what we ought to put where… IF we get the place… and if we don’t, “The ‘C’ House” is up for Auction next Saturday (tomorrow week)

Weigh-in this morning. I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this! I went down another three points this morning – that’s down six points in two days! It’s too much! I’ll re-bound for sure! I don’t want to do that! I’ve gone from 86.9kg on Wednesday 17th, to 86.3kg today – Friday 19th! I wish I was losing the weight a bit slower, even though I am in a real hurry to get down as far as possible before July 21st, which is when I see Dr. Y. again. Watch me tomorrow morning! A big, important day, and I’ll probably bounce back up a whole kilo, break out in spots, and get hives! *scowl*

Does anyone know what food, or vitamins, or whatever, is good for fingernails? And cuticles? My nails are terribly soft, but they’re still brittle enough to flake or peel off – I lost half a little fingernail this morning for apparently no reason – I was getting dressed and all of a sudden my nail caught in my jumper, and I looked down and it had half torn off! I use a nail conditioning cream every night, and I use one of those special nail oil thingies, but frankly, I think they’re what’s making my cuticles hard and tough (why do I think this? Because I’m topsy-turvy! You give me something to make me sleep, it wakes me up and makes me jumpy! Lipstick – the more “moisturising” it’s supposed to be, the more it dries my lips out to the point that by the end of the day my lips are actually peeling! That’s why!) So if anyone knows of something that might help, I’d be ever so grateful! 🙂

So, what’s happening tomorrow, apart from us going to bid on the Vermont South property? I’m not quite sure! Probably not much – I expect that until the Auction is over we’ll be wandering around in a nervous daze (well, I probably will – Julian, however, has to keep his wits about him so I hope he doesn’t!) and afterwards we’ll either be celebrating, or having long, deep and meaningful discussions as to how and why we failed to get it. Please, everyone cross your fingers for us tomorrow morning, and wish us luck! Hopefully I’ll have good news tomorrow night – and even if I don’t, it’s not all bad (says she, trying very hard to be positive, but not really succeeding all that well!)  there’s still “The ‘C’ House” the following week… So call in again tomorrow night – find out if my weight did rebound or not, and if I broke out in spots, or got hives! And more importantly, find out if we have a new home! However, until tomorrow night, please try to bee good, remember that every choice we make has the potential to change our lives forever, so choose carefully! Don’t forget to drive carefully, look after yourselves, and to keep warm… but most importantly… don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Oh dear! I’m starting a lot later than usual, but that’s because we’ve just come back from having yet another look at Vermont South, which was Open For Inspection between 5.00 and 5.30pm. Of course, as soon as we got back, I shed my shoes and fled to the Fire Escape for my evening Stair Walk – and because I’ve only just sat down and started to write, I don’t expect to finish this before… er… very late tonight. 🙂

As you know, we had an appointment with the delightful Carmen at 10.00am this morning, and as I predicted, it was largely a waste of time – more to her benefit than ours. Never mind, at least she managed to confirm our Auction strategies, in a somewhat convoluted and round-about manner. We seemed to be there for hours, but in reality it was only about 40 minutes – I think it’s just the way she keeps talking all the time. Anyway, when we left her office, we went on to have a look at another place in Doncaster East, in Applegum Grove (isn’t that a lovely name for a street? 🙂 ) It was a very nice little house – 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, etc… Charmingly furnished, it had a lovely “feel” to it, you know what I mean? Some houses can feel distant and cold to you, and some, like this one, make you feel warm and welcomed. I felt that the rooms were a little on the small side, though that could have been due to the fact that there was quite a lot of furniture everywhere, and that the bedrooms all had big, bulky, high-standing beds in them. There were what looked like “reasonable” stairs going down to the garage/storage area, which Julian said was quite big. There was also a third toilet and a small kitchenette down there, which Julian wondered about, but I pointed out to him that there was a swimming pool right outside, so it was probably sensible to have a toilet close by, as well as somewhere to make snacks and a cup of coffee (or tea) I should, perhaps, have tried the stairs, but I couldn’t be bothered this time – they looked easy enough to negotiate, with only a small “turn” in them, right at the top, so I left it at that. There was a beautiful veranda-deck around three sides of the house – lovely and wide, with lots of shade for the summer months. The bathrooms left a lot to be desired though, and the showers were teeny-weeny and coffin-y, with little or no room to enlarge them without knocking down walls, which was a shame. However, it was nice enough for us to put it on our current “short list” of three – with Vermont South being at the top of the list, followed by “The ‘C’ House”, and then this one, Applegum, third. While we were there the Valuer we’d sent out to Vermont South rang us with his report, which pleased Julian because it was pretty much spot on with what he’d thought that the house was worth. Then we came home, had some lunch, and Julian went off to pick up his orthotics, which he now has to wear in his shoes for ever and ever, if he doesn’t want to injure his ankle again.

I frittered the afternoon away fiddling with a graphics “problem” frame – it’s a nice enough frame, but not all that great – actually it started out as a “corner” dingbat/decoration, but I wanted to make it into a three sided frame, which meant that I had to devise a means of chopping out a section of the top “bar” and making it repeat seamlessly. That was the easy bit! *sigh* It has sort-of gaps between parts of it, and the lines weren’t straight, so I set out to straighten them out… but I must have been tired, or something, because I kept getting “lost” in the detail – it’s quite a big frame, and has different shades of the same colour along all the lines, and when you’re zoomed in as far as you can, well, as I said, I kept getting “lost”. I’ll try again tomorrow..

Now, however, it’s that time of the evening again… 😉 Back soon…

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

Right, back again! 🙂 We did end up going to see Vermont South again this evening. It was freezing cold – the poor little Agent standing guard outside was almost frozen stiff, and for a while there I thought that we were going to be the only ones turning up! I wish! The place was open between 5.00 and 5.30pm – we turned up at around 2 minutes to 5, and we had the house to ourselves until about 5.20pm or so when a couple with what seemed like about 50 million children turned up 😦 I hope they’re not too interested in the place…. Still, we had a look at things like bathroom taps (very important items, bathroom taps!) and whether we’d make the little front room Julian’s office, and which room we’d make the computer room/Den… *sigh* Julian is very optimistic about our chances on Saturday – I’ve very pessimistic. I don’t really think we stand much of a chance – but still, there’s always “The ‘C’ House”, if we do miss out (which I think we will) I hate waiting… 😦

Weigh-in this morning. “Too much! too much!”, she cried! I went down 3 points, from 86.9kg to 86.6kg. Three points… I’ll probably re-bound tomorrow morning… You know, I should have clambered down those ruddy stairs at Applegum this morning… I wish I had, now!

I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow – I know Julian will be very busy number crunching and constructing money flow-charts and things – I suppose that I’ll be busy trying to sort out that frame – which to tell you the honest truth, isn’t really worth all the work I’m putting into it – as I said earlier, it’s nice enough, but it’s not that nice! I know I can make better… but that’s me. I start on a project and I’ll stick with it and get it done, if it kills me – whether it’s worth it or not. Speaking of sticking with things whether they’re worth it or not, I must get back to my writing blog thingy wot I started a few days ago. I knew that if I left it too long, I’d get cold feet and not want to continue with it, but this time I’m determined. The story of my life will be told – one way or another – it’s far too strange and incredible not to! 😉 We’ll see what happens tomorrow… I may spend some time with the frame and some writing, or Rifting. I did try a pattern on the header here today – just experimentally – no text on it, just to see how it would turn out “magnified”. I was quite pleasantly surprised! I made the squiggly-swirls as small as I possibly could, then I sharpened it, and tried it out. Yes, the squiggly-swirls got quite a lot bigger, but I didn’t think they looked too big, and the colours miraculously didn’t get muddied! Next time I’ll try a pattern without so much contrast in the two colours I use – I think that might turn out even betterer! (I’ve just had a “Eureka!” moment – I’ve suddenly thought of a way I can “cheat” with the frame I’m in the middle of modifying and make it work! 🙂 ) (well, it’s not really a “cheat”, it’s a “short-cut“! 😛 ) Looks like I’ll be trying both of those ideas out tomorrow! 🙂 Anything to stop me fretting about Saturday morning…

Anyway, that’s about it from me for tonight – wish me luck with my two graphical adventures – who knows? You might be looking at both of them tomorrow night! 🙂 And I will try to get a bit of writing done, too – I promise! Hopefully all the numbers will crunch in the right direction – we were talking about how much this move is going to cost us after dinner, and there’s an amazing amount of financial things to take into consideration, from Sales Tax to Capital Appreciation, domestic utilities and internet re-connections, removals, Agent fees (when we sell this place) – the list seems endless! But we’ll be our own bosses, our own king and queen in our own castle, no more Body Corporate to kowtow to! And also no more just walking over the road to drop off the Dry Cleaning, or picking up a litre of milk that didn’t get added to the shopping list.. swings and roundabouts, advantages and disadvantages… So… drop by again tomorrow night and find out all the latest – will my weight swing back wildly after a massive drop of three whole points? Will Julian have crunched the numbers into tasty byte size pieces? And will I have tamed the recalcitrant frame and pattern, or been carted off with a nervous breakdown due to the impending Auction? The answers will all be here waiting for you tomorrow night 😉 But until then, I trust that you’ll all continue to bee good, remember that a happy loser is far better than an arrogant winner, and don’t forget to wear clean, dry socks, drive carefully, and to take good care of yourselves… but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Are these colours too bright? I can change it back again if it is… let me know! Well, once again I’m starting late again – Julian left to take my favourite eldest daughter home about ten minutes ago, so I walked them to the lift and then continued on for my evening Stair Walk. It’s been a good but fairly quiet day, and Lee’s told me to put the April Photos online ASAP, so (fanfare, please!)… here they are! 🙂 I’ll also post them on the “As Seen On…” page when I’ve finished here. As I said yesterday, Julian looks good in all of them, and for once in a photo-shoot, I even look vaguely human for a change! When I looked at the bottom left hand one, I thought “Good grief! I almost look like my mother!” – I think it’s more the facial expression though, rather than the actual physical features – or maybe more like a “nostalgic memory” of my mother… I dunno… but out of my photos, that’s my favourite – I feel I’m showing too many teeth in the others…

Anyway, I sorted out my Minions this morning, then started experimenting with some Art Deco Fonts and Brushes wot I’d downloaded. What you see on the header are two of them – I let Lee chose which font to use, seeing as she’d suggested the theme in the first place (and she got her $20 for her pains! 🙂 ) I was still experimenting with things when she arrived this morning, so I let her choose the font, then I showed her what happens with the size of graphical elements on this template. Again, I had to pull down the size of the text a couple of notches so that it didn’t look like something that even Mr Magoo would have been able to see! I’m pondering how to get a pattern incorporated into the header without it looking stupidly out of proportion… I think the answer lies in making the pattern as small and as fiddly as possible – maybe by shrinking the image itself – that might work! I’ll try that later. I like to use patterns because they sort-of break up the colour a bit, and make it less intense (though I think that’s what Lee had in mind when she suggested an Art Deco theme – the colours they (mostly) used were very intense!) Once I had this online and looking reasonable, we retired to the lounge room, and I left Lee to read while I did my midday Stair Walk. When I got back we watched several episodes of “The 100” – now I think there’s only one more episode before the end of the season! “Bother!” said Pooh, when he saw Piglet watching the second last episode… We also watched an episode of “Orphan Black”, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen an episode of that particular show where so many people died gruesomely and violently, some shot, some with their throats cut, and one was tortured to death by being whipped with the plug end of an electrical power cord! “who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (with apologies to Lady Macbeth and Shakespeare*) All in all, it was a “bloody” good afternoon, and I’m looking forward to more of the same next week – not that I’m a violent sort of person, mind you! 😉

Julian is back from dropping my favourite eldest daughter back home, and he’s heard back from the Valuer we sent out to Vermont South this morning – according to them, we should have our report in the morning (I’m getting sooo nervous!) We have our Auction Strategy Meeting with Carmen in the morning, then we have another house in Doncaster East to go and look at in the afternoon, and, if we do end up going, Vermont South in the evening. Then I only have to live through Friday… Ahhh… himself has just brought me an cup of coffee… I think I need it! Sometimes I find myself wishing that I still smoked… and then I think: “Nah! I’d lose my implants, if I did!”, and I think I’d rather have my implants, than be calm in the face of Auction fever! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Well, I don’t know if it was the extra “floor” of stairs that I climbed up and down so gingerly yesterday, or whether they were simply coincidental, but I went down another two points – from 87.1kg to 86.9kg (two points is OK! Three or more are not!) I have until July 21st to get down as far as I can. That’s (approximately) 30 days from next Saturday. I was losing about a kilo a week – that “week” has stretched a bit, so let’s say I can lose about a kilo every ten days. I should be able to shed another three kilos by July 21st, with should bring me down to about 84kg (but hopefully a bit less!) My end goal weight is 75kg, but I want to get down to 70, so that when I start my “maintenance” diet, I’ll have five kilos to “play with” while I adjust to the new regimen. So if I can get down to 84kg (or less) I’ll have less than 10 kilos to my goal weight. But if I can get down to, say, 80kg by August 18th, that will mean that I’ll have lost 54 kilos in 12 months! Oh, I nearly forgot! I got Julian to measure my height this morning – just for fun, I want to look up my supposed ideal weight according to my BMI. I used to be quite tall – 5’7″ in bare feet. I’m now…. not even five foot one! I’m just a titch over five feet now! My spine has mangled and compacted more than half a foot, with scoliosis and osteoarthritis! The moral of the story? Don’t get old and arthriticky! 😦

Anyway, t’is nearly time for dinner and the news again, so I’ll save this here and return to ramble on at you all a bit later on 🙂

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

Here I am, back again 🙂 I just did a quick BMI weight calculation thingy – according to that, even when I get down to 70kg, I’ll still be bordering on obese, let alone what I’d be at a whopping great 75kg! At 5’0″ (154cm) it tells me that I should weigh 45kg to be a normal, “healthy” weight. I dunno… somehow I don’t think I’d ever want to get down to 45kg, and if I did, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t be a so-called “healthy” weight! So much for the science of the “ideal”, eh?!

We’re going to have a pretty busy day tomorrow, so I don’t expect I’ll get much Rifting or graphic-ing in – but busy or not, it’ll be very interesting. I’m not really sure if our visit to see Carmen tomorrow isn’t going to be a big waste of time – it largely depends on whether we can get her to stick to the subject – she has a great fondness for the sound of her own voice, and does seem to get easily sidetracked listening to it 😉 We’ll see… and of course we’re both very curious as to what the Valuer’s report on Vermont South has to tell us, too! Hopefully it won’t say something like: “This is an amazing property, worth close to 2.5mil, so forget it, Freddie!” The house we’re going to look at seems quite nice – it has a nice floor plan, and of course, the photos of the rooms look great – but then Realty photographers have special lenses and know all the tricks in the book to make rooms look larger than they actually are. When we first looked at photos of the house we went to see yesterday, one of the first things we noticed was that there was a guitar on a stand in the lounge room, but we had to look twice before we realised that it was a guitar – I’d thought it was a weird modern sculpture of a guitar, it had been so distorted and elongated by the lens and angle of the photograph! Anyway, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow night 🙂

And that’s about all I have for you tonight – but rest assured there’ll be lots more to tell you all tomorrow night. Do drop in again to find out what Carmen had to say, what the house in Doncaster East was like, what the Valuer had to say for his twopence worth, and whether we ended up going to a twilight viewing of our Great White Hope in Vermont South or not. Then of course there’ll be all the incidental news, like what happened at my morning weigh-in, whether or not I got any Rifting in, as well as lots of other little bits of trivia. But for now I shall once more exhort you all to bee good, remember to act with a determination not to be turned aside by thoughts of the past and fears of the future, don’t forget to take care of yourselves, drive carefully, and keep warm, but most importantly… remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*Hands up any of you who knew that Macbeth and Duncan were indeed real, historical Kings of Scotland? Read about them here…

My favourite eldest daughter suggested an Art Deco type look, with appropriate colours, so I did 🙂 She’ll collect her $20 when she passes “Go” (as in “go see your mother!”) tomorrow 🙂 I’ve done a dark(ish) “Ox-blood” (no, don’t worry, it’s not bright) coloured background as well, but I thought we could start off with a more “basic neutral” colour first – just to see what it looks like. I quite like it, but creating the header was… weird! Usually, when you make a header when you don’t really trust the dimensions that Word Press gives you, you go for “bigger”, rather than “smaller” – because usually things look too small on the finished product. This was the opposite. Remember how I said that some of the blog templates seemed to magnify (and muddy!) the graphics? This is one of them. The header dimensions are quite large, but I wasn’t sure if the finished header stretched right across the page (it does), or only took up the area immediately above the blog text. So I chose a small font for the quote (Verdana size 14) which in normal text terms is pretty small, and an appropriately large font for the “My Word!” text. It positively loomed at you from the screen – more than double its size! So I took the text down two sizes, and it was only a little on the large side. I think I’ve got it about right, but if it’s still too big or too small, please let me know so that I can adjust it some more – because different browsers display things differently. When I used to make my web sets, I had all the major browsers loaded so that I could make sure that the graphics looked “right” on all of them – some people only made their graphics to display properly on IE – all other browsers were “rubbish”, you see, and IE was the only browser worth designing web sets for! How unprofessional – so having said that, I suppose I really should get all the major browsers loaded onto my machine again so that I can check the way my graphics display on all of them myself, rather than ask you to do it for me! But until I do, umm… would you mind terribly if I asked you to let me know? Thanks 🙂

Well, I’m late again this evening – but it’s not my fault! We had an appointment with the Real Estate Agent to have a look at Chippendale Court at 1.30pm this afternoon, so off we went at around one-ish. We were early, of course – it’s less than two kilometers from here! The Agent was already there, so we went in and had a look around. For some reason or other, I’ve been terribly tired, as in sleepy tired, all day, plus the fact that I’ve had a very runny nose and occasionally, stinging and watery eyes, I think it’s Hay Fever – but I also suspected sinusitis and partially blocked eustachian tubes, because I’ve been waking up slightly headachy, and today I was even more wobbly than I normally am when I’m wearing shoes. Anyway, as soon as we walked in, I noticed that the parquetry floor was pretty slippery – I think they’d waxed it, or polished it, so I was extra careful. It wasn’t a bad house at all – but far too much emphasis had been put on dark-painted “feature walls”. Dark chocolate brown and dark raspberry were the ones I noticed most – both colours that I like, but there was just a bit too much of it. House is split level, sort-of, with everything on the ground floor, but stairs leading down to a rumpus room, the laundry, and an enormous storage area. There are 16 steps down to the rumpus room et al (I counted them!), so going down and up was like doing one floor down and one floor up, here. But the stairs are narrow, steep, dark, and have a rather nasty and difficult to negotiate “bend” in the middle. Even without my shoes on (I can go up stairs with my shoes on, but coming down I have to be barefooted, or I’ll end up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs!) it was quite scary on those stairs! The bedrooms are all a decent size, and all have built-in wardrobes, the bathroom is “serviceable”, but would need re-tiling, as would the en-suite and the kitchen. Apparently at some stage the floor has moved, and nearly all the floor tiles are cracked. The garden is ginormous (something that neither of us needs or wants – we just want enough room for a small veggie garden!) and  boasts two olive trees and a grape vine. There’s also a beautifully made “cubby-house” with a sand-pit behind it, and an Olympic sized jacuzzi! The block is very steep, and is so crowded with trees, shrubs, and “jungle” that I doubt we’d ever need to have the grass mowed! Final verdict? A very nice place (if you don’t mind the parquetry) more storage than even the Vatican could use, and a lovely “English” type garden – but not, unfortunately, what we want for a home.

Weigh-in today. I went down two points, from 87.3kg to 87.1kg. Two points is good! One point is good, too. I can live with that! 🙂 Let’s see what happens tomorrow morning – after all, I did do an “extra floor’s worth” of stairs today! 😉

Oh, this afternoon we picked up our pictures/photos wot we had taken back in April! They’re very nice indeed, and I’ll put them all up for you to see just as soon as Julian shows me how to make an “album” available for public viewing on Flickr! I think they turned out brilliantly! Julian looks really good in all of them, but I was kind-a dreading seeing mine, because I always look terrible in photos – however, miracle of miracles, these ones actually make me look semi-human! 🙂 As well as the beautifully mounted photos, we also got their files on disc, which makes it a lot easier to put them online, rather than trying to scan them, and do it that way… anyway, ’tis almost news and dinner time, so….

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

So, here I am back again. I’ll endeavour to get those photos online for you tomorrow, if possible. My favourite eldest daughter will be over, and no doubt we’ll spend an entertaining afternoon watching “Orphan Black”, if we have any more episodes to watch, or “The 100” – but I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow night. I’m glad we went and saw that house today – after slipping through the gigantic gaps in our current attention span, it’s now one less “candidate” to have to worry about – so we probably won’t be seeing any more houses now until Saturday morning. Vermont South is Open For Inspection again on Thursday night at 5.30pm – Julian thinks there’s very little point in going to see it again before Saturday morning, but I think we should. It would (a) give us a chance to see what it’s like in artificial light (but is that really going to make a difference? Who knows? It might…) and (b) re-affirm our interest in it with the Agents. Personally, I vote we ask Carmen whether she thinks it would be advantageous for us to go, when we have our little pre-Auction War Council with her that morning. And that’s about it from me for tonight – last night’s blog was a real mammoth of a day’s re-cap, so I’m making tonight’s entry a little bit shorter, to make up for all the reading you had to do last night 🙂 Don’t forget to let me know if the new header is alright, or if it needs adjusting, and do drop by again tomorrow night to see what we’ve all been up to! I believe we have a Valuer going through Vermont South tomorrow morning – heaven forbid that we should pay more than the house is worth! 😉 The April photos should hopefully be online by then, and they are worth having a look at. I’ll be able to tell you whether walking nervously (no, walking is the wrong word! “inching” works much more betterer!) …I’ll be able to tell you whether nervously inching my way up and down the equivalent of an extra floor today at Chippendale has increased my weight loss, and also whether I’ve chewed enough of my nails off (waiting for Saturday!) to make me any lighter! So never fear, there’ll be lots to entertain you here tomorrow – but until then, do try to bee good, remember that in the presence of a positive attitude and enthusiasm, anything becomes possible, and don’t forget to drive carefully, keep warm, and take care of yourselves… but above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

Well, here I am, starting at a somewhat more reasonable time, for once. What do you think of the new background and header? I’m sorry I can’t say that I like the colours – as I think I said once before, I don’t really “do” greens (or pinks either, for that matter, and definitely not pinks and greens together! I did try that once, and it was a miserable failure!) But I was getting sooo sick and tired of all the blues, mauves, purples, and greys that I always seem to use – aren’t you?! I wish they’d invent a new colour… I should have a competition – $20 to the person who suggests a new colour scheme for the blog that doesn’t involve soft blues, mauves, purples, or greys! No, really! I mean it! Leave me a comment with your colour choice, and you’ll not only get your colour, you’ll get your $20.00, too! How can you possibly lose? 😉 Ya gotta be init to winit!

The header you’re looking at today was freshly made this morning, out of a “panel” font (usually used for making buttons and decorative titles on some web sites, back in the days when “pretty pretty” was all the rage, especially on “navigating” buttons! It’s quite an old font…) I just duplicated it, turned one panel upside down, removed the two dividing lines, and stuck them together. More or less. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but I think the end result was worth the hard work. So far I’ve made nine frames (this one’s #9!) and I reckon, probably the best one. If one of you suggests a new colour for me, I might incorporate one of the other frames for the new header… Oh, and if any of you want any graphic-ing done – wallpapers, or whatever – let me know, and I’ll make you one – gratis! (and free, too!) No, I’m not being generous, I’m being bored silly. I can’t go on making frames for headers for the rest of my life, and I can’t sit and play Rift for the rest of my life, either – and no matter what character I play, or how many new characters I create, it’s getting to the stage where I know all the quests to level 50 so well that I could do them in my sleep, with both hands tied behind my back, both my eyes closed (because I’m asleep, remember? 😉 ) and pushing the mouse around the desk with my nose! I’d knit, or crochet, and make “granny squares” for a rug, but I can no longer hold knitting needles or a crochet hook for long enough to make anything useful (osteoarthritis – Warning! Don’t get old and arthriticky! I can absolutely guarantee that you won’t like it!) and I’m already Amazon‘s favourite customer, I buy so many books from them (Kindle e-books, which are usually pretty cheap, but even so, I’m still one of their favourite customers!) anyway, you’d be doing me a favour if you gave me something to create graphically.

I did go house hunting again this morning – I only managed to find nine places that were worth sending on to himself for his judgement – he hasn’t finished going through the list yet, but so far has only found two worth going to look at (there may be more when he finishes the list) These are all in the Doncaster/Templestowe area – I haven’t looked further afield yet… I will if I really have to, but… I really have a secret reason for not wanting to go too far from where we are… Hairdressers! I had a really, really good hairdresser – he used to own a salon over the road – “Urban Soul” (it’s changed hands and its name twice that I know of since he sold it!) – and he was really good. He sold that business (the rent was too high, and he didn’t like having to dance to Westfield’s tune!) and went to work in South Yarra! Our whole family followed him to South Yarra, even though it was a real pain to get to – we all went to him for years, and then… 😦 he packed up and went home to Hungary, to help his father who owns (owned?) several hairdressing salons in Budapest. We were all very upset to see him go… he was not only a good hairdresser, he was a nice bloke, too So I shopped around and eventually found another hair stylist, who was, if anything, even better than Andreas, but then, for reasons I still don’t know or understand, we weren’t able to have him anymore… Anyway, I’m now going to Oscar Oscar over the road, and we all seem to be getting on pretty well – they seem to be a nice bunch over there, and have done a reasonable job for us so far. And the long and short of it is – I’ll be [censored] damned, if I’m going to lose yet another good Hairdresser for any reason, let alone because we moved too far away! (*blows raspberry at screen*)

Weigh-in this morning. I’m trepidated! I stayed the same… 87.3kg again. Is this the beginning of a big bounce back? Is it because I went down 3 points instead of one or two, the day before yesterday? Who knows… but I’m almost too scared to get on the scales tomorrow… 😦

There was one place on the list of houses this morning that we want to see – it’s not the first time that I’ve included this particular house in our list of possibles – but we always seem to miss going to look at it. Julian’s trying to get the Agent to take us through some time tomorrow – it’s also up for Auction next Saturday, along with Vermont South (different Agents though!) which doesn’t leave us much time to see it and decide if we like it more than “The Water Feature House”. If you’re thinking that we’ve changed our minds about “The ‘C’ House”, we haven’t – that Auction isn’t until the following Saturday, so it’s still on the horizon if we miss out on Vermont South, or this other one whose street name I can’t remember. It’s really strange – it looks lovely from the outside, it’s a 5 bedroom, 2 bathroom house, lots of storage, a decent floor plan, and yet I can’t remember the name of the street it’s in (where I can remember most of the other ones!) and we’ve “forgotten” to go and have a look at it, three times! It’s almost as if the “powers that be” don’t want us to see it!

So tomorrow Julian has to play Taxi Driver for my favourite eldest daughter again, I have a Hairdressing appointment around 4-ish, and we might be able to go and have a look at Chippendale Court (I went and looked it up!) at some stage. Julian and I discussed Auctions and strategies this morning – we’re indeed very different people! I’d handle things a lot differently… He’s worried about getting the finances wrong, I’m worried that he might jeopardise our chances, if he gets the Agents and/or Auctioneer offside… All this waiting is nerve wracking! I just wish it was this time next week! 🙂 I was just thinking: back when I was a little girl, I used to say “I can’t wait for….” whatever – Christmas, Birthday, Easter – you name it, to the extent that my mother used to say to me, very impatiently, “Well, what are you going to do instead!” That usually shut me up for a while, while I pondered this imponderable… 🙂 My favourite eldest daughter will be over on Wednesday, Thursday morning we have a meeting with Carmen about Auctions, and Auction strategies, etc., and on Thursday evening, around 5 – 5.30pm, Vermont South is Open For Inspection for the last time before the Auction. I suspect we may be taking a tape measure along this time, and I’ll be bringing a notebook and a pen, to take notes! As far as I know, Friday is free for me to sit and chew my nails down to the quick! You know, in all my life, I’ve never bitten my nails – but this Friday I just might make an exception! And that’s really about it from me for tonight – don’t forget to let me know if you want any wallpapers made, or graphics created from your favourite poster/photo/picture, or what colour you think my next blog template should be! There’s $20.00 in it for you, if you do! 🙂 “Help me, Obi Wan Readers, you’re my only hope! (for using a colour other than soft blue, mauve, purple or grey for the blog graphics!)” Do call back again tomorrow night to find out if we did get to see the Chippendale Court place, or if we missed out yet again, and also to find out if my weight stayed the same for another day, or if it went up (as I suspect it will!) There’ll be lots of other bits and pieces to fill you all in on too, so don’t miss out! 🙂 But, until tomorrow night, do try to bee good, understand that achievers are not born talented, they just possess the ‘I can do it’ attitude, and remember to look after yourselves, keep warm, and to drive carefully – but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*There’s another update on the “As Seen On…” page that I put online this morning, as soon as I saw it. It’s well worth a look-in! 🙂

Sunday in? on? The Plane of Water – well, sometimes it was “in”, and sometimes it was “on”… so take your pick! 😉 Actually, it was mostly “on”, and it all went rather well – I only died once, and Julian didn’t die at all. It was a pretty nasty quest we were on – we had to kill “x” number of this’s, “x” number of that’s…. and two (only two!) of these round floating balls of sheer and utter evil malevolence, each one of which had a trio of fiery, two-headed hound-lizards (well, that’s what they looked like, anyway) to protect them – not that they needed protecting, they were doing a very good job of that all by themselves! Anyway, we’ve done this quest once before, however we failed to remember exactly how we handled it last time, and what strategies we used. It was a no-brainer, really, and we should have known this anyway – pick off the support mongrels and roaming patrols before going for the really nasty one – it’s basic, for goodness sake! So what did we do? We just waded right in with all guns – er, sorry, staves – blazing… and what happened to us? We both had to “Feign Death” several times, I eventually got killed, and I heard Julian’s “very close to death” heart-beat sound quite a few times! (that “very close to death” heart-beat sound means “Take a healing potion NOW, or die!“) However, although I died, I died a hero! er… heroine! I could have run away, and I could have “Feigned Death”, but running away out of their reach doesn’t solve anything – you still have to go back and kill them if you want to move on with the game. Best to “Feign Death”, try and sneak away to heal yourself, or if that’s not possible, resign yourself to dying – it doesn’t last long! 😉 Unfortunately, this re-sets the creature’s health bar, and you have to start killing it again from scratch! This was our second “Big Ball of Evil” that we were killing, and it was slivered! Almost dead! My pet was biting its ankles for all he was worth, and I was using a spell called “Soul Purge”, which drains the enemy’s health and vitality, and feeds it back into your pet, so that it can keep on biting their ankles. You can kill high level creatures with Soul Purge, but it takes quite a long time. You have to weigh up your choices – “do I sit here zapping him with Soul Purge while my pet finishes him off slowly, or do I let my pet take his chances, and hit the evil one with something more substantial?” – bearing in mind that all this time, Mr. Evil One is busily zapping me with every nasty spell and weapon in his arsenal! I chose to Soul Purge (Come on! he was slivered! He couldn’t last much longer, could he?) Unfortunately, he could, and he did! I was pretty slivered too, but I thought “if I can only hold on a bit longer…” Well, I killed him in the end, but I died from my wounds, too. Oh well, “Say la Vee”, as the French say – or perhaps that should be “Say la morte!”? 😉 So we ran around, completing and handing in quests, and Carnage quests, by the dozen… and our experience bar sort-of quivered a little bit, every now and then. Leveling up past level 60 is slower that an ancient and decrepit snail, limping into a head wind! I think I have two and 3/4 bubbles left to ding level 62, and Julian’s not even that far along (I spend more in the Rift Shop, which bumps my Loyalty level up and I get extra perks – like leveling up faster… and riding faster (which I wish I didn’t – I keep running into walls, and riding off cliffs!)) But a good day was had by all – we had a lot of fun, and we even managed to score some semi-decent gear in quest rewards! 🙂 Hmm… I was about to say “Roll on next Sunday!”, but then I thought… It’s Auction Day for the Vermont South place next Saturday – and on Sunday, we’ll either be too damn miserable to want to play Rift – all we’ll probably want to do is just sit around feeling miserable and sorry for ourselves…or we’ll be ecstatically happy, jumping around – too busy to play Rift, as we’ll be planning on what extra furniture we’re going to need (it’s a very big house! Lots of rooms, plus the entertainment deck!) what we’re going to pack, and when, and how soon we should put this place on the market! But I’m going to say it anyway – “Roll on next Sunday!” – as long as it’s going to be a happy one! 😉

I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow – I think we’ll be getting back to house hunting (just in case!) Julian has a small amount of work to do around the place – we have remote switches on some of our lighting – f’rinstance, my desk lighting is on a remote switch – click one button on the remote control, and all the lights go on, or turn off. But those switches are around ten years old now, and they’re starting to stick a little – we do have new ones, but Julian still has to crawl around on the floor, changing them over. He’s also going to have a look at another mailer for me – I don’t trust Thunderbird any more, and I really don’t like The Bat (it’s far too “utilitarian” for me, if you know what I mean 😉 ) so I’ve found another one that’s supposed to be very good – it’s called Mailbird (v2.0) but I want Julian to vet it for me first (so that he can’t blame me if it contains a virus or some sort of malware 😉 ) It comes with a thirty day “Free to Try” version, and if it’s suitable, and I like it, I don’t mind paying for it. I’m also quite busy at the moment with these new frames I’ve been creating, adjustable, so that unless it’s a very narrow header (height-wise!) I should be able to use them on any blog header. They’re quite fun to make, too – even if they are very fiddly!…. 🙂

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

Well, I didn’t really think that I’d get this finished before dinner 🙂 But that’s what happens when I start late…

Weigh-in this morning. A drop of three points took me from 87.6kg to 87.3kg – I hope I don’t pay the price tomorrow with a bounce back! I much preferred it when I was only dropping one point a day (why is the caps Lock key so ruddy close to the “A” key! Grrr! I keep hitting it by mistake!) Still, all I can do is…. weight and see what happens…

I just checked with himself before – yes, it is back to house hunting again tomorrow. What fun! I would like to get some Rifting in as well, though, and maybe make a few more frames, and work on some patterns… the trouble is, there just aren’t enough hours in the day! My favourite eldest daughter will be over on Wednesday this week, because I have a Hairdressing appointment on Tuesday afternoon. I have to admit though, I’m getting quite anxious about this coming weekend and the Auction on Saturday – it’s almost like “treading water”, waiting to see what’ll happen. It’s all very well to understand intellectually that whatever happens, happens, and it’s not really going to be such a very big deal if we don’t get the house – we’ll just keep on looking – it’s not the only nice house for sale – but it’s a bit like Christmas when you’re a child – you know that everything will be great! fantastic! You’ll get your presents from Father Christmas, and not a lump of reindeer poo if you’ve been naughty, as your parents keep threatening – but still there’s that anticipation, that feeling of “what if?” Believing that everything will be as you hope it will be, but not quite believing enough to not be anxious – you know what I mean? Yeah, I’m silly, I know… but… I do wish it was this time next week! And with that admission of childlike hope and belief versus anxiety, I’ll remind you all to call back again tomorrow night to catch up on all our antics and adventures 🙂 Who knows? I might find a much nicer house than Vermont South in my searchings tomorrow! (well, it’s possible!) I might miraculously drop right down to my goal weight of 70kg overnight! (boy! Don’t I wish!) We might win Tattslotto! (except that we don’t have a ticket) Who knows what’s just around the corner! 🙂 But unfortunately you’ll have to wait until this time tomorrow night to find out! 🙂 Until then, though, bee good, let your eyes be mirrors in which others see their most beautiful selves reflected, remember to always keep warm, drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂