Was made in our Telaran adventures today. We’d polished off Freemarch last week, and we were more than half way through Stonefield when we started playing this morning. Actually, we were a bit more than half way though Stonefield, because we’d finished it by mid morning. We had our “breadcrumb” into the next zone, Scarlet Gorge, so we spent the rest of our time in Stonefield running a huge circle around a smallish plateau, leveling up our Butchering by killing the miraculously regenerating local rams, until lunch. After lunch, we started questing in Scarlet Gorge, and I dunno – I know that two Mages do make a fairly formidable team, but the mobs and wildlife were falling in front of us like flies! We seemed to flash through it all, taking virtually no damage at all, anywhere, including the rather nasty Boss Rift at the end of the zone! And on top of all that, we even managed to go up three or four levels! When we started playing, I was level 26 – I finished up this afternoon at level 30, and I didn’t even have to take an experience enhancer! Most remarkable! In all my years of playing MMO’s, first World of Warcraft, and now Rift, I don’t recall ever having covered an entire zone in one afternoon (not even a full day, an afternoon!) Next week, it’ll be on to Scarwood Reach – I wonder if we’ll be able to knock that over in an afternoon! Somehow I doubt it… (it’s a teeny bit bigger than Stonefield 😉 )

We’ve got a bit of a task tomorrow morning – ringing Dorevitch and requesting to have someone make a house call to do a blood test. I’m supposed to have my next Warfarin blood test on Tuesday, but of course, I’m stuck up here on the fifth floor for the duration. I probably could clamber down the stairs to the first floor, and Julian probably could pick me up outside and whiz me over to have the blood test (it’s only over the road in Doncaster Tower) the non-fun part would be trying to get me back up the five floors… I think I could do it, but I’d be pretty non compos menzies by the time I got home. On my Stair Walks I do two floors, and by the time I get back to our floor, I’m a bit puffed… (but it’d only be an extra two floors, and I’d only be doing the “up” part on the way home, so maybe I could… Hmmm…) Anyway, we’d like to see if we can get someone to come over here to do the blood test… If they can’t send someone on Tuesday, I can go a couple of days over the requested date, but I certainly shouldn’t leave it until the lift is fixed. I might have to go the hard slog and go myself

I was just having a bit of a look in The Age – I used to “follow” The Age, but have pretty much stopped looking at it since it went “Tabloid” (printing at least a third of their articles for their sensationalism and scandalous value only, which is a shame – The Age used to be a reputable news source once – alas, no more!) Anyway, I was just having a brief look, and one of their top stories claims that the judges in the Bali Nine Death Sentence case demanded money to hand down a lesser sentence. OK, if the system is as corrupt as it’s said to be, and an approach like that would certainly have confirmed this, why the hell didn’t they pay the money?! To appear to be holier than thou? To say “Well, the judges are corrupt, and indicated that they’d take a bribe for a lesser sentence, but we won’t lower ourselves to their standards! Oh no! We’ll let Justice take its course!” – and of course, now it has. Some justice! Family and friends would have been only too happy to “donate” to the cause – hell, I would have donated to the cause! Now it looks like these poor guys, who made a stupid and terrible mistake over ten years ago, are going to die. Indonesia is welcome to its own laws, and if they want to inflict the death penalty on people who smuggle drugs into their country, that’s their right… But not after ten years of remorse, atonement, and rehabilitation. That’s simply inhumane – not just to the drug runners (I nearly said “victims”, and I think I probably would have been right!), but to their family and friends, and indirectly, to the whole world, which now has to witness this terrible ordeal they and their families are being put through! If a country is going to carry out a sentence like that (as is their right), they must do it immediately! They must do it quickly and cleanly, while the enormity of what the perpetrators have done is still fresh in everyone’s mind, and while the notion of “It’s their law – the boys shouldn’t have been so stupid” was foremost in the public’s interest. Bah! If I ever go overseas again, I will not fly anywhere via an Indonesian airport. Small drop, large bucket – but if enough people did that, sooner or later they’d get the message…

Ooops! Sorry, I said I wasn’t going to do another Rant this month. I guess I lied… 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Slowing down again? Only 1 point down to 104.2kg today… Maybe tomorrow will be better – maybe it won’t. I don’t count on anything to do with my weight anymore… I’ll just keep on walking up and down stairs and crossing my fingers a lot…

So anyway, call in again tomorrow night 🙂 Who knows what subject might take my fancy next time, eh? 😉 My Willow Byron Bay nail polish is still looking pretty good – it should last until Tuesday, I think, and I’ll definitely be ordering some more! Seems like I’ve also dropped another dress size – that means I’ve gone from a 26, to a 24, to a 20 in six months… Not too bad, I guess. I just wish I looked thinner! (everyone says I do (look thinner) but when I look in the mirror, I just can’t see it…) However! All the latest comings and goings, doings and don’tings, chez nous, will be flourished before you tomorrow evening – so don’t miss out! Therefore, until this time tomorrow, I shall once again bid thee to bee good, and above all, stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! 🙂 Himself and I celebrated the day by… shifting my desk around. For some time my right shoulder has been horribly sore… very much the way it felt when I was a child learning the piano (I never wanted to play the piano – I would have much rather learned the harp, or the violin, like my father – but no, I got the piano…) I’d be in the living room practicing, every afternoon, and mother would be in the kitchen, getting dinner prepared. My shoulder would get sorer and sorer, and I’d make more and more mistakes, and mother would yell at me to stop mucking around, to concentrate, and practice properly. I’d yell back that I couldn’t help it, my shoulder was so sore… This went on for months, and finally my mother decided to “call my bluff”, and took me to the doctor. He diagnosed me as having Fibrositis (now called Fibromyalgia), prescribed Disprin, and advised me against sitting in the one position for too long, and also not to take a job as a typist or secretary when I grew up. My practice sessions were shortened from an hour and a half to one hour, and what do I do all day now that I’m all growed up? 🙂 I sit in front of a screen and keyboard, that’s what I do! 😉 Anyway, my shoulder has been getting very sore (it sort of feels as though a large air bubble has been trapped in your shoulder joint, and it gets so sore it almost stings!) so we thought if I sat at the desk differently, like with my elbow resting on the desk instead of on the arm of the chair, it might help – so I’m now sitting in the corner where I can rest my elbow on the desk when I’m using the mouse. It may help – it may not – this is really just a bit of an experiment. This whole move, being in the nature of an experiment as it was, shouldn’t have taken very long – but himself decided to take advantage of the ensuing chaos to get rid of a lot of unused cables and to “tidy up” the rest of the “sphagetti” mess under the desk – so it took virtually half the morning, and most of the afternoon… Still, it’s all nice and tidy and neat at the moment – heaven help us if it all has to be moved back again any time soon… 😉 I’ve sort of got my side the way I want it – there’s still a few bits and pieces to be hung up, but that shouldn’t take long… (crosses fingers and touches wood!) I expect this to be a relatively short blog tonight (*gasp* I can hear you from here! Stop that cheering! Stop it, I say! Now! 😉 ), because except for moving my desk around, my Stair Walks, and a bit of Rifting, it was a largely uneventful day for once, and I’ve already had my February rant, so I can’t do another one of those yet… 😉

I did manage to get a bit of Rifting in this morning, as well as later this afternoon, and I also managed to get Jadenfyre up to level 20, and finish off the rest of Freemarch – so now he’s off to Stonefield with a clear conscience 🙂 Actually, he won’t be going straight off to Stonefield, I’ve decided to do what I did with all my girls on Laethys – take each of them, one at a time, to a significant level – in this case, level 20. Then I’ll take them all up to level 40, and then finally to level 50, when I might start needing a bit of help with some of the quests. So now that Satai and Jadenfyre are both level 20, I shall go on and get another one – possibly Rubyfox – up to level 20, and so on… it’s a good way of leveling characters up reasonably evenly – well, it worked on Laethys, anyway, so there’s no reason it shouldn’t work on Hailol too! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I went down to 104.3kg ,nice, but I really don’t expect it to keep going down – it’ll probably be the same again for a couple of days, and then go back up again. As I mentioned before, I went for my two Stair Walks today – it wasn’t too bad inside the fire escape stairwell, but the trek from our door to the fire escape door leaves one gasping a bit – it’s very close and humid in the lobby (heat I can sort of deal with, humidity I can’t. I feel as though I’m drowning!) I’m still only doing the two levels down, two levels back up, and in this sort of weather that’s about as much as I can manage. I wish it was Winter… 😦

So tune in again tomorrow night – it’s our weekly Sunday romp through Telara tomorrow, and I’m sure you’ll all want to know what sort of adventures we end up having, and how many times we died 😉 My beautiful Willow Byron Bay nail polish seems to be holding up fairly well – there’s only a teeny-weeny bit of wear showing on the very tippety-tip of one nail, so I’ll probably order some more from them next week – the raspberry red, the gold with a silver shimmer, and the dark blue with a cobalt shimmer… Mmmmm! Can’t wait! 🙂 Now, where was I? Oh yes… reasons to call back tomorrow… and of course you’ll all want to know about my Stair Walks, and most importantly, my weight! Did it go up? Down? or stay the [insert very rude word of your choice here] same? Well, you’ll be filled in on all of those, and more! around about this time tomorrow night – so until then, please, bee extra good, and stay extra safe! ciao, all! 🙂

When we got back… Remember I told you that himself and I got chucked out of Rift yesterday afternoon, and we couldn’t get back in because all the shards were down? Well, we got back in last night, after I finished last night’s blog. We were a bit worried that we’d wake up in a paddock somewhere in Stonefield, dead, or worse still, in the middle of either the same, or another Rift. We knew we’d no longer be a group (groups get disbanded if all parties leave the game, for whatever reason, and as we’d been dumped out, technically, we’d “left the game”) Well, we both got online, counted to three, and clicked on “Play” together. Whoa! I had no idea where he was, I didn’t have my pet to protect me – I was alive, but that was the best thing that could be said of my situation! And yes, you guessed it! We arrived bang smack in the middle of a different kind of Fire Rift! My first reaction was to go “AAArrgggghhh!” very loudly, and to run away, very fast – but I had no idea where I was, so I didn’t know which way to run! Himself sent me a group invite, which I grabbed, and finally I could see where he was. Over on the other side of the paddock to where I was, with a great big Rift Rumble going on between us. These Fire Riftians weren’t the nasty looking four legged spiders with all the teeth and fangs, no! These Fire Riftians (“Riftians” – I just invented that term, and I think it’s very apt, so I shall continue to use it!) These Fire Riftians were giant Cyclopes (i.e. more than one Cyclops) who used giant insects that looked like a cross between a flea and a louse, to nibble your toenails… and your arms, and your legs, but mainly your head. And so what did we do? We summoned up our pets and weighed into the fray, like good little Mages, that’s what we did! We cleaned up a couple of Rifts last night, but still managed to get through most of our quests – I don’t know about himself, but I put it down to “Divine Intervention”… I don’t know if you remember or not, but some time in the past I might have mentioned the fact that I hate playing and/or fighting underwater… well, I do… but did I also mention the fact that I hate fighting and/or playing at night, almost as much as I hate its underwater equivalent? No? Well, I hate it. I have poor night vision at the best of times, and when there’s “things” trying to kill you, lots of black all around you, and a great many fancy, and very clever special effects going off every which-where, I can’t see a cotton pickin’ thing! (not even if you used white cotton thread!) I’m just very good at guessing where I am, and what I’m supposed to be doing 🙂 As it ended up, there was only one particular quest that we weren’t able to complete (it was getting too late anyway) and only one – optional – side quest that we weren’t able to pick up. It was an “escort” quest, where you have to lead, guide, and otherwise protect, a particularly stupid and gormless creature to safety. A creature who seems to go out of his or her way to meander in front of hostile mobs, or who spot an enemy five miles away and run off to fight it (so you have to run off with them and kill said enemy for them, because they’re pretty useless in a fight) There are even those who stop for a rest in the middle of a battle you’re trying to get them past without being noticed, because they’re tired. Anyway, during an escort quest, anyone else wanting to do the same quest just has to be patient – the “escort-ee” won’t become available again until the other player doing the escorting succeeds and finishes the quest, or the quest fails, and the creature re-appears for the next idiots players to try their luck. I don’t think I’ve ever met a single, solitary gamer who says that they like escort quests. We all hate them, but we all do them – because it’s experience, after all! 🙂 So we were all set to do this escort quest last night, but some other player grabbed it first. As it’s a longish sort of escort quest, we decided not to wait – we’ll do it next time we’re on. And that was about where we decided to call it a night, head for home, dust down, and log off for the night. So we did 🙂 And a good time was had by all! 😉

This morning I took Jadenfyre out again – I think I’m hurrying things too much though – I’ve already leveled him up in Butchering, Mining, and Foraging, and got him to level 18 – I have the “breadcrumb” quest to Stonefield… Breadcrumb quest? It serves as a “hook”, or mechanism to get the character from one quest hub to a new quest hub in another area. Example: [Quest Giver in Freemarch] “What? You found this down by the lake? How terrible! You must take it to “xxyz” in Stonefield immediately!” Something like that, anyway… Yes, so I have the breadcrumb quest to Stonefield, and I haven’t even finished three quarters of Freemarch yet! I should slow down, but I know the quests and which way to do them with the least amount of time and effort, and it’s hard to do them any other way. And I’ve been caught before, going into a new area and not being able to pick the flowers, mine the ore, or skin the animals there, because I hadn’t leveled those skills up enough before I went there – so now I make sure I do it early, and of course I get experience doing that, and I end up too “old” for the area I’m in, before I’ve come close to completing it! Ya’can’t win! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Down to 104.7kg, and I didn’t stand “just so” on the scales. It’ll go up again tomorrow, probably, so I’m not too excited. I went for my morning Stair Walk this morning and realised why my right hand has a hole in it near the base of my thumb. Coming up the stairs, I trail my right hand along the wall, because I’m right handed, and I don’t trust my left hand and arm holding onto the stair rail. The wall is heavily rendered with a rough “textured” surface, and I thought “Ow!! That hurts!”, and realised that I was not-so-happily skinning my hand when I trailed it along the wall. Ha! So I wore a glove on that hand this afternoon! I felt like Michael Jackson, with his one gloved hand! Tomorrow, I might even put a band-aid on the hole in my hand before I put on the glove – it still hurt a bit. I don’t know why they bothered rendering the wall like that – it’s only a fire escape! It’s probably to hide “mistakes” the builders made when they were building the apartment block…

Anyway, call in again tomorrow night – I’ve been busy trying to unzip and extract the millions of Brusheezy Photoshop brushes that I downloaded yesterday, and making a right mess of it – I keep forgetting where I got up to, and the “Extract all” command hides all the files it extracts… somewhere I can’t find. I’ll have to get himself to sort it all out (I’m not terribly technical – I’m an Artiste!) so I’ll fill you all in on what happens with all of those new brushes – I’ve also got gradients all zipped up, too, but there’s not as many of them, so I’ll probably be able to manage… And I’ll let you know whether I decided to let Jadenfyre forego the rest of Freemarch for Stonefield or not… And if it’s good news, I’ll let you know how my weight goes, too… (only joking – I’ll tell you, and grizzle about it, even if it is bad!) So until tomorrow night, bee good, and stay safe! (especially in all this wild and dramatic weather we’re having at the moment!) ciao, all! 🙂

This afternoon – but that comes later in the blog – it made quite an effective title though, I thought! 🙂 Actually, I was quite late coming into Rift this morning. I was going through my pitiful excuse for email this morning, when I received an email from Brusheezy, a graphics site I sometimes frequent for their free Photoshop utilities (brushes, gradients, patterns, textures, etc.) Basically, they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse – Premium membership (for a price, of course! but quite a reasonable one) I usually go there when I need brushes, for example, for a particular project, or textures and patterns for a new blog header, and I scour their freebies for anything useful. Premium membership gives me a lot more, as well as much better quality, graphics to chose from. So I joined… and spent the rest of the morning going through all their Premium brushes and gradients. Tomorrow (or maybe the next day), I’ll sift through their patterns and textures 🙂 This morning, by the time I’d done that, got back to my email and finished there, it was after 11 o’clock and I hadn’t checked my Minions, or done anything meaningful in Rift! (*gasp* *shock* *horror*!) So I logged on, and this time took Jadenfyre for a bit of a run until lunchtime. After lunch, himself and I went for another romp through Stonefield… and quite a romp it was, too! We were sent to the next area in Stonefield where we had to talk to ghosts, kill a Captain and his pet Croco-monster-dile (called “Bramble”, or “Bracken”, or something – cute name for a monster, I thought!), kill lots of nasty Lizardmen called Sobeks, and fight rock Giants (which you could then mine for ores, once you killed them) As usual, there were Rifts every which-where, and also as usual, we decided to pitch in and help close a Fire Rift. I don’t like Fire Rifts (do I really like any of them? Well, no, I don’t – apart from the experience and planarite you get when you close them 🙂 ) I don’t like Fire Rifts because they have these horrible Hell Bug thingies that look like a giant four legged spider with a shark’s mouth, and enormous fangs, and they’re really, really horrible (never mind that my Pet Phluffie looks like one 🙂 Phluffie is cute!) Well, there we were, in mortal combat with about four of these Hell Bug thingies, and… *glinck* we were tossed out. Never mind, get back in and hope to goodness that we were still alive! Nope, couldn’t get back in – someone had tripped over a plug somewhere, big time! We kept trying, but things got even worse! First, our shard (Laethys) went down (i.e. offline), then all the rest of the shards went down, too! They stayed down for about twenty minutes or so, then they gradually all came back online – except for Laethys. When I’ve finished writing this, we’ll log on together, to see if we’re still alive, somewhere in the middle of a paddock in Stonefield (and hopefully not in the middle of another Rift! Somehow, I don’t much like our chances!) So that’s what I meant in the blog title 🙂 “Rift became adrift… this afternoon”

I went for the first of my morning Stair Walk today – after a miserable weigh-in, and before breakfast. I don’t think that early morning walking up and down stairs likes me very much – it was [insert mild expletive here] tough going, and I only did two levels, instead of my usual three. Then this afternoon, I was going to do my second Stair Walk after we finished Rifting, but when Laethys refused to come back up, I thought “bugger this! I’ll go now!”, so I did. I think it must be the morning that doesn’t like me – this afternoon’s walk wasn’t nearly as tough as this morning’s – but I still only did two levels. I will work up to three (and possibly four) levels – and I will, of course, be keeping this regimen up after the lift is fixed – I’m not doing this simply because the lift is out, you know – in fact, the lift has nothing to do with the Stair Walking. I’m doing this as a part of my weight loss program (seeing as the diet doesn’t seem to be working any more! 😦 ) Hopefully, I’ll be able to go up and down all five flights of stairs within a couple of months – so even if I don’t lose any more weight (bloody diet!) at least I’ll be fit (well, fitter than I was, anyway)

Weigh-in this morning. As I said, it was a miserable one. The scales told me 105.2kg or something, but as I think I told you a while ago, if you stand “just so” on the scales, you can get them to tell you something slightly “different”. I stood “just so”, and immediately went down to 104.9kg – the same as yesterday. My weight, in effect, has come to a complete and utter stop. It’s been well over a week of staying within one point of the same weight, every day. Am I depressed? Where’s the knife… or the Warfarin bottle, and you’ll find out. Am I angry? If my weight were a living entity, I’d be up for murder. Am I totally and thoroughly sick and tired and fed up? I just want to walk away. So I’ll walk. If doing a Stair Walk twice a day doesn’t make any difference, I’ll do three! If I could possibly eat any less, I would. I’ll do whatever it takes – bugger the fates, bugger the doctors, and bugger my body. I’ll lose the damn weight if I have to die to do it! A small anecdote: many, many years ago (when I was young and charming), BJ (Before Julian), I was living with someone who’s mother owned a beach house down at Corinella. We used to go down there regularly with the kids, and we used to do a lot of walking. I won’t say that I was terribly fit, but I was fit enough – the arthritis in my ankles was only just beginning to bother me. I decided to go on a medically supervised diet – supervised because the doctor had me on a (prescription) course of Duromine (basically speed – he wanted to see if it would help speed up my metabolism – it did) When I started, I weighed about 16 stone (more or less what I weigh now – 104.something kg) and I lost a lot of weight, very quickly. We were all very pleased. I didn’t feel any better, I got breathless a lot more often and more quickly, and my feet and ankles felt a lot worse. But that was OK, I was losing weight! I got down to about 10.5 stone (66.5kg) and there I stopped. I never lost another ounce. For six whole months, I never lost another ounce. It got to the point where I was living on black coffee (no sugar), water, and six prunes a day. I kept having dizzy spells and had absolutely no energy. A walk to the end of the drive exhausted me. In the end, Ray (that was his name) got in the car and went up to the local shops. He came home with a salad roll and stood over me and made me eat it. That was the end of my ill advised medically supervised diet. Of course I put on weight, and my lifestyle after that put on even more. So here I am now, getting just a bit of a feeling of deja vu. Why am I depressed? You tell me.

So, call in again tomorrow night – see if we woke up dead in a paddock in Stonefield 🙂 Find out if my beautiful new nail polish has lasted another day (so far, so good! 🙂 ) Naturally I’ll let you know how my weight and my walking are going (I used the fire escape stairs again today – it’s even more comfortable walking in bare feet than in socks!) And if any of you are concerned, don’t worry about me – nothing keeps this little black duck down for very long. I will get there! So until tomorrow night, bee good (or bee gooder!), and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

It’s already 10 to 10, and I’m late! We recorded Foyle’s War on Saturday and watched it tonight – it’s another very good television series. Set in London, during, and just after World War 2, Foyle is a Detective Chief Superintendent who ends up working for the Home Office, investigating crime connected to war activities. Naturally it’s a lot more complicated than that, but that was how the series started out. The episode we watched was post war, and he’s working pretty much full time for the Home Office (MI6) . If anyone’s interested in those sorts of series, I can highly recommend it, along with the George Gently series – set in the early to mid sixties, it’s another extremely good “detective” show (we now have the full six seasons worth) So, yeah, it’s late, and I still have Minions to process, Auctions to check, amongst a lot of other stuff on Rift 🙂

My pretty purple nail polish from Willow Byron Bay did arrive this morning, and boy, it sure is pretty! 🙂 It’s what I suppose you could call a “rich dark fuchsia”, with a cobalt blue opalescent sheen through it. It’s a little bit darker than I generally like my nail polishes, but… I’ll put up with it! I’ll put up with it! 🙂 Now all that remains to be seen is how well it wears/lasts. If it’ll last six to seven days, I’ll buy some of their other colours – I’d like to get Torakina, Bonsoir, and Sundance – whadd’ya reckon? 😉 But it all depends on how well they last…

Himself got a few last things out of the way this morning, while I Rifted, and after lunch we sallied forth and trounced evil critters in Stonefield (Trolls, and Troglodytes, and Giants, oh my!) until about 4 o’clock, when I was going to do my Stair Walk in the hot and steamy front stairwell. Unfortunately, my running socks were still in the clothes dryer, so…. I used the fire escape stairs in my bare feet instead! 🙂 (I bet you thought I was going to say that I couldn’t do my walk! C’mon, you did think that, didn’t you! That I was just waiting for an excuse not to do my Stair Walk, hmmm?! 😉 ) It was a lot cooler in the fire escape tunnel stair well, too (come to think of it, it is a bit like a tunnel, only vertical, instead of horizontal…) so I went down and up my three landings worth, and although it is a lot cooler in there (it’s almost in the exact centre of the building) it was still pretty warm – and I found it a little… debilitating… Thank goodness I didn’t use the front stairs – I really don’t think I would have made the full three levels! It should hopefully be a little cooler tomorrow – if not, I’ll just use the fire escape route again. Handy, that! 🙂 When I got back I washed my hands, dried them thoroughly, and set about painting my nails… They do look nice (though they’d look even more betterer if I hadn’t filed them back so severely – but they’ll grow!) Then I read, somewhat gingerly, as my nails hadn’t dried properly, until dinner time, when they had dried. Himself spent the afternoon, before and after my Stair Walk, cleaning out the cupboards and drawers in his bathroom – I must do the same in mine… I don’t know about you, but I tend to accumulate bottles of half used shampoo that I didn’t like but didn’t want to throw away because there was still so much left in them – ditto with hand and body lotions that for some reason or other never got used more than three or four times… toothpastes that burnt my mouth because they had too much mint, or eucalyptus oil, or whatever, in them… empty perfume bottle boxes that I kept because I can’t remember why… deodorant sprays with about 2/3 of a single spray left in them (why do I keep these things? Why?! Why?!) Bits of old makeup… old lipsticks… old facial wipes (mostly all dried out now) They all have to go! And I also keep on buying drawer dividers that are never the right size or shape for what I want to put in them, so I have decided. Once the lift is back in operation again, we’re going to Howard’s Storage! We were going to go there anyway, because they’re about the only place where I think I can still get the pretty storage boxes that I want for under the bed – but knowing my luck, they probably don’t have them any more Anyway, I just went and had a quick peek, and they’ve got some very interesting looking new drawer dividers! 😉 Yes, we shall definitely be going there! 😀 This time, however, I’m going to lay out, and measure, everything from my drawers and cupboards that I want to keep, and I shall measure the drawers, too! Surely, that way, I should be able to get something “Baby Bear” (something that’s “just right!“, as Goldilocks once said! 😉 )

Weigh-in this morning. I went down to 104.9kg. I’m not going to comment, other than to say that tomorrow I’ll just as likely be back to 105.3kg or something equally ridiculous and depressing. I simply don’t trust my body any further than I could pick up a baby elephant with my little finger and throw it!

So, what’s happening tomorrow? Why not call in again tomorrow night and find out! 😉 Actually, I have no idea at all about what’s happening tomorrow, other than I’ll most likely be playing Rift (as usual), I shall be weighing myself (as usual), and that I shall be going on my Stair Walk (again, as usual) Other than those activities, it’s all in the hands – or should I say “paws” – of the Great Galactic Kitten! My favourite eldest daughter won’t be over while the lift’s out, unfortunately, so there’ll be no “Person of Interest” episodes for a couple of weeks – on the other hand, I still have all those episodes of Survivor to watch… hmmmm… Survivor? or Rift?… Rift? or Survivor? Don’t you just love to procrastinate?! 🙂 I certainly do… not! What I want is for someone else to make up my mind for me – then, whatever they decide I should do, I’ll want to do the opposite, and that will make up my mind for me, see? 🙂 So I suppose you’ll just have to wait with battered breath until tomorrow night for my descriptions of the days doin’s! 🙂 but until then, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

I thought it was probably about time that you had another “rant” blog from me – something, hopefully, for you to think about. So here goes… I was watching the news the other night, and some scientist or other was going on, and on, and on, about climate change, and how the world is getting hotter, and – well, I’m sure you know all the words that they constantly throw out – the Greens keep badgering on about it too. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe what they’re saying, and I do think it’s important that we do something about it (though I can’t help thinking that part of it – even if only a relatively small part – is a natural cycle that has happened before, and will happen again, even if human kind isn’t here to see it.) Big business more or less turns a blind eye to it; the man on the street mouths platitudes and pretends to care – but they have far more immediate problems to think about and so place the “Greatest Challenge of Our Time” in the ‘I’ll think about it later’ pigeon hole. In a nutshell, everyone keeps talking about how “it’s happenin’ right now, folks”, and they blame anyone they can think of – except themselves, of course – governments, banks, profit greedy businesses (profit is not a dirty word you know, without profit, there are no wages – remember that!) Anyone who makes money is suspect, and governments obviously just don’t care. We’re being told, over and over, how disasterous it is for the world, and how “something must be done!” – but, you know what?! So far, no-one has come up with a truly viable means of stopping, or even slowing down, the global warming process. About the only things that really will work to help arrest global warming, will also affect other important things that keep us all relatively comfortable and put food on most of our tables. Our standards of living, for example, will drop badly because wages will go down, but prices will go up. Profits, and indeed, global finance will be affected to an extent that will make the GFC look like a squabble in a kindergarten sand pit!  Quite seriously, life would not be pretty under a proper, workable scheme to slow down global warming! Not to mention Countries Other Than Australia – a true consensus will never be reached, and every country will be jealously eyeing off their neighbours, wondering if they’re getting any more concessions and/or benefits than they are themselves. Wars will be possible and even probable. Some of the poorer countries are in no position to put in place the harsh restrictions and penalties that would be needed – if they tried, their people would at best depose them, and at worst, lynch them. People like their comforts, and their fat profits, their McMansions, their enormous televisions, their overseas travel, their cars… they won’t give them up without a fight (I won’t give them up without a fight, either! *blows raspberry at screen*)  Globally, everyone is looking to everyone else to make the first positive move – it’s become a game of brinkmanship. Sure, we can put a price on carbon… Might as well put a tax on bubble gum, for all the real good it will do. One idea might be to go nuclear – but that’s deemed to be far too dangerous (what, global warming isn’t?! Then why are we all so worried about it?!) Various (dare I use the term? Yes!) “wimps” point to Chernobyl, Long Island, and lately, Fukushima, in Japan. “We can’t allow accidents like those to happen ever again, it’s best to steer well clear of nuclear energy” – if we don’t learn how to manage it well and safely, well, more fool us. We have to stop using fossil fuels and gas if we want to even try to slow down global warming. As I see it, nuclear power only has one serious disadvantage, and that’s waste disposal. But for a world that’s managed to put men on the moon, and is planning a manned trip – and return  from – Mars, surely safe, efficient nuclear waste disposal shouldn’t pose too much of a problem? So c’mon peoples, I’ve given you the problem (and one teeny-weenie possible, if not probable, solution), why don’t all of you start thinking about a real and viable solution – it’s becoming increasingly obvious that none of the big-wigs wants to take on the responsibility of doing anything constructive – our only hope might be for us to find the solution for them, and rub their [please insert rude word here] noses in it!

End of the February Rant

And now, to other news, chez nous! I Rifted most of this morning, and I finally managed to get Winterthyme skilled up in all her necessary Gathering professions. I even got her out of Scarwood Reach and into the Moonshade Highlands – we’ll see how we go – so far, most of the quests are green (i.e. little more than baby level) but I do have a breadcrumb quest to Droughtlands, so if Moonshade fails to please, I have a home to go to in Droughtlands 🙂 After lunch, himself took off on sundry errands, and I started work on this delectable header – do you like it? It didn’t really take me very long – what took me the longest was deciding on a background colour! 🙂 Then I thought I’d write my blog now, with it’s little Rant, so I did 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. I really don’t know why I bother, honestly! My body is determined to stay fat and slug-like. I went down that one point to 105.0kg – again! Tomorrow it’ll be 105.1kg, or 105.6kg, or whatever – as long as it’s in the 105kg area, my body will be happy. I won’t, but I think that comes under the heading of “too bad”. I’m getting the feeling that my body likes being in the 105kg zone so much that it plans on staying in it forever, and ever, and ever. I give up. I don’t bloody well care any more…

Tune in again tomorrow night (sorry, I’m rushing this! I’m very extremely late for my Stair Walk!) and find out all the latest – himself has plans for us to have a day in Telara, whacking Trolls and searching for Artifacts, which will be a pleasant change from his sitting in the Office working on Body Corporate thingies! 🙂 My nail polish from Byron Bay didn’t arrive today, and my nails remain unpainted. I’ll let them go one more day, then I’ll paint them some other colour (and isn’t it always the way? The minute I paint my nails, the nail polish will arrive!) So I’ll fill you in on that too – now I gotta go and get my socks on, and get to them thar stairs! So until tomorrow night, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

Pieces of good news that I can give you this evening! 🙂 The first being that I’ve gone down two (2) sizes in clothes! Before I started this diet, all my tops were XL (and don’t even bother to ask about slacks!) Late last year I had to throw out all my old clothes because they were swimming on me, and I moved down into a size L, but they’re also too big for me now. On Saturday when I went to Autograph and My Size, I was just a teeny bit dubious about trying the next size down, M (for Medium) so I compromised, and got two tops in size M, and two tops in size L. Julian will be taking the two size L’s back tomorrow, and exchanging them for size M. Since August last year, I’ve gone from size XL to size M – I’m tempted to say (in my best fake American accent) “Howz thet fer sahze!”, but it’d make me sound a bit too much like my son-in-law, so I won’t! 😉

The second piece of good news being that I didn’t have to lose as much of my torn thumbnail as I feared I would – but I have cut/filed all my nails down a lot! I haven’t painted them yet – I’m still hanging out for my new pretty purple Willow Byron Bay nail polish to arrive – they sent me an email in about the middle of last week saying that it had been dispatched, so hopefully it’ll arrive tomorrow… I’ll let you know if it does!

The third and last piece of good news is that when I was doing my Stair Walk this afternoon, I did my one level, and I did the half level, and I thought “bugger this!” and walked down to the second landing – so I am now officially walking two landings, and back – 32 stairs altogether! I think I’m finally getting the hang of this “walking” business! 😉 Next week? Another landing? or another two landings? Being very religious (I’m a devout Coward) I’ll probably opt for a single extra landing (making my Stair Walk a total of three landings) for the first couple of days, and then stretch it down to the extra one… We’re on the fifth floor, so doing those four levels would take me down to the first floor, which is street level on the Williamson Road side… See? I’m not trapped here at all! 🙂 I know I walk the stairs in my running socks because the rough concrete stairs hurt my feet, but if I carried my torture devices shoes with me, and I put them on 😦 at the bottom of the stairs, I could escape!!  We’ve left the wheelchair in the back of the car, “just in case”, so if Julian picked me up just around the corner (cos you can’t really stop outside the front door) I could go shopping! Wheeeeeee! 😀 *sigh* and by the time I was able to walk the four levels, the lift would be fixed and back in operation again and I wouldn’t have to go to all that trouble! However, I will still continue my Stair Walking, whether the lift is working or not, because it’s all a part of doing what I have to (to lose weight)

I didn’t get a lot of Rifting in today – I had my hair done this morning, and I’m trying out a new “product” because – for the first time in my life – my hair has been getting very, very dry, so it’ll be interesting to see how this new goo works out (and I’m not supposed to use hairspray, either! I can feel withdrawal symptoms starting!) After Josh left I pretty much started planning a new header for this blog theme – it’s quite small! Only 937 x 300 pixels… which doesn’t really give me much room to work with, but I think I’ve found the right components. I’m going through all my (2000+) fonts, looking for something decorative for the borders, and I haven’t decided on a colour scheme yet – but I didn’t really get much time to work on that, either, as I had to work on my nails (and I tell you what, typing is a damn sight easier with short nails! How do those Receptionists manage to type letters and appointments and stuff?! *shakes head in amazement*) So I’m not quite sure about what I’m doing tomorrow – Rifting? I’d like to… Work on a new header? I have to… Watch all those back episodes of Survivor? I must… Do my daily Stair Walk? You can take that as a given… Paint my nails, if my new nail polish arrives? YES! Ah me… spoiled for choice! So many things to do, so little time in which to do them all… 🙂

Weigh-in this morning… Just … don’t talk to me about my weigh-in this morning! I’ll only get seething mad again! I was so… so… SO angry!  I. Went. Up! Only one point, but (see? I’m starting to froth at the mouth again!) it was UP! 105.1kg How dare my body do this to me?!! I decided this morning that I don’t want to be cremated when I die, after all! I think I’ll let this useless carcass rot, for doing this to me, time and time again! I’ve been in this wretched 105kg zone since the end of January – this is the longest I’ve ever spent in the one weight zone – remember? I went right back to the beginning, to see how many days I spent at each weight level – it turned out that it was between about 5 days, and ten days. It’s now been just over twelve days, and I’m starting to get really angry – what do I have to do? Stop eating altogether? I will if I have to, but I’d really rather not… I’m at my wit’s end! And please don’t keep on at me about how I shouldn’t weigh myself every morning, but only once a week – I’d be even angrier and unhappier (if that were possible, which I doubt!) if I’d weighed myself last Monday, and then again today – and found that I was almost exactly the same!

So anyway, tune in again tomorrow night – see if I’ve got to the stage of grabbing the carving knife and slicing pieces of body off (I’m not allowed to – I’d get blood in the grouting!) Did my nail polish arrive? Have I finished the blog header? (I’m sure you’ll notice if I have 😉 ) Did I watch any Survivor? All these questions! 😉 Never mind, you’ll find out tomorrow night, if you behave yourselves… 😉 So there it is – my day in a nutshell (or blog post, anyway) How does a body go down a dress size, but go up (even by one!) in weight? Until tomorrow night then, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

Much more betterer, once I make a custom Header for it… (I hope!) 😉 If not, I’ll just… revert back to the old one, or something. Besides, I have to have something to do for the almost three weeks that I’m going to be cooped up in here… Apart from watch all my saved episodes of “Survivor: Blood versus Water” in a massive, one-day Survivor-thon (because Season 30, “Survivor: Worlds Apart” will be airing soon (so they say) and I have to make room for it – so it’s either watch the old one, or ditch it (I’m tempted, I’m tempted – I was never all that keen on family members being pitted against each other )) So my list of “Things To Do While The Lift Is Being Fixed” is growing a lot longer. I’ve the new Header to do… I’ve Survivor to watch… I have Hailol to pull up by its bootstraps and make it financially independent from Laethys… himself wants to get in a lot more group Rifting with me… and then there’s my Stair Walking, and my Home Walking… Doesn’t leave much room for sleeping, does it! 😉 I did get myself a timer when we went out on Saturday, and I’ve set it to 90 minutes (93 minutes, actually, because I overshot the mark a bit and can’t be bothered re-doing it) so between the hours of 10.am and 4.pm, every 90 minutes the alarm will sound and I’ll be clambering out of my seat and walking around the house – Den to Hall, Hall to Bedroom, Bedroom to Den – five times. Then I’ll sit down and start the timer off again. Rinse and Repeat until 4.pm. I generally do my Stair Walk around 5.pm-ish, and today – hallelujah! – I went that extra half a level for the first time! Yeah, I get a little bit puffed by the time I finish, but crikey! I’m (too many) years old and, despite trying terribly hard to lose weight, still terribly overweight – my lungs are probably not at their best – I smoked since I was about 14, very heavily for a few years before I quit (on January 26th, 2000), and I’ve had two very serious bouts of multiple blood clots in both lungs, twice, one in 2007 and the other last year, 2014 – so I reckon I’m entitled to get a bit puffed, walking down 24 stairs, and then back up them again! (there are 8 stairs (steps, or whatever you call them) to half a level) So I’ll be doing quite a bit of walking… but as I keep saying… “Whatever it takes…” 🙂

Today, being Sunday, we ran gaily around Telara, killing things left right an centre. Seeing that this is about our fourth, or fifth time around, we’re getting a lot more blaze about jumping into Rifts, and participating in Rift Raids, albeit baby ones at the moment – so today, after successfully closing two Rifts on our own, we – perhaps somewhat foolishly – decided to join the Raid group  that was attempting to close down a Nightmare Rift. They’re not pleasant beasties, and it takes a Raid group of 20 or more players to shut them down. Now this was a fairly baby one (because we were still in the “kindergarten” area of Freemarch) and we got slaughtered! Killed deader than a fly hit with Mortein, and about as quickly! Still, we got our experience points for our very first death and Soul Healing, so all was not in vain, and the rest of the Raid group polished off the last of the Nightmare Rift while we were still resurrecting ourselves… so I think we’ve decided not to participate in anymore Nightmare Rifts until we’re a few more levels older… 😉 But it was a good day – we finished off Freemarch, leveled up our Mining, Butchering, and Foraging, and have made our way to the next area, Stonefield, where we’ll have Giants and Trolls and Troglodytes to kill, oh my! 🙂

I’m just looking down at my nails – they’re a real mess! All chipped and raggedy looking… 😦 I didn’t get a chance to do them today – now they’ll have to wait until tomorrow afternoon… I’m quite put out, too, because the slightly torn thumbnail that I’ve been nursing along for weeks now, has decided to tear quite a bit further, and I fear that I shall not be able to save it by bunging more nail polish on it this time… I’ll have to trim it right back, and that’ll mean that the others will have to be trimmed back too, which won’t look as good with nail polish on *pout* (Vanity, they name is Winter! 😉 )

Weigh-in this morning was promising… I lost another 2 points and am now sitting on 105.0kg – wrrretched scales! I got on them, and first they skittered down to 104.9kg… then they slipped down to 104.8kg… (by then I was nearly jumping up and down on the scales with joy!) then they wavered a little bit more, and…  then they went back up to 105.0kg! Now, is that a tease, or is that a tease? I’d call that a tease, wouldn’t you?! They’re cruel and unusual scales! Sometimes I hate them so much I have to force myself to get on them every morning – and other times I feel quite… fond… of them. Sort of…. 😉

So call back again tomorrow night – find out if those ‘orrible scales are still teasing me, or if they’re behaving themselves… I hope I go down again tomorrow – it would be a big relief to get away from this interminable 105kg zone. *sigh* I’ll do my best to save my thumbnail tomorrow, but I really think it’s too far gone this time – and the rest of my nails really do need filing back a bit (alright then, a lot! When I’m typing I keep missing keys because the length of my nails doesn’t make proper contact with them – I think I’ve typed something correctly, and then find that I’ve missed the first letter of a word, or something! grrr!) I’m really hoping that my new Willow Byron Bay pretty purple nail polish will arrive tomorrow morning – I can’t wait to try it out… I’ll let you know if it arrives, and what it’s like. There’s sure to be lots of news tomorrow night, so don’t be shy, don’t miss out, call in and find out all the latest from chez nous! And do, please, let me know what you think of this different blog theme – should I go back to the old one? Or do you want to wait and see what this one is like when I add a customised header? Anyway, until this time tomorrow night, bee good, and please stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

On Hailol, though not in the order that I’d like them… unfortunately, we players have no control over the order in which characters are displayed. Anyway, here they are, in all their glory! 🙂
Winterthyme – Guardian Mage, Guildmistress, Minion Handler, and Runecrafter. Hialeah – Guardian Hunter/Rogue, Guild Bank Overflow, and Auctionator. Persha – Guardian Mage, NSAAY*. Asima – Guardian Mage, NSAAY*. Copperfire – Guardian Mage, NSAAY*. Embercat – Guardian Mage, Dimension Architect and Builder. Satai – Defiant Mage, and the whole darn reason why all of this was set up in the first place, NSAAY*. Rubyfox – Defiant Mage, NSAAY*. Nuha – Male Defiant Mage, NSAAY*. Zorcha – Defiant Mage, NSAAY*. Ondine – Defiant Mage, NSAAY*. Jadenfyre – Male Defiant Mage, NSAAY*. If anyone reading would like to perhaps team up with one of these fine Mages, you’ll need to create a character on the shard Hailol, add any or all of the names above to your Friends List, and send Winterthyme an in-game email requesting Guild Membership, and/or a team-up to play with one of my Guildies. So… it’s all starting to take shape! Now all I have to do is decide who’s going to do which skill, out of Outfitting (creates cloth and leather items, bags, and capes.) Armorsmithing (creates chain and plate armor, as well as shields) Weaponsmithing (creates melee and ranged weapons) Apothecary (creates Flasks, Potions, Philters, Tonics, and Vials) Artificing (creates jewelry and caster weaponry) and Runecrafting (creates runes, used to augment weapons and gear – Winterthyme already does this one) Once those positions are assigned, the rest of the mob will concentrate on the so-called minor skills – the Gathering professions, like Foraging, Mining, and Butchering, because we’re going to need a lot of raw materials! But that’s a problem to work on next week, when I’m going to be very firmly incarcerated in this apartment.  So I spent the morning leveling up some of the younger people (I can’t just say “girls” any more – there are two men there now!) and it’ll be very interesting to see how everything shakes down and sorts itself into routines…

Our cleaning lady did turn up, and we’re no longer using periscopes to see over the top of the Flipper Fluff that was starting to take over the apartment. Tomorrow we’re off for my final outing for just over a fortnight – I’m hoping to go to Office Works – I need some more magazine binders, and who knows what pretty little boxes and stationery items I’ll see while I’m there! 😉 I was also hoping to go to Autograph and/or My Size – but I’ve decided that I’m not going to get new slacks until I hit double figures (probably in ten years, the way I’m going at the moment!) but I really do need more tops – I’m constantly waiting for things to come back from the Dry Cleaners (or to even go there in the first place!) so we might still go up to The Pines, after Office Works (or before – depends on how hot it gets!) Basically, I just want to go somewhere that’s not here! I should probably get some more running socks, too, though Julian can pick them up from Athlete’s Foot any time – they’re only across the road… Yes, I did go for my Stair Walk this afternoon – wearing the running socks instead of my torture devices shoes, it’s actually not that hard – and in another couple of days I might try stretching it to a level and a half! Do you know, I haven’t walked up or down a series of steps (that is, stairs) for… what?? four or five years? At least… I just asked himself and he can’t remember either – his reply was “several years?” I just wish I could stand up straight… Julian thinks I should do my Stair Walk in the morning instead of the afternoon – what does everyone else think? I suppose I could weigh myself, get dressed, and head for the stairs before breakfast, but I’m not convinced that it would make all that much difference… so I’ll just use my classic response when the kids used to ask me if they, or we, could do something/go somewhere that I wasn’t really all that enthused about, and say… “We’ll see…” 🙂 (and somehow… we very seldom did go, or do, whatever it was that they were so insistent about at the time, but promptly forgot about the next time a different ad came on the television, and they wanted to do that, instead! 😉 ) So…. “We’ll see….” 😉

Weigh-in this morning was pathetic! I’f I wasn’t so annoyed about it, you’d be looking at a tear soaked screen right now! I [please insert very long string of very rude words here] stayed the same. 105.5kg This is getting very tired! I’m sick to death of being in the 105kg zone! And I’m only on day 6 of these wretched tablets! Maybe if I get myself a timer, and set it to 90 minutes…then when the alarm goes off, I get up and walk the House Circuit (den to passage, passage to hall, hall to bedroom, bedroom to den) 5 times, then re-set the timer, rinse and repeat – as well as the Stair walk, perhaps that would help break this… this… dead-end hole my weight has sunk into? I’ll get a timer tomorrow, while we’re out (we do have several timers in the house, but timers are like biros and wire coathangers; they tend to gravitate to the dim, dark corners of an overcrowded wardrobe, or to the very back of a seldom used drawer, under a pile of dried up old markers, bits of paper that you’ve kept because they have “important” notes on them, and bent and misshapen paper clips!) As I’ve said… “I’ll do anything to get thinner!” (“but I won’t do that!” – with apologies to Meatloaf! 😉 )

So tune in again tomorrow night, folks – did I brave the heat and go to Office Works, and The Pines? Did I get my Magazine Holders? or some new tops? And did I cave in and get some new slacks, after all? Will I still go for my Stair Walk if it’s very hot? I could feel the lobby and the stairwell heating up already today, and in High Summer it can get extremely unpleasant out there… Will my weight have dropped any, or will I still be the same or higher? Experience leads me to place my bet on the latter…  So until tomorrow night, bee good, and above all, stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

*NSAAY = No Skill Assigned As Yet