Today… Himself left earlier than usual to pick up my favourite eldest daughter, because he had a Dental appointment at 11.30 – so it was pretty much Up! Bathroom! Tea! Breakfast! Coffee! Out the door! No time for pleasantries, no time to stop and pat the cat, just rush, rush, rush… I did manage to get about three quarters of an hour of Rifting in this morning whilst himself was off picking up Lee, so at least my Minions got relieved of their loot and sent off on new Adventures, but that was about the size of it… until tomorrow (though our cleaning lady is supposed to be coming tomorrow, and things tend to get just a trifle noisy when she’s around 😉 Julian duly picked up Lee and dropped her off here, then raced off to his Dental appointment, and I’m happy to report that the Dentist didn’t do anything drastically nasty to him – in fact the Dentist is quite nonplussed. Last year Julian had a cracked back tooth which was giving him problems because it had become infected. They cleaned up the infection, and he had a root canal filling done on the suspect tooth. He was supposed to be getting it Crowned around about now, but the darned tooth hasn’t settled down properly and is still giving him problems. The Dentist is mystified. The Dental X-rays simply don’t give enough information – it could be that there’s a fourth root on that tooth that missed the root canal work, although the Dentist says that this is highly unlikely… or it could be the tooth with the large amalgam filling in it that’s next to the suspect tooth, that could be causing the problem. Another problem is that the pain and discomfort are intermittent, and tends to die down again just as quickly as it flared up. So he’s got another appointment in six months, and if or when the pain flares up again he’s to ring the Dentist immediately and he’ll see him as an emergency patient – hopefully before the pain subsides again. When he got back from the Dentist, we didn’t even have a cup of coffee, just raced off again to pick up Lee’s shoes – which did fit, thank heavens, and which finally became her (somewhat belated) Birthday present from us. They had lunch at the Coffee Club, and I sat at the table with them and had a glass of mineral water and ate my Optifast Bar which we’d brought with us. While we were in the shopping centre, I picked up the iron supplements that Dr. Y. wants me to have (why was I never told before that I was very low on iron? Apparently this has been the case for some time – my blood, my iron levels, and nobody thought to breath a word of it to me?!… Talk about feeling like a mushroom!) and three new silver rings from Magnolia – they have a special on at the moment, buy two items and get a third one free – though I didn’t know that when I was looking at the rings (mine are all getting too big for me!) Then we came home, and by that time we only had time to watch one episode of “Person of Interest” before Lee had to leave again 😦 I’m not sure when I’ll see my favourite eldest daughter again – the lift goes out on Monday, and I honestly think the stairs will be too much for her. She’s bigger than I was when I started this diet, and she’s already had one minor heart attack… By the time the lift is back in operation again, she’ll probably be back at uni, and it’ll depend on her time table as to when she’ll be able to come over. Oh, and I might add that I’m not at all pleased with Melbourne’s weather! It’s going to be 35C on Saturday, my last day of freedom and being able to go shopping, and ummm… I dunno, just… go somewhere other than here! On Saturday night the doors to my prison will clang shut, locking me away from the world and all its shops until February 25th (or thereabouts) when hopefully the lift will be restored to us in all its refurbished glory 🙂

Remember I said I was going to think about how I could do my stair walk without having to wear my shoes? Well, I had a brilliant thought this morning. Last week while Lee was trying on hundreds of pairs of shoes in Athlete’s Foot, I was idly looking around the shop, and spotted lots of different types of socks. Some were called “Walking Socks”, and some were called “Running Socks”, and I wondered what the difference was… so I asked the nice lady pulling out all their shoes for Lee “why was it so?”, and she explained that they both had different types and amounts of padding in them to protect the soles of the feet of idiots people running, or walking. I remembered them this morning and thought “Hmmm! I wonder if they would help protect feet walking up and down…. on stairs!” So we got a pair this afternoon – I got the “Running” socks because their padding felt the thickest, and I used them on my stair walk later this afternoon – yes, I did go again, I told you I would! 🙂 And the socks worked a real treat! Not only was I able to keep my balance in them, but I also got a trifle puffed this time – I was rushing down and up the stairs so quickly! And I didn’t feel so precariously perched on top of a chasm this time, either! Success! I think we’ll get some more of those socks. There’s only one slight problem with the socks… our apartment is all tiled, and socks + tiles = slippery. If I put the socks on in the lounge room, then I have to slippy-slide my way to the front door. Mind you, it would be very easy to bring one of the dining room chairs into the hall and put my socks on there, instead. So we will, next time, and that’s that problem out of the way too! 🙂 See? I’m quite a genius when it comes to “inventing” ways to add to my own comfort! 😛 Today, one small landing on the 4th floor – tomorrow, the world! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Not good. Not good at all! I stayed the same. 105.5kg. This stair walking had better work! If I had enough hair, I’d be tearing it out in handfuls! My weight had better be down tomorrow (but I know it won’t be) or I’ll cry! 😦

So tune in again tomorrow night – find out if our cleaning lady turned up or not, and if things got very noisy with the vacuum cleaner an’ all… I’ll be able to let you know if Blueiris can finally migrate to another shard (I checked on Jadenfyre this morning, and he can be transferred tomorrow!) so now it all rests on Blueiris. I don’t want to do it, but I will delete her if I absolutely have to – I’m not going to wait around much longer. All will be made clear tomorrow night! And you’ll hear all about tomorrow’s Sock Stair Walk – or should that be Stair Sock Walk, or even Stair Walk Sock? Whatever! You’ll hear about it here tomorrow… and if all you see is a tear soaked screen, you’ll know that my weight either went up, or stayed the same… So until tomorrow night – bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

Starting to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or something! Playing Rift this morning, tweaking here, adjusting there, I finally got the “New and Improved Blueiris Cloned as a Mage” ready to solo! Time, I thought, to transfer the original Blueiris to a new home, and rename her stand-in, Lilacrose. I made sure that Blueiris had no mail in her letterbox, no auctions, and not too much cash left on her – and I started the transfer… Then I get told that I can’t transfer her because she was moved recently and still has another two days before she can be transferred again!! (you can only transfer a character once every seven days) To the very best of my knowledge, Blueiris was moved to Hailol about a year ago, and hasn’t been played with, or touched at all since, until… about a week ago, when I “played” her character for about half an hour just to see what she had on her, and what she had in her bank! But I certainly didn’t transfer her – she was already here, and had been for ages! I’m quite puzzled though – I can’t think how they could think that I’d recently moved her, unless I did it in my sleep (or I’m developing Alzheimer’s!) I could, I suppose, raise a ticket (talk to a Moderator), but by the time they got around to my problem the two days could well be up anyway (the Moderators do do a good job, and they are very busy – sometimes it takes a while for them to get to you, especially so soon after a major patch, so I’m not bitching about it) So I’ll just wait… I can’t move Jadenfyre in until I move her out, and I still have to wait a couple more days before I can move him again, anyway… Oh well, so much for the plans of mice and men…

This morning was himself’s Birthday – he got a pair of very pretty fine bone china cups with fluffy cats on them from his sister, and the entire “George Gently” series from me and Flipper (it was on his “What to get me for Christmas” list!) His mother’s present is still in transit, and he’ll get the rest of his presents after the lift is fixed and we can have everyone over for his Big Birthday Bash. I did go for my stair walk this afternoon – I was going to do the Fire Escape stairs, barefooted, because I can’t balance properly in shoes, but the light in the stairwell was broken, so I had to use the front stairs. Julian’s thongs are a little big on me, so, I gritted my teeth and put my shoes on (and promptly staggered around as though I was drunk – it happens every time I put shoes on. I HATE shoes…) and tottered over to the door to the stair well. Ah tells you, them thar stairs air jest plain nasty! Not only are they rough and knobbly with lumps of stone poking out of them, they’re narrow, to boot! Anyway, I clutched the stair rail with my right hand, the way a drowning man clutches a straw, and I jammed my left hand against the wall on the other side. I felt most precarious, teetering there on the top step… It was almost surreal – my glasses are multi-focal, with the main part of them designed for “straight ahead” vision. Unfortunately, my back condition forces me to walk semi-doubled over, so instead of looking “straight ahead”, I end up looking “down”. This is fine on flat ground, and I can cope reasonably well and go at a respectable speed, but on a staircase? Suffice it to say that everything was a bit “wavy”, like looking through water, or something! I went s-l-o-w-l-y, one step at a time, feeling as though I was going to topple over and go head first down to the first half-landing any minute. I made that half-landing safely, and continued on down to the proper landing, where the next door to the inside (and the lift) is. Phew! I’d made the first landing, and I wasn’t tired, or even puffed – just terrified! I turned around to go back up. Seeing as the coming down had been easy enough (except for me feeling as though I was going to fall – probably because I hate heights, and I was looking down…) I thought that going back up would be a lot easier (because I’d be looking up at the steps, instead of vertiginously down) and in a way, it was. I still had a death grip on the stair rail, and the other hand on the wall, and I still went up, one baby step at a time. However, remember that I mentioned that the steps were narrow? And not just narrow, they’re murderously narrow! I have very big feet – about a size 11 – and even though they stick out in a perfect ballet “first position”, I had to be extra, extra careful not to catch my toe under the edge of the next step, as I moved slowly upwards. If I’d caught my toe under one and tripped, it would have been “all over, red rover” – at best, I would have smashed my face into the unforgivably hard concrete and broken my nose and my teeth, and at worst, I would have broken my neck and you wouldn’t be reading this blog, you’d be reading my epitaph! Still, I did it, and I survived, and I will do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. I really meant it when I said “I’ll do whatever it takes!” 🙂 Now all I have to do is work out a way to do it without having to wear shoes… I’ll have a lot better balance! Gimme a few days, I’ll come up with a solution – I always do! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning… I did it again. And this is the reason that I have to persevere with the stairs! Oh, I went down alright… 1 measly point again, to 105.5kg This is not good enough! At this rate it’ll take me until 2085 to get to 82kg! Well, maybe not quite that long, but far too long, anyway! So the stairs it’ll have to be, and that means that I have to get cracking, concocting a way of navigating the front stairs sans shoes… (or until the light in the Fire Escape is fixed!) Seeing my weight go down one drip at a time is like water torture! One.. slow.. drop.. at.. a.. time.. I can’t stand it!! Perhaps if I strap a new bag of Kitty Litter to my back for my stair walk, it’ll be more effective? Or even two bags… Today Julian showed me, using two 15 liter casks of water, just how much weight I’ve dropped since I started this diet, so if I carried that much extra around before, I should be able to cope with two little bags of Kitty Litter while doing my stair walk, shouldn’t I?

Anyway, drop by again tomorrow night – Julian has another Dental appointment tomorrow morning, and you’ll be able to hear all the gory details of what ensued. You’ll also get to find out how I managed my Stair Stroll, and if I’ve thought of a clever way to get up and down the hard and painful stairs without my shoes yet. My favourite eldest daughter will be over tomorrow, too – the shoes she ordered from Athlete’s Foot have come in and she has to collect them, and after that, no doubt we’ll watch an episode or three of something interesting… I’m getting the “urge” to make another header for the blog (read: “to look for a new theme template, for which I will have to design and make another header” 😉 ) And I think that the status of my weight will probably figure somewhere in the interesting mix of tidbits that you’ll pick up around here tomorrow night… So, until then, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

And then left, with a whole bunch of Bank Statements and other bits and pieces… but that was later this afternoon. This morning, I managed to get a bit of Rifting in before we had to start sifting through all the papers. But I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing or not… the girl that I was going to use as the Auctionator is a Rogue – or for those more familiar with World of Warcraft, you’d say she was Hunter Class, that is, she fights with a bow or a gun, has a pet to “Tank” for her and do all the close contact fighting, while she stands back and goes “plink, plink” with her arrows, or “pew-pew-pew” with her bullets. While this was my Class of choice in World of Warcraft, I’ve now switched almost exclusively to using Mages. Depending on the type of Mage you decide to play, a Mage can also have a pet to act as a “Tank” (Tanks are exactly what they sound like! Tanks rumble in, grabbing the mob’s attention away from you, so that you can stand back and cast your spells in peace and quiet) So because I virtually never use Rogues any more, it niggled me that I have two of them, cluttering up my otherwise all-Mage lineup. I still had one spot free, and decided to recreate Blueiris as a Mage instead of a Rogue, and that’s mostly what I did this morning, before the paper sorting… but I’m still not sure that I should have. I mean, Blueiris is still there, waiting to transfer her 390-odd pieces of Dimension gear over to the “new and improved Mage Class Blueiris” (I’ll have to change her name – I can’t have two with the same name at the same time, so at the moment she’s Lilacrose) It’s come to the point where I’m constantly procrastinating – “Will I? or won’t I? I Dunno… Should I? or shouldn’t I?” I think I’ll sleep on it… for a couple of years… Maybe delete both of them and create something “different” (different? Different?? There is no “Different”, they’re all Mages, aren’t they? And because I don’t like playing without a pet, I’m stuck with either an Elemantalist, or a Gravelord (read: Necromancer) either of which are what I always end up with!) *sigh* Oh, and good news on the addon that I’ve been pining for! The one that allows you to see what all of your characters have in the backpacks, and in their Banks… I think I’ve found one for Rift! I told Julian about it this morning, so he’s been having a test drive of it and says that it “looks promising”! It’s called “Imhothar’s Bags” – hopefully I’ll be able to talk him into loading it up for me this evening so that I can have a play with it, too! It would be wonderful if it does work the way that I hope it does… it’ll save me heaps of time and legwork! I also found time to traipse Winterthyme around Scarlet Gorge (why do I always get lost, or go the wrong way in Scarlet Gorge? I put an “x” on the map, and try to steer towards it… but always, always! end up running in the opposite direction!) I leveled up her mining a bit more (but she’s still not up to where she should be, though!)

As I suspected, it didn’t take long to sort through the paperwork, and then it was back to… yes, you guessed it! Rift, and more of the above. Mr. Tax Man arrived at 3.00pm, we chatted a bit, he took his papers, and was gone by 4.00pm… all terribly anticlimactic! Oh well… back to Rift… 😉 I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow – it’s himself’s Birthday, but with me not eating normal human-type food at the moment, we won’t be going anywhere special for luncheon or dinner (just wait until next year though! 🙂 ) We could, I suppose, make it another “Sunday in Telara”, or he might prefer to tinker with his Commodore 64’s… Oh, I almost forgot to mention! I had a phone call from Dr. Y. last night, about my blood test results! They prove beyond reasonable doubt that I’m a strange being from another world… No, no – that’s not right! Silly me, I was reading from the wrong script! My blood tests were normal, but I’m still (???) very low on iron, so I have to get iron supplements, as well as the vitamin D that we both have to take (why hasn’t anyone ever told me that I was low on iron before??! *shakes head in confusion*) He also told me to behave myself 😉 So that was good – all I have to worry about now getting myself down to at least 82kg by July. I found Julian’s old thongs (they were exactly where I thought they would be – at the bottom of the shoe basket in the hall) and tomorrow, I start walking the front stairs! Just down to the first landing and back up again, to start off with, but by next week (or the one after) I expect to be getting down to, and back from, the second landing. With the lift being out for a couple of weeks and all, the Body Corporate is going to put a chair on every landing so that people can stop and have a bit of a rest (there are a lot of elderly people in this apartment block – not counting myself, of course! I’m only old, I’m not elderly yet!) and the week after that, I might be able to get down to the third landing… By the end of March, hopefully I’ll be doing the whole five floors! (but don’t hold your breath! I’m really, really lazy, remember! 😉 ) However, I’m hoping that if it shows that I’m losing weight faster by trundling up and down the stairs, I just might be more persuaded to keep it up!

Weigh-in this morning. More of the same. Down one more notch, to 105.6kg Could this be going any slower? Honestly, if I were going any slower, I’d be going backwards, and putting on weight! Good grief, this is why I was ferreting around in the shoe basket, looking for Julian’s old thongs! I have to find a way to speed up my weight loss! I know I shouldn’t, but I’m starting to feel the beginnings of a panic attack, because I’m starting to think that I won’t be able to get down to 90kg by July, let alone the 82kg that I should be able to get down to by then! I feel like I’m running all around, waving both arms in the air together simultaneously, screaming “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” No, I haven’t completely lost it (yet!), I’m just not losing weight fast enough!

So call in again tomorrow night – find out what himself got for his Birthday, and what we did to celebrate the day. See if I really did go for my first “Stair Walk”, or whether or not I chickened out, again, and what my excuse was this time… Learn all the latest about our adventures on Rift (and is the correct term “in Rift”, or “on Rift”? Good question… I must ask my favourite eldest daughter… or Julian…) And of course, the most important question of them all – what did my weight do today! Did it go up? (I’m expecting it to!) Did it stay the same? (please ghod, no!) Did it go down? (I don’t believe that it will!) or Did it go significantly down ? (hysterical laughter – Oh, don’t be silly!) So until then, take care of yourselves, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

It’s quite a long, drawn out process, getting Hailol ready for “the big time”, but it’s getting there 🙂 Yes, I worked on that before and after Josh’s visit, and I don’t think I really realised just how randomly and badly set up most of the characters were – you know, just when you think you’ve got everything set to go, you find that the person you thought had the fish, didn’t… in fact, nobody did! This is what I meant the other night when I said that I really miss a lot of the addons that were available on World of Warcraft, but are sadly lacking on Rift. Like Altoholic. If Altoholic had been available on Rift, it would have taken me literally seconds to find out that no-one was carrying Fish in their inventory – instead, I had to go through all eight characters, twice, to find this one, simple fact out. Anyone out there reading this blog play Rift? If so, pass the word around! Winter wants an Altoholic addon written for Rift, please! Toot sweet! (like, preferably last week!) But it’s all looking very promising – I created the last of the extras today; unfortunately Jadenfyre still has another four days before he can be moved in, and then the team will finally be complete. You might also note that this is the first time, in living history, that I’ve included two men on the shard team! Will wonders never cease!? 😉 Writing this blog is tough going tonight, I’m having to type very carefully, and a lot slower than usual, because I finally got a chance to do my nails this afternoon – they’re now that glorious, deep and luscious irridescent-y Kingfisher-peacock-blue colour (actually, they sort of match the lounge suite! 😉 ) They’re dry, but still not hardened properly… Julian went out to do a “small shop”, and came back with about three quarters of the supermarket (plus the fact that Flipper’s favourite dinner was on special today so he bought quite a lot of it!) I took the opportunity while he was out to take a quick break from Rifting and wrap something up for Wednesday, then quickly scuttled back to sifting and sorting characters and abilities… I don’t hold out much hope of getting anything sensible done tomorrow, for The Tax Man Cometh tomorrow apres midi, and we didn’t get all the papers he’ll be wanting ready today – Julian was still out shopping, and I wanted to get my nails done… So it looks like we’ll be rather busy tomorrow morning And, of course, it’s himself’s Birthday on Wednesday; my favourite eldest daughter will be over on Thursday, and our cleaning lady has promised that she’ll be here this Friday (hopefully before we suffocate under all the shed Flipper fur!) Saturday will be my last chance to get out of the house to do some shopping before the lift ceases to operate for a couple of weeks, and Sunday, of course, we’ll be busy saving Telara again… Roll on next week! 😉 But I’ll get what I can get done, whenever I can – and besides, by the time I get a chance to do any heavy work on Hailol, Jadenfyre will have finished with his quarantine and I’ll be able to move him over. Which reminds me – I have about another three characters – the ones I created today – to be inducted into the Guild tonight… I must remember to tell himself that I’ll need him online to invite them in….

Weigh-in this morning was… frustrating! I went down… another one point… to 105.7kg… I know it was down, and that’s good, but it’s so agonizingly s-l-o-w! And there was silly me, confidently thinking that I should be down to about 82kg by the time in See Dr. Y. again in July! At this rate, I’ll probably still be sitting on 104.0kg then! *grouch*, *growl* And of course I’m just waiting for the sudden upswing of weight, when my body finally remembers that I’m supposed to be storing as much excess fluid as possible while I’m on this medication. If only I could go down another half a kilo (or more.. More would be good, around about now!), then when my weight shot up, it wouldn’t look like so much, and I’d be able to say “Well, I did lose a lot, all in one go, so it’s not surprising that I’ve gone up a little…” with the emphasis on “a little“! Tomorrow, I look for Julian’s thongs… I think they’re at the bottom of the shoe basket that we keep by the front door – shoes look terribly messy, littered around the front door like cast off snail shells, so I decided that we’d get a big, decorative, lidded basket for the hall, so that when we shed our footwear as we came in, we could toss the horrid things into the basket, cram the lid down, and forget that such abominations existed – until we had to go out again. So – if I do find the thongs, I’ll walk down the front stairs to the first landing and back again, once (or maybe even twice) a day (the concrete steps are rough, so I need something to shield my delicate little feet) – and if I can’t find the thongs, I’ll use the fire escape stairs, which are made of nice, smooth concrete, and walk down to the first landing, etc., etc. – I gotta do something to get this weight moving more quickly – and as I said to Dr. Y. last week, “I’ll do whatever it takes!”

So tune in again tomorrow night (stops typing and examines finger nails – yeah, they seem to be holding up alright… resumes typing) did the Tax Man arrive? More to the point, did we have the papers that he wanted, ready to go? And did I find the thongs? Have I been for my first Stair Walk yet? (Hmmm… sounds like a good title for a sci-fi movie! “Stair Walk”, with Winter Thyme, and Julian’s Old Thongs!) and did I use the front stairs, or the fire escape? Or, did I “lazy out” and not bother, because we were “so busy with the Tax Man”? (yes, I do know myself, very well indeed! 😉 ) Did I get a chance to do any more preparation regarding the characters on Hailol? And, most importantly, did my weight go up, down, or stay the same? Find out the answers to these vitally important questions, right here on this blog, this time tomorrow night! So until then, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

As you all know, Sunday is traditionally our day for “Saving Telara Better Than Those Guardians Can, Anyway!” (now that we’re Defiants – before, it was known as our day for “Saving Telara Better Than Those Defiants Can, Anyway!”) and we did! However, I’m getting ahead of myself. We slept in later than we usually do on a Sunday, so it was a bit of a scramble to have our cup of tea, and breakfast, and shower, and not necessarily in that order, so that we could get back to fighting our way through the baby areas and into the somewhat more earnest side of questing in Freemarch. While I was having my breakfast, and sorting through what laughingly passes as email these days, I came upon a very interesting site (courtesy of my hard to find subscription email) called “Willow Byron Bay“, and some nail polish that looked absolutely yummy! I think I might get one… or two… maybe three? of them: Genie – an orchid purple with a hot blue shimmer, Torakina –  a lush red raspberry shimmer, and Bonsoir – a deep, dark navy blue with a bright (but subtle) cerulean blue shimmer. Its the night sky on your nails. I’d love to have all of them (there are others, but these three (and a gorgeous gold!) looked to be the best!), but perhaps I’d better just get one to start off with (they are $24.95 each) just to make sure that the quality is good enough to last through a week of heavy Rifting and blog typing 😉 So once himself brought me my after breakfast coffee, and got me to stop staring at the picture of that beautiful, mesmerising orchid purple with the hot blue shimmer, we finally managed to get into Rift… and (gasp, shock, horror!) it turned out that I was wrong last night! I said that I’d worked out that the level of the Minions returns was based on the level of the person sending them out… but they’re not! They’re based on the level of the person collecting them! A level 36 character sent the Minions off last night, but a level 65 character collected the returns this morning – and they were all suitable for a level 65 character, with an appropriate skill level to work the ores and stuff coming in. Anyway, I have decreed that Winterthyme (level 36, current home, Sanctum) shall officially take over the role of Minion Mistress, and (maybe!) Patron Package Collector. For now, anyway, and poor old Jademoss can have a well earned rest. Back to the doings of the day, I’d say we’re probably about half way through Freemarch, the first of the Defiant areas, and neither of us has died yet! 🙂 Of course, it’s all terribly “ho-hum” for me, and it’s very hard not to just go charging ahead doing what needs to be done (according to me, anyway) in the order in which I think they ought to be done, so that we can get as much done as we can in the shortest possible time, while still managing to level up our Foraging, Mining, and Butchering. Next Sunday I expect to finish off Freemarch and move on to Stonefield, with its Giants and Trolls, ghouls and lizard men, and the impossible to find leap off the waterfall for an Achievement.  It was getting towards four o’clock when we got a phone call from an old friend, who wanted to know if it was alright for him to drop over. We hadn’t seen Gill for a couple of years, and as he’s always been a sort of a defacto son to us (or rather, me) we said of course he could – we’d love to see him… And so that was the end our day of “Saving Telara Better Than Those Guardians Can, Anyway!” 😉

I first met Gill when I was running my BBS (Bulletin Board System) – he was very much into Star Wars, and for a very short time was trying to run his own BBS called Ice Station Hoth – we became friends, and he used to come over regularly. Like a lot of the young people on my board, he was having problems at home, and we sort of sat in as pseudo parents whenever he wanted to talk about “things”. He even took my favourite youngest daughter out a couple of times, and we even discussed the dowry! 😉 (three chooks, no rooster! two sheep, and a goat) but alas – although they got on very well together, there was just no spark, and I never got my chooks, sheep, and the goat 🙂 When he finished school, he did a film (?) course at RMIT, and at one stage had to make a short, 12 minute film – for which I offered my services in the makeup department, and made up the entire cast for the shoot. It was a science fiction/cyber punk story, where a young girl has an “adventure” – there’s a car chase scene (sort of), and a segment in an underground car park (the garage of the place where Julian used to work – yes, he did get permission!), fog machines, menacing figures… and the whole point to the story? Cut to an old woman, slumped in a chair, hooked up to a fancy super-dooper computer – she’s living the life of the young girl in her mind… The “Old Woman”? Me! 🙂 I’m not too bad at stage makeup… 😉 So, Gill has been here, there, and everywhere since. He worked on movies in the States, been to Israel several times, almost settled in Canada, and now he’s back in Melbourne – at least for the time being. It was extra good to see him again – hopefully now that he’s got a regular job, we’ll get to see him more often!

Weigh-in this morning – well, it just goes to show that even people as (usually) infallible as myself can be wrong more than once in the same day! I was wrong about the Minion returns, and I was wrong about my weight this morning. I didn’t stay the same, after all (that’ll happen tomorrow, just wait and see!) I went down one point. One! To 105.8kg Big [mutter] Deal! Still, it was better than staying the same. Nothing makes me crankier than my weight staying the same for several days in a row! I hope I’ll go down again tomorrow, but I highly doubt it – I started on those wretched pills this morning, so I’ll start looking, and weighing, like a walking water tank soon

So tune in again tomorrow night – find out how many of those yummy looking nail polishes I ordered – or if I ordered any! I never got to change my nail polish this afternoon because Gill was here, but I must say that for week old polish, it’s looking darn good! No major chips, just a little bit of “wear” right on the tips! Excellent nail polish, this “breathable” stuff! 🙂 I hope I get a chance to re-do my nails tomorrow afternoon, but we have papers to prepare, for the Tax Man Cometh on Tuesday… and he will want lots and lots of papers, and bank statements, and all that sort of stuff that Tax Men love (I think that it’s their equivalent of Catnip…) So find out if my nails are going to look a trifle ragged on Tuesday, or if they’ll be in “Glorious Technicolour Sound” – I mean, “Glorious Technicolour Kingfisher-Peacock-Blue”! 🙂 And if you’re extra lucky, I’ll even tell you what my weight did overnight! Well, until this time tomorrow night, bee good, and stay safe! (that’s an order! 😉 ) ciao, all! 🙂

Hailol organised as a secondary shard… The good news is that the loot that the Minions bring in is either based on the level of the Minion “Director”, or the level of the Zone they’re operating in… although that doesn’t really make much sense, either – yes it does, I just went and had a look at the map – it must work on the level of the character who sends the Minions out! Why? Because Winterthyme has taken over the Minion operations. Winterthyme is level 36. Moonshade Highlands is for levels 35 to 39, and Droughtlands is for levels 35 to 40. All of the skins, herbs, timber, and ores that the Minions are bringing in are from Moonshade Highlands and Droughtlands. Ergo, Minion returns are based on the level of the person sending them out! Elementary, my dear readers! 🙂 What a pity that Winterthyme is w-a-y behind in her Butchering, Foraging, and Mining skills! Most of what’s coming in is sitting in the Guild Bank waiting for someone to come along and process them into something Auctionable! But I’ll get a round tuit as soon as possible 🙂 It’s quite amazing how much organisation goes into making a successful Guild… I’ve organised my Auctionator and my Guild Bank Overflow person – now I need to work out which characters are going to pick up the important skills; they’re going to need to pick up two apiece, roughly grouped in “sympathetic” bundles, e.g. Outfitter plus Armorsmithing, Runecrafting plus Artificing, Apothecary plus Weaponsmithing – with Dreamweaving a solo skill to be picked up when and if needed. So now I need to decide who’ll do what. I know they’re all basically “me”, but somehow each girl is a complete separate individual in her own right, with her own personality, her own likes and dislikes, and her own idiosyncrasies. Does that mean I have split personalities? I don’t know… What do you mean, you don’t know! Yes, you know there are eight of us, so don’t pretend otherwise! Riiiight! No, it’s not like that at all, truly! It’s just that each girl turns out… differently from the others. Anyway, I have to turn these girls into a working team, and start earning some platinum! We have two Guild Bank vaults and we’re in desperate need of another two. Vault #3 is going to cost us 1500 platinum – I haven’t dared look to see how much the 4th Vault is going to cost, but from a somewhat wincing memory, it’s 5000 platinum. So, to work, ladies! Hustle, hustle! 🙂 I should have plenty of time to work on them after the ninth of February – the only lift in the building will be out of commission from February 9th to February 25th (approximately), and little ol’ me is going to be stuck in here for the duration, with nothing to do but …. play Rift! (and design new headers for new blog Themes) Quel dommage! as the French say (what a pity!) 🙂

This afternoon himself went out and bought two new GeForce 970 video cards and two 650W power supplies – we got five years out of the old ones, but they weren’t handling the Rift graphics as well as they should, and these new ones should last until we upgrade our computers in about three years time. He swapped his over first, and everything went well and worked straight off – the difference in the graphic quality was amazing! So then he changed mine over… My monitor remained black. He switched cables… my monitor remained black. He swapped the new video card over with the one that he’d just put in his… my monitor remained black… He swapped out the power supply with his… my monitor remained black. We tried it with a spare monitor, just in case mine had inexplicably died – that monitor remained black, too! There was only one difference between his computer and mine (well, two, actually – I use Windowblinds, and he doesn’t) the BIOS. He’d upgraded his just after Christmas, but he hadn’t upgraded mine… In desperation, he put in my old video card – suddenly the screen worked again – and upgraded my BIOS, and tried the new video card again. Everything now worked as it should – but we did have a somewhat later than usual dinner… At the moment he’s busy cleaning up the mess that he made… but tomorrow, being Sunday, we’ll have a chance to see what these new cards can really do as we waltz our way through Telara, either with our new Defiant team, still working our way through the “baby” areas, or as the old team, hoping that that wretched Chronicle has reset itself so that we can finish off that sector and then maybe get to see a bit of the new Zone that’s opened with this latest patch.

Weigh-in this morning. So typical of my wretched body – from 105.5kg yesterday morning, to… wait for it! 105.9kg this morning! I admit, it was a lot to lose in one 24 hour period (106.0kg to 105.5kg) and I did expect to bounce back up – a bit! But this morning I’d put back almost everything I’d lost! I was not happy. I was quite angry, actually – if you heard a funny noise around 8 o’clock this morning, it wasn’t thunder, or an earthquake rumble – it was my teeth grinding in annoyance! How much do you want to bet me that I’ll stay the same tomorrow morning, and the day after! C’mon, two more days the same as this morning – any takers? I’ll bet you five dollars… *sigh* and I start on that “turn me into a camel and store water” medication tomorrow morning, too! I can’t win… Let me see… It’s the first of February tomorrow morning – 28 days in February (it’s not a leap year this year), plus 9 in March – make that 8 days… 36 days in total until my Birthday… Will I be able to get below 104.0kg by March 9th, my Birthday? I’ll bet you all ten dollars that I won’t… Any takers for that one, then? Yes? No? Indifferent? 🙂

So come back again tomorrow night – find out if the new video cards performed up to expectations, and whether we tried to complete the Chronicle again, or decided to give it a miss and take our new Defiant team out for a fun day in Freemarch.  It’s also the day I usually change my nail polish, but this sparkly, pearly red-ish one is still looking pretty good (I just love this Inglot “breathable” nail polish! It lasts so well!) I might leave it until Tuesday – I think I’ll wait and see what it looks like by tomorrow afternoon… but then, I’m also terribly anxious to try out my other new “breathable” nail polish, the gorgeous, lushious, Kingfisher-Peacock-Blue! I’ll let you know tomorrow night what I decided to do! 🙂 As for my weight, well… I’m still betting that I’ll stay the same tomorrow and the next day – I’ll let you know about that, too, unless I go up again, in which case I’ll probably be incapable of letting you know anything, because I’ll be reduced to a sodden, weeping puddle on the floor! So until then, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

All day today, working my fingers to the bone, for a fairly old and neglected character on what was a “spare” shard! Well, I did! This morning after breakfast I couldn’t wait to get stuck into Rift, have a look at all the new features, both documented and undocumented 😉 and generally get a feel for the new patch. I had a feeling something might have been up when instead of logging in, I got an update for Glyph, the Rift program launcher. “Hullo”, thinks me, “I wonder what’s up?” Glyph updated itself just fine… but it wasn’t a matter of “what’s up”, it was a matter of “what’s not up”! Rift wasn’t up! Again! So I did what I always do when I want to play Rift and it isn’t available – I played Solitaire. Every two games, I’d check to see if Rift was up again… and eventually it was. I logged on and sorted out my Minions, then thought about playing with my newly moved Kelari Jadenfyre, who’s now on Greybriar. But I couldn’t help thinking about the spare water breathing necklace that a character on Wolfsbane had. How could I get it across to Greybriar? Well, I could shuffle the character across from Wolfsbane to Greybriar… but surely there was another way? Going from shard to shard, I came across a character on the shard Hailol that I decided I wanted to use, too, but she was too “young” to move. Of course I became typically side-tracked as I leveled her up – her name’s Satai, as in the Mimbari Ambassador Delen, from the television series “Babylon 5” – one of the best “space opera” series since the original Star Trek. “Satai” is an honorific reserved for members of the ruling Grey Council on Mimbar, and somehow or other, when I decided to try to call this character “Satai”, I was lucky enough to get it! Anyway, I started leveling her up, and got her to level 15. Time to move! Unfortunately a lot of other people were lucky enough to get that name too, on all the available shards I could move her to. It was a matter of move her, and change her name, or leave her where she was and forget about her (again), or… move everyone to her, and make Hailol the secondary shard. Until today, Hailol had been a quiet little backwater that I used as a transition shard for my numerous Character Shuffles between here and there. Today it became an energetic, frenetically efficient, bustling hive of scum and villainy – oh, sorry, wrong scenario! I meant a bustling hive of fun and activity! First, I tidied out all the other characters on the shard. Made sure all their ui’s and key locks were the same, that their hair was neatly brushed, and that they were all wearing clean socks. Next, I had to get Winterthyme on Wolfsbane organised for the move. She was the Guild Leader on Wolfsbane, and as such, she had the option of taking her Guild (and the Guild Bank) with her (but not the Guild Members) or, she could make someone else Guild Leader and renounce her membership. Well, if Hailol was to become the new secondary shard, it was going to need a Guild, and a Guild Bank, so she took it with her. *sigh* This meant going through every character on Wolfsbane in order to see what they could contribute to the cause… and guess what I found! 🙂 A second, higher level, water breathing necklace! Naturally Winterthyme commandeered this, and put it in her backpack, along with about 108 platinum, and everything that had been in the Guild Bank. Unfortunately there’s a limit to the amount of money you can take with you when you transfer between shards – the formula is 3 platinum per level of the character transferring. Winterthyme was only leavel 36, so she could only take 108 platinum… some of the money had to remain on Wolfsbane. The shortfall was made up by Julian moving one of his largely unused characters from Laethys, after “borrowing” a small sum of money from the Laethys Guild Bank. So there it was. Winterthyme brought her Guild, Guild Bank, and two water breathing necklaces to Hailol, Maereke (pronounced “Mereck”!) brought himself and 124 platinum. All the Hailol denizens were inducted into the Guild, the Guild Bank was set up neatly, and by six thirty this evening, it was all done. I have three Rogues on Hailol that I’ll probably never use again, so one will become the Auctionator, and one will become the Guild Bank Overflow Branch. I’ll most likely move the third one to another shard, and either create a new character to take her place, or import someone I like – maybe Jadenfyre, after seven days, because you can only move characters every seven days – yes, I think I’ll do that… I know it doesn’t sound like much, but believe me, it took all day, and was a hell of a lot of hard work! I’m toying with the idea of making either Satai or Winterthyme the recipient of the Minion’s largesse, but unless the rewards are scaled to the level of the Minion keepers, or the zone that the Minion keepers are in, it wouldn’t work, because I don’t have anyone of a high enough level to smelt the ore and tan the hides that they’re currently bringing in… I’ll look into it tomorrow…

Weigh-in this morning was a pleasant surprise, for once! I went down to 105.5kg, which was most gratifying! Hopefully tomorrow will see another drop (but I’m not going to hold my breath!) Actually, we might go off shopping tomorrow, before it starts getting hot again next weekend – my slacks really are too big for me around the waist, look! (discreetly raises her top about an inch, showing a gaping space between her midriff and the waistband of her slacks… quickly pulls top back down again) and they’re starting to feel as though they’re flapping around on the back of my thighs… Besides, the exercise of trying on pairs of slacks will probably help my weight go down a bit more! 😀

So there you go – call in again tomorrow night and see what’s been going on chez nous! Did we go shopping? Was it for clothes, or was it for the comfy sofa bed for the spare room? I fear that the impetus may be running out a little there… Julian “re-claimed” the Library/Office today, and it looks very different! There’s bench underneath where all those papers were! Unfortunately, our Cleaning Lady didn’t turn up today – nor did she call to say that she wouldn’t be able to make it. She’s a lovely lady, and she’s welcome to come and visit and have a chat any time, but I fear we’re going to have to find ourselves another, more reliable, and much more thorough cleaner, toot sweet, as the French say… I’ll look into the business with the Minions tomorrow, too, so I shall be able to fill you all in on that, as well as how the newly promoted shard of Hailol is progressing. Oh, and if you’re lucky, I’ll tell you how my weigh-in went! 😉 So – same time, same place, tomorrow night, for all the latest! Until then, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

Rift 3.1 Storm at Sea is live! 🙂 and as the title says, I was out, for most of the day! 😦 It was a very big patch too, which took a while to download, and as yet I haven’t had much of a chance to actually play with it… *sigh* I suppose it’ll still be there tomorrow… The new Zone is called Tyrant’s Throne, and isn’t at all where we expected it to be – we expected it to be the mysterious darkened area, attached to the left hand side of Draumheim by a narrow isthmus – but apparently they’re saving that up for something else! No, the new Zone is a smallish island at about 5 o’clock, in the middle of the sea south of Goboro Reef, Draumheim, and Tarken Glacier. At time of writing, I know nothing about any quests, ships, or Porticulums to take us there – but then, I haven’t really had a chance to investigate. The patch has also introduced the changes I mentioned last night: Minions: the ability to “shuffle” Minion Adventures, however I think it’ll cost either Credits or “Aventurine” (the adventures that your Minions go on earn them/you “Aventurine”, a sort of “Minion Credit” thingy, the symbol for which looks like a tiny ram’s head on its side), and the ability to recharge your Minion’s stamina – but each Minion can only be recharged once every 24 hours. You can now have six Minions running Adventures at once, instead of only five, and six new Minions have been introduced (no, I don’t know who or what they are! 🙂 ) Dimensions: Dimensions have been given a bit of a lift – you can now give permission for a specific person, or persons, not on your account, to place, take, or move items around your Dimension – and you can also ban a specific person or persons from ever entering your Dimension! I don’t think I hate anyone enough to do that! 🙂 I briefly tried out the new free movement camera that’s supposed to make editing your Dimension easier, but either (a) I was holding my mouth the wrong way, (b) they left out the instruction sheet, or (c) it just plain doesn’t work (yet!)… Strike out those that don’t apply! Crafting: They’ve added a “Favourites” category to the Crafting Menu – if you make a recipe you use a lot (for instance, smelting ore into metal bars, or weaving cloth pieces into bolts of cloth) a favourite, it’ll automatically bring that recipe up when you right click on the appropriate Workstation (in other words, you won’t have to go looking for it)

Necromancers: There have been a lot of changes to the Necromancer build – far too many to go into here, and besides, I haven’t had a chance to really have a look at them all. I’ll let you know at a later date if there are any important changes to my favourite build (I use Warlock for DoTs, Necromancer for straight out nasty damage, and a pet to help you inflict said damage, and Dominator for backup) In all, I’m not surprised it was such a big patch – not only have they opened a new Zone, there’s heaps and heaps of new features and changes. The Kelari male I mentioned last night, Jadenfyre, reached level 15 and has been moved to Greybriar shard and welcomed into our Guild there – if I really like him enough I might consider moving him to Laethys, our main shard, but I haven’t made up my mind yet… I still have to organise a water breathing necklace for him too – damn! There’s a spare one on Wolfsbane – maybe I should have moved him there?! No, I’ll just have to shuffle a lot more characters, and bring it to him! *fume* Oh well… I’ll look into all of those things tomorrow morning…

Well, I only had a chance to download the big patch, and check my Minions this morning, because we had an early start – straight after breakfast we left to pick up my favourite eldest daughter and take her shopping for shoes – her Birthday present from us – and we spent nearly the entire morning in Athlete’s Foot, while she tried on pair after pair after pair of shoes… which were either… too tight.. or… too loose in the heel… or… too short… or… too long… and very frustrating for all of us, especially Lee. In the end, she settled for a pair of shoes, if they could get the right size in for her. They should arrive by the end of next week, so here’s hoping that they do, and that they fit her… properly! After that exhausting marathon, we went and had a cup of coffee at The Coffee Club – I had an iced coffee made with skinny milk, but it tasted suspiciously creamy, so I didn’t drink very much, just in case it wasn’t skinny milk… Then Julian went off to do some supermarket shopping, and Lee and I went off to get his Birthday present(s) (his Birthday is next week – February 4th) and a Birthday card… all of which was accomplished in record time, for once (it really helps when you know exactly what you want to get someone for their Birthday, and where to get it! 😉 ) We rendezvoused back at the car park, came home… and had another cup of coffee. It was about half past two before we remembered that I hadn’t had any lunch yet (they’d had theirs at The Coffee Club!), so I had a late Optifast Cappuccino Bar with my coffee, and we watched one episode of “Person of Interest”, and one episode of “Lost Girl” before the Podiatrist came. We had our feet done, and then it was time for Lee to leave… I scuttled (I tend to scuttle a little bit better now that I’ve lost some weight!) back here to the Den and managed to get a bit of Rifting done before dinner.

And that was basically my day… 🙂

Weigh-in this morning… Well, at least my body let me weigh in within the 105kg zone yesterday morning, so I suppose I should be thankful for small mercies, because this morning I was back to 106.0kg again. Typical! Listen body, I thought we had an agreement! You behave yourself, and I’ll buy you an ice cream!? What’s that you say? You never said that you agreed? Yes, you did! no i didn’t You did! didn’t… See what I mean? How am I supposed to deal with someone so recalcitrant!

Anyway, tune in again tomorrow night – I doubt that you’ll hear the end of that particular argument any time soon – well, not until next July or August, anyway 🙂 but you will hear lots of other interesting and amusing things, like…ummm… [pssst! can I have some think music with that, please?]… ummm… well, I don’t know yet, because those interesting and amusing things are still in the future – and besides, if I told you now, I’d have nothing left to tell you tomorrow night, would I?! 😉  So until then, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all!

Been, and is almost gone. Rift: You’ll all be pleased to know that I finally collected the last of my Cuthberts this morning, while waiting nervously to go to The Appointment with Dr. Y. I also did a bit of questing with a male character wot I created the day before yesterday. It’s a bit of a long story, but basically I wanted to see what I could do with a Kelari male – I’d created (and de-created) a male of every race, and so far, only three of them are still standing. I’ve actually managed to not only get this one to level 14, but I also got him his “Merchant of Death” title, so maybe I’ll let him stick around for a bit 🙂 I’m contemplating moving him to a shard where we have a Guild in which I can put him, so how’s that for a surprise, eh?! Oh dear – I just tried to log into Rift, and it’s down… for “extended maintenance”! Eleven hours!!! It seems that a biggish sort of patch (!!), Rift 3.1 Storm at Sea is going live on January 28th – well, it’s the 28th here in Australia today, and in eleven hours it’ll be January 28th in the States as well – I guess that’s what it’s all about, so hang onto your hard drives folks, because it’ll probably be a big update! *sigh* there go my Dailies, and my two middle of the week Patron gifts – hope they’re still there when it comes back online! You know, as good as Rift is, there are still a few things that World of Warcraft has that Rift doesn’t, and I wish they’d hurry up and get with it! For instance, “Addons”. Small programs that run in conjunction with the game and make life easier for you, the player. One favourite that we relied on a lot was called “Altoholic”, where you were able to search the banks and bags of all your other characters, or “Alts”. You couldn’t interact with the items in someone else’s bank or bags, but at least you could see who had what – and when you’re an altoholic like me, it really is a most necessary tool – at the moment, if I’m looking for a particular item and can’t remember who has it, I have to log out of the character I’m currently playing and systematically go through each and every other character on that shard until I find what I’m looking for… and I have twelve characters to go through on most shards! It really sucks, big time! Another handy little Addon, whose name escapes me at the moment, was one that allowed you to add sort of “sticky notes” to the map, saying things like “This is where the stairs to the dungeon are!”, and things like that. *sigh* I really miss a lot of those “Addons”… The other thing that I miss is the World of Warcraft “Armory” – apparently it’s been reduced to an App for phones now – but with the Armory you could (and still can with the App) view not only all of your characters’ gear and stats, etc., or see a 3D model of them using the app’s built-in viewer, but you can also check out any other characters you might want to have a look at, as long as you know how to spell their names! C’mon Rift, how about it!  I dare you to create a similar “Armory” for Telara! 🙂 Unfortunately, nearly all the Rift “Addons” are written by enthusiastic young players with absolutely no imagination (I mean, like six million different Addons to check a Raid Boss’s stats!? How imaginative is that!? Give us something useful, for a change, something like the WoW Altoholic addon, Please!) and a lot of these writers don’t display much stick-to-it-ivity – in other words, it seems very seldom that a Rift Addon author sticks around to upgrade his or her program so that they keep on working when the game is upgraded – the sadly missed and much lamented Dimension Toolbox is a prime example…  Enough complaining for tonight – I shall keep you all updated on this new “Storm at Sea” patch – I think it’s the one where we’re going to get the ability to “fly” around our dimensions – well, not really “fly” fly, but move around (and up!) so that we can build second stories on our houses before we build the ground floor! 😉 I’m also told that we’re going to be able to “shuffle” Adventures for our Minions, instead of having to take “pot luck” with whatever comes up. Anyway, as they say in the classics, “News at 10 tomorrow night!” 😉

Now, my big afternoon. We got to The Appointment with Dr. Y., just as he was leaving – some sort of emergency or other, but he was back very quickly. He’s very pleased with my weight, but wants me to lose more (I want to lose more, too! I’m not done losing weight yet!) He says he can “live with” 90kg, but it would be better all round if I could go lower… remember the other night I muttered something about going lower than my current goal weight of 90kg? Like maybe 85kg… or 80kg.. maybe even 75kg? – he also mentioned 75 – 80kg today… and seeing that I’m not seeing him again for another six months, and seeing that I’m shedding approximately 4kg a month, I should, hopefully, be around 82kg when I see him next. He told us that if I can get down to 90kg (or lower), we’d start conferencing with Dr. D., another of my doctors when I was in hospital with the multiple PE’s (Pulmonary Embolisms, or blood clots) in my lungs. I did discuss this surgery briefly with Dr. D. while I was in hospital, and the theory goes something like this (only it’s much more complicated) Put me in hospital. Take me off the Warfarin, and put me on to another drug, which hopefully will also stop my blood from clotting in the wrong places. Get me stable on that, do the surgery, put me back on this second drug until I start healing properly, and then take me off that and put me back onto the Warfarin, then when I’m stable again on that, I can come home again. Sounds simple, but it’ll probably be a bit of a nightmare all round for the duration. Still, the end is finally in sight! 🙂 All of my results so far have been good – I had another blood test today and should have the results late next week, and hopefully they’ll be good too. I’m starting to feel quite excited, now that I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel – I only hope it’s not an oncoming train!

Weigh-in this morning saw me clocking in at 105.9kg I weighed myself twice, just in case I was seeing things – so thank you, body, for at least getting me into the 105kg zone for today – I expect you’ll be back into the 106kg zone tomorrow, but listen, kiddo, we have six short months to come up with the goods! So help me to help you! No more stuffing around with simmering on the same weight for four days, and no more high rises in the weight results, OK?! If you behave yourself and get me down to 81kg or lower by July 21st, I’ll buy you an ice cream, how does that sound? 🙂 So, in the end, all’s well that ends well… (hopefully! 😉 )

So tune in again tomorrow night – don’t miss out on any of the interesting bits – my favourite eldest daughter will be over tomorrow because we’re off to buy her her Birthday present, shoes! (please don’t ever get me shoes, or slippers (some nice leather thongs might be alright though!) for my Birthday, I beg you! With tears in my voice! I hate shoes!) We might even stop in at Autograph and/or My Size for a smaller pair of slacks for me, if we have the time…  and I’m sure you’ll want to find out all the latest on the Rift front.. and whether my weight is still behaving itself and going down (it probably won’t!) Thingz will be happenin’ over here tomorrow, so until then, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂

Doesn’t ruin my newly painted nails! Well, if it does (says she, resignedly) I’ll just have to re-do the damaged ones tomorrow morning – I should just have time before The Appointment with Dr. Y, if there aren’t too many damaged ones and I’m extra quick getting ready… I hope I don’t have to though, I’m already starting to get nervous, and I’ll probably be too jittery to paint straight by tomorrow morning! I wish it was this time tomorrow night… Oh dear… This morning I mostly played Rift (so what else is new!) still picking up cute little Black Dire Riding Squirrels – I only have another to shards two go – the trouble is, I keep getting side-tracked! I found several characters that needed deleting (they hadn’t been given the gift pack of 10 Troves of experience potions, you see) and I found several characters who should have been deleted, but they had received the Troves – I don’t know, it just goes against the grain to throw such fantastic, useful, and, well, keep-worthy items away, so I didn’t delete them! At some stage, in the dim far distant future, I may rename them, pull them out of obscurity, and actually play with them. So a lot of my time this morning was spent picking them up, dusting them off, and getting them into “playable condition”, for “ron” (Later ron) After I finish writing this I was going to continue with this morning’s work, but then I realised that (a) I usually don’t finish writing this until close to eleven o’clock, and (b) the Dailies “turn over” (become available again) at eleven o’clock, and I usually just have enough time to pick up and execute my three lots of Dailies before bed time! So I guess picking up the rest of the Cuthberts (Cuthbert – that’s what I’ve suddenly decided to call my Black Dire Riding Squirrel! So from now on, he’ll be referred to as “Cuthbert”, OK?! It’s a hell of a lot easier than writing “Black Dire Riding Squirrel” all the time, anyway! 😉 ) – picking up the rest of the Cuthberts will have to wait until tomorrow – or the day after.

We have a small dilemma to solve. We live on the fifth floor of a reasonably nice apartment building, with beautiful views over Melbourne. There’s only the one lift (the apartment block isn’t very big), but it’s ageing, and badly in need of refurbishment. This will be happening on February 9th, and the lift will be out of action for almost three weeks. Lots of people are planning their holidays, or going to stay with relatives, during this time, but we have an ancient and somewhat decrepit cat (much like its adoptive  “mother”!), and have no relatives close by who can accommodate us. So we have two choices – move out, or stay in – for me, quite literally “stay in”! To move out for the duration, we have to find not only a “Pet Friendly” place, but also a me Friendly place, that’s not too far away for my favourite eldest daughter and others to visit once a week, has wheelchair access, secure parking, a decent sized shower recess, Foxtel, and high speed Broad Band! (we don’t want much, do we! 😉 ) If we stay here, others can come and go via the front stairs or the fire escape, but I’ll be stuck in the apartment. While I’d probably be able to make it down the stairs, it’s doubtful that I’d be able to get back up them again – by the time I got even a quarter of the way up, the lift would probably be fixed and I’d be stuck, quarter of the way up the stairs and unable to get to the lift! Well, I’m not quite that bad, but almost! (Winter goes glassy eyed: ‘Think of the weight I could lose, struggling up and down those stairs!’ then… ‘How would the ambulance people get to me when I have a heart attack, climbing up and down all those stairs!’, followed by a sensible ‘perhaps I’d better not…’ 🙂 ) I have, it must be said, been cooped up in the apartment for two or more weeks at a time, usually in winter when it’s too cold or wet for me to even want to go outside, and it didn’t hurt me – so no doubt I’d cope well enough this time too (and think of the money we’d save because I couldn’t go shopping! 😉 ) So anyway, that’s our dilemma – any sensible and polite suggestions as to how we should handle it?

Weigh-in this morning. I knew it, I knew it! Even before I got on the scales this morning, I knew it! And you know what?! This wretched body of mine had the gall to smirk, at me as I was getting on the scales! (I saw its reflection in the glass of the scales!) Yes, I went up! If I hadn’t been so angry, I would have cried! This week, of all weeks, it does this to me! From 106.3kg I went up to 106.4kg, and I’ll bet you any money you like, it’ll be worse tomorrow morning! Yes, I know it’s only one point up (darkly: but it’ll be more tomorrow, just wait and see!), but that’s not the point! (er…. ) I mean, that’s not what matters to me – anyway, point, shmoint – last week, next week, any week but this week… and I have (have!) to go up?! I’m spitting chips!

Tune in again this time tomorrow night to see how The Appointment went… and whether or not my nail polish survived all the typing, or whether I had to do repair work on them in the morning. I’ll tell you if we’ve come to any decisions on how we’re going to handle the Great Lift Outage, and whether I’ve finished picking up all my Cuthberts yet. You’ll also find out if I’m eyeing off any new blog Themes with a view to a heading 😉 plus anything else interesting that might have been happening chez nous. And, If I’m still on speaking terms with my body, I’ll let you know what my weight’s doing. So until then, bee good, and stay safe! ciao, all! 🙂