Well, after typing until I almost wore the letters off the keyboard last night, simply to grizzle about undisciplined children and their selfish, uncaring, and even more undisciplined parents, I’ll try to keep things a little shorter tonight 😉 Instead, I’ll talk about candles in general, and Christmas-y smelling candles in particular. Some time ago I bought a fancy scented candle in David Jones. They were being displayed in the ladies underwear area (of all places!), and they were in such pretty red stained glass-ish jars with a nice little lid. They didn’t smell too bad, either, so I got one. I thought it’d look good (and smell nice) in my bathroom – which it does! 🙂 However, I started to think (always a dangerous pastime for me!) that it would be nice to have a candle in the Den, too, so today when we went out to do a bit of shopping, I steered himself towards Dusk, where I decided to look for something… I wasn’t really sure exactly what I wanted – something jasmine-y? No, my bathroom is undergoing its Jasmine Phase at the moment, and I didn’t want the Den to smell like my bathroom… I do prefer spicy, oriental-y perfumes, but although the very nice young lady at Dusk said they were, none of the candles she showed me were what I would have called “spicy”, or “oriental”. Most of them were too bland and far too “sweet” for our taste. We also looked at Christmas so-called “berry” scented candles, but once again, there was nothing that had what we were looking for. In the end, I opted for a soy candle in a black glass jar (more like an ordinary drinking glass than a jar, really) and silver writing on the (black) label… called, terribly imaginatively, “Midnight Noir”. The scent is quite nice, though not terribly strong, and it’s currently burning away gently to my right. Don’t be surprised if one of these evenings you see the post title of “Black candle”, or “Midnight noir”, when I can’t think of anything else to call it 🙂 But getting back to the berry and Christmas theme… can anyone think of the name of a berry often used in Christmas candles? It may be bayberry, but I’m not sure… I remember years ago (years and years ago, in Glengarry Avenue!) I bought a Christmas candle – at least I think it was a candle – that smelt absolutely delicious! Scrumptious, even! It smelt a bit like that lovely Christmas time tea you can get up at Tea Leaves, but nicer… and it had some sort of special Christmas berry in it but I can’t remember what it was called! 😦 As I said, it may have been bayberry, but I sort of feel that the berry name might have started with the letter “M”? I don’t think we ever actually lit the candle, but kept it around because it smelt so nice. Of course, it’s long gone now – we were in Glengarry Avenue about twenty five years ago now, and I’m quite sure that it didn’t make the move with us to Diosma Drive! 🙂 The long and short of it is that I want to get another candle, or diffuser, or burner, or whatever, that smells like that candle did, so if anyone can supply the name of the berry scent that I’m looking for, I’ll be eternally grateful! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning was not really thrilling I stayed the same (again! Unfortunately not moving seems to be a prelude to [insert rude word here] going  up again 😦 and as I said, I’m not overly thrilled ) So, here I sit.. at 120.6kg again. My body seems determined to make me lose my race to the goal that I’ve set myself, as I’m running out of time before the Provera at the front end of the month really pushes me up with fluid retention. Ho-hum, never say die, and all that 🙂

Will she go up? Or will she go down? Maybe stay the same again for a third day? Don’t hold your breath, bur find out tomorrow! 😉

I’ve been thinking about this – these, really – problems on and off all day. I’m not really sure if I should be saying anything about them at all – not without labeling myself as a racist, a bigot, sexist, and just about any other label that the politically correct will no doubt attempt to plaster me with.

The other day I read an article in The Age about the vilification heaped upon a Sydney cafe for daring to post an open letter – on Facebook, I think it was – about not being a “child friendly” place unless the parents (a) didn’t block the spaces between the tables with their SUV sized prams and pushers, and (b) were willing to make sure that their children behaved in a quiet and orderly manner, sitting at the tables with them. Personally, I thought that they were very reasonable requests, but apparently they were forced to remove their well written and reasonable open letter due to the number of parental screams of outrage at the cafe for daring to criticize the way they  dealt with their children, from the bleated “But they’re only little children, they’re not doing any harm” to the more amazingly selfish “Well, if you (the cafe!) provided a sound proofed, glassed in, children’s room with toys, and provided more parking spaces for our prams and strollers, you wouldn’t have a problem, would you!” – in other words, the cafe had brought all the trouble on themselves.

I snorted in disbelief.

Then today, I read another article, this time written by a mother, and I can only hope (in vain, I fear) that she was attempting to be humorous. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. I’ve put a link in to the article because if I go into it any further, either (a) this post will end up rivaling the Encyclopedia Britannica in size, or (b) I might end up having an apoplectic fit! If she’d had a bucket of “let’s all feel sorry for mothers with small children” flavoured green jelly and a large garden trowel, she couldn’t have laid it on thicker!

This time I didn’t snort in disbelief, I read it through again, trying to see if she was being sarcastically humorous… but either I’m totally devoid of a funny bone and don’t recognise humor when I see it, or she was deadly serious. I dare you to read it, and tell me that I’m wrong!

Which brings me to my second point – am I, perhaps, succumbing to my pet hate of being too easily offended? Of actually wanting to be outraged by this idiotic woman’s post? I see it all the time – it’s almost as if some people spend all their spare time (and a lot of their working time, too!) trawling busily through articles, looking for anything that they can decide is politically incorrect enough for them to label as “offensive” in some way, and then triumphantly blare to the world “look what so-and-so has said (or written, or implied)! Sexist! or Racist! or anything else that’s the flavour of the month. I said to our young visitor the other day that I’m a fairly “Live and let live” type of person – as long as you’re not hurting me and mine, I don’t really give a damn what you do (or say). But sometimes, I fear that the “me and mine”, seems to become “me and the rest of humanity” – so I do take offense at people, be they mothers or not, who wedge their SUV size prams in aisles where people have to walk, and waiters have to deliver food! I do take offense at people bringing noisy, undisciplined children into cafes and restaurants and then proceed to ignore them because “they’re not doing any harm” – except to my eardrums, and my desire for a quiet cup of coffee and a meal. When my two children were noisy toddlers, and we were out somewhere, the minute they started either running around or making loud noises, I rounded them up, told them quietly that that was not acceptable behaviour, and that I was taking them home (which I did. Always. Never threaten a small child with deprivation of a treat unless you intend to go through with it! I tell you, they learn very fast! 🙂 ) I never had to do this more than twice. Why is it, or perhaps I should say, why does it seem so very hard for parents to discipline their children these days? A few quiet words – no need to yell (Mummy is always very serious when she drops her voice, don’t-you-know! 😉 ), a few missed coffees in your favourite cafe, and… problem solved.

There’s a lot more I could say on the subject, but it’s getting late, and you’re all probably getting bored with this tirade against the slack parents of today (you may even be one yourself, and if you’re offended by what I’ve said… I’m not sorry!) 🙂

Weigh-in this morning was getting back to what I like to see. A drop down to 120.6kg, so I’m slowly getting back on track again 🙂 Unfortunately I missed out on afternoon tea again today… I’d fallen asleep reading and himself didn’t wake me up in time (let’s see if I can foist the blame onto him 😉 ), so not only did I miss my afternoon tea, I never got to fold the laundry either! 🙂 Never mind, tomorrow! 🙂

Stay tuned for all the latest, weight-wise, pet peeve, and whimsical! 🙂

…Because I can see four – no, five, from where I’m sitting (six, if you count the time and date thingy on the bottom right hand corner of my computer!) 🙂 And also because I couldn’t think of a title for this post… again. We’re listening to some lovely Chopin at the moment… very stirring and evocative…

Hey! Wasn’t it a totally brilliant lightning show last night! The thunder was pretty awesome, too 🙂 I love thunderstorms! I reckon we don’t get enough of them down here in Melbourne… We went to bed around 12.30am – 01.00am, as usual… I thought I could see faint lightning flashes out of the corner of my eye, and by the time we put the lights out it was a full on storm! 🙂 Fantastic! Some of the flashes were so bright that even after the initial flash, the sky near the horizon looked like daylight! Then it rained… or maybe it was hail – dunno… but it sure rattled on the windows – we were a little worried that it might have upset Flipper, but we didn’t hear a peep out of her, and she didn’t seem too distraught this morning, so she probably slept through it, or she would have started yowling. I guess that’ll come tomorrow when himself gets down the cat box to take her to the V.e.t. (we can’t say the word out loud because she runs and hides!) – we found a little lump on her side, which we think is probably just a fatty cyst, as she’s had one on her tummy for years, but we both think it’s best that we get it checked as soon as possible.

We had a friend come over this afternoon, and it was great to see him again, so hopefully it’ll become a regular event. Then in the evening we sat and fretted until we heard from Terry, my favourite youngest daughter’s husband – she was having a minor procedure done today, and like all parents, we worry about our children, probably unnecessarily, but there it is – we do. 🙂 She rang later in the evening, home again, and sounding very happy and relaxed, so now I can start re-growing the fingernails that I chewed down to the quick this afternoon 😉

All in all, it was quite a busy day – for us 🙂 Not sure what’s happening tomorrow, apart from Flipper’s little “trip in the car”, but after I heard from Kate this evening, I went and re-organised the Rift Guild Bank, to make room for all the bits and pieces that the Minions are bringing back – that’s taken me all evening, actually – I’m a bit of a neat freak (sometimes!), and I like things organised and easily visible; I tend to get frustrated and irritable if I have to hunt too hard to find something. As out grandmothers used to say in the good old days, “a place for everything, and everything in its place” – not a bad motto to live by – what a shame I often forget it! 😉

Weigh-in this morning was …better… back down to where I was two days ago (*glares at screen*), at 120.9kg. Why my stupid body had to go and waste two whole days (*glares at screen again*) going up the way it did, I don’t know! That’s two days lost, out of my very careful and meticulously planned schedule (*sigh*) Oh well, hopefully it’ll be down again tomorrow… I accidentally missed out on afternoon tea this afternoon 🙂 and by the time I realised, it was almost dinner time and too late to have it, but I wasn’t hungry, so didn’t really care all that much – I just hope that my metabolism doesn’t think “Oh noes! I’m being starved! Perhaps I’d better save all of dinner, just in case I never get fed again!”, and I put on weight again tomorrow!

Will I won’t I? 🙂 Stay tuned to find out…

I feel as though I should still be dripping all over the keyboard! 🙂 The new zone/area that’s opened up in Rift is mostly underwater, and I hate it!  Hate it, I tell you! I can’t tell if I’m up, down, on target, or hopelessly lost under a ledge! I’ve never been terribly good at co-ordinates – tell me to go left, and I surreptitiously glance down at my hands to see er… where left is (there it is Winter, it’s the one you don’t write with, remember?! 😉 ) I caught it from my mother – she used to do that too. Strangely enough, I can read a map and give directions to anyone driving, but in a game? Pftttt! I’m hopeless! Of course, it doesn’t help that the character Julian’s playing, Schatzi, is a dwarf, and hard to spot at the best of times (even if he did put a ruddy great skull over her head ) I may have to change the colour I’m using for group players, too, to something a little brighter and more visible than presley purple. Apart from my difficulty maneuvering myself around under water, it was a good day, and we had a lot of fun (even if we both died multiple times! 😉 ) We didn’t manage to go up a level, but came close to it, and we might even have made the level if himself hadn’t had to play one-handed so much because Flipper, bless her old and daffy heart and soul, insisted on having Daddy Pats all the time. Ah well. 🙂 Looking forward to continuing with the game next Sunday. In the meantime, the Minions are being good little minions and bringing home the gathered goodies – so much so that I’m having to re-think the layout of the Guild Bank – I’m running out of room! This evening I typed up a Foraging Guide, and as soon as my newest characters reach a high enough (foraging) level, I’ll remove the items that they’ll no longer be collecting from the bank and shunt them off to another of my characters who’ll function as the Guild Bank Overflow repository, in order to make room for all the new things coming in 🙂

Weigh-in this morning was not good, and I was, and still am, extremely annoyed and disgruntled. I went up again! Not much, but two days in a row… Arrrggghhhh! In fact I’m fuming! I went up to 121.1kg! Yes, I know it’s not much, and yes! I understand that weight fluctuates from day to day, but it can ruddy well do that later, when I get down to my “half way” point, not now! Not. Happy. Jan! 😦

Let’s see what happens tomorrow… I’ll be beside myself if it goes up, again! (Hmm, that’s a thought… if I was beside myself, I wouldn’t all be in me, would I, so I’d have to weigh less, wouldn’t I?! 😉 )  Stay tuned, but like me, don’t hold your breath! 😉

This finding a suitable “title” for the evening’s entry is getting to be a bit of a bore… I couldn’t think of anything really pertinent to call it, so as usual, I looked around my desktop, waiting for something to catch my eye…. for about four minutes. Nothing really jumped out at me and said “Call it me! call it me!“, so in the end I settled for the good old “one on everyone’s desk” pen and pencil mug. Mine’s an etched glass “stein” that belonged to my mother, and in fact still contains a few pens and pencils of hers (and yes, they still work! 😉 )

Last night, for about the last hour and a half before we went to bed, our main Shard on Rift was down, so I mucked around on another one for a bit. This morning, not only was it still down, but so were all the others! Oh Noes! What to do… I played a few games of solitaire, then went and checked… they were all back up! Yay! So on I hopped and played for a bit, when it occurred to me… Sunday, as you all know, is our “Romping in Telara Day”, killing monsters and bad people for fun and profit… sometimes… and hoping not to die too many times. But the “rules” have changed a bit with this expansion, and the top level has been lifted from 60 to 65. This is all well and good, but the “Soul Trees” where we spent out hard earned levelling points was only designed to go to level 60, and there was no room to put anything else in without having to completely alter and re-design the entire structure. I guess they probably thought that not only would it take too long, but would probably confuse the hell out of older players, like me 😀 Anyway, long story short, in their wisdom they decided to create a new set of “Masteries” that you could pick up, from levels 60 to 65. That meant that the new(ish) characters that we’ve been playing wouldn’t be able to access or try these out for about another 30 odd levels, and, being me, I wanted to see what they were like, now! Consequently, tomorrow we’re going to pull a couple of our ancient old level 60 characters out of retirement and trot them through their paces once more for the salvation of all Telarans. 🙂 There is one small problem though. I have two Defiant level 60s and one Guardian level 60. Julian has one Defiant level 60 who he has been riding out each night, exploring, joining in Rifts and (I think? I may be wrong!) instances, and dungeons. Which means that Mandreth (the character he’s been using) will be quite a bit ahead of my two level 60s. He does have a Guardian level 60 on another Shard, which he’s going to move over to Laethys (he’s still got room to move someone over, not being quite the altoholic that I am. If I want to move someone over, I have to move someone off first, and perform the good old “Change Shards Shuffle” which I so detest having to do 😦 ) Unfortunately, my Guardian level 60, Wyntercat, is not as well set up as my two Defiant level 60s… but she can do it, at a pinch… I’ll have to find her new clothes though – what she’s currently wearing is far too flashy to wear whilst tearing through the countryside slaughtering nasties.. or in this case, oceanside! Most of the new area, I believe, is underwater – it’s not called “Nightmare Tide” for nothing, you know! 😉

Minions are still doing well, and bringing in the loot… 🙂

Weigh-in. Hmmm… Remember how I said that my run of good weight loss was bound to run out, sooner or later? Well, this morning it leaked a bit… I went back up to 121.0kg, which, while not as drastic as some reversals of weight that I’ve had, still was not at all pleasing. No indeed! I was not impressed! (how do you make a frowning smiley, as opposed to a sad one? Never mind, imagine it instead!) Hopefully I’ll be back down again tomorrow, but… I’m not going to hold my breath!

So stay tuned tomorrow night to find out whether or not I’ve worked myself into another major depression or not! 😉

Once again, I’m late, late, late! I feel like a White Rabbit, constantly looking at my pocket watch, thoughtfully filled with the very best butter, by my best friend, the March Hare…. Yes, I got caught up with Rift again – sorry about that….

This morning was pretty ordinary – caught up with my Minions and a swag of goodies that they’d won/achieved/whatever, and that was good… their Stamina does regenerate over time, so at least I didn’t have to feel guilty about buying more Credits (with real time $$$!), with which to buy more Minions, because mine were all too tired to go Adventuring again straight away. However, since I found out that Minions are shared across Shards, I’m going to have to try to remember to only pick up their loot from my main Shard, namely Laethys, otherwise I stand to lose the use of artifacts and crafting materials to a Shard on which I’m not currently playing. Which I did tonight. Laethys was down (one of those expected “teething problems” always associated with the advent of a new expansion!), so I was playing on a secondary Shard. I checked the Minions and saw that one had picked up a heap of artifacts on his little Adventure, and I happily collected them all… only to then bewail the fact that unless I feel like shuffling players between Shards again, which I don’t, those artifacts are now…. unusable where I want/need them most.  Oh well, live and learn… hopefully that little faux pas will help me remember not to just go blithely picking things up, before making sure that I’m on the right Shard! Duh!

This afternoon we went shopping… mainly for fitted sheets and pillow cases. For some inexplicable reason, all our plain pillow cases have disappeared! We have plenty of pillowcases that match our various doona covers, but no plain ones. You see, we tend to wash the bedding and put it back on the bed again when it’s dry (which is probably a bit lazy, and probably accounts for us having so many doona sets, because after you’ve stripped the bed, washed and dried the bedding, and put it back on the bed again about four or five times, you get a bit tired of seeing the same old pattern all the time and decide to go and get a new one… but it certainly saves having to iron everything! 😉 ) We used to have lots of plain pillowcases, or so we thought, but they must have got lost in the bottom of a dark cupboard somewhere, along with all the odd socks and mislaid biros. Probably having an orgy, which will result in a tangle of unloved and unwanted wire coathangers. The Dry Cleaners will be pleased though – we usually take all these orphaned coathangers to them, as they seem to be only too happy to give them a good home 🙂 I’m really looking forward to getting the new ones washed – mis-matched pillowcases on the bed look…. wrong-ish…. 😉

Weigh-in this morning was very pleasing once more… I’ve broken the 121kg barrier by the skin on my teeth – 120.9kg! I hope my stupid body doesn’t decide to make tomorrow the day that I go back up again! You know, I was trying to work it out this morning (mental arithmetic isn’t one of my strong points, so this was really quite clever of me! 🙂 ) When I get down to 119kg (less than 1kg away!), I’ll be half way to my goal weight (95kg)! 🙂 Now, I started off on August 18th at 134.something kg and it’s taken me since then to get to this “almost half way point”, so counting on my fingers (and toes!), that’s about 3 months… Therefore, if I’ve managed to lose almost 15kg in three months, that means I should be able to lose another 15kg in another three months, bringing me to mid to late January. And that will mean that I’ll have lost 30kg in six months! I think that’s pretty good! 🙂

So, will my body thwart me yet again, and push me back up over 121kg, or will I manage to get myself a little more… comfortably under the 121kg line to, say, 120.7kg? Find out tomorrow night! 🙂

Well, it is arrived! The Rift expansion is live, and those new little Minions are (a) very time consuming (or should I say, mesmerizing?) – a bit like pokie machines – you sort of get all glassy eyed sending the little critters off on adventures, claiming their “rewards” when they get back, picking a new adventure for one of them to go on – rinse and repeat… and (b) I can see it getting very expensive! As “Patrons”… and not only “Patrons”, but “Patrons” who have bought the Collector’s Edition of the Expansion, we get two free Minion Adventure slots, so we can send two Minions off at the same time… however, you can buy more Adventure slots for (in game) Credits, which, in turn, you buy from the Rift Shop for real time $$$$. We got given one Minion free, and, of course, you can buy more Minions, I don’t think there’s any limit to the number of Minions you can have, same deal as the Adventure slots. It’s not all bad though, as all your characters apparently share the same Minions – per Shard, I’d expect, though I haven’t checked cross-Shard yet. So that’s why I’m late tonight, sorting out Minions, getting glassy eyed over them, collecting goodies from the Mailbox per character, training up to the new Crafting levels, etc., etc. [*sigh*] A Gamer’s life is never easy, but we try to soldier on, bearing our heavy crosses bravely… 😉

S’truth! I just looked at the time! Eeek! Ummm… Sorry, this will have to be a little shorter than usual tonight… Favourite eldest daughter came over today, so of course I had to show off my new Minions, but after lunch we retired to the lounge room to watch one episode of “Agents of Shield”, and about three episodes of “Person of Interest”. She stayed a little later than she usually does because she had to go to a Fund Raising meeting being held over this way for “The Sex Party“, as she’s the Candidate representing them in the South Eastern Metro area in the coming election. I really, really do wish they’d change their ruddy name though! Their policies aren’t all that bad you know, straight forward common sense for the most part, but with a name like “The Sex Party”, it makes them sound like some scatty “free love and booze” type of thing – it even sounds worse than the “The Australian Motor Enthusiast Party”, and they managed to get a Senator elected!? (I know, that’s Federal, this is State, but it’s all politics in the end! 😉 ) Ah well… if you’re sick of the usual hopeless bunch of idiots leading us up the garden path and off to hell in a handbasket, give some thought to looking up “The Sex Party” and what they actually do stand for, and if you think they sound better than “The Australian Motor Enthusiast Party”, why not give them your vote – let’s face it, they can’t possibly be worse than what we’ve got, can they?! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning again went well – down to 121.2kg – but I can’t help thinking that all this good news can’t last for much longer… I expect that I shall be depressingly back up again tomorrow… Still, we shall wait and see…. 🙂

And it’s not like me to forget things, is it! 😉 While I was at the Prosthodontist yesterday and was having my bottom teeth cleaned and all, I grizzled to Dr. N. that I had a very annoying food trap on my upper right bridge – that when I eat things like apples, or anything fibrous, bits get stuck in there and I can’t get them out. Sometimes it feels like I have a beard growing out from between my teeth! Well, he had a look, and got a piece of dental floss and flossed in between the bridges. I should at this point explain that both top and bottom bridges are not made in a single piece, each one (the top and the bottom) are made in three pieces. I don’t know whether it’s to make it easier to put them in or to take them out (for cleaning and repairs), or whether it’s so that you won’t have to go without too many teeth if you break something. Anyway, Dr. N. appeared quite fascinated by this “food trap” of mine, and as well as I can remember it (I’m getting old you know), this is more or less what he said: It was commonly believed and taken as given that the human jaw stopped growing during our middle teens – give or take a few years – and that once it had stopped growing things didn’t really change all that much as far as your tooth placement went. It was only after implants became more common that they began to notice that in some rare cases, the jaw did keep growing a bit. Implants are very firmly fixed in your jaw bone, you see, and they can’t move; so any movement between implants therefore had to be jaw growth, which was forcing the implants apart. The amount of jaw growth can be accurately determined by measuring the gap. Though most growth usually occurs at the front (middle) of the jaw, mine is more to the side of the jaw – which is even rarer! So once again, Winter proves to be a medical and/or dental) anomaly! 🙂 Perhaps I really should think seriously about leaving my body to science… 😉

As I said yesterday that I probably would, I got my Gingerlilly up to level 50 early this afternoon, and spent the rest of the day getting her all kitted out for life after the expansion. Which will hopefully be tomorrow… but I won’t hold my breath…. So now I have three at level 60, seven at level 50, one at level 38 (I think! She’s the one I play in tandem with Julian), and one name holder to re-roll permanently once the expansion’s gone live. My favourite eldest daughter is coming over tomorrow, and she may have to sit and watch me play a newly expanded Rift for a while, while I try any new things out 🙂

Weigh-in this morning was quite exciting! I went down to 121.4kg! 🙂 Yay!!! Needless to say, I was very happy about that – though I’ll probably go up again tomorrow Oh! and another side effect of losing weight is that I’m finding that I can stand up straighter for longer now, instead of having to go everywhere bent over double, staring at the floor because my back is too sore to straighten it properly 🙂 (a combination of my arthritis and a condition called spondylosis (immobility and fusion of vertebral joints) – quite painful! )

Will I continue on my downward path? Hopefully, “yes!” Stay tuned, and find out tomorrow! 🙂

Dentist’s chairs… 😉 At  least Dr. N. supplies a foam rubber cylinder to put under your neck now – much more comfortable! 🙂 Well, I went, I was seen, and I had my teeth attended to. The bottom lot got another going over (why is it that bottom teeth collect more tartar than the top ones? (that is not a rhetorical question, if anyone wants to answer it!)) Remember the broken screw that I mentioned? It seems that the top half (of the screw) had vibrated loose (vibrated? does my jaw vibrate? or maybe it’s the electric toothbrush… it vibrates….), but the bottom half (of the screw) was still very firmly wedged in place. 😦 Dr. N. didn’t have a drill bit small enough to drill it out without damaging the… erm… bridge? If that happens, then the whole of that part of the bridge has to be removed and sent off to be re-cast, or re-made, or something, which will take a long time and I’ll be very unhappy to have to live without it for the duration. I think… (well, c’mon! You all know I’m a totally non technical person! I’m the artistic one, remember?!) So, Dr. N. is going to try and get a smaller drill bit, and I have another appointment on my favourite youngest daughter’s Birthday in December, to have the wedged-in bit of screw drilled out and a healthy, whole and unbroken screw put in in its place 🙂 Hopefully…. 🙂 So apart from almost drowning in water from the fast drill a couple of times, and the  few squeaks and squawks I made when pieces of extra hard tartar were “encouraged” to let go of their anchorage, I came home unscathed 🙂 I don’t think he even noticed the broken tooth…. 😉

We came home, had lunch, and… guess what!! 🙂 I played Rift! I got killed… and had to wait for Julian to get home so that his character could rescue me. Somehow I seem to have got things out of whack a bit… I’m level 48, trying to get to level 50 before Thursday (I’ll get there tomorrow, most likely)… but the mobs I was battling today were level 50’s, some of them Elite (read: double tough and hard to kill)! You have five levels of “difficulty”, viz: Quests with grey names: the mobs are too weak to hurt you. Ignore them, and they’ll ignore you (unless you run into them). You don’t get experience for killing them (and remember, apart from loot, experience is really what you’re playing to get!) Quests with green names – pretty easy, mobs are around your level of experience, or lower and usually fairly easy to dispose of. You get reasonable experience and loot, but not as much as: Yellow quests. A bit harder. Mobs have about the same level of experience as you, or slightly higher. Better quality loot and more experience. Orange quests: not easy at all! My quests today were all orange ones, and the mobs were all at least two levels higher than I was. The loot is pretty good (mostly) and you get a quite lot more experience… but you also tend to die a lot, too, which can become expensive, if you make a habit of it. Red quests: I have only two things to say about these: 1. Don’t do them! and 2. You will die, full stop.

Normally I try to do Yellow quests – best value for resurrection gold 😉 but as I said, I seem to have got myself out of synch somewhere… and the quests were really a bit more than I wanted to cope with (I’m a devout coward and easily scared by large monsters!) I’ve now gone on to another area – it’s the area that I dislike the most, but the only one I can go on to, actually, unless I want to head Red Quest-ward, which I don’t.

Had enough Rift lore for the evening? 🙂 Thought so…. 😉

Weigh-in this morning was very pleasing… 🙂 I have finally broken the 122kg barrier and have arrived at 121.8kg! I hope that tomorrow goes as well as this morning did (but it probably won’t, knowing my luck, or lack thereof!) Stay tuned, and find out! 🙂

I went to the hairdresser today for a trim/cut, and was most surprised when my usual guy wasn’t there, and a completely new and unknown young lady presented herself to me, telling me that she’d be doing my hair for me today. When I asked where my usual guy was I was told that he no longer worked there! I was most taken aback, discombobulated and a trifle discomforted. A second person (the one who ended up cutting my hair, and actually doing a pretty good job of it, but I haven’t a clue what her name was – why do so many people mutter these days? (or am I just getting old and deaf!))(don’t answer that last bit! It was rhetorical!) Anyway, by this time there were three anxious ladies grouped about me – and one said “Oh, but [insert name that I didn’t catch here] said she called you and explained things to you!”. I countered with the fact that I hadn’t received a phone call from anyone there, and in fact hadn’t even had the usual SMS reminder over the weekend about my appointment. In the mirror in front of me I saw glances of consternation exchanged between the three of them. Then one of them shrugged and moved off, and I was escorted to the basins to have my hair shampooed by the youngest of the trio. Nothing else was said either to me, or in front of me, on the subject of the missing gentleman, though I have no doubt that heated words were later exchanged in the back room… probably about the missing reminder SMS! 🙂 Oh, I did ask if they knew where he’d gone, but as I expected, I was diplomatically told that they didn’t know. Well, I guess you can’t really expect them to spruik another hairdressing establishment from their own salon… 🙂 Anyway, I think I’ve chased him down on Facebook (more by good luck than good management!), and have sent him a “please friend me” message – and here’s the proof that it was me wot sent it, if you’re reading this Josh… please let me know where you’ve gone. The girls did a fairly good job, but I really, really hate having to switch hairdressers! 😦

Oh well, my hair looks quite good (ghod knows what it’ll look like after I sleep on it tonight!), so at least I’ll look reasonably decent going to my doom… I mean my Prosthodontist…. Oh, how I wish it was this time tomorrow night!

At weigh-in this morning I was beginning to think that my stupid body was maliciously and malevolently teasing me (again!) Only one point (100g), I went down, only one point!! to 122.0kg!  Arrrgggghhhh! This is cruel! Though it’s better than going up 100g, I suppose… What will I be tomorrow?  Who knows?!  Anyone care to lay bets? 🙂 Will it be up? 😦 Will it be down? 🙂 Or will it stay the same?

Stay tuned, and find out tomorrow night, if you dare! 😉