03.06 pm
Well, here I am again, on my bran’ nue site! Firstly, I was extremely pleased to find, and then be able to install and use, the very same Theme that I’d been using on my erstwhile WordPress.com blog, just before I left it to start this one – unfortunately, after getting everything all set up exactly the same way, with all the same graphics and everything, I found that it chopped my text off after the first six lines (but only the blog text – the other Pages are all fine!) with that hideously frustrating and annoying “Read More…” message. I really resent interruptions like that – it annoys me that there you are, you’ve gone to read something, but after a couple of lines it stops you, and asks you if you “really want to read any more of this?” Like, “are you sure? Are you really sure? You’re really, really sure?” [and in my imagination, just like that stupid and ghastly paper-clip thing that Word used to use, the “Read More?” interrupt looks surprised!] “Oh well then, if you must… click this, then!” I’m sorry, but it really, really offends me, so if I see that in the Template I’m using and can’t get it to display the full post, I won’t use that Template, no matter how nice the rest of it is me! Anyway, after going to all the trouble to set everything up the way the other one had been, then finding that wretched “Read More” message, being me I had to go and change the Template, didn’t I! Anyway, this is another of the Templates that I used “over there”, but this time I fear that I must apologise for the size of the text, however at the moment I have no way to change it.
(*sigh*) Because we’re unwilling to jump in and pay for a “Premium” Theme/Template (the only one I’ve seriously looked at so far costs €40! – there are cheaper ones though) where I would supposedly get a lot more functions and customisation thingies, I’m old and cynical enough to know that what they say you’ll get, and what you actually do get for your money, are often as different as peas and chocolate, so we’re looking around for a plug-in to give me a few more font functions (like changing the size of it, f’rinstance!) there are four which at first glance look “promising”, two of which are Google utilities which will probably be the way we’ll go – but that’s up to Julian, cos he knows what he’s doing, and I don’t. Stay tuned… 🙂
Well, apart from working away at learning new tricks with Word Press, I haven’t been doing terribly much. Julian’s been gathering quotes to have more solar panels installed on the roof, and I’ve been playing the odd bit of WoW – not nearly as much as I’d have liked, but checking out Themes and Templates is extremely time consuming. First of all, you have to actually read all the “small print” underneath the screen shot, to find out what the Theme supports – like how many columns does it support, if it has a customizable Header, etc., etc. (funny how it never tells you anything really helpful, like “supports extracts and full posts”, or “supports extracts only” 😕 ) Then you have to download and install it, run a Test or “Live” Preview – that is, set it all up, lock, stock and barrel, then view it through a browser window to see if it looks the way you want it to. If it all looks OK, you can Activate and Save it. It all takes a while, believe me, especially when you have to do it about half a dozen times to find one that’s suitable! 😐
Auric and Dapple are well – Auric’s tail is looking a little better – we still don’t know what he did to it, and we fear that he’ll have a scar on his tail for life – but it hasn’t seemed to affect his appetite, or swimming abilities – he just cruises around, nibbling at the gravel and the rocks and plants, the way he has since he moved into the Fish House! Both he and Dapple are getting so much bigger! I reckon that the two of them are easily three times the size they were when we brought them in from the mud puddle! Sal and Satai are both well too – and starting to eat “proper” cat food and pussy biscuits instead of the kitten mush they’ve had so far. Sal has reached his full size and – er – weight… actually, he’s um… “chubby”, and as lazy as his adoptive mother (me!) He’ll take three steps into a room, and flop over to have his tummy tickled! No, he won’t come to you to have his tummy tickled, you have to stop what you’re doing, get up, and go over to him, because he wants his tummy tickled, right now, slave! Satai is an “older teenager” now, tall and lanky, with great long legs… and clumsy and uncoordinated! He’s almost a little bit taller at the shoulder than Sal is, but unlike Sal, he’s still growing! He’s gunna be a big boy! He’s also as naughty as all get-out, to the point where I think I’ll change his name – permanently – from “Satai” (the closest we can get to the meaning of “Satai” is “Senator”) to “Denny” – short for “Dennis”, as in “Dennis the Menace”! He’s extremely beautiful, and looks so cute and innocent – but he’s a real “Bengal” in nature 🙂 into everything, bouncing everywhere, and poking his head into wherever it’ll fit (and sometimes where it doesn’t!) He loves playing with water, and I occasionally leave the water trickling in both my bathroom hand basins, because he prefers drinking fresh running water. His favourite toy is a small green “sausage” – about the size of a cocktail frankfurter – filled with catnip. He has two of them (and a pink one, and a rainbow one, but the green ones are his favourites) and he trots around proudly with one in his mouth – he’ll play with them for hours – and when he does have the two of them together, he growls in frustration, because he can only carry one at a time in his mouth, and you can see that he just doesn’t know which one to carry, and which one to bat around the room – and under furniture, whereupon he peers under the whatever-it’s-under, and howls (true!) very loudly for “Daddy” to come and fish it out for him (which, of course, he does! 😉 )
I won’t get onto all the food bits just yet – everything’s been a bit out of kilter in that department, but we have been busy harvesting our vastly over-productive tomato crop, chopping them up, and cooking up vast quantities of tomato “passata” (which by the way, tastes awesome!) which instead of putting into preserving jars, Julian has vacuum-packed it into zip-lock bags, and stored them in the freezer! Today he took a whole lot of the tomatoes down to Moorabbin, to give to my very favourite youngest daughter, Kate. He’s been really working hard to earn himself enough time to make a loaf of bread, but so far, with everything we’ve been doing, we’ve been eating a fair amount of pretty tasteless commercial bread! 🙁
Weigh-in news: Well, as only to be expected, after Christmas, New Year, various Birthdays, and Easter galloping up fast, my weight hasn’t been… er… terribly cooperative! If it hasn’t been going up, it’s been going all over the place! Here’s a brief breakdown:
Monday, March 06th……………………………………… 74.5 kg
Tuesday, March 07th……………………………………… 74.6 kg
Wednesday, March 08th……………………………….. 74.5 kg
Thursday, March 09th (my Birthday!)………… 74.6 kg
Friday, March 10th…………………………………………. 75.0 kg
Saturday, March 11th……………………………………… 75.0 kg
Sunday, March 12th……………………………………….. 74.8 kg
Monday, March 13th………………………………………. 74.9 kg
Tuesday, March 14th (today!)……………………….. 74.0 kg
As you can see… not terribly good, plus it’s been up and down and all over the damn place! But at this stage I’m not too worried… one week after Easter, whether all the Easter eggs, chocolate, cakes, biscuits and other goodies are eaten or not, Julian and I will be starting out on our joint Optifast adventure. I’ll re-print out my old diet sheets and “free fruit and vegetables” list, and we’ll start. I both need and want to get down to 65 kg or below – approximately 10 kilograms-worth of poundage to take off – and Julian wants to get down to “wherever he feels best”, which is quite naughty of him! Without a proper goal weight to be striving for, I really don’t think that the Optifast project is going to work for him. I’m pretty sure that mine worked so well last time, mostly because I did have a particular goal weight fixed in my mental sights – like a shining beacon on a hill top – beckoning and encouraging me along (yeah, I know – it sounds really soppy – but that’s really pretty much what it was like – for me, anyway!) So, now you’re all up to date on where we are, weight-wise! 🙂
And that brings me up to tomorrow – I have an appointment at OPSM at 11.30 am to have my eyes checked. I finally decided what I wanted from Julian for my Birthday – a new pair of glasses frames! I’ve had these red ones for about six or seven years – possibly longer – and like me, they’re really starting to show their age, with discoloured patches where the frames touch the bridge of my nose and where they make contact with my eyebrows… So, that’s what I wanted. We went out shopping for them the other day and I found the ones I wanted at OPSM – hence the eye test tomorrow! The script for these lenses is (are?) nearly as old as the frames, and they’ve really needed changing for quite some time! The new frames are red too, but a vastly different red! These old ones are a sort of a pillar box/fire-engine red – the new ones are like that yummy, thick-looking “raspberry” duco that you see on some cars – the colour that makes you feel that you could spread it on bread, slather some cream on it, and eat it! Tomorrow Sean will be here again – he usually comes on a Monday afternoon/evening, but as Monday was a Public Holiday, he’s coming tomorrow instead… and a good thing too! I washed it myself the other day, and while the colour looks just as stunning, alas, it’s gone all out of shape and style! It usually doesn’t get this bad when I wash it, but I had to contend with two young cats, both of whom wanted to be in the bathroom with me. One wanted the water running so that he could play with it (which he did, with a vengeance!) and the other one wanted to walk up and down the vanity unit, watching everything – the not-so-skinny one – and he kept stopping in front of me, preventing me from being able to see in the mirror properly! In the end I had to get Julian to come and rescue me from their evil clutches, but by then the damage was done, and my hair – while nice and clean – is a real mess! And that’s really about “it” from me for this evening! Feel free to drop in again tomorrow night to see what my weight did, if my new glasses have been ordered or not, and how my hair looks after Sean’s visit 🙂 Until then, however, do try really hard to bee good, don’t forget that we live in a world where joy and empathy and pleasure are all around us, there for the noticing, and remember to always drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on what you’re doing… but above all, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂