Day 14: Chugging Along

 

Here we go ! It's a new year. Time to get back on track with diet and exercise. The goal is 100 pounds by 12-31-25. Can I do it ? Well, I won't know unless I try. My original Day 14 blog can be found here. My original Day 14 was unremarkable. It was just another work day and another day pretending I wasn't scared to death about losing my job. My old blog just sickens me now because so much of it was just fluff about how wonderful life was. I guess it was since I got to keep my job but I really did struggle at times and my blog did not reflect that truth. One thing I've decided to do is use a new cover photo background each month. Time to start looking for one now ! 

I woke up early but dozed on and off before finally getting up just before 8. I wanted to sleep more but it wasn't going to happen. It was snowing lightly, as predicted and it appears we got an inch or two overnight. There were no strays waiting to eat but I filled the dry food anyway. I got dressed right away and cleared off the front steps, since Fedex will be bringing my SIM card today. It's 10:30 now and the latest status is it should be delivered by 11:30. I can't wait ! I got an email that a port out had been requested, so that is likely Michelle's that she did last night. She said it took "10,000 steps" but she got it done. She had to do it for her account and Mike's, so I'm sure it was not fun. Mint seems to have pretty good instructions and they have a video I can watch if needed, so I'm sure I'll get through it just fine. It's snowing pretty heavily right now but it's not supposed to last more than a couple hours. It's the light fluffy stuff and it's 31 outside, so the salt or sand on the roads can easily do it's job. The plow will likely come through later and clean up the roads.

Breakfast was 180 calorie Eggo waffles with sugar free syrup. I had my 80 calorie yogurt around 11 am. Lunch was a 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt and a chef salad. I didn't have a morning snack, afternoon snack or dinner. Tapioca pudding stood in for all !

The Eggo waffles are gone now, so there will be no more late night waffles and peanut butter ! Today I am determined to stick to the Nutrisystem plan with one exception. I bought that gallon of milk and dozen of eggs specifically to make tapioca pudding and I'm going to do that. However, I am going to try and moderate my serving size to make it last at least 2 days. I need to have a tradeoff for this and it is going to be getting on the treadmill starting tomorrow, which happens to be the first day of week 3 and a weigh in day. I also need a "before" photo but I may try to do that today.

Minnie seems to have settled in to the new living arrangement now. She sat on my lap for a little bit this morning but she seems to prefer snoozing on "her" pillow better. She will meow at me to let me know she wants that spot. She is there right now snoozing blissfully. That's ok, I was up and about anyway and managed to finally fold up the sheets that have been lingering in the dining room, along with the ones I washed yesterday. I took an armful upstairs and the next batch is sitting on the stairs waiting for a pickup ! I also took the holiday table cloth off the dining room table and put that away, along with a power supply and an extension cord. I also took a couple sets of light upstairs. I still need to take down the lights in the kitchen and put away the ceramic tree. The goal for today is to have all the Christmas stuff put away.

In wonderful news, the Supreme Court declined to reverse the law banning TikTok, which is supposed to be effective January 19. Trump has said he will seek to reverse or delay it so it can be sold to a US company, so it will be interesting to see what happens. I really want to see the app gone from our country. It has ruined an entire generation, in that people don't want a regular job. They want to be a "creator" and get paid to make video's. I installed TikTok a couple different times but found myself spending way too much time watching nonsense. Many people get on there and do lives where they just beg for money. Others are on there scamming people and selling cheap junk. I just read that some "creators" are already being censored or banned on the new app of choice (Rednote) because of their content, and they're shocked. Really ? China is famous for their censorship and they are not LGBQT friendly. You can't parade around half naked. Wait until the beggars are on there swearing up a storm ! Many of these clowns will see their income disappear. Yet here I am still endlessly scrolling Instagram reels or Facebook reels. I really need to modify my social media habits. To that end, today I unsubscribed from 3 YouTube channels. They were all people who make video's trashing other people's video's. To me, that is not "creating" and I allowed myself to fall into that trap. These people are making money making fun of other people who are making videos to make money. Make it make sense ! No more. The channels I do follow are mostly people who make original content that is not harmful. They are mostly hard working people ! letsdig18, 10th gen dairy, saskdutchkid, sheepishly me etc. These are all people that work hard. Even post10. He may not have a "job" but his content takes me places I would never see and he never begs for subscriptions or donations. It'll take some time to get the junk suggestions out of my YouTube feed. I just need to make sure I don't click on that trashy content. Yesterday I started catching up on post10 content as I haven't watched him in a while. The only thing I don't like about his content is all the "shorts" he produces. I've watched a lot of them but I skip most of them now. I think they're designed to draw people in, on the odd chance one of them goes viral. A lot of them are his chickens and that really doesn't interest me. I will also be spending far less time scrolling reels. I "follow" the creators that interest me, so I will limit myself to that. I did unfollow a few today and I actually do that periodically. My interests change all the time and something might catch my eye on social media and I end up "following" a bunch of things on impulse. Many interests are fleeting, so I review what I'm following all the time and make changes.

Lunch will be a sad day today. No more pizza. I used the last crust and all the cheese yesterday. I have a bit of sauce left that I will toss. I also have some pepperoni, but I can snack on that until it's gone. A few slices here and there are not the end of the world. All is not lost, as I do love the pepperoni pizza melt from Nutrisystem. The portion is quite a bit smaller than what I've been eating, but that's on me ! Today I will cut up a salad and have that with my lunch. It's 11:47 am now and I'm about to eject myself from the couch to do just that ! I am also going to put the dishes to soak.

I cut up a head of lettuce and prepared a salad for my lunch. Fedex came about 12:40 and I grabbed that envelope off the porch in a hurry ! I was in the midst of a timed challenge on Cookie Jam so I finished that first and then got to work setting up my new service. As of 2:35 pm I am NO LONGER an ATT customer !!! I am SO happy to be out from under them ! The setup for Mint was super easy. I had trouble ONLY because I failed to read the text from ATT that contained the network unlock code that was required. Once I figured that out it was smooth sailing. For $52.65 I now have 3 months of service ! With AT&T I'd have paid about $240, which included $5.55 a month for my device since I have an S23+.  I will save nearly $750 in one year, which is more than the $583.29 payoff on my phone ! When I renew in April I will renew for one year at $15 per month. If you only renew for 3 months at a time they charge you $25. There should be no further charges on ATT as my last bill paid for service through January 21. I won't get any credit but I could care less about 4 days of service. Three things made me really angry with ATT. #1: laying me off. #2: retiree discount is 20% less than active employee (30% vs 50%) and #3: raising the unlimited plan $10 a month. I also discovered I was being charged $6 a month for the "Next Up" plan. I guess that is for upgrades. I paid that for 15 months ! That's $90 I shouldn't have paid. They may have added that in order to get me the new phone when I lost mine in October 2023 but I don't believe they ever told me about that. Phone store people are scummy like that ! In spite of everything, I'm super grateful that I had the money to pay off my phone and get out from under that bill. I deleted all ATT apps that I could and disabled the rest. Some can't be uninstalled. I'll buy inlocked phones in the future.

It's 5:15 now and all I can think about is tapioca pudding. I'm going to get busy making that now. I'm also starving as I didn't have a morning or afternoon snack. 

Well, it's 7:08 now and the tapioca has been made ! I had 2 huge bowls and I'm full ! That ended up being my dinner. it came out so good, even better than the last time I made it. I made sure to really temper the egg white mixture so that it wouldn't leave white blobs. It worked perfectly ! I did make a quadruple batch but it probably won't last long ! That's ok. It's an occasional treat and I'll get tired of it. It's not hard to make but standing at the stove stirring is very tedious. It took a while to whip up the egg whites too, since I was having to incorporate 3/4 cup of sugar. Tomorrow I will do dishes and get the kitchen cleaned up.

Today was a fun day and I'm going to spend the rest of the night watching YouTube and playing Cookie Jam. Minnie has had "my" end of the couch most of the day and it's my turn now ! If I happen to eat anything else today, I will mention that in tomorrow's blog.

Final notes on the switch to Mint Mobile. The process was easy when you pay attention to details. I struggled with the SIM card because the literature said it should be place with the logo up and it wouldn't fit in my phone that way. When I put it in the "wrong" way my phone wouldn't work. I couldn't really find anything online that would address that issue. Then I searched for info on the message I would see when I inserted the SIM. It said "network unlock code" required. I tried the PIN and my passcode, but neither worked. Searching further, I discovered the unlock code is provided by your existing carrier. Finally, I found it in the unlock text I got yesterday ! Once I entered that code it was smooth sailing. I think an older person or someone a little less tech savvy would struggle, considering I've always claimed to be "tech savvy" and I had trouble ! I will say that the Mint app and website is much nicer than ATT. To be fair, I'm comparing Prepaid service with Postpaid, which really isn't an equal comparison. There are probably far less people on the Mint site as compared to ATT. I don't know what their customer numbers are, but I'm going to guess ATT has more subscribers. However, if they keep jacking prices up more and more people will jump ship to carriers like Mint. Wireless is the bread and butter in ATT and significant losses in that space will not go over well with the shareholders. Many people (myself included) are attracted by the "free phone" deals, without realizing nothing is free and they are paying for the phone through higher monthly service fees. Say I keep a phone 3 years and I'm saving $750 a year. That is $2250. I know I can get a new phone for far less than that if I have a good trade in. So my phone would be "free" and I'd still be saving money ! Mint has trade in offers too, though I haven't dug into that yet. My phone isn't even 2 years old so I won't need a new one anytime soon.

Well .. I lingered here too long and Minnie grabbed my spot again. I don't have the heart to make her move so I guess I'll have to figure out a way to watch tv without sitting with my head turned !