Author: Wattle

Hooray! Our internet and telephone are now connected.

Our appointment this afternoon was honoured by a different NBN technician, who listened to our opinion of what the problem was. Within ten minutes he verified that indeed there were crossed wires outside the house and he reconnected them correctly.

My Collendar page for today helps me to enjoy my walk during this very hot weather here, even if I don’t really enjoy it as much as I could. I am certainly celebrating summer!

I think everyone would have experienced that the feeling of fullness is very different to, and does not properly mask, the feeling of not having had enough calories. At the start of my weight loss journey I liked to find ways to keep my mind from thinking about all the calories I wasn’t having.

One really good way was to concentrate my mind on how the food that was allowed looked, when it was served up. An example of this could be fruit, say a portion of grapes. They look so much nicer on a plate with a coloured serviette beside it. I went out and bought some inexpensive paper ones.

Our kitchen started to become more interesting with seasonal colour themes for tea towels, dish cloths and table cloths. I chose red for the summer. The other seasons have yellow in autumn, blue in winter and green in spring.

A really good side effect of a more colourful kitchen is to do the dishes more often so it looks nicer still!

If you look at the part of the site that has the archives you will see that my Collendar pages for the month of Januberry are starting to form a set. They all have the background colour of dark red. I think this gives them a summery appearance, and makes the images of berries look very appealing.

Perhaps I will make a tabletop style book of the Collendar pages eventually.

Telephone companies have catalogues which sometimes have images of the word “mobile”. On some days I place them on my Collendar page. They remind me of the importance of walks done.

Speaking of technology, six days have now elapsed of having no internet or telephone connection.

Did you know that you cannot speak directly to anyone at the “National Broadband Network” (NBN), our government owned, monopoly, telecommunications infrastructure provider? What happens is after a long wait on hold, you speak to somebody at your “Internet service provider”, (ISP). They in turn send an e-mail to whoever, at NBN, reporting a fault. That was a surprise to find out that the ISP personnel are similarly unprivileged to talk to personnel of the NBN on the telephone.

Now if you are lucky something might happen.

We made enquiries after the weekend and were told that the report of the fault was closed, having been “resolved”. Really, I can’t agree with them that having no internet or telephone connection is properly “resolved”.

This time we made an appointment for an NBN technician to “Trouble shoot”. That means to come and visit us inside our house, and inspect our perfectly good modem setup that was working just fine before last Thursday when that previous NBN maintenance technician connected those outside, below ground wires so strangely.

Our appointment is for tomorrow afternoon.

This “Weight and See” strategy relies on making small, achievable changes that will endure and have the subtle effect of experiencing gradual weight losses that will also endure. It is long term.

I only get on the scales once per month, usually on the last day of each month. I make a graph. It is not too difficult. On the bottom line across I have the months and on the vertical line up I have the weights. With a pencil I just place a cross at the point on the paper where the two values meet.

When this site becomes interactive we will have a place on it where graphs can be made easily and this type of visual picture of progress will be possible. As well as me making my graph, you might choose to make one of your own.

Over the last three years my graph shows that there has been a ten kilogram downwards trend, which is very pleasing.

The month to month weights do fluctuate. Up a bit, down a bit. I don’t get alarmed or disheartened about fluctuations. Each year the month of “Apply” has shown an up a bit. That is the acceptable and inevitable outcome of allowing the pastry eating theme for a month.

What matters is comparison. For example, is this year’s up a bit  less than last year’s up a bit? Is this year’s weight reading less than last year’s? Yes! And yes! Very pleasing indeed.

Nothing has been mentioned yet about what is on the plate for breakfasts.

In general I like to have a breakfast that I find filling, for example 2 fried eggs with a short cut bacon slice on 2 slices of lightly buttered toast.

In a varied, ongoing eating plan I think the natural source of fat in whole milk is useful. Porridge is great in the winter months. Muesli mixed with dry rolled oats is a particularly filling combination in any month. Cereals such as wheat biscuits are very good value, but taste quite bland, so these may need a fruit or honey accompaniment.

Some months, but not many, will find my breakfasts featuring a small serve of sugar coated cereal such as cornflakes or cocoa-flavoured rice bubbles. A large serve of oranges will be a must have in this style of breakfast because these types of cereal are delicious, but not at all filling.

Only in one wintery month do I allow my favourite breakfast, hot meat pies with tomato sauce.

For the month of Januberry breakfast has a light summery feel to it, but is still filling. It consists of a cheese and bacon bread roll with no butter, topped with generous amounts of ham, lettuce, tomatoes and onion.