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Exciting Rewards? Hmmmm...

My WeightWatchers package is coming to an end in the next two weeks. I am not renewing. I’ll be paying £13.95 for what is, basically, a glorified food tracking app. Think of the cake one could make with £13.95 of ingredients each month?! All right, I’m joking, of course. And the WW app has been very useful these last 5 months or so. It has kept me focused and I’ve lost 2 stones and, more importantly, I no longer feel like I’m ‘dieting.’ I’m used to eating less and all the new habits I’ve introduced this year have stuck. I have other plans to initiate the next phase. And they are free. 

Part of the ‘keeping one on track’ has been the accumulating of ‘reward points.’ So, every time you record a meal or activity, you ‘earn’ 5 points. The weekly weigh-in is worth 25 points. And if you track three breakfasts in a row, you get a 10 point bonus. Easy for me, because I never miss breakfast. 

Anyway, you can swap your points for rewards. I was slowly working my way up to 4,000 points in order to get a personalised (I was thinking cat photos) wall clock which I thought would be handy for the Zen Den. And then blow me down, when I got to 3750 points, they stopped offering the wall clock and replaced it with a large 3D initial letter ornament. What would I want with one of those?? I know what letter my name begins with. Honestly, it was infuriating.

So, because my contract is due to end, I thought I’d better cash in my points on something else because who doesn’t like a freebie? The next most useful thing to me was a notebook, full of motivational prompts, according to the description. A note book is always useful, I thought. What with me being a writer and all. So I spent 1,500 points last Monday and it arrived on Friday. 


If I was going to choose a notebook and call it ‘My Story’ it’d be a darn sight more interesting to look at than this. So I stuck a picture of a miniature tree porcupine on the front, to jazz it up...


Isn’t that the cutest thing?? 

The motivational quotes didn’t do it for me, either. There are four printed therein...

‘Live every day with intention.’ (What, like keep breathing, get up, brush your teeth? Stuff like that?)

‘Create your own sunshine.’ (Better start that degree in medieval alchemy then. Or do they mean metaphorically?)

‘Make the most of everyday.’ (Because tomorrow you could be dead? Cheerful...)

‘Don’t quit your dream.’ (I hate that word - quit. And don’t tell me what to do, either.)

The bits in brackets are my Sunday Sarcasm contributions. I know - lowest form of wit and all that, but when you have a gut reaction you’ve got to spit it out.

I just have time to build up reward points to spend on the next most useful thing, which is a personalised key ring for 2,500 points. Can’t wait...


Comments

aileen g said…
This made me laugh Denise, and reminded me of being given a "motivational" desk calendar one year from my boss for Christmas. So come January 2nd, and back at work, I announced I was going to base each day according to the calendar motto so I duly revved up the positivity and enthusiasm. I think I got to about Jan 5th before he (and the rest of the office) was begging me to abandon it and go back to my usual cynical, sarcastic normality.
rusty duck said…
The tree porcupine is, indeed, the cutest thing.
3D letter ornaments are very trendy. Especially in grey. Just sayin'...
Anonymous said…
Porcupines... yeah, no thank you. Cute or not. I spend a late Friday night/early Saturday morning removing quills out of our dogs nose... the last one we removed about 4 month after the encounter. Can I just say that removing those things are no easy feat when it's the last thing the dog wants and he weights a 110 pounds? BUT I would have chosen a notebook too despite the "inspirational" quotes.
KJ
Denise said…
Aileen, you sound more and more like my kind of gal! Brilliant story - thank you!

Jessica, you should know by now that I am waaaaaaaay behind everyone else when it comes to fashionable interior design. Especially if it’s grey...

Your poor dog, KJ. Thankfully, we don’t have porcupines wandering the wild over here. Doesn’t stop British pets getting into trouble with other things though. One of Andy’s recent patients was bitten by an adder!
Anonymous said…
I have learn always to carry a torch!! Always! No stargazing while walking the dog unfortunately. Oy - poor thing - adders are not nice to encounter either. One of the neighbors had a pet porcupine and always brought it with her to church. Crazy. She is a bit of a story in itself as you might imagine.
KJ
Denise said…
I’ll say there’s a story there, KJ! I’ve put that one straight in my ideas notebook! Crazy lady with a porcupine - a smell a best seller...

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