My Long-Lost Friend

When you walk to the end of the hall to enter mine and Jason's bedroom, this is the view:

And yes, there is almost always clean laundry hanging out on the chair waiting to be folded.  

That is as far back as our door will go now, because this is behind it:

My Long-Lost Friend - My Treadmill!

I never could have imagine myself saying that seriously...and with such joy!

This treadmill is old.  Like, really old.  Like, at least 14 or 15 years old...and maybe older.  I remember reading/studying textbooks on it while Jas and I were both getting our MBAs back in Colorado, that is how I can date it.

I would just love to know how many hundreds of miles I have put on this thing.  I loved walking on it.  I would faithfully walk 2-3 miles on it most mornings.  It has a book stand and I would just read my little heart out while I walked, walked, walked.  I did it in Colorado.  I did it here before children.  I continued after each of our first four came home (but they were all sleeping through the night from their very first nights with us).  

And then....G came home.  

And then my treadmill habit just went kaput.  I just couldn't bring myself to get up and get on there anymore.

But at the time we still lived in town, and the kiddos and I (and at night, Jas) would get out and walk/ride bikes around the neighborhood.  We loved doing that together.  

I have been missing walking lately.  I've had the itch for several months now.  I'd even mentioned it to Jas several times.  And I've been trying to figure out how to make this work.  Get up earlier and drive into town to walk around our old neighborhood?  I get up at 5 a.m now, so this didn't seem feasible to me.  Get a membership to the gym in town and walk there at night with my friend/fellow-homeschooling mom?  Meh - don't want to spend money or time schlepping back and forth to the gym.  

The final straw came when I started doing this Make Over Your Mornings course.  Crystal uses a treadmill at her house, and the little intro segment at the beginning of each day's lesson shows her on it...and it made me miss my treadmill so much!  And she talked about exercising every day, even if it is just 15-20 minutes.  That seems so very do-able!

And then I remembered that old beast of a treadmill.  It had been in storage at Papa's shed at his farm for over two years now - ever since we moved. Would it still work?

We hauled it home, plugged it in (holding our breaths)...and by golly, it still works!

I now read e-books and articles on my iPad while walking

I have happily hoofed it on there several mornings already.  I only do about 20 minutes...and I. am. loving it!