Exercise, travel, and everything else

Getting in Shape...

T has to stay in shape in order to be safe at work, and I have to stay in shape in order to be healthy (I'm borderline everything bad in the world...) so we decided we would love to have a bowflex. Our reasoning was that we do not have the time or desire to go outside our home for exercise and we wanted the boys to be able to start building some muscle-very slowly. Well, we don't have deep pockets and we were very afraid that we would buy one and never use it. So, we started walking as many mornings as we could. We reasoned that if we would be disciplined enough to get out in the weather everyday, then we might have learned enough discipline to use a machine. Well, we did it. For a little over a year we have stuck with exercising in the morning, and during that year we saved a nice bit of change. So this weekend we found a great deal (75% off) on a bowflex and brought it home. It is now in the garage and gave me a great workout yesterday. It is easy to use and safe for the boys. Just for fun we are going to take before and after (or monthly, as there should really be no end) pictures. You may only see them if I get really buff!

Travel...
This is packing, cleaning, organizing, and preparation week for our trip to OK and Texas. We are all excited. We have not have an "alone" family vacation in a long time. We can not wait.

Speaking of cleaning...

Vinegar and borax mixed together make a really great "green" cleaner. It really got the mold in the shower. Sorry though, it does still require elbow grease. But it won't hurt your skin or your brain (if you inhale large quantities in a small shower like mine!)

Also, we have taken a friend's blog advise and started hanging our clothes to dry instead of spending the money to use the dryer and then having to spend money to cool the house after it is done. We put a clothes line in our bedroom and we use the evaporative cooling from the clothes to cool our notoriously hot bedroom (no pun intended!) We are finding that it also saves on wear and tear on the clothes. It seems like a win-win situation. (One great tip is to toss the clothes in a low-temp dryer for 5 minutes before hanging. This shakes out the wrinkles and saves on ironing.)

So that's it for now. I'm sure I will check back in after the trip.