I ♥ my treadmill

Not that we're picking out china or anything. But having time to myself to run for a half hour this morning is the one thing that has kept me going all day, as I've been taking care of my (still) sick kids and trying desperately to get caught up on the laundry.

Way back in the dawn of time (read: before I had kids) I talked Jim into letting me get a used treadmill just like the model above except it has a heart rate monitor. It was a bargain at $75, but we had to go pick it up from the home of my co-worker, whose wife had been using it as a glorified coat rack. Jim was convinced (as he eloquently expressed while we moved it in and out of the bed of his truck and carried it down two flights of stairs to our old basement apartment) it was just going to be a coat rack at our home. I'm happy to say I proved him wrong, even before we had to move it up three flights of stairs to a new apartment, and then two years later into and out of a moving van, and down another flight of stairs at the Big Red House into the basement room where it now resides.

You see, for me the treadmill is an instrument of sanity. Most moms with small children have a limited window of time for working out, which is even more limited in the winter. But my treadmill cracks open that window of opportunity just a little wider. I can get up at 6 a.m. or stay up until 11 p.m. and run in a safe place while it's dark and freezing outside, no gym membership required. Or, I can queue up Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood on the DVR for Jimmy while Audrey's taking her morning nap and run for a quick half hour.

I ♥ my treadmill because it's the place I can escape, burn off stress, get an endorphin rush, and jam out to "Black Devil Car"—all while keeping an eye on the baby monitor.