Exercise Fairy Strikes Again

The weather has been getting nicer and nicer over here in Belgie,  but the bugs seem to be getting bigger and bigger. And, more annoying. I love taking Izzy, Macie or Cole on walks..but the bugs are REALLY annoying me! I feel like I'm constantly being bombed while walking near the fields (which are EVERYWHERE), or the horse flies are strategically attacking me so I'll walk into the road and get smacked by a car. Even Izzy looks annoyed halfway through our route cause they go after her as well!

Before we even had orders to come here, Eric and I invested in a nice elliptical that I LOVED to use! Since it runs off of 110v, we decided to leave it in California with my Dad since we weren't wanting to have it shipped all the way over here and run off of a transformer. At least when I go back later this year to visit, I'll be re-united with it for a short while and get to use it. 

About a month ago, a gal here posted that she had an elliptical she was wanting to get rid of FOR FREEEEEEEE! By posting it on the community board that our base uses, people instantly pounced on it (as did I), although I was a few minutes too late. Sad, was I. Well, I guess the gal who ended up wanting it (1st come, 1st serve) wasn't able to find a way to get it to her house, so, she deferred it to whoever else wanted it after her, which was me! Yippy! I was informed about it last night, so Eric and I went over there today to pick it up! Go figure cause I was looking around last night at other bases "yard sale" sites to see if anyone was selling any ellipticals for a reasonable price. Free is ALWAYS appreciated!

It's actually REALLY sturdy and fits perfectly in the living room. Once my office is completely overhauled and cleared out, I'll probably move it in there...but I kinda like it in the living room since we have two ceiling fans in there & it's gonna start really warming up here soon. 

The digital readout on it is perfect, especially since it has pulse sensors and even a heart rate monitor you can clip to yourself. Distance is tracked in kilometers, but that's not a problem since I can just convert it over to miles for my tracking. 

You can adjust the stride resistance with a knob that's in the middle of the stand. When I first hopped on and started peddling, it felt like I was running in mud that was up to my knees! I finally noticed the resistance knob and dialed it down (quite a bit) and I was able to do a decent stride..yay!

Best part of all? Aside from it being free, that is. It's battery operated!! YAY! You're probably thinking, "Ok, it's battery operated. What's so special about that?". Well, electricity in Belgium is ridiculously expensive and if we could run one less thing off of power, it'd be fabulous in the long run. Luckily, this doesn't require to be plugged in to operate! 

I'm a very very grateful and very happy camper! Looks like the Exercise Fairy was watchin' out for me!

Don't worry, I'll go outside from time to time to get my daily dose of Vitamin D, but now I won't have to get my daily exercise with a fly swatter.