Anyone for a bike ride?

Not much change this week.  Despite walking nearly every day (except Tuesday because I had a video conference scheduled at 6pm) and sticking to 1700 calories or less this week (except today), not much progress from last week. Of course if I'd looked at the calendar last week I would have realized where I was in my cycle - so that's why it's not budging right now. I'm down 400g (.88 lb) so I guess that's better than nothing -- but next week should be heaps better.

Today hubby and I walked the dogs for about 70 minutes with his mum -- there's a lovely walking trail near her house that the dogs love -- anything other than the same old trail every day is exciting to them. Amber had pretty good energy today. She has been walking less and less often - usually the dogs get real excited at walk time, but lately she tends to go hide behind the bed when it's time. She doesn't want to go in the mornings much anymore. Amber's a fox terrier and 11 years old, so it's only natural she's slowing up a bit I suppose. But when I get home from work she's ready to go, so she's still getting one walk a day.

I'm not as young as I once was either -- at 46 I'm wondering if I may have the start of the arthritis that runs rampant through my family. My mom had it in her wrist, her knuckles (which were huge), and she had both knees and hips replaced. My brother's have it too, and I suppose I should get tested. My knees complain a fair bit. Getting more weight off would surely help there, whether I actually have arthritis or not.

We'd talked about getting a treadmill, but I'm afraid it might not get used and would become a coat rack, and we don't really have the room for it. Plus they're EXPENSIVE! I thought about getting a bike but figured those were pricey too, but just for the fun of it I stopped into a bike shop near work recently. Turns out I can get a decent one suited to my purposes for less than $300 -- not too shabby.

I figured that would be low impact -- but hubby says because the area we live in has great variances in elevation that it would still be a strain on my knees trying to get up those hills. It's not very flat around here. I don't know -- I'd really like to give it a go. I haven't ridden a bike in years, but I used to enjoy it. I'm sure I still remember how, it's like riding a ... well you get the idea.  And it's way cheaper than a treadmill and actually serves a purpose other than exercise. We could ride for fun! And if we end up buying a house that's not close enough to the shops for my husband, he could always hop on the bike when he needed something.  But I'm not sure he'd ride one for pleasure, so I'd likely be riding by myself.

No news on the house front really -- we've been looking for over a year now. In that time we turned up a few we really liked -- always just a tad outside our price range, but we keep saving and we're in a better position now. I think everything happens for a reason, and the right house will come along -- we just gotta hang in there.

Tomorrow's another day -- here's to making it a healthy one! :)