hooray!

exercise, space, control, tenacity.....yay for you!

And your kids.

(asking Mom if she'd mind if I got rid of a lot of the kids stuff she had bought for them. --I think we all, yes me too, need to stop doing this--if you and the kids are willing to get rid of it, it's not her business. We need, as a culture, to start weaning people from the idea that they "own" something after they've given it, that they still get some level of control)

Good luck being tough w/ the stuff from that garage!

Congratulations!! I've been wanting an "exercise room" forever, just haven't had the $$ for equipment (we currently use ex. balls and weights in the TV room). I bet it feels great to get that all cleaned out and set up to keep yourself healthy.

Way to go! :-)

Excellent job!!!! Way to get moving!!! LOL!! :)

And look at the change this way -- you have truly let go -- and shed lots of "weight"!! :)

Thanks all!

TS - actually, this is stuff I really didn't "see". I got rid of most of the things she had gotten us. But these were just a few "nicer" things - electronic keyboards, globes, large and huge whiteboards. I gave her the option of selling them at a yard sale or me giving them to friends. She told me to go ahead and give them away.

Jamie - getting exercise is really important to me - for physical as well as emotional health. Living in VT, I really needed a way to get that indoors because I can't always go out (especially this year with all the strange, wet weather we had). I think best when walking, running, biking, etc. So I had a gym membership. When we decided to do this in December, I still didn't DO anything about it until family members pitched in for my birthday, and I had to tell them, yes I've done it. Then I realized that a treadmill that will last for years and can be used by everyone in the family cost the same as 1 year of gym membership for just me. It was much easier when I thought of it that way. But the push from the rest of the family is what actually made it happen.

Thanks Teacats - I love shedding this kind of weight! I always knew it would have to be done someday. And what a payoff!

Yep - I live in Montana, so I understand completely the need to workout indoors. I do pay for a gym membership...but I don't have the cash up front for the treadmill (too much debt to charge it), and DH has decided to start using the gym again (just told me at lunch), so I'll go with him for now. It *is* cheaper to buy the treadmill though, IMO...and someday, when I have the cash upfront, I will certainly be buying one too. :-)

I think it's great you got it done and organized, even if the "push" from other family members was what made it happen! :-)

Congratulations on the exercise room! I would love to have one (so convenient!) but I belong to a gym instead.

Funny thing... I would also LOVE to have a junk room! We truly do have inadequate storage, and it's hard to find places to stash big stuff we frequently use, like camping equipment, snowboards & boots, hockey & other sports equipment, etc.

Julie - we don't have much storage, either. Hence the junk room! Now we are getting rid of our garage. It was in a different town, but cleaning it out makes me realize that we are still losing valuable storage space. Don't know where we'll store big stuff. One great thing - DH is actually having to learn that we can't hold on to everything that may ever be usable again (and those that were usable but aren't anymore). We have an old washing machine in there that he brought over from one of our rental units. When we loaded it in there a few years ago, I figured it was usable and we were storing it for when one of the others broke down. I asked him about it the other day and he said he's not sure if it works. Huh? Why did we haul it over there then?

Woo hoo! Doesn't it feel great? I wish we had an extra room to devote to exercise, but we don't. My treadmill is in the garage and I do a lot of exercise programs that are offered on our cable TV (Comcast On Demand) so that means the family room. Not perfect, but it does work!

Enjoy your new space!

Sheryl