We'll See

Because I am grounded from walking due to a flare up of plantar faciitis, I have been trying to figure out other alternative forms of exercise. I am concerned that I will gain weight without an exercise regimen. Water aerobics would work, but I am not a water person, can't imagine wearing a bathing suit, and I don't want to invest that much time into it. I want to be able to just change my shoes and walk out the door! But I do own a Nordic Track. I hate it. It's hard, boring, and really makes me sweat. But I dug it out of the closet yesterday and set it up. I had to dust it off, change the batteries in the performance meter and reset it to my age and weight. I did about five minutes on it just to get the feel. Of course, with it set to my age and weight, and a mid level resistance, the pulse monitor went off right away. I just ignored it. Today I gave it a test to see if it would aggravate my heel. I did .8 miles or 11 minutes, with rest stops to lower my pulse. My heel felt OK. So I am hopeful that I can use it, and will gradually build up my time and mileage. We'll see. I combined that with my regular exercise regimen that I do for balance, back, hips and knees, which I have been pretty faithful about. --------------------------------------------------------------- Yesterday I sent email to my two US Senators. I do a lot of editorial reading and watch MSNBC on cable TV, and I know that one of the big causes of our national budget deficit is the Bush tax cuts. I also know that they will expire at the end of this year. The President and some Dems want to restore all but the tax cut for the wealthy. The Repubs want to restore all of them. They carry on about "raising taxes" in a recession. I also know that it the tax cuts expire the rates return to what they were during the Clinton administration, where we eliminated the deficit. I asked my Senators to let them all expire. We pay based on our income. Middle class income has declined, so our tax burden does too. At the same time we want the social safety net that comes to our rescue when we fall on hard times. We want a continuation of Social Security and Medicare. We all benefit. We should all pay. I know this will be a big issue in the fall. What will happen? I don't know. We'll see. ------------------------------------------------------------ The Sounders play an Open Cup match tonight at the small StarFire arena. We did not try to get tickets until it was too late. It's sold out. I made a comment on Jake's Facebook post about not going to the match. As a result he has found tickets for us! Since we live only a few miles for the arena, he thought it was a crime if we weren't there. So we'll be there! We'll have fun. Will we win? I hope so. We'll see.