I have been through cardio rehab twice with my husband and you wouldn't believe how little exercise you need for your heart. They recommended he walk a mile or 1 1/2 mile in 20 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. That is not even running. A new study just came out in our local paper and and it said a walker gets more benefit from walking than runners get. It seems if you do heavy exercise on a schedule you body finds a way to protect itself and you don't get the benefits you think you are. I am assuming it is like going on a strict diet. Your body goes into a starvation mode and doesn't burn the calories you normally would.

People cannot just "walk away" from their mortgages. People with mortgages signed contracts stating that, if they did not make the payments, they would lose their house to the lender. They also ding their own credit rating big-time for 3-7 years, depending on whether the property went to short sale or foreclosure, and some states will tax as income the difference between what is owed and what the property is sold for. There's no painless exit. There is, however, a growing number of people who bought late into the bubble or refinanced to repair/improve their houses or to pay medical or education bills (not to buy fancy cars or boats or vacations) who have done the math and realized that they will never have a serious chance at making up the difference -- not without putting their retirement savings or their ability to cover other future expenses at serious risk. This is true especially when retirement or disability or other continuing costs shorten the horizon. And sometimes staying put is not an option. So people are exercising the provisions of their contracts and giving their houses back to the lenders. This economic disaster was not of their creation -- they were good borrowers to start with but now have an asset that no business would continue to pay for and they will have other (big) bills to pay. So here are the keys. It still will hurt. And finally -- take it from someone who has purchased two foreclosures and is looking at a third -- most mortgage lenders (even the small ones) don't seem to know their backsides from their elbows. Mortgage lenders in the U.S. are a convoluted mess of too many people who touch the paper and none of them seem to work with each other. I strongly suspect there are corporate-tax reasons to let a property go to foreclosure -- more of a write-off or something -- because there certainly does not seem to be any drive on lenders' parts to get what money they can. There are a number of lenders who won't even talk to you unless you're behind on your payments. It's frustrating, on both ends.

Jennifer, Thanks for the seed report on SESE. About 6 or 8 weeks ago I saw the handwriting on the wall with the coming pandemic and ordered my seeds for both the 2020 and 2021 garden from them. I'm glad I did. And, see there, I am being optimistic and believing I'll survive the pandemic or I wouldn't have ordered seeds for next year. I'm glad you're seeing signs that people are being proactive, and I hate that churches may not be able to have their usual Easter-related services and activities. We have to remember that a pandemic is such an incredibly danger public health risk and daily life, as we know it, is changing a lot. I know that people are not used to quarantining, and I'd rather be out and about than stuck at home all the time, but I truly feel the time to stop going out as much as possible and to stay home as much as possible is now. The new cases in Texas are exploding now, and many of them are community-acquired, meaning that the patient had no known contact with anyone else who has been diagnosed with the disease, did not travel anywhere outside the local area and, thus, obviously became infected from someone in their local community. I expected the numbers to move pretty fast in TX once I saw the initial reports, but they're increasing probably a little more quickly than I was thinking they would. At least we are not in the same condition here yet as a few other states like Washington, California, New York, New Jersey, Florida and Louisiana. Texas was ahead of OK by only a couple of weeks in terms of COVID-19 cases spreading, so we still have a chance to react quickly here and maybe have it not get as widespread as quickly. I am not going to violate anybody's privacy here, but want to say that our family knows some people who are ill, have been tested and are awaiting their test results. It is shocking when you hear news like that, and that is especially true when it is people just like you who have been pretty careful, only going to work and back home again, and just grocery shopping or buying gasoline as needed---no travel, no going to the mall or the gym back when those still were open, no obvious crossing paths with infected people as far as they knew, etc. I think for most people in north central TX near us, the time to stay home and stay away from people probably was about 2 weeks ago, and now that they have community spread, it is almost too late. Their governor is issuing new directives and restrictions almost daily, so maybe they can halt the virus' spread. In OK, if we all start being as proactive as possible now, maybe most of us can avoid the virus as it makes its first official round through our state. OK hasn't had too many cases yet, but I've noticed that as soon as one case pops up in any given county, a second or third one is not far behind. We need to change our mindset now, if we haven't already, to avoid becoming one of those cases. I just hate this, but at least we all can retreat to our gardens and keep ourselves busy at home. I just want to add that Tim and I have one set of rules to keep track of on the south side of the river and another on the north and it is confusing. We'll want to go somewhere, so we'll say to one another "is it safe?" and then we have to figure out if that sort of place is open on the Texas side or the Oklahoma side, or both, or neither. It wears out my brain to the point that I think it is just easier to stay home. I am very concerned about small businesses all across the nation. Here in our county, one guy made a list that since has been forwarded around via various apps and FB, telling us which small businesses are still open, what their operating hours are now, whether you can call ahead and order what you need, etc. We need to remember to patronize our local, small businesses so we don't lose them from our community for good. Nancy, I am angry about all the coverups too. I have been tracking this beast since mid-January and was just beside myself with frustration from early February onward because I thought that was our nation's best chance to stop it in its tracks, and there stood all the politicians implying or even stating it was basically the flu, which it is not, and that it would go away as the weather warmed up, which also is false. The only thing I knew for sure at that point was that the government wasn't going to act in time to protect us, so we had to do everything possible to protect ourselves. I think Tim and Chris thought at first that maybe I was a little too obsessed with it, but then they got on board pretty soon thereafter as they watched it spreading across the world. One of the things I thought was heartbreaking was when Jana told me that she and Chris were going to go ahead and take the girls to the Texas Gulf Coast last week so they could make memories that the girls would have to hang on to "in case anything happened". That told me that Chris and Jana both clearly understand the front-line risks they face in their careers and know that tomorrow or next month or next year is not guaranteed for any of us. How I wish their vacation could have been just a normal vacation with the kids, not marred by fears of what comes next in this pandemic. Both of them expect to be exposed and quarantined, a concern heightened by the lack of proper PPE to keep them safe. No entity---no city, state, county, hospital, fire department, police department, nursing home, etc. has enough PPE stockpiled to deal with this crisis. Since most of it is made in China, and China has been shut down production-wise since early January, there's no quick relief in sight either. I fear for all our first responders and medical personnel. Jen, I agree that modern-day technology offers us options not available in previous times of crisis. I'm glad you're finding a way to make it work for you. Larry, I totally understand how you feel. Tim and I said we wouldn't go out and about when the virus started getting close to home, and then he took a week of vacation and we went somewhere pretty much every day, even knowing we might be exposing ourselves to infection. Sometimes being bad is fun, and I'm glad we were able to eat at a couple of our favorite restaurants in Texas before the governor shut them down at mid-week last week. We do carry wipes with us everywhere, and have hand sanitizer in our vehicle and I carry a mini-bottle of hand sanitizer in my purse. I hope we've done enough to stay safe. We didn't hear a single cough anywhere for days, and then noticed a lot more coughing in public yesterday, so I take that as a warning sign. After a quick trip to the feed store and to Lowe's today, we are officially staying home. Well, except Tim has to go to work each day and that is just unavoidable, but I'll be cleaning and disinfecting everything he touches when he comes in from work. I suppose he won't let me stand at the back door and spray him down with Lysol before he enters the house, will he? I think Tim should pack a suitcase to carry in the car just like he does before a forecasted snowstorm and should be prepared to hunker down and stay in Texas if anyone issues a stop-movement type edict while he is a work, particularly if such an edict prohibits crossing state lines. I don't know if such an edict is coming on either a statewide or national level, but if it is, he'd be in better shape if he has a suitcase full of clothing,medication and toiletries. Remember the good old days when all we had to worry about with the garden was just weather and pests? Dawn

My husband started going to twice weekly Pilates (group) classes in 2016. In 2017 he bought the Reformer that I referenced above. In 2019 he dropped one of the group classes and instead was going to a weekly private lesson in addition to the one weekly group class. In 2020 when things shut down because of Covid, he was able to continue with Pilates on a regular basis on our machine. In March 2022, Hubs started the weekly private lessons again. There are a lot of great exercises that you can do on the Reformer. We also have the following add-ons for the Reformer - The tower The jump board Rotating discs