Meet my elephant.

This elephant, aka Nordictrack elliptical machine, has been living rent-free in my rec room since 2024.

Mr. NOA and I were in agreement back then that it was time to get serious about getting exercise. Improving our health and losing weight. The year was young, and we were feeling sassy. We had such good intentions.

I can count on one hand the number of times I climbed onto that elephant and used it. Mr. NOA as well.

So, it sits there, taking up space on my dance floor. Yes, I said “dance floor”. One of my aims in this new year is to, like in 2024, improve my health and lose a bit of weight via exercise. The exercise of choice for me, I have now determined beyond a shadow of a doubt, is dance.

But this elephant is in the way. I’m not using that as an excuse to not dance in my rec room for exercise, mind you. I’ve got space in the carpeted area down there to get my groove on.

Yet it’d be such fun to have more space to dance in the tiled section of my rec room where the elephant lives.

Maybe I’ll even hang a disco ball on the ceiling for extra funsies.

It’s going to take some effort to get rid of my elephant. I’ll likely have to put this picture of it on our local social media sites to see who might want to adopt it. I won’t even charge them, as long as they commit to removing it from my dance floor and hauling it away on their own.

Looking back, it was quite the effort that Mr. NOA and I made to obtain this damn elephant. We found it on our local Facebook Marketplace. It was available for $50, with the understanding that we pick it up and haul it off. So, one winter day back in 2024, Mr. NOA and I got in our Tacoma and drove 10 minutes away to pick up our new toy. Thankfully, the young man selling it to us was able and willing to help us get it into the way back in our truck. That thing is HEAVY. The wind was whipping that cold day, which caused the elephant to move about and create some alarming noises. When we got home, both of us (or perhaps just me?) were privately bemoaning this decision (now how were we going to get it into our house?). Mr. NOA determined the best course of action was to drive the Tacoma backwards, to get it as close as possible to the door of the rec room (it’s a walk-out basement, which I love). In the as careful-as-we-could-be maneuvering of this elephant out of our truck, we still managed to acquire a ding along the side of it.

We felt a sense of accomplishment along with relief once it was safe inside our rec room. It was ready to be used to transform the two of us into more physically fit versions of ourselves.

Yet, as I stated at the top of this post, the elephant ended up being mostly ignored. And we have no good excuse.

But now it’s a new year! I’m older and wiser, and therefore more thoughtful about how I can best meet my fitness goals. With or without the elephant in my rec room, I will dance (she says with a dramatic flourish).

I have started a playlist, after all, so the wheels are in motion. It features songs that have great beats to dance to, like this one from my youth in the ’80s.