Every day,we see higher and higher gas prices. Less than 10 years ago I was in high school and a gallon of gas cost only 97 cents. It's almost 4 times that now, and who knows when it will slow down.

I am in a love-hate relationship-with the elliptical machine at the gym. For the first few weeks of my exercise plan, I would look dubiously across the room at the contraption thinking, "That doesn't look so tough." I was getting bored with just using the treadmill all of the time, so one day I decided to give the elliptical a try.

After a quick lesson from Lindsay, the gym manager, I began. It only took one minute for me to wonder what the heck I had gotten myself into. My thigh muscles began to scream, which I found surprising since I had been doing 30 minutes on the treadmill along with the weight machines for about 6 weeks. Wasn't I in better shape than this?