Less Than 2 Hour Trainer Ride and More Than 2 Hours Shoveling Snow

Sunday night, Pharmie and I hit the trainers and put in a movie. The problem was that our craptastic basement TV was NOT loud enough to hear the dialog. Funny, it's always PLENTY loud when Coach Troy is yelling at us.... "3.. 2.. and OONNEEE... small chain-ring, easy spinning."

So I grabbed a drop-cloth, our bikes, our trainers, and the movie, and moved everything upstairs in front of our "good" TV. Here was our temporary movie-watching set-up with my cat Kermit licking herself in the corner:

Here I am all sweaty (and crazy-eyed) after about 100 minutes of spinning:

Where's my cute, pregnant wife you ask? She was already in the kitchen. No, that's not a "a woman's place is in the kitchen" joke. It was a "a pregnant woman is always hungry" joke. Only that's no joke. It's the truth.

And then yesterday, I got in some GREAT cross training. We got over a foot of snow during the day, and I spent a total of 2 and a half hours shoveling and blowing snow! These following 9 photos are for my southern friends.

Pharmie's tracks through and over a 3 foot drift in the backyard.


Dear winter: "pphhphphffft."


Covered in snow exactly 11 minutes after starting.


Snowblower and the snow (to the right) nearly as tall as it.


Done blowing snow, with hat COATED in ice.

Whenever I get out the snowblower and have some extra time, I help out all the neighbors. Once I had put the snowblower away and was shoveling, one of my neighbors stopped by with a bottle of wine as a "THANKS" for always taking care of their sidewalk! How sweet!!

She said her hubby was just thinking about going out to shovel when he stood up and said "YYEESSS! Here comes Steve and his snowblower!"

Once I got in the house, I laid my gloves, pants, and cat by the fire to dry out:

We got another 2-3 inches later in the day, so my nicely cleared path now had some powder on it:

After nearly another hour, the driveway and yard were cleared again. Look at the pile of snow in our backyard - it's 8 feet higher than our driveway, and I'm running out of places to throw snow!!!

Dear Mother Nature: stop it. Just stop it. I hate you.

p.s. If you haven't entered the Element Bars giveaway, make sure to scroll down to yesterday's post and leave a comment to be entered. Happy winter!