I love you, snow

So we got like 10 inches of snow last night, and since Maryland has approximately 13 plows for the whole state, we had another snow day today. 

Life is good.

My day has involved a lot of this.

And even some of this.

 Report card comments - yuck.

 Look at that focus! I was so proud of myself at 9am I had three kids done already. Unfortunately its now 5pm and I'm only up to like 10. But I promised myself a dance battle break when I got to 12.

I told Eric to take a picture of me pretending to do my report cards, and he took his role as photographer very seriously and took about 10. On 6 or 7 I decided to actually work on some since I was sitting there and those are the ones you see.

The YMCA opened at 12 so I headed over a little after that to do my tempo run on the treadmill due to the major lack of plowing in this state. I immediately stepped into an ankle deep puddle of ice slush with both feet. I now know what it feels like to get into an ice bath, and that's been officially moved from "no way I'll ever do that" to "no way in HELL i'll ever do that" in my book.

I'm supposed to run a half marathon this weekend and if it gets canceled due to weather I'm punching the snow in the face. To prepare for the race, I shortened today's run from 7 miles to 5, but if we don't end up racing then that was totally pointless and I half assed it for nothing.

I actually felt really good and did three miles in 24:09, which is an average of 8:03 per mile, which is waaaay faster than my normal tempo runs. I got totally into my music and kept turning up the speed, all the way to 8 at the end. I also did a ten minute mile warm up and cool down, rode the bike with my book for about 15 minutes, and did a little hip strengthening (a very little).

Then it was time for some strength training, so I headed home to tackle digging out my car.
If you don't get this picture, you are clearly not from a snowy climate.

Of course, I have a wonderful husband who would gladly have done it for me, but I decided on a halter bridesmaid dress this morning for my BFF Nicole's wedding in May, so anything I can do that can get me from looking less like this

to more like this

 is welcomed. 

I heard on the today show that shoveling burns 400 calories an hour so I put out my heart rate monitor so I could figure out what I burned. In 25 minutes here's what I accomplished all by myself! And the car even officially left the spot!

 So I couldn't wait to see my calorie burn, but then I got the bad news. Turns out the HRM only works when you actually push the start button. FAIL.



This question + my answer will probably have the feminist police knocking at my door.

 Are you a do it yourself kind of gal, or do you let the men in your life (husband, BF, dad, brother, random hot guy, etc) do the heavy lifting jobs?

I'll admit, I'm a total wuss. I'll do the grocery shopping gladly but I always call Eric to bring them in from the car - we live on the third floor with no elevator and I eat a lot!