Cardio Considered as 36 Cubic Feet of Snow to Shovel

Frustrated call from spouse yesterday afternoon: “The township plowed over the driveway. It’s two feet high. I can’t get into the driveway.”

She sent me a picture, and the drift of hard, chunky snow started four feet out into the street, peaked above knee height, and tapered off a good distance into the driveway. She called youngest daughter out of the house, so she could take her to volleyball practice. They shoveled as much as possible of one half so I could pull into the driveway when I got home before they left. “I pushed most of it into the street. Let someone drive over it.”

She returned by the time I came home, and made it into the driveway and garage. I parked in the street and did my best over the next hour to knock down the pile. Didn’t seem like an hour. Not sure whether it felt longer or shorter, though; my focus was on finishing, showering, and getting to Pioneer for the booster meeting. Shower worked its typical magic, letting the muse figure out how to progress with the short story and novel work at month’s end. After the meeting, the evening went to reading Shakespeare with youngest daughter, answering questions about the validity of Romeo’s motivations, and helping her study natural selection among the peppered moth population in England during the Industrial Revolution.

Phones are down this morning, I’m heading back to the gym after work this afternoon for a weight-run session, and then I’ve got a call to make to my mother to wish her a happy birthday. She’s 79 tomorrow. I’ll knock out a couple of pages on the short story while spouse and I watch The Biggest Loser and Parenthood if I’m lucky. I’ve Wednesday off, so I’ll get my gym work completed early and knock out a few more pages before the family comes home from school and work.

Workouts aren’t dropping the pounds as quickly as I’d like, but I know that’s due to the cardio. Stairs aren’t as daunting post-workout, either at the gym or at home. Two goals between now and the end of June: pounds and pages.

I don’t have a firm number for the former, but I want to record four pages a day for the latter. Barring vacations and weekend volleyball tournaments in Grand Rapids and (hopefully) Chicago, I can either get the short finished and rewritten, and a good first draft on Sacrifices or rewrite on Only The Dead. And possibly join eldest daughter at the 5k in Kalamazoo in the spring. She wants to run it with her friend, and perhaps get youngest daughter to participate as well. Youngest daughter did the equivalent of one yesterday, walking the Pit under Pioneer for an hour.