Taking Liberties

My job as a stay at home mom basically means I am self employed.  I am own boss.  I set my own hours.  Sort of.  Anyway, this is the first school year that I have been able to keep up with Jazzercise.  I can go when Wink is in preschool and on Fridays when she's not in preschool it hasn't broken the bank to take her to child care at the rec center.  Not only that, but I've added in workouts on the off days with this recumbent bike.

As much as I enjoy working out, there are some mornings when for one reason or another I just don't wanna.  I try to turn off my brain on those mornings and just let my body go on autopilot.  Because I definitely don't want to have to make the decision every morning about whether I'm going to go do this thing or not.  So I just don't think about it and keep up with my routine.  Just keep on keepin' on.

But on Monday, I was out shoveling snow.  A LOT of snow.  At first I was just going to shovel the driveway behind the van so that when the Hubba and kids were ready to leave, htey could just leave.  But before I shoveled, I got the snow off the van and scraped the windows.  Then I shoveled the walkway to even get to the van.  Then I shoveled a pathway around the van so you could get to the doors.  And finally I shovelled behind the van.  I remembered that I would be leaving soon for jazzercise so while I was out there I might as well dig out the car I'd be taking, too.  While I was doing this, a middle schooler was walking to school early and I saw her footprints on the snow above the sidewalk and knew that those prints were now ice.  I thought about all the middle school and elementary school students that were about to trample that snow into ice and I knew I had to clear the sidewalks, too.

By the time I was done I was sweating like a pig.  I stunk to high heaven and my arms and shoulder were killing me.  (They are still sore today, two days later.)  When I came inside, Kelvinator said, "Did you just work out?"  Yes.  Yes, I did.  In fact, I got such a a work-out that I decided I was actually not going to jazzercise.  At all.  I stayed home.

And it was actually really nice because Wink was still at school and so I had the full 2:15 minutes to myself rather than just the 30 minutes I get after I return from jazzercise and shower.

Yesterday was supposed to be a bike day.  But there was so much to do around the house that I just got started right away.  If I really wanted to, I could go back and pick up my bike work out later.  But I didn't.  I was busy all day.  But I'm caught up on laundry and even got the bedding changed on 3 out of 5 beds that I'm responsible for.  I never did the work out.

It snowed a lot more yesterday.  And unlike Monday I was not out there digging us all out in the wee hours of the morning.  So the cars came and went on the driveway, turning that snow into ice.  The kids trampled the snow on the sidewalks.  Ice.  In teh afternoon, I tried to shovel as much as I could.  I got down to mostly driveway.  But the sidewalks are toast.  Still, I did the best I could, hoping that if the sun came out at all, it might be able to melt what was left.

This morning, though, it's still snowing.  If there's sun up in the sky, I couldn't tell you where.  I would have to dig out the car for sure and then just make more ice on the driveway.  So I'm taking the luxury of saying enough is enough and I have the privilege of having a job where I can choose to go in or work from home.  I'm working from home again.  I don't want to shovel snow, I don't want to de-ice the car.  I don't want to drive in the wretched streets.  This is one of the perks of being a stay at home mom.  And today, I'm taking a perk.

I will take Winkleberry to school in about 30 minutes.  And then I may or may not work out on the bike.  I may or may not grab a cup of hot chocolate.  I may or may not start cleaning.  But one thing is certain.  I am NOT planning on driving until late this afternoon.