Snow Day

The entire Roeseler family was home today due to Snowmageddon 2014, but unfortunately it was too cold to actually do any fun snow day activities.  Unless you count shoveling snow as a fun snow day activity, and I don't. Although, I guess I got a workout in today.  Shoveling for 90 minutes has to burn a couple hundred calories, right??  Matt and I tackled the driveway and front stairs and we are now able to get both of our cars out if we need to.  I love our driveway for about 10 months out of the year, because we have ample parking for shenanigans at our house.  It is a bear, though, when it snows and needs to be shoveled.  Our typical m.o. is to shovel two tire tracks down the length of the driveway so we can get out, but the amount of snow we got over the weekend necessitated a larger area of removal.  Some of the driveway had virtually no snow, which was great, because it meant we had less to shovel.  Other areas had drifts that were easily 2 - 2 1/2 feet deep.  While I was shoveling a path up our front stairs for the mail carrier, the snow came up to my thighs in places.  The wind was crazy last night, which I'm sure explains all the horrendous snow drifts.  We tackled the driveway in spurts, though, because it was so freaking cold.  We waited until it warmed up to a balmy 2 degrees before we headed out, but the windchill was still well below zero.  It was nice to see the temps above zero, albeit briefly, because the high was only supposed to be -1 today.  It was nice to warm up with some delicious hot tea and a warm shower after shoveling.  I am incredibly grateful for our roof over our heads, heat, and warm, cozy blankets!

We left a giant mound of snow in the corner of our driveway.  We were exhausted and hey, we can at least get our cars out.  That snow pile may be there until May though, it's nearly taller than my oldest son. 

The snow here near the base of the stairs came up to my thighs.  Oy!

I was really nervous about posting my starting and current weights yesterday; enough so, that I thought about deleting that information from my post several times.  Honestly, though, I knew at some point that I would post the numbers to show how far I've come and I figured yesterday was as good a time as any.  I really appreciate a comment that I got from Jessica (http://littlemoreeachday.wordpress.com/) about how sharing my progress might help someone else and I hadn't thought of that.  As she mentioned, it can be really frustrating at times trying to find others who have a similar story to yours or who have similar goals.  I remember finding great blogs when I first started out, but it seemed to me that no one else was at the same starting weight or had as much weight to lose as I did.  It makes you wonder if what you are trying to do is even a possibility.

It wasn't until I found Katie at http://www.runsforcookies.com/ that I thought "There is someone like me.  If she can do it, so can I."  I, of course, have found other great blogs and I know that what I set out to do is possible, but it helped finding Katie's blog and reading about her success, determination, will power, and even at times, her set backs and frustrations.  I started this blog for two main reasons:  1) to hold myself accountable and 2) to help others and if posting my starting weight and current weight, embarrassing as it might have been, reaches out to someone and gives them hope that they can reach their goals, too, then it was absolutely worth it.

It looks like we will be at home again tomorrow as the wind chill advisory isn't set to expire until around noon.  Maybe then it will be warm enough for snowmen building and sledding?  We will see, I guess!

I love the quote below, since I definitely need to find my determination somewhere and put it to good use!

"You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction."