The first snow is always exciting, especially since it's a manageable amount,and it's light and fluffy. This mean that shoveling is good exercise but not back-breakingly so. Of course, I believe the temperature when my phone tells me that it's 18 degrees outside, but I know freezing rain is coming, so the temperature has to be rising slowly but surely.
I dress in all of my heavy gear: Snow pants, sweatshirt, scarf, hat, thick jacket, and big gloves. Within minutes, the coat is hanging off the fence, and, despite the fact that it is still snowing and starting to change over, I am shoveling with my sweatshirt as my heaviest layer. (Yes, I still have my pajamas on underneath it all. God help me if I slip and have an accident requiring an ER visit because I'm braless, wearing an old lacrosse t-shirt, and still in flannel pj bottoms.)I coerce the landlord's son to bring over the snowblower after I've gotten a little more than halfway through. Any help is good help at this point, and together we make quick work of the end of the driveway -- he running the machine and I making piles of snow by shoveling it all away from the fence line. Of course, both of us end up covered with snow when the chute fills the air with white crystals and they blow right back at us.
The shoveling and car cleaning only take about seventy minutes, which isn't bad considering several years ago when we got the record-breaking snow totals I was out every other day shoveling gargantuan amounts of snow for two to four hours. Back then I had biceps of steel from the work-outs. Today I know I'm working it because I have sweated right through all of my layers. Honestly, there's nothing quite like ice cold boob sweat.
Other than that, it's a lovely snowy day out. If you don't mind, though, I think I'll shower and get dressed now.
