Shoveling Out

OK, I really am still here. Last week was pretty tough, as we received word late Monday night from fellow missionaries that a man from their church had been involved in a serious car accident close to us. "Close" is a very relative term in Russia, as the accident happened about 3 hours from us. We got a call during the night that the wrecker was towing the car our way and we had to figure out where and how to help. So I had to get up in the middle of the night to get a room ready for a guest (hence losing my sleep points for that night.) Then we had this man at our house for a few days while we were trying to help him deal with the wrecked car. I wasn't able to exercise, and even though I was drinking my water, I still was ending up with no positive points.

My daughter celebrated her birthday this weekend, and since I don't make desserts anymore, except on special occasions, I decided to eat some of her cake, even though I knew I would lose points. I haven't been eating sweets for months, but since homemade chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake is my favorite, and I only make it once a year, I ate it anyway.

Even though I've been trying, I have only gotten 7 hours of sleep a few times. I have fibromyalgia, and one of the things that goes along with it is difficulty sleeping. I usually go to sleep fine, but then I wake up usually with about 6 1/2 or 6 hours 45 minues of sleep, and I just cannot go back to sleep no matter how hard I try. So I've been actually seeing a few days with negative points. SIGH

Well, the Lord knew I needed something to help boost my points back up, so He sent us a blizzard. It started on Monday morning. My husband went to help a friend paint, and he said not to worry about the snow, it probably wouldn't amount to much and would melt soon. Well, by lunch time we had over 12 inches already, so after lunch I got to work. The kids helped me too, and we shoveled most of the afternoon. Our road drifted shut, so Steve had to stay overnight with friends. It continued to snow and blow all during the night on Monday, and when I got up Tuesday morning, we had another 6-8 inches of snow. I shoveled almost 4 hours on Tuesday, and thankfully enough off the driveway that Steve was able to pull in when he finally got home late last night.

I can testify that snow shoveling is a great aerobic workout. This snow was especially heavy and wet, so each shovel was quite heavy. I'm really feeling it today. My arms and shoulders are so sore. I'm hoping to tackle the rest of a 2 1/2 foot drift on our driveway after lunch today.

Here are a few pictures of our snowy white world here in Russia.

Tami