Fatty and the beast

In my perpetual attempts to free the skinny me, that is hiding out inside me I am always trying to find ways to work into my daily routine more calorie burning. I even go as far as wear a pedometer, to track my progress daily. Have I mentioned I am a Virgo? yeah, so that should explain a lot. I like to track progress, to work on a goal to see visible results. Which is also why I love a treadmill! So rewind to last Friday, a week ago. Its very  hard to get my husband home so that I can get out and hit a Zumba class so last week I asked him what his plans were for the rest of the night when he surprised me by being home around 5:30pm!  He told me he wanted to mow the lawn, which means that there would be no leaving the kids with him so I could get out.  Then i said, well why don't I mow the lawn?

Yes, you heard right, I was offering to mow the lawn.  I actually really enjoy it.  Its one of the chores that you can do and be in your own world, because you can't hear anything else that is going on!  Dogs could be barking, children could be fighting or screaming, and there you are just pushing this thing along a nice row of grass.  (again, those Virgo tendencies!) Its also one of the chores that no one but mother nature can mess up after you are done. The thing is that I haven't mowed the lawn since Mr. Mr. was born.  The entire summer before he was born, while I was pregnant, I happily mowed the lawn.  It was great exercise and I had the time.  But since he and Poo have been born, I can't seem to do much without having someone attached to my hip.  The other side of this is that we have a HUGE mower.  Hence, the beast!

My husband purchased this 60 in mower with all intentions of him using it, little did he know that he married a girl who loves a challenge. (okay, yeah he probably did!)

At first I was very intimidated by this thing.  It self propells and the way it steers is by breaking either left or right to make it turn. In order to get the blade on, and get it in gear you have to hold on to both brakes , which are located on the handle grip, and use your knee to put it in gear.  It has 5 of them, but I only work myself up to 2.  At our old house, the lawn was pretty straight forward with the exception of the big rocks that lined the yard.  Needless to say, I was determined to master this thing.  I figured, I can drive a motorcycle, I should be able to drive a mower.

The first couple of times, I would get it so close to the rock that it would run part of it over and sparks would fly and loud grinding noises could be heard.  I think I made him replace the blades twice that summer.  The final episode was when i got it stuck in the ditch in the front yard.  I just wasn't strong enough to pull it out and get it on level ground so that the wheels would catch.  I thought about taking one of the fords out and pull it out, but with my luck I would get it  stuck worse or break something.  As luck would have it my father in law stopped by and gave me a hand, and my husband was unaware... well except for the ruts in the lawn!

At our current house, the lawn is a little bit more tricky.  There are low branches on the apple trees that you must limbo under, there are stumps sticking out and the back yard is one big hill.  I did pretty good on the front, just kept it in 1st gear while doing the limbo, but the back yard was another story!  I quickly learned that the heavy mower would pull me down the hill faster than 5th gear would allow it to go!  I must have been a sight, running behind this thing then trying to jerk on the breaks to slow it down and swing back around.  

I would have fired me, the job looked that bad!  Not even weed whacking would help!  Oh well, I did get in a good work out, the lawn got mowed and my hubby got to spend some quality time with the kiddos.  As for how many steps I walked?  Well, somewhere between the limbo and the downhill obstacle course, I lost the pedometer.   Guess that's a sign!