Working out vs. working hard

I have many memories of my mission.  One that's been on my mind an extra lot lately, however, is a seemingly unimportant conversation I had with one of the senior sisters.  She and her husband had all the missionaries over for a dinner one evening, and while we were there, she showed us a picture of her 21-year-old grandson.  This was a candid shot of her grandson rope swinging into a pond somewhere in rural Idaho.  Because he was swimming, he wore nothing but swim trunks, giving my companion and I a good look at probably one of the most in shape and muscular people I've ever seen . . . and I'm including all of the gym rats in every season of the Bachelorette.
I remember being slightly amused at the sister's blatant matchmaking attempt, but I will never forget one comment she made.
"He looks like he works out a ton, but he actually doesn't exercise or lift weights.  He's an Idaho farm boy, and instead of working out, he works hard."
Fast forward 5 years of marriage and 3 years later, and I am juggling finding the time to work out.  It's January, after all, and I, like so many Americans, have the goal to eat healthier and exercise.  I even bought the latest and greatest workout DVD, T-25, which I love.  However, the daily exercise routine is only 25 minutes long, and it's still a challenge for me to get a good workout!  With a 3-year-old, 2-year-old, and 2 month old baby, I barely have ten minutes, much less 25-50 minutes I wish I had.
Today I didn't get to do my full workout, because instead of using my very limited free time I have when both Claire and Logan are asleep and Mckay is watching a movie to exercise, I decided to shovel our driveway.  Feeling somewhat cranky and over-burdened, I went outside and began the laborious task of ridding our long driveway of the six inches of powder and ice that has accumulated over the past few days and was starting to cramp our style.  It didn't help that my next door neighbor decided to shovel her walkway at the exact same time with her nice snowblower, effectively doing the work twice as well and in half the time.
As I slowly lifted one shovelful of snow after another, the muscles in my back arms, and legs began to get really, really tired.  I found that I no longer needed my coat, and that 30 degrees was feeling a little too warm for me.  Little by little, I found my cranky mood lifting, and I began thinking things like, "Well, at least I'm getting a really good upper body workout today!"  I started adding up other things I do that sometimes substitute as a workout, like lugging heavy loads of laundry up three flights of stairs, chasing kids, holding Claire, scrubbing the bathroom, cleaning the kitchen, mopping the floor, hauling groceries from the car into the kitchen, the list could go on and on!  No wonder I'm tired every night, I thought to myself, wiping a sweaty piece of hair from my "glistening" forehead.
I may not get to "work out" every day for as much as time as I'd like to, but maybe, just maybe, I'll lose my baby weight and Christmas weight this year the good old fashioned way, the way people used to do it before the treadmill, the gym, and the cute workout clothes I love.  Maybe this year I'll just have to do it by working hard.