Annual stupidity

It's that wonderful time of year again.... warm weather, breezes, green grass, flowers, bright sun.... and sunburn. Every year I live in perpetual trepidation, anticipating this traumatic injury in every lovely sunny day. And then I get so used to the anxiety that I just forget about it, and that's when the problems begin.

I held on to my fear of sunshine for a commendable amount of time this year. And then one day, our neighbors called and asked to borrow our lawn mower and it became necessary for our grass to be cut as soon as possible so that our mower would be available for our neighbors. So I foolishly decided to cut all of our almost 3 acres of grass.... between the hours of 11am and 2pm. It was a lovely day, not too hot, with a cool breeze and I'd been wanting to attempt whatever pathetic sort of tan a red head can possibly get. I even decided to wear a sleeveless t-shirt since I've gotten slightly sunburned already this year in a farmer's tan pattern.

By the time I got inside, my shoulders were already a frightening shade of pink. And they got worse. By about 5 o'clock that afternoon, every single little movement caused my baked skin to burst into fiery tingles. I couldn't even lift my arms to put my hair in a ponytail.. and my hair brushing against my arm made my skin sting.

You would think that I would have learned my lesson after one such occurrence, but the sad truth is that this happens every single year. Sometimes more than once. It's pretty ridiculous for me to think after nearly 17 years of having the same skin that it will suddenly be able to just sit out in the sun for 3 hours in the middle of the day without frying into a crisp. But every year, that's what I think. "Oh, it'll be fine this time. Maybe I'll just get a little burned." *sigh*

Ever as stupid, but now mostly recovered,

~Lizzie