Scandinavian Skin

It officially felt like Summer today…the exact kind of day that you think of when you are stuck inside on a below zero day in the middle of January, yearning for the sun and warmth of Summer…the "blazingly hot, sun directly overhead in the sky, sunburn in 15 minutes, muggy" sort of day.

Sure we’ve had other nice & somewhat hot days already…but this was the first one in particular that truly screamed out “Hello, I’m here! My name is Summer!”

I decided to take advantage of this fact today for about an hour (as we up here in the North must relish these days, even if we very soon get sick & tired of “muggy” weather accompanied by ferocious mosquitos). This was my first time out this season...to intentionally try and put some color on my pale Scandinavian skin. (Or “Scandihoovian” as I vividly recall my 7th grade teacher jokingly referring to me by, as well as a few of my other classmates with last names ending in “-son”.)

The older I get, the more careful I am in protecting my skin. But as I pushed all warnings about wrinkles and skin cancer to the back of my mind, I savored the feeling of the sun on my skin and continued on reading the monumentally long “Hawaii”. I’m on page 515 now. Now I can finally say I’m over halfway finished with it. There are only 905 pages you know, each covered in the teensy-tiniest print you have ever, ever seen. Not to mention the 7 ½ pages containing genealogical charts for just the “Principal Characters”.

Soon after coming in from my sunning, I quickly slathered on some of my favorite anti-aging moisturizer, to start immediately reversing the effects of my little sun indulgence. That should help, right? By the looks of it though, I’m thinking my Scandinavian skin got a little more than it bargained for. Hopefully I won’t be too lobster-like come morning.

I had to refresh my insides too with a delicious smoothie…I use 1 banana, a handful of frozen strawberries (& some fresh too because I had them), a dab of honey (or lately I’ve been using a dab of my homemade strawberry jam instead), a splash of juice (OJ typically), and a cup of vanilla yogurt (this is my personal favorite kind). I add any other berries too when I have them on hand...blueberries are especially yum. Then blend together & hope for many "smoothie smooth" summer days ahead!
P.S. I was out “deadheading” my flowers…a basic gardening tip Mum taught me early on. And for some reason I love to deadhead…sort of like getting rid of the old and making room for the new, to allow the energy to be diverted to the new growth. Somewhat a metaphor for life at times, no? But anywho, my pansies are growing like crazy and so I picked some to put in this old little squirrel planter (that belonged to my Grandma). I’ve had it for quite awhile now and haven’t figured out what to put in it yet, but for today I thought it would make a nice little flower holder of sorts.