Saturday, July 31, 2010

Tadpoles

The month of July has been especially challenging for me: Twilight Camp happened, a frantic house-cleaning party happened, the air conditioning has been GONE,... yeah, tough month. So as you can guess, yesterday was a tense day as well. It wasn't a "bad" day, just a tense one. I had one of those days at work where every customer (ok not EVERY customer, but a large percentage) had a million questions to ask, and the majority of those were the same questions over and over, just asked in different words each time it got re-asked. (Yes,...by the same person most of the time.) And it was one of those days where the phone barely rang till after lunch and then it wouldn't STOP ringing. At least half the calls were from people who felt they truly needed to speak to Linda and Linda only and one of them was even appalled that I was the one working yesterday. I got some smack talk for that guy if he ever calls back! Then after work, I go to Kroger and pick up some supper stuff, and as I'm getting in line, a voice over the speaker system says if you are paying with a debit card, either find a different form of payment or leave your groceries and go home. (They didn't say it quite that way, but that's what they meant.) Wellllll.... Tommy has lost his wallet and we can't find it anywhere. So he has no cash and no bank card. I gave him all the cash I had and gave him the checkbook before I left for work. So a debit card was all I had! I wanted to cry at that point...and slowly started back down the aisles putting groceries back up. As I was on my fourth item, the voice came back over the speaker and says "if you want to try running your debit card as a credit, it might work." That was my only choice if I didn't want to go to the Hellmart....which I really really didn't. I got back in line with what was left in my cart and ran my card as a credit. It worked. I got home and temporarily collapsed in my chair.

That's when Morgan came running in the house with a jar of water with a lid on it. He tells me he has a tadpole collection. ???? Have you seen where I live? There is a pond at the lower portion of our property, and there is a lake behind us on the neighbor's property. Morgan would have had to go through the woods for that though. Certain times of the year and under certain conditions, we DO have a LOT of small frogs that come out at night and hop around our yard and driveway, and poor Possum (the dog) commonly has a frog or two commit suicide in his water bucket. Could that be how Morgan found tadpoles? Suddenly Tommy started yelling to take them out. So I called Morgan closer so I could see.....

These aren't actual pictures, but are a good representation of what he brought in..... and a picture of tadpoles at the bottom to compare with. What an ending to a stressful day!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Sunburned!


Last Monday, our scout crew took a canoe trip down a portion of the Tallapoosa River in Alabama. It was a great trip that I really enjoyed, but it had an end result that has been with me ever since: a sunburned chest. I was in the water, we stopped several times and I got INTO the water, so I didn't think there was anything wrong with me wearing a modest swimsuit. I did think to take sunscreen, but was distracted while packing the car and forgot to grab it. We had a bottle of sunTAN lotion in the car already, and it had an spf 5, beats nothing right? I slathered it on a couple times,... but spf 5 is not much different than spf-nothing. After the 14 mile canoe trip, my chest was fried.

Then Saturday was Mesa's 18th birthday and she wanted to go to Tanners Beach, a local state park with a lake. So we packed the spf 30 this time and went to the beach for a birthday swim. I REALLY slathered on the sunscreen this time and coated the kids with it too. Anywhere there was sunscreen,...there is burn. That's just wrong!

So my chest, which already peeled last week, is now flaking and still red and raw. My back is peeling now too. My face hasn't peeled yet, but around my forehead I suspect it will. I went from pasty white to quite dark in just hours. I would take pictures to show you,...but nobody REALLY wants to see my chest,...do they? It ain't purty!

Want to find out what I did to care for my sunburn? Click here to read more.