Random Thoughts On A Wednesday

The boy enjoying one of the slides at the pool.  Grainy photo courtesy of my phone.
© shoutingforha

We are officially one week into summer vacation and all my dreams of doing absolutely nothing are coming true.  The boy and I are filling our non-scheduled days with bike rides, trips to the pool and play dates with friends.  It's a wonderful way to live. 

As you might have noticed, I have tried to apply this do nothing attitude to the old blog.  I will do my best to maintain my regular posting throughout the summer while not boring you to tears.  Wish me luck.

Since I can't seem to pull together a coherent blog post, I am sharing this list to get summer vacation started in style.  Try no to fall asleep.

1.  The fellows and I had a lovely Memorial Day weekend.  It was wonderful to just be together after all of the end-of-school-year madness and a few busy weeks at work for the hubby.  This weekend also marks my first attempt at smoking a beef brisket and pork shoulder (pictures and recipe coming tomorrow).  We now have enough meat to satisfy a Zombie army should one decide to attack.

2.  It's already way too hot here in Tennessee.  Temperatures for the past week have been in the mid to upper 90's.  When you factor in the humidity, it feels more like we live on the home planet of Mercury rather than earth.  By late July, I'm convinced my body will spontaneously burst into flames the minute I step outside.  It's not going to be pretty.

Just think, you get to look forward to three full months of me complaining about the heat.  If that doesn't make you want to visit this piece of internet real estate, I don't know what will.

3.  My car had to be towed to the shop.  It wouldn't start due to the death of the fuel pump, fuel relay switch or some other expensive part I've never heard of.  Thankfully, we have a great mechanic who will get the white whale running in short order. 

4.  To my boy's delight, the pool officially opened yesterday.  For months, he has been dreaming about racing down one of the four slides and splashing in the cool water.  I can't think of a better way to spend the summer.

After a momentary freak-out when he realized that we would be unable to drive in our air conditioned vehicle to said pool, we decided to ride our bikes.  If you had any preconceived notions about my sanity, you can go on ahead and throw them out the window now.  I loaded our bag in my handy-dandy basket and we pedaled the short 1.5 miles to the pool.  

The ride to the pool wasn't too bad since we had the whole swimming thing to look forward to.  The journey home was another, more hellish story since we were already hot and tired from our pool escapades.  

5. My boy has his very first sunburn.  As you longtime readers know, my red-haired boy has skin that is as white as a sheet of paper.  Needless to say, the burn was an unwelcome milestone here at the Ha house as I have always been extremely vigilant when it comes to protecting his skin. 

In addition to a full-body slathering of SPF 50+ sunscreen, the boy is required to wear a UV shirt.  It keeps his back, chest and shoulders protected without me having to reapply sunblock every thirty minutes.

The only other item in my sun block arsenal is the Coppertone Kids Sunscreen Stick.  The boy hates the stick and likens it to having a glue stick rubbed across his face.  I ignore his complaints and continue to coat his nose, cheeks, ears, back of the neck and under eye areas with the total eclipse goo.

The problem occurred when the boy repeatedly took his goggles on and off over the course of a four hour period (goggles are forbidden on the slides).  The constant friction tends to remove the sunblock from around his eyes.  As children will sometimes do, the boy chose to ignore my pleas to reapply the dreaded stick before zipping down the slide a million times in a row.  

By the time we got home, the area under the boy's eyes was pink and quite tender.  I will admit that I was shocked by how much my boy was complaining about his sunburn.  I watched him have a 1-inch pin yanked out of his finger without so much as a whimper, and foolishly assumed he would be unfazed by a little sunburn. Thankfully, I had a plentiful supply of Aloe Vera gel on hand.  

There is a silver lining to this uninteresting tale.  Not only has the sunburn completely faded, but the boy has a new-found love for his sunscreen stick.  With any luck, he will be burn-free for the remainder of the summer. 

Check back tomorrow for my smoked brisket and pork shoulder recipe.