Ouch Ouch Ouch

Well, y'all, as I said yesterday, the lake was so cold and cloudy that I didn't even think of doing any sunscreen.

My mistake, y'all.

Ow ow ouch

I have not spent a lot of time outside this year. I mean, I work all day during the prime sunning hours, and then on the weekends, I do all of my errands that need to be done, then soccer games at night, so there is again not a time to really spend out in the sun, collecting myself a tan. I spent one afternoon out in the sun, and I got a little bit of a burn, but then the next day it was practically gone, so I forgot about it.
This Saturday, I was at a pool birthday party, and I was psyched, and for many reasons. A: I got to wear my cutie new swimsuit (for the first time this year!) and B: that meant prime sun time! Woo hoo! We got to the pool to do some swimmin', and wouldn't you know it, the sun was being hid by clouds. I was ticked- come on! My first day to spend outside, and clouds are there too?! Shoot! So we just started swimming, and kept at it. After an hour or so, the sun finally came out, and the clouds were all gone. We swam, and ate, and swam (without waiting the customary 30 minutes before getting back into the pool-I'm surprised we didn't drown!) and spent all day outside. I felt about halfway through the day that I had gotten some sun, and I was psyched-maybe I'd finally get a tan! By the time we were cleaning up and wrapping things up, I was feeling stiff. I actually looked at my skin and it was looking red. I shrugged it off, but a few hours later, I was in pain and my skin looked like a lobster. Wearing clothes was pretty impossible, and I felt like I could barely move. Sleeping that night was a joke-I had to sleep on my back, with only my head on the pillow-if my shoulders got on there, it killed me.
I woke up this morning, and I am still red. But I'm so red and burned that it almost has like a purple tinge to it. It hurts. I know this is my own fault for not being as diligent with my sunscreen as I should have been, but oh man. I regret the sun time a little. Showering this morning was ridiculous, and wearing clothes is like torture. Luckily, my face doesn't hurt as bad as my shoulders/neck/chest do, but making facial expressions hurt. I am radiating heat. People that sat next to me today commented on that, and I just had to laugh, as I was fanning myself off with anything I could find around me.
I will be applying aloe religiously, and avoiding the outdoors and heavy fabrics until the pain stops. Hopefully the pain will go away soon, and I'll peel all the red away. I'll be smarter in the future and hopefully this will be the only time this summer that I have a burn like this. I'm here as a cautionary tale to those who already know better but have forgotten. Only YOU can prevent sunburns. Well, you and the sunscreen you choose.

This isn't my first time

I love firsts. They can be small, like the first snowfall of the season, or first day of soccer season, or they can be big, like the time I crossed the finish line in my first 5k. No matter what it is, it’s a great feeling. I have had another first in the last couple of days-my first sunburn of the season. It’s not a bad burn-that’ll come later, no doubt, but having one means I’m laying the groundwork. Soon, my arms and legs will no longer be as white as a sheet. I’ll look healthy, and a good color, instead of the sickly pale I look during the winter.

I got the burn doing a run. Because of my lazy weekend (see previous post) my Sunday was way slowed down. I decided to eat a big breakfast (ok, it wasn’t that big. It was like, a bowl of cereal, a banana, and a biscuit.) and wait for a run. Three hours later, I was thinking it could be time to run, because I was kind of sick of just lying around. It was 11:40 and I thought that maybe it was too hot to run, but I went anyways.

It was warm-but nothing bad. I didn’t really feel the heat of the sun or anything, I just felt the heat in general, but it wasn’t unbearable, until about 45 minutes into the run, then I just was hit with how hot and tired I was, so I decided to call it a day, and went back home. I noticed I was red, but I figured that was just from the run, and thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until later that night when I looked in the mirror that I saw that it was a burn. Nice and red my skin was-but only on my face, neck and shoulders, of course. Just where the tank top wasn’t. I’m glad I got some sun, and having this burn now will make it so that later it won’t be as bad (I hope.) And of course, I have a few good tan lines, one from where my watch was, and the other from where my MP3 player was. I’ll have to get rid of those at my first chance!