Sunburned the Brains Right Out of My Skull

So the big news in the Summers household this week is the new pool.  We all discussed it and decided that not only would a pool be great for the baby (so I can teach him to swim) but also for me.  My back limits a lot of exercise, but if I just walk in chest-high water, I'm getting five times the benefit as if I was walking on the road.

And never breaking a sweat.  That's important to a lady.

*Yeah, I just said that. Now shut it with the laughing.*

At any rate, so the pool is in and we filled it up earlier the week, braving the ICE COLD water just because...well, hell-we have a POOL.  We've spent the time since then (now that the solar cover is warming the water up) lounging in and around the pool, taunting our unfortunate neighbors with the glorious blue jewel glistening in the back yard by splashing, squealing and playing with water toys as much as possible.  My daughter, her daughter and I all now have glorious sunburns--the kind that gives you color without hurting too badly.

Except on our legs. WTF is up with that?  Audrey and I can get all kinds of sun on our faces, arms, backs and shoulders, but both of us are still sporting pasty white legs, damnit.

So I rigged up a little writing area for me on the back deck, thinking that I could switch back and forth between the pool and working on the WIP.  It's nice, with a comfortable chair and a table for the laptop (and an outlet--very important)--far away enough from the pool that my computer won't bite it from a misplaced splash but close enough so I can monitor my non-swimming daughter and her twenty-month-old baby.

I completely forgot about how hard it is to see a monitor in the glare of the sun. Or how quickly you can get really, really hot while trying to write outdoors.  Or how distracting things like the neighbors' boxers when they get let out of the house and want nothing more than to howl at whoever is splashing in the pool.  Or how little Aurora wants her Nana right there in the water with her and has no qualms about running over to where I'm sitting with the computer and lifting her arms to be picked up--while spraying chlorinated water all over my computer.

*sigh*

Yes. This vampire's first exposure to the afternoon sun in about twenty years must have fried every last bit of common sense right out of my echoing head.  There's a REASON I haven't been hanging out at poolside in recent years.  Okay, several.  First off, I'm a redhead. Yeah...I don't tan, I BURN and then MOULT like a freaking snake.  Second off, I'm creeping up to the midway point between forty and fifty. (It's perfectly okay to tell me how young of a grandmother I am, by the way.) The reason I don't look like a grandmother is because I haven't exposed my face to the sun willingly in decades.  Third off, I can't work outside. I don't like the heat. I don't like barking dogs. I don't like the sounds of traffic. I don't like the people across the street.  And while I LOVE the pool, I don't particulaly relish the thought of people driving by and wondering how that bizarre red-and-white whale got beached in Ohio.

So yeah, I'm staying in today to work. I'll hit the pool later when it won't affect me as much.  Like maybe midnight or something.

The sacrifices I make for my art.

Oh, by the way--I'll be a grandmother of THREE sometime in mid-December.

A Rare Day Off

Wow. What am I going to do today?

My editor's desk is cleared for the month and I have promised myself to take the rest of October off. I need to let the Greco-Roman mythology novella rest for a day or so before I revise it. Harlequin is percolating. Plague is stuck. I'm getting ready to go to Tennessee on Wednesday and then stay with my daughter until after the baby gets here.

So what am I going to do today?

Shannon is asleep; he worked overnight on a build. There's nothing on TV, unless you count the Scariest Places on Earth marathon on SyFy. (What a ridiculous name. SyFy. Marketing department-FAIL.) I've spent the last hour or so looking through real estate listings because I will find our new house soon and hopefully will be in it by Christmas.

Which, of course, is all dependent upon when the baby gets here. Have I told you her name yet? No? Audrey and her husband Wes decided on the name Aurora Elizabeth. *looks innocent* I have nothing to do with my granddaughter being named after the Greco-Roman goddess of the dawn. Honest.

Yeah, I wouldn't believe me either.

So both my granddaughters have unusual names, which I'm thankful for. Meredith and her husband Brian named their daughter Keelynn Shea. *This name I really didn't have anything to do with, but I love it.* With a name like Celina, how could I not appreciate having an unusual name? After all, my parents unwittingly named me after the Greek goddess of the moon.

See? Some things are just fated.

So, what should I do today?

If I'm blogging about it, then I already have my answer. Nothing. I'm taking the day off! I may go to the bookstore and get Jacqueline Carey's new book Namaah's Kiss. That way, I can occupy at least a couple of hours of my time tonight.

Maybe things will be more interesting later on this week.