June 02nd, 2021

Gotta take care of the skin you live in.  Don't  know if you have noticed but we live in Florida and while it's beautiful and sunny almost every day, in the summer time, well, it's hot ya'll.  

Despite the temperature and the summer humidity, I love being outside.  And therefore, I am out soaking up sunshine nearly every day.  I walk, I hike, I do yard work, I fiddle in my potted garden, I take photographs,  I grill, and I  even just stand outside in the sun just chatting with a neighbor.

And when I'm outside, I'm not bundled up. Of course not!  When the air is soft and warm with just that tiny tinge of a sea breeze, you absolutely want to feel that touching your skin. I'm not being weird about that. It's the honest truth.  

Most of us, who live here in the sunshine state, dress accordingly.  That means little sun dresses and skirts, shorts and sandals and, short sleeved or sleeveless tops.  And that leaves a lot of skin just hanging right out there for everyone to see.  The funniest part of that to me is that until we moved here, I was very self-conscious about the way I looked. 

I have always been highly critical of my freckles and scars, wrinkles and dimples and that little extra pinch-an-inch that sometimes pops up around my waist.  I have always taken great care to both dress nicely AND for maximum coverage of anything less than ideal. I became a master of disguise.   Shortly after we moved here that lifetime of cautious dressing went right out the window.  I began to dress for Florida instead.  I bought Florida clothes!

When you are a person like me (or most of Florida) who enjoys spending a lot of time outside in the sunshine, wearing Florida clothes, that also means exposing a great deal of skin to the elements.  Wisdom therefore suggests protecting your skin. And that means sunscreen.  Lots and lots of sunscreen.  It also suggests wearing a hat which I do while on photo safari but not on a regular basis.

There are several reasons that I eschew wearing hats daily and none of those reasons are that I don't like hats.  I actually do like hats, very much so.  I think it's a shame that we don't wear more hats!  But here is the thing,  once I've put on a hat I now have hat-head and my hair looks awful.  Which means once I have put a hat on my head, I am now committed to wearing that hat all day long and that is not always convenient.  Also wearing a hat while outside is hot, which means sweaty, which means the hat gets stinky and not every hat is washable.  That seems wasteful.   Then too there is the breeze factor.  Because we are fortunate to live right by the water, there is at the very least a nice gentle breeze nearly every day.  Hats + breeze = no hat at all.  I don't want to spend my outside time chasing a hat down the street.

So back we are to Florida life, sunshine, skin and protecting it.  This all came up because yesterday Tim and I went to our annual dermatology appointments.  We both got a clean bill of health but I also got a warning to do better about protecting my skin.  There is no hiding the fact that I am sporting the best tan of my life.  Which is hilarious to me because I was never one of those girls who laid out in the sun with the intention of getting a tan.

When I was a kid a tan was highly desirable and not just because it looks awesome when you wear white!  A tan was considered a sign of good health!  (yeah, I know, crazy) By my teen years girls laid out in bikinis after slathering themselves with baby oil to attract the sun!  (crazier!)  I didn't have the patience for sunbathing that other girls had.  And I also had that skin that was so very white that I practically glowed in the dark and was, very logically,  concerned with burning.

Consequently, I had exactly one sunburn in my entire life.  And it was a really bad one too.  I was out on a boat in a two piece halter bathing suit on a cloudy day.  FYI, you can get badly burned on a cloudy day.  Who knew?   It was followed by days of great discomfort when wearing normal people clothes, which is completely necessary both at school AND work!  So I vowed to never allow myself to get burned like that again.  And I have not!

But despite wearing copious amounts of sunscreen, I do tan.  And now we know that can be a bad thing.  So at our visit yesterday it was strongly suggested to me that I get some SPF shirts to wear outside.  So I looked into it. Hmmmmm.

Here is an example of one.  Somehow this shirt magically prevents sun damage.  I'm thinking it's not so much magically as it appears that the wearer is pretty well covered.  And it seems to me that kind of coverage would be hot.  In the summer here, I am already hot. This would just make me hotter, right?  I'm not a fan of being uncomfortable.

Supposedly, it is very comfortable and "wicks away moisture". oookkkaaayyy.  But it still has long sleeves which is concerning.  I just cannot wrap my brain around wearing something that looks like that in August. Outside.  On purpose.  Without suffering heat stroke. 

According to what I read, it's made out of some sort of polyester fabric.  Polyester?  In my experience Polyester does not "breathe" like, say, cotton does.  I am dubious.

But I will check into it.  Over the weekend I plan go to Beall's (or preferable Bealls outlet) to check this out more.  These are not inexpensive articles of clothing.  Of course not.  Specialty items never are.

Who knows.  Maybe these SPF shirts are the greatest things since sliced bread and I will soon have an entire wardrobe of them and wear them daily.  I try to stay open minded.  But I have questions. Lots and lots of questions.

​If all else fails, I will just stick with the sunscreen.

Bulletins as they happen.