Summer already???!!!

In a previous post, I spoke about Spring in the South. Spring is one of my favorites, but it is always followed by the worst time of the year for me. Summer in Alabama! The heat is oppressive and the humidity unbearable.

This time of the year clothes and make-up are a minimum. Don’t bother trying to make your hair look nice because it won’t. Last year my hair stayed in a bun or clip all summer. I don’t remember ever drying it either. When the cooler temps rolled around I was shocked at how long my hair was and got it cut. A couple of months ago I had 12 inches of my hair cut off. I don’t want to have to deal with it this summer.

In past summers, my time was spent at the pool, lake or beach. That is not the case anymore. I avoid the sun like the plague. I need to find some new summertime activities to occupy my spare time, and writing seems to be one of them.

The summer season in the south means you need two showers everyday. One shower in the morning to wake up and one at night to cool off. Of course, you could skip the one in the morning because you will be soaked by 11:00 anyway. Save it for the evening, when it will be better appreciated. Callie’s walks are earlier in the morning and later in the evening. It’s just too damn hot! I took her to Shakespeare a couple of weeks ago for a long walk, and I was afraid she was going to have a heat stroke before we got back to the car, and I almost let her jump in the lake. When we got to the car, she drank her whole bottle of water, and mine before we even got out of the park.

In a couple of weeks, the high will be over 100 degrees with a heat index reaching 115 and above. The low at night will be a balmy 80. But it’s the humidity that kills me. When humidity levels reach 94% you are covered in sweat just walking to your car. On the rare occasion, that I actually TRY to look nice, I would like my make-up to stay on my face and my hair not turn into an Afro within the first 3 minutes of leaving the house. Pools feel like bath water by the end of July and air conditioners never cycle off.

On to the positive side, we have fresh picked strawberries in May, Blueberries in June and an abundance of fresh vegetables for several months.