burned-literally

So this is kind of turning to out to be quite the comedy of errors of vacations. If it can go wrong it seems that it will. It all started with my pre-vacation shopping spree. I went to a department store, tried on a bucket load of clothes, chose the ones I wanted and asked the sales lady to hold them while I took one more look around the floor. Sounds simple, no? It would have been simple if the second sales lady didn't decide to put my stuff back on the rack and the third sales lady didn't take all my same style different sized rejects out of the dressing room and confuse everything. So, at the end of my little shopping adventure, I crossed my fingers and hoped that I was coming home with complete outfits in the correct sizes. Then I wandered over to swimwear, where I purchased an amazing underwire (a bathing suit that holds my girls up!) bathing suit in two sizes (just in case because the one I tried on may have been a wee bit snug) and a nifty new cover up to wear back and forth to the pool.

Packing around 1AM the night before we left I realized that there were indeed duplicates in my shopping bags, and there was some sorting to do, so I guess the good news is that I didn't spend as much moolah as I thought I had. Since I am the cheap one in the family, this makes me very happy. Since I am also the lazy hater of all shopping person in the family it annoys me because now I have to drag my butt back to the store.

THE LAST TIME WE CAME HERE I DETOXED THE WHOLE TIME. IT WAS SO EASY THE LAST TIME THAT I ANNOUNCED TO THE KIDS THAT I WAS GOING SUGAR FREE AGAIN THE MOMENT MY FEET TOUCHED FOREIGN SOIL. (Damn, I pressed caps lock and I am too tired to go back and retype) Naturally, my intention was to stop by the airport news stand and buy one of everything I wasn't going to eat for a while, and pretty much binge myself into oblivion during the 3 hour flight, but the line at dunkin donuts was long and slow, and I really needed a latte so I risked using all my preflight time going for the latte because I also promised Josh a hot chocolate, and lost that news stand chance, and I had to board the plane with out any chocolate at all. Bummer. So I told myself that maybe I would start the next morning. I mean, really, who can start a diet with out a pre-diet binge? And there was the little matter of the dessert buffet running around in my imagination, but when we stepped off the plane Evan, who wants to us all to be healthy more than anything, turned to me while we were walking up the little tunnel that connects the plane to the airport and said "Well Mom, I guess you are sugar free now!" and I could tell he was so happy about it. I just couldn't disappoint him. So I started to detox with out the traditional pre-diet binge. I whined a lot to myself in my own head.

On the first day I grabbed that cute little brand new cover up from the suitcase and heard an alarming clunk when it touched the bathroom floor. Yes people, the saleslady forgot to remove the security tag and the buzzer did not go off when I left the store. I did the only thing I could do, I cut a little hole in the cover up, which doesn't show too much since it is kind of lacy, and put it on anyway. Then the husband said he thought I looked pretty in the holy cover up, and he never says that ever. So I am totally keeping it.

Josh slipped on something rough during his first hour of carribean delight and managed to scrape his foot three times, in the exact three spots that the straps on his new way overpriced because they have to be kind of orthopedic for him sandals hit on his foot. It is painful for him to wear those new sandals now, so I let him run around barefoot mostly. I made him wear the sandals to breakfast, since we were going directly out to the pool from there, but watching him lurch (from the sandal discomfort) around the buffet with a plate full of food may have added another unwanted gray hair or two to my rapidly growing gray hair collection, so I decided he'll have to go in sneakers from now on.

It has been gorgeous here, as usual, and I thought I was all prepared with 5 big heavy tubes of 50 spf sunscreen, but now I see that there is nothing that this carribean sun can not penetrate. The kids all have sun blocking shirts, so their forearms and faces are a bit scorched, but I had no such thing, so my entire front got totally cooked. Hold your breath cause here it comes....
Yeah, Owww! But doesn't my new underwire bathing suit have nicely placed straps?

I needed my own sun blocking shirt because this burn is the type that stings if I even look at the sun through the window, so I went in search of one. Each place I went to told me to go further away from the kids, who I was dying to get back to. Eventually, one of the hotel staff sent me across the street from the hotel where there is a little shopping place set up. I asked her if the places took the room card key, since it was all I had and she said they did. I finally found a shirt in the farthest store from the hotel, ripped off the tags at the register and handed the lady my hotel card key. She said they took cash or credit cards. Tears welled up in my eyes as I removed the shirt from my crispy upper body and dragged myself out of the store. But the good news is that 5 feet out of the store I bumped into the husband of an old friend who lent me the cash to get the sun shirt. The bad news is that sun shirts are made for young shapely folks and not for ... me. So I just got my courage up and found the family in one of the pools, and walked towards them hoping I wouldn't look too ridiculous in my long sleeved bright blue sun shirt. Evan looked up and said "Mom, you look sexy in that shirt" and the husband said, "Yeah, you look buff in that shirt" and that just totally made my kentucky fried chest day.

And, I am up to page 359 out of 820 in John Irving's Until I find You.