And there'll be sun sun sun all over our bodies...

Hey you guys!! Guess what!!

Summertime has made it's way to Austin, TX. And it's only April! Thank you global warming. Finally getting a little return on those Aqua Net years.

For seriously serious though, summertime is my favorite time and summertime in Austin just can't be beat. Ever since I was a little girl I've always looked forward to summer with stomach churning anticipation and that's still the way things are today. Holla back, summer babies.

Last year I made a list of summer '08 official things and while it's a bit early to make my list for summer '09, I do want to post last year's winners. We'll see a little later in the season which ones hold up.



the official yellow shorts of summer '08.

a few more:

official adult beverage: vodka & blue powerade
official song: 5 Years Time by Noah and The Whale
official everyone beverage: water
official passtime: swimming in pools that aren't yours
official vehicle: trucks
official grooming habit to give up: washing your hair
official confection: two ball screwball (mo!!!)
official bedtime: never, apparently.
official comeback: taking pictures of oneself


I can already tell you that the vodka/powerade combo (since named Blue Ruin) has some stiff competition from Paul's homemade margaritas. And the Noah and the Whale song will most likely be beat out by the Chad VanGaalen song Cries of the Dead. I'm almost ready to just go ahead and call that the official but it's a tight race between that song and Phosphorescent's cover of Pick Up the Tempo so we'll just have to wait and see. The official yellow shorts, as much as I love them, will sadly not be the official shorts of this summer because at thrift the other day I picked up a killer pair of blue and white American Apparel running shorts that are perfectly short and say "JELLYFISH!!" on the booty part. There is absolutely no way around them winning official shorts. On the sub-topic of summer time garb, I will have to make a new category so that this amazing skort can be an official. Maybe just, official article of clothing!!!


It was designed by the lovely and talented Bonnie Rue and it's your lucky day because they are up for sale on her website right this very minute. Go getcha some at Model Citizen Clothing! While you're there you might want to put some serious thought into picking up a few other fancies cause she's got lotsa new stuff up and it's all pretty much too awesome to be believed. (Hint: Bake & Destroy t-shirt / secret cupcake recipe combo!!!!)

Back to summertime and how great it is? Okay!

"I would rather be swimming" and "I would rather be laying out" are pretty much constant mantras for me during the summer months. A bathing suit, a body of water, a cold Lonestar and the smell of suntan oil make me a happy happy girl. I spent years of my life hating on the concept of "laying out". This was ridiculous on my part. Totally ridiculous. There are very few things in the world that feel better than the above described scenario. Some of my favorite childhood memories involve being at the lake in Cisco, Texas and hanging out with my mom and my aunt while they were laying out. They would make this concoction of baby oil and iodine and grease up and hang out in those awesome plastic tubing lawn chairs for hours, with me right there alongside (properly sunblocked, i'm sure). For the life of me I can't imagine why they added the iodine to the baby oil and neither of them can remember either. Seeing as it's not the 80's anymore I would recommend taking a pass on the baby oil and going for my favorite summertime product:


It has a little bit of SPF, which is better than none I guess, but most of all it just smells like summertime. It is the official smell of summer. Every summer.

So here's to summer time y'all! Here's to swimming and sunshine and crazy heat and margaritas and shorts and Barton Springs and not washing your hair and zinc on your nose and happy songs in your speakers and flippy floppies and anything else you love about it!!!