I checked the weather forecast four or five times today. I’ll admit this is excessive. But we start swim team practices on Wednesday, and although I can’t control the weather, I can plan for it.

Summer typically brings my favorite weather. Like almost everyone on the planet, I adore warm sunny days. Everything just seems so much more vibrant, so much more alive when the sun is shining. I get to sit high up in the guard chair soaking up the sun.

I do, however, burn pretty easily. I wear SPF 50 during the first few weeks of the summer and then I back off to SPF 30. I’m eternally grateful to Eugene Schueller, the inventor of sunscreen, for protecting me from sunburn each and every day.

Oddly enough though, I love thunderstorms almost as much as I love sunny days. The moment I heard the first thunder roll yesterday, I had to smile. I love the still feeling before a rainstorm and the smell of rain. I love the moment the storm is directly overhead, the second that the thunder cracks and the lightning bolt lights up the sky at the same time.

Even though storms are clearly dangerous, there’s something strangely comforting about them. The quiet before and after is calming.

My best friend is the same way. She says the feeling is best described by the Guns N’ Roses song "November Rain." After a storm rolls on through, she turns on this song. I, on the other hand, listen to the storm as it rolls through and then take a nice long nap.

The storm yesterday afternoon had a bonus: a power outage. It’s clichéd, but power outages offered us some family time yesterday. I was at school during the winter’s blackout, so I wasn’t nearly as jaded as my family was about the power outage. They all took it good-naturedly. My brother went through the 2007 almanac, searching for trivia questions. I was almost sad when the lights came back on and we all went our separate ways.