You know that saying, “Stick it where the sun don’t shine?”

I think that’s western Washington.

I’ve always been a bit stir crazy, some would just say crazy. Most of it I chalk up to the spirit of a Gemini. The need for change and variety is par for the course for those of us born under this Sun Sign.

That’s the key: Sun Sign.

Don’t misunderstand me. I enjoy four distinct seasons – cool, colorful fall; snowy, white winter; bright, warm spring; sunny, sunny summer. I know rain is important, it’s just there’s been so much of it it’s worn me out this spring.

It’s beat me down like my tomato plant. This flower has been overwatered and is shriveled with root rot.

It hasn’t helped that contractors regraded and dug up our yard weeks, maybe months, ago to prepare for a lush, green lawn. It’s a mud hole, waiting for fair weather to complete the job. I’m sure when it’s time to seed the lawn, temperatures will soar into the 100s for days as justice for my whining now.

Mother Nature’s tears have been mine. We’ve been laying pavers at our house for a walkway, for weeks, between downpours. We’re already looking back on it and laughing at how ridiculous we must have looked to the neighbors, working feverishly in our rain gear to put in a dozen bricks and then covering them quickly with a blue tarp. Then repeating it every half hour about four hours a night for weeks.

Then came the big blow, from my doctor; tests from my annual physical showed I had a vitamin D deficiency. Really? I’m low in the sunshine vitamin?

Now I’m popping pills, eating yogurt and drinking milk, a good move for the local dairy economy, but unbelievable to this sun-worshiper.

Honestly, I started looking for property in eastern Washington. I pooh-poohed reports Seattle’s rain reputation is overrated. Even though I didn’t believe it, I found myself professing over and over to visitors there is a big mountain here and one day it will reappear.

One day, I hit the breaking point. In a moment of desperation, I snapped. I sent my husband a text message letting him know how *%#@ tired I was of the rain.

And then a wonderful thing happened.

The skies broke and there it was, that beautiful golden orb beaming down its goodness on the land.

It’s amazing how sunshine can lift one’s spirits. My mood, like the weather, went from downright gloomy and nasty to light and airy.

I was so excited to feel the sun’s warm rays on my skin, I broke out short sleeves and a skirt. I sat outside on the stoop with my nose pointed skyward, my toes bare and sans sunscreen. I let the fresh air flow through the house. I donned sunglasses, opened the sunroof of the car and listened to songs like “Boys of Summer” and “Soak Up the Sun.”

I couldn’t let this moment fade.

Although as I write this it’s gray again, I’m being led to believe summer is on its way. As anyone who’s lived in the Pacific Northwest long enough knows, summer, at least weather-wise, doesn’t start until after the Fourth of July – that’s Sunday, it’s circled on my calendar as the summer solstice.

It’s on its way, I can feel it; come on, shine, baby, shine.