So it's almost time for my back-to-school haircut. (Even though I'm technically *always* in school, I still like to observe the rituals. I'll probably buy new pencils and notebooks, too.) The question, however, is *which* new haircut? Since the only people who read this are people who've actually *seen* me, this makes the decision very blog friendly.

The choices are:




or...




I'm just not sure and this decision is, of course, much more interesting than actually working this morning. Of course.

I promise to share the details of vacation soon, but right now this is simply much more pressing.

So we're back and I'm chock-full of post vacation panic. Vacation itself was amazing- but more about that later. At *this* point, I'm in a tizzy over the following:

1. Mountains of cleaning and laundry to do.
2. Mountains of dishes to do.
3. Weedy garden.
4. Shasta Daisies being eaten to nubs by damn Asiatic Beetles.
5. Kids start daycamp tomorrow- ask me if I have *any* idea where their lists of "stuff to bring" are.
6. Back to work tomorrow, to face the grumpitty grumps there.
7. I want to make a blueberry pie, but don't have whipped cream or ice cream so, really, what's the point?
8. Must mow yard before we start losing neighborhood children in it.
9. General post-vacation malaise.

But... I *did* make it to the grocery store this morning, and TMOTH took care of all the unloading and equipment storage (no mean feat since beach camping = bringing 2 tons of sand home with you). And the kids are napping so I have a few quiet moments to post, and I suppose I can just run down to the gas station for a pint of ice cream if I *really* want to make the pie. Plus I have corn on the cob, tomatoes, melon and my entire green bean harvest (just enough for two servings) for dinner tonight and at least I have a job to go to tomorrow, and TMOTH has an uninterrupted week to get his classroom set up and vacation simply rocked so I suppose that, on balance, I can still consider myself blessed, can't I?

Reasons why I think I'm a good mom right now:

1. I waited until 11:30 yesterday morning to really crack the Harry Potter I'd gotten from the library at 10:00.
2. I took the kids upstairs to the kid's section at the library and got their books first- then picked up the aforementioned Harry Potter.
3. We had a picnic yesterday and went to the park (with that same HP in the car while I did a duel swing pushing that I *think* may have qualified as an Olympic event.)
4. Last night Harry switched from his normal "I want to thank God for video games/ Monster Trucks/ Figure 8 Trailer Racing" to "I want to thank God for our nice warm house, our nice neighbors, and all the people who love us" *totally* without prompting.
5. We're leaving for the beach tomorrow for 4 days of camping.

Reasons why I'm a bad mom today.
1. Everyone under the age of 7 has cried nonstop all day due, from my perspective, to the intensive maternal neglect perpetrated by my from 11:30 yesterday (see #1 above) until 2:30 this morning.
2. The kids watched tv this morning instead of getting outside to play in the *gorgeous* weather because I stayed up until 2:30 this morning.
3. I napped on the sofa, sort of, while the kids watched too much TV.
4. At nap time, I left Molly to cry herself to sleep in her bed because she wouldn't stop crying no matter what I did and I just couldn't deal.


I guess so long as the score is 5/4 for Good Mom, I'm still in the clear. Bad mom's only 1 game out though, so I'm going to have to dig deep tomorrow.

By the way, for those playing along at home, my current Candidate-O-Rama total is 25 points right now, thanks to the Obama, Hilary, and Dodd staffers who have been lurking in the neighborhood. I've been struggling with whether or not to include parade interactions, but I think...no. It would just be too easy to rack up the points.