And/or

What a relief! Summer went away and it's nice and cool and rainy today. I'm sure there are people out there complaining about it - and I'm sure I'll be one of them this afternoon when the children are all cabin-fevery and/or then I have to take Dash to baseball practice in the rain/mud - but right now my brain has switched back on and I can inhale deeply and I'm wearing my jeans and socks and it's good. All that sunshine was giving me a headache.

And I let Mabel's feet get sunburnt yesterday because I slathered her up nicely with sunscreen on arms and legs and face and neck but forgot that she would inevitably ditch her new purple sandals after ten minutes on the playground and leave her lily-white hoofers in the direct glare of the midday sun. Bad mother. (It's okay, they're not lobstered. Just a little extra pink.)

The pink and purple blossoms look positively luminous in the rain, too. It's very April-showery.

A little bloggy PSA and self-publicizing now. As you might recall, I'm going to the BlogHer conference this summer, which is very exciting/terrifying, and because I'm paying more attention to my e-mails from BlogHer I noticed that they are now accepting submissions for Voices of the Year, which is a way they recognise some of the best blog posts from the past year. Even though I always assumed the people who won these things were the "big bloggers," I thought what the heck, and submitted two of my favourite posts, because why not, and who else is going to ever notice your best work if you don't tell them where to look?

The main awards are decided on by a panel of readers, which is fair and means that the blogs with the big readerships don't scoop everything just because they have more people to vote for them; but there's also a reader's choice prize, and if you happen to be also a member of BlogHer, I'd be really delighted if you'd like to take a moment to go and vote for either or both of my nominations, if you like them. (You can still vote for everyone else as well if you feel that would be fairer.)

The page to vote for the first one is here, and the second is here. You can click through to the posts themselves from each of those pages.

And if you have a blog and are a BlogHer member, go and nominate your own favourite posts too and then tell me about it. (You can join BlogHer just to do it.) Share the love.