This is a picture of me, from this morning...my son was learning to use the camera. I like blogs with pictures but I'm not all that creative. Anyhow, this is what I look like these days. In case you are wondering what I look like when I'm not embarassing myself in a swimsuit.

Well, my pink Dell laptop greeted me with the blue screen of death this a.m., so I'm typing on my new mini Inspiron. They aren't kidding about the mini--I'm wearing my reading glasses that I use for embroidery so that I can actually see what's what on the wee screen. By the way, I did not spill anything on the pink computer so I'm not entirely sure what happened. There is a rampaging baby on the loose in my house so anything is possible, though.

I was the whitest woman in Destin, Florida. Believe it, y'all.

Y'all, I am reading those Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. If you want some cheap, short, beach reads, these are the ones. HG, I am talking to you. It's a long series, too...9 books and counting and there is vampire sex aplenty. If you are into that kind of thing. And I'm not saying I am, because I am a nice Presbyterian 36-year-old woman. Ahem.

Anyhoodle, I am still suffering from terrible migraines from my family beach vacay but that is to be expected and I will likely feel bad until the Dog Show is over. I am in charge of our town's Fourth of July dog show. It's a huge deal. I can't even explain. I wasn't even drunk when I said I'd take it on. Terrible. So, I fully expect to be an emotional wreck until the afternoon of July 4th, when it will be over and done with. Until then I am a ball of stress.

As I predicted.

The beach was a lot of work for me, just like at home but with more sand. I didn't even drink that much because I had pounding migraines the whole time. Now I am home, and I am tired. I was supposed to go to a cocktail party tonight but I would have had to bring my children and I am not up for bringing them anywhere, maybe ever again. Vacation will make you feel that way. That it is just easier to be a hermit.

I did get to the Brooks Brothers and the Cole-Haan outlets so that cheered me up some, but I needed the diamond jewelry sort of cheering up, not the no-wrinkle oxford shirt kind, you know?

Something funny did happen, though. Before we left, I ordered this really pretty 1940's reproduction dress from a store in Louisiana that does great vintage repro. The name of the store is Trashy Diva. It's a green and white print rayon day dress. I didn't think about the name of the store and the fact that my order would arrive when I was away before we asked our neighbor's 9 and 7-year-old children to collect our mail every day (we gave the kids $1 each day--they loved it!). They kept the mail at their house, and for a week, I am sure that their snoopy parents got to wonder what I had ordered from a store called "Trashy Diva." And they got to wonder just how freaky I am under the Brooks Brothers (not all that freaky, to be honest...).

I will be at the beach. Don't be jealous.

I will not be around for about a week, starting tomorrow. I am going to the beach, but since I am taking my mother, my Daddy, and my mother-in-law, there is no chance at all of me having a good time, so don't be thinking "Bite me, lady, you get to go to the beach!". I have had a migraine for three days now in anticipation and now my IBS is kicking up. That is how awesome I think the beach is going to be. My husband has already started bringing up the stuff I have done to make my mother-in-law mad in the past, like giving the blanket she "made" for my son to my dog Cooper. Y'all, she sewed two pieces of fleece together. This wasn't an artistic masterpiece. And once Cooper clamped eyes on that blanket, he would not give it up. He lay down on it, and it was his. That blanket has been the love of his life for 4 years. He has appreciated it more than Blake, who has 1,000 blankets and needs NO MORE, ever would. She told me how mad she was about this on Easter Sunday, while she was eating the Easter Sunday dinner that I made all by myself, including deviled eggs, and y'all know those are a lot of work. So now I have to go see her in a bathing suit. And I don't even want to talk about my own parents. My mom is mad at me for saying that people do not need to wear flip flops all the damn time on account of I am tired of seeing the feet of America. Apparently she felt that was a personal insult to her choice of footwear. I don't care, I am just so tired of toes, people.

I don't live close to anything. Except 20,000 Phish fans.

I live in a small town. In Tennessee. Nothing much happens in Tennessee in the summertime, except for one week in June, in a big field in the middle of nowhere, for 5 days, there is the Bonnaroo. So, for 5 days a year, I can practically spit on Dave Matthews from my backyard.

I have never been to Bonnaroo, and seeing as how this year features not one but two Phish shows, you could not PAY me to go. No way, Jose. It's fine if you want to be a smelly hippie, it's just that you and I are not going to have very much in the way of common ground. Why can't they have the Uptight Preppy Festival right next door to me? I would be very excited about that. I would be planning my wardrobe for MONTHS and I would totally go, every year.