My birthday present to myself this year was supposed to be a blog overhaul, for which purpose I enlisted the assistance of the amazing Izzy. But I’ve been stuck for days in an ever-worsening spiral of indecision about a new banner – do I go cheeky? serious? cheeky-serious (cherious?) urban-hipster-doofus? tweedy academic? black-beret-scotch-sipping beatnik?

… but just haven’t been able to take the step of committing to it (the image on the left, by the way, is a Da Vinci sketch, Virgin and Child, which, although wonderful, is maybe not perfectly reflective of the HBM ethos.)

I’ve also toyed with using one of the many spectacular WonderBaby images…

I know that most of you are currently out sipping Memorial Day margaritas right now, but please. Help. What sort of look should I be going for? What’s gonna say, this is the blog of Her Bad Mother and it ROCKS?

The other thing that I want to do in this blog renovation is set up a list of favourite posts, a sort of greatest hits list. But do I go with my favourites, or do I go with the ones that have been most popular, judging by comments or awards or whatever? (Because, interestingly, what I like most and what you like most – judging by volume of comments, which I know isn’t necessarily the most reliable indicator – are not always the same). One of my recent favourites disappeared into last weekend, as weekend posts sometimes do, but it is a piece of writing that I’m particularly proud of. Another favourite was well-received, but it’s a particularly intimate post and one that I’m reluctant to wave around while shouting me-likey-likey! And another is really just a silly, off-the-cuff post, but one of the very few of my own that I really think is funny (notwithstanding the phallus posts.)

So how does one decide? Should it be my favourites, no matter their character? Or should it just be the popular posts? Or is it really just so much more grandstanding to flaunt old posts (hey! looky here! my ass looks good in these posts!)

Or is it really just so much more grandstanding and contrived insecurity to be asking for help in sorting out how to revamp one’s look? OMG am so fat am such a bad mother should I not be wearing skinny jeans should I lose the bangs but isn’t my forehead just too big omg have you seen my ass what do I do? (preen preen spin pose affect worry pose preen)

Maybe. Or maybe I’m just aesthetically stunted and indecisive and overly-reliant on peer support in making blog-altering decisions.

Let’s go with that.

HELP.