Clover day!

HAPPY St. PATRICK'S DAY!

*giggles at icon*

What's in a name?

I want to change my username. I've had my journal for 3.5 years now, and I've wanted to change my username for over 2 years. I've talked about this before, but I never could come up with anything else that I liked.

It's just that 'buttonmommy1998' is so long (the max # of characters, even). And I'm not the only one who thinks so, I'm sure. Many folks refer to me as 'buttonmommy' only - probably more call me that than 'Nicole,' actually. The problem that stems from that is when someone links me as buttonmommy - that's not my name, and it's a broken link. *sigh* But it happens so often.

Not only that, but the story of my username seems so dumb now. Years ago, back when I still lived and breathed for Longaberger® baskets, I was a very active part of a message board. There are still a couple hundred women out there who know me as 'Basketbrat,' I'm sure. In the fall of '02, I created 'Mystery & Maple' - a type of 'secret sis' program - for the board, and we called ourselves M&Ms. I coordinated the participants and grouped them "mysteriously," but I wanted to participate in the fun as well. To send my M&M her messages without her knowing me as the coordinator, I created a Yahoo! email account. When I tried to do this, I was shocked to find that every handle I tried was already taken. I couldn't use 'basketbrat' either - that was a dead give-away as well. I decided to use the name of my favorite basket - 'Button Basket' - as part of my name, but even just 'buttonmommy' was taken! I tagged on the '1998' part and was finally able to complete the sign-up process. And 'buttonmommy1998' was born.

Just a week or two later, I finally decided to sign up for my LJ account, and when I had to input a username, I went with 'buttonmommy1998,' unaware that it wasn't something I could change later on (easily, that is). I don't know why I didn't at least use 'basketbrat,' as I always liked that better... but again, I just wanted to speed up the sign-up process, and I thought it was something that could be changed later on, so I didn't fuss over it.

So I never liked it all that much. To make matters worse, I sometimes got funny looks when I'd tell people my journal name, though no one ever explained to me why. About 18 months after creating the name, I tried to input the name into an MSN group but was consistently rejected: "vulgar words." ... huh?

And then it hit me. Butt. On. Mommy.

*sigh*

Yeah... That's not what I was going for at all. I was looking for 'cute,' not 'crude.' And it took me over a year and a half to figure it out when everyone around me got it instantly. :-(

This spiraled my dislike of the name into something akin to revulsion. The outlook on my name was brightened just a bit when my friend Gretchen coined the phrase "buttonisms" in her journal one day (she was quoting me in something). And I've contemplated changing it to that or something like it a few times, but I think I'm just ready to get away from 'button' altogether. I tried adding this fun icon a while back, and I've forced myself to use it sometimes, hoping that it would grow on me, but... yeah.

And I think I might've stumbled on something I really like. It's super-short, and it's very 'me' - though I'm sure it will look very much the opposite to the outsider without some explanation. I'm BAFFLED that it is not already taken - honestly, all other 'forms' of it have long been taken. I can't believe I never tried this particular name in the last 2 years of random name-availability searching I've done, though I've tried so many 'variants' of the word.

I'm so torn. I don't want to forever be known as '____-who-used-to-be-buttonmommy1998' by my friends. But I don't like my name. :-/

The luck o' the Irish.

Today has been a fun day. The weather was a bit cold this morning for our short-sleeved green shirts, so we all dressed with a long-sleeved white shirt underneath. A.J. didn't have school today, but Jack did, and he's been waiting for three weeks to wear his special new shirt for St. Patrick's Day. He had the "greenest" shirt in the classroom!

After picking Jack up from preschool, the boys and I went to lunch at La Mesa. We got lots of smiles from the people around us - some in green, some not. When we were stuffed full of food, we headed to Wal*Mart to pick up some 'gold' for a hunt this afternoon. We chose two bags of Rolos, and then we headed to Nobbies to pick out some special hats. The boys modeled their hats in front of a mirror before deciding on the same one (I was surprised!), and then they picked out one for me as well. We bought our hats, and then headed for home.

On the way, I decided to change up the plans a bit. I opened up one bag of the candy, and we pulled into the Housing office on base. We went in and surprised everyone working inside, and the boys walked up to each person and said, "Happy St. Patrick's Day! We brought some gold for you!" Everyone laughed and thanked us for stopping by, and we walked over to Housing Maintenance next to do the same thing. When we left there, a couple of ladies from Housing (the first stop) caught up with us and surprised the boys, handing them their own "treasure" - a chocolate snack cake for A.J. and a Kit-Kat bar for Jack. The boys thought these were GREAT! (And I find it funny, because I figure they ran to a vending machine and tried to come up with something quick - not necessary, of course, but very nice of them.)

We walked on up the hill to AmericaFirst Communities and passed out more candy to all the folks there. The secretary directed the boys and me to a back room, and we found Mr. Tom York (the man who stopped by last week & head of operations) in a conference with two other people. They chatted with us for a while, and I was caught off guard when a camera started snapping pictures of us from the doorway! A man there took several photos of the boys passing out candy in the office... but I have no idea what will happen to those pics later on!

We drove home then, and then set out on foot again to pass out candy to all the folks at Kiewit Construction headquarters. They seemed more surprised than anyone by our visit, saying that they never get to talk to family members in housing. They told us to stop by anytime, and we got to see a lot of the offices in there. We walked back home just in time to catch the mailman leaving a package at our front door. The boys ran to him, calling out, "Don't leave!" until they could get close enough to deliver their St. Patrick's day message and gold. The mailman handed me the mail and then a special, smaller package to Jack - it was the 'Emily' train (from Thomas the Tank Engine®) that he'd been waiting on for several weeks (a mail-in offer)... and she's even a GREEN train! We walked some gold over to Marissa and her hubby Blake, and then we came home to stay.

The boys played with the new train while I hid a bunch of gold outside for them to find. When I was finished hiding pieces, I called them out, and they took turns searching for piles of gold (in every hiding spot, I'd stacked three little Rolos together). They had a great time, and I took lots of pictures. Afterwards, we played outside for another two hours or so, finally coming in so that the boys could eat their special snack "treasures" from the ladies in Housing.

All in all, a very fun day indeed. Best of all, we brought smiles to a LOT of faces today! :-)


A.J., me and Jack decked out in our Leprechaun green

( Lotsa green pictures! )

The Name Game (again).

Thank you to all for your input in this post. It does help to know that the majority of you just want me to be happy with my name, and that you're willing to adjust regardless. I have such good friends.

That being said, I'd still like some feedback. I'm going to tell you my choice(s), but I am really trusting that none of you will go out and swipe either name just to spite me before I get this done. Pretty please?

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navy
Yeah, can you believe that's not already taken? I was very surprised. (army, airforce, marine and coastguard have all been gone for a LONG time, so I'm thinking that maybe this came up in the recent purging of deleted usernames.) Now why would *I* want this name?
- navy has always been my favorite color (navy blue, to be exact, but that's already taken).
- I choose pens with blue inks, and I scrapbook most often with this color.
- we chose navy & cream for the boys' nursery themes, and then we painted A.J.'s room navy when he became older - it's a "calming" color to me.
- our house "theme" is patriotic - there's navy everywhere.
- it's short and fast. Sassy.

The drawbacks? I can really only think of one, but it's a fairly big one. How dumb is it for my journal name to be 'navy' when I'm an Air Force wife? Yes, that's Philip and not me, but still... I'm sure the first reaction people would have is, "That's retarded," not thinking beyond the word to the color behind it.

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holiday
Again, so many variants of this are taken, yet the root word is not. I'm surprised again. I can't believe it's not a community, even. As to the why's, well...
- I like to think of myself as 'the-gal-who-celebrates-everything.' If not that, then I'm surely 'the-gal-who-DECORATES-for-everything.'
- I'm always, always thinking ahead to the next holiday.
- it's fairly short, and I'm trying to get shorter.

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A couple other options, though neither one is very short, and I'm not sure how I feel about them:
- navyholiday
- navyholidays

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So here's the part where I'd like your input (again) - a poll!

[Poll #693218]

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Edited to add: I've learned now that holiday is not an available option, despite it being 'available' up until the last step of renaming. Although navy is struck out as well, it still is available... not sure why. Still, I'd like all opinions on the poll above as if you didn't have this extra bit of information... for different reasons. Thanks!

And edited AGAIN to add: *sigh* Wouldn't it be great if we could edit polls? ... Yeah, the poll is supposed to ask you what your first, SECOND and third choices would be. *headdesk*

Is it warm in here??

The boys and I layered our shirts today, and that got me to thinking...

[Poll #693237]