Day One: "...say what?"

Ok. So let me first celebrate the fact that I was home by 6:00 this evening and had ABSOLUTELY nothing planned. That may not seem like a big accomplishment to most of you, but let me tell you, that hasn't happened for awhile around here. I have been working a lot of evenings lately, not getting home until after 7 or 8 pm, and then on the evenings when I am NOT working, it seems like we always have something going on. So right now, I am simply reveling in the fact that I can get laundry done, blogs posted, and maybe even a bath in there somewhere, too. Oh yeah, and Clint isn't home either...that might be a contributing factor as well ;-)

Alright, folks. Back to the main event. Here is the first post of my 30 day challenge. My middle name and how I feel about it.

Wait. So do I talk about my current middle name? Or the middle name I had for 25 1/2 years of my life? I suppose I can talk about both, but that has the potential for being incredibly long winded. Let's see how it goes:

My middle name USED to be Burket (Brrr-kit, not Bur-kette). Plain and simple. And distinctive. And unique. It was my mother's maiden name and I have always loved it. Even as a little girl, when everyone else seemed to have "Ann" or "Elizabeth" as their middle names...I always loved mine. I knew it was special because it was my grandpa's last name. And while I never met my grandpa, I heard all kinds of good things about him growing up from people who knew him (still do, in fact) and I knew that sharing his last name was something to be proud of. When I got married, I knew there was NO way I could give up my middle name and replace it with my maiden name, but I didn't want to give up my maiden name, either. Family is very important to me, and while a name may not hold much to other people...it holds a whole lot to me. So I had to approach the dreaded hyphen situation, which left me with....Burket-Bray.

Oh my goodness if that hasn't proven itself to be the most complicated thing for people to understand. I'm not even kidding. When people check my ID and signature, they think for some reason that the Bray-Singleton is hyphenated and then I spend a half hour trying to explain that my last name IS NOT HYPHENATED. I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE WOMEN. And some people genuinely do not understand it, because they have never seen a hyphenated middle name. And honestly, prior to spending an afternoon in the County Clerk's office, I hadn't either. If I had it my way, I would simply have two middle names, no hyphen. But apparently that is not acceptable in the state of California. Go figure.

So I guess I entered into this world with a very distinctive middle name that always got the response of "...say what?" and I will exit this world (many many moons from now, god willing) with a middle name that evokes the same response. That's darn near poetic.