What's in a name?

I love my name.  This is not something you would have ever heard me utter prior to my marriage in 2000, about my first or last name.  I mean, really, isn’t Karen one of the most boring names you’ve ever heard?  I don’t mind it so much now, but I grew up with a few, some, a ton of Tiffanys, Jennifers, Tracys, Amys, Shellys, Heathers and any other popular late 70s name you can think of.  I was almost an Elizabeth (which at least carries the promise of a cute nick name), but somewhere in my parents’ circle of acquaintances, there was a fine woman named Karen that they felt worthy of honoring by saddling me with her name.  I think we met once or twice.  Neat.  Then there’s the last name: Barger….as in burger…or even better, booger (didn’t take long for the kids on the playground to get to that one, I assure you).  I know even parents can’t help the last name issue, but it doesn’t take the sting out of having to correct almost everyone you come across, especially telemarketers in all their creativity, to get them to pronounce it correctly.  Suffice it to say, the day I acquired Royal as my last name was a fine day indeed, and not just because I was marrying my favorite person.

Today, I love my name because it made it easier for my not-so-creative mind to decide on a name for this blog.  I thought it would be cute to do some precious take on the whole royalty angle, but my friend, Katy, has the corner on that market.  See “Blogs I Read” and follow her—she’s amazing.  And speaking of that, Katy, I think to preserve the integrity of our children’s royalty-infused names they should just marry each other.  Note: this would also undoubtedly shore up complete adorableness of our grandchildren.  Just sayin’….

Since I wasn’t going the Royal Family route so much, I moved on to other ideas.  With Royal, it’s much easier to come up with catchy phrases, and I do love alliteration (It’s the former English teacher in me, I can’t help it).  So, I decided on Remarkably Royal because it goes to the heart of why I decided to start a blog: my family.  Life with them every day is just remarkable.  I am so supremely blessed to have my wonderful family, and I love sharing our special and not so special moments.  I had grand illusions of keeping these great baby books and scrapbooks for my kids, but I just haven’t.  Life seems to be getting in the way and I would rather be living it than writing it out by hand (although I do miss scrapbooking).  Yet, I find myself able to tell the ladies in my office or do a quick status update on Facebook about the most recent hilarious thing Justus has said and/or done, and I know as Delaney grows it will be the same with her.  So, I figured since I am already on the computer most of the day, and I have gotten much better at being able to post pictures, I could just blog all the fun stuff and have a record of it.  As a result, hopefully I won’t look like the worst mom in the world when they are grown and ask me about all their –isms as kids.  It’s true-they really do say the darndest things!  So, welcome and I hope you stick around and enjoy it.  I can’t say how often I’ll post, but knowing my kids, there will be fodder for discussion on a pretty regular basis.  I’m sure I’ll have a few other things to focus on too, just about life in general….because I do also have a life outside of my kids….sort of.