Giving Myself a Name

I knew I wanted to blog, as I had things to say, long before I came up with a name for it. Naming things is not as easy as it seems. You want to name it appropriately and try to make sure it won't be twisted around, or with naming children, you don't want them to be susceptible to bullying because of their name. My last name is pronounced "stain;" it is often mispronounced as "stine" or "steen." It was my ex-husband's last name, and I kept it because it is the same as my children's. It is South African, and there it is as common as Smith is here in the United States. When you have a last name that is an actual word, then you have to be careful about how things will be pronounced later on. For example, when we knew we were having a son as our second child, my ex suggested Phillip, which is a fine name, except I nixed any first names starting with the letter p. I did not want our son to one day be known as pee stain.

After I had my daughter and knew that I could not return to work at the library and leave her with some stranger, I started working all of these odd jobs. I kind of fell into the housecleaning about a year after she was born and I have been doing that ever since. My cleaning business is simply Heather's Housecleaning Service. My mom says she named me Heather simply because she liked the name. I like being named after a flower, as  I really love flowers and gardening.

I have my little Love and Logic business as well, but again I am just an Independent Love and Logic Facilitator. There are others out there who have catchy names like Head and Heart Parenting Classes (Shelly Moorman here in Denver), but I could not come up with anything as cute as that.

So when it came time to choose a blog name, I wanted it to be a good one. My sister had chosen Patchwork Pony because she makes these adorable stick horses. It suits her so well and I love it. I just could not think of something so inventive and interesting. We brainstormed many names one day together. I really liked MammaShine from that list to go with the mom and cleaning business, but there is already a MamaShine out there. I could have done the double m, to distinguish mine from hers, but that didn't seem like a huge distinction.

I went through all of the others on that list and other lists and checked them against other blogs. I had always thought that one day I might write a book of all my mom and business experience and call it The Business of Being a Mom, but again that one was already taken. Then I thought of This Mom's Business. It would work for me because no one else had already registered it. I also really like it because it is a bit of a play on words since I will be blogging about being a mom and having a business, plus it is about my personal business as well. So I guess now I can't say it's none of your business if I am going to post it on here for anyone to see! : )