Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Camber's list

I have long felt an affinity for awesome last names. 


One of my greatest fears as a child, aside from the usual worries about the house burning down or dying before I turned 16 and got to go on a date, was that I would marry someone with a dull last name. Like Smith. Or Johnson. (No offense to the many good Smiths and Johnsons out there. I still love you guys). 


Luckily that fear did not come to pass, although taking my husband's name did involve relinquishing the alliteration I'd so long adored (my maiden name started with C). True love requires sacrifices. Sometimes painful ones.


Since my married name is neither dull nor epic, as a pet project I've been keeping a running list of awesome last names that I have coveted at some point or another. I promise, these are all real names. I hope these people appreciate what they have.


Camber's Awesome Last Names List

Stufflebeam
Peekenschneider
Beenblossom
Horlacher
Fightmaster
Stoneburner
Bosch Von Benedict
Niffenegger
Snodgrass
Oxenreider
Hammermeister
Zieglowsky
Hightower
More to follow. Hopefully.


As consolation, we're considering the middle name Fightmaster for our oldest child. Boy or girl. 

If anyone has an awesome name to contribute, by all means please share it.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Switching Places

I like to run a drama-free household. So this year we had some stringent criteria for our Halloween costumes. They needed to:

1) Be cheap, or, preferably, free
2) Require no sewing, gluing, painting, or glitter
3) Require little to no shopping
4) Be comfortable and preferably un-embarrassing (Isaac's request)

And being the ever-resourceful people that we are, we came up with costumes that met all four criteria.


We switched places. 

Meet Camber, MBA Candidate, and Isaac, RN.

I was all set for an easy, drama-free morning as we put on our costumes, but we hit a snag I wasn't anticipating.

Isaac said, while I buttoned up his shirt, "You look weird."

So in case I didn't catch it the first time, he repeated it when I got on the suit jacket. "You look weird."

At first I thought he was just referring to the general sagging nature of the suit. Not quite my size.

But before we exchanged our habitual peck after morning prayers, Isaac recoiled.

"I feel like I'm kissing a guy."

Thanks, dear. This was the real reason he thought I "looked weird."

Never mind that I didn't make him wear anything even remotely girly. He looked great in the scrubs. In fact, he enjoyed them so much that we calculated how old he'd be if he became a doctor after his MBA.

38.

Forget it.

Our ward Halloween party was epic, and just for fun, here's the donut-eating contest (photos courtesy of Channa Dalton, who has a far better camera, and let's face it, better camera skills, than I do)


Isaac lost. But he looked good, and that's important.

And my Halloween cupcake, because it was the cutest darn thing I've ever eaten.


To conclude it all, the first words Isaac said to me when we got home? 

"Please change."