It will soon be two years since my husband and I got married. I still haven’t changed my last name.

Believe me when I tell you, I have one of those tough last names. I forever have to spell it out, sometimes several times, only to end up settling for some quasi version that’s close enough. It is a rare occasion when someone I haven’t known for over six years pronounces it correctly.

I always told myself and others that if I married a man with an easier last name than mine, I would change it in a heartbeat. My husband’s name is four letters long, all of which belong together. It’s easy to read, write and say. It even goes well with my first name!

So, why is it that one year and eight months of heartbeats later, I haven’t even made the slightest attempt to get the ball rolling? Even having a child hasn’t lit the fire under my ass as I once imagined it would. (Actually, the “with child” part happened even before I got married, but we won’t talk about that. Major sore spot with the elders.)

Last year, I purposely didn’t initiate the change for tax reasons. This year, the main reason is simply a severe lack of time and organization on my part. Honestly, for the most part, I just haven’t gotten around to it. There is so much crap that has to get done: bank accounts, mortgage, license, credit cards, logins, registrations, my own signature, the list is endless. Every time I think about it, I just get overwhelmed and mutter something about doing it later, next week, soon.

Still, I have to admit that the lack of time and organization, albeit it true, are also a very convenient and good excuse. As tax season is approaching again, I feel this clock ticking over my head and I just want to reach up and whack it so hard it ends up rotting on the dwarf planet Pluto.

I’m not ready yet!

I’ve been this person for 40 years! How can I just sign a piece of paper and give up my identity? I want to, really. I’m proud of my husband and our family. I want us to be fully united and identified as such. Yet, another part of me is terrified of losing something, a slice of myself maybe, in the process. And that small part, that tiny gnawing fear, turns out to have a mighty strong grip. So strong, that I find myself frozen like a deer caught in headlights and I can’t move.

My daughter has become this inane whiner. I have to listen to this whining all day long to the point where it becomes a sort of Chinese water torture. Eeeeeh, cookie. Eeeeeh, duice. Eeeehh, mamamamama! Oy, my head. I try to combat it, but unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about it since she’s only one. Still, as Super Nanny says, the best way to instill good behavior is to “lead by example”. Well, let me tell you, its not so easy to be the ever perfect shining role model. In these past months since she has turned one, I have never said “please” and “thank you" so much in my life. Well, she’s in bed now and I am free to let me hair down. It’s my turn to whine, goddamn it! Believe me, I know all too well how utterly annoying it is, so I apologize ahead of time for what I am about to do.

Sniff, sniff. I want new hard wood floors. I want them desperately! I hate the stupid ugly battered pieces of crap floors we have. Hate ‘em, hate ‘em hate ‘em! My house looks like a shit hole no matter how hard I clean. I get depressed every time I look around and see that gnarly turquoise painted wood spewing out from under the lovely rugs I so desperately try to hide them with. They are everywhere, I tell you, like omnipresent monsters poking their atrociously chipped and stained ridden heads out at and laughing at me. Belly laughing right in my face everywhere I look!

“Nya Nya, you can’t cover us up! Ha Ha, you can’t get rid of us. Look! We’re, over here! And over there! And Yoohoo! We’re even over here! Ha Ha! Your poor sorry ass will never escape our aesthetic hell.” (insert demonic cackling here)

Yeah, I know we made a joint decision not to do any remodeling over $500 dollars this year. I made the bloddy rule, for heaven's sake! Me and my financially responsible bullshit self, that is. My husband only yessed me to death to shut me up, and now I have to live with this insane rule, under these horrible conditions. It’s not fair, I tell ya, it’s just not fair! We work so hard, we should have lovely cherry hard wood floors for our daughter to walk on. Oh how I want ‘em. I want ‘em, I want ‘em! Why can’t I have them? Why can’t I have them NOW! I swear I will save three times as much next year. And, I will take good care of them, I promise. I will mop them, dust them and wipe up spills immediately. Please, oh please, can I have them?

OK. I’m done my whining. I'm glad I got that out of my system. I can totally see why Piper does it. It’s almost instinctual. I mean, so what if my whining is completely ineffective and rude, I do feel much better for now.

Wacky Side Note: spell check desperately tried to change yessed to yeasted. Huh? Would that be yeasted as in, “Quick, pass me the Monistat! I’ve been yeasted!” Good thing I was actually paying attention this time and didn’t let it do its thing. Imagine: “My husband only yeasted me to death to shut me up...” Nice. Real nice.

Ta Da!  So, what do you think of the new me?

After many hair pulling hours and a thousand expletives, I managed to finally figure out how to hack into the layouts and templates on Squarespace and customize them enough for my own look and feel.   I had to redo the generic layout from header to footer and this is the end result of my extreme make over.  But, I could have never done it or survived through the frustration without the help of these cyber assistants:

Exploring Squarespace:  Great advice on working with Squarespace and tips on customizing template, modules, etc. 

Citris Moon:  The creators of the cool "Overall" background you see here (it changes colors according to my whim).  Also offer great advice, tiles and other neat stuff for web designing... Great styles with impeccable taste!

Photoshop Support.com:  Photoshop help (couldn't made the Momish header graphic without the help here).  They also give great advice and tips for working with blogs designs and template.

And finally...

Miss Zoot: Fantastic advice on how to start your blog.  She makes it sound easy, and guess what?  Just follow her directions and advice and it is easy!  She also has really nice templates, but mostly for Blogger :( 

I am sure I am not finished yet, so don't be surprised if you come back tomorrow or next week and things have changed yet again.  I can't get enough of this stuff and learn so much in the meantime.  If you too are feeling stuck with a generic template on your blog, check out the above links.  You will be amazed at what you can learn.  Feel free to shoot me an email.  Although I am somewhat new at blog designing, I would be more than willing to pass on what I have learned. 

P.S. Here is a snap shot of the old blog to give you an idea of what the stand templates look like (although the Momish header was my own).  If you have a weak stomach, don't look!

Old Blog Screenshot