Gardening in High Heels

Kids, let me tell you a story.  Today’s Blogger, May I prompt is the story behind my blog name.  Back when I had an AOL email address (hello 90s), I was enthralled by ‘zines.  They were basically just bulk emails that were sent out.  I wanted so badly to be one of the popular ones and have tons of replies when I wrote something.

Then there was DeadJournal and LiveJournal and Xanga.  I think the only thing I didn’t have was a GeoCities site!

I always loved writing and putting it out there for others to see it.  I remember my father asked me why I couldn’t just write in a journal.

Come on now.  If you didn’t publish your deepest thoughts for the internet to see, did you really think them?  I think I was the original (unintentional) hipster.

Fast forward quite a few years.  I saw Julie and Julia.  I loved it.  I wanted to do that, so I got the genius idea to do it with a quilt.  I was in Ohio with my mom and she bought me the most perfect Moda jellyroll I have ever seen.  I found a pattern and got to work.

Since I was using Moda fabrics, I named it Moda Vivendi (a play on modus vivendi, meaning agree to disagree; a way of life).  And I wrote maybe 2 posts.  My follow-through needed a little work.  The quilt got finished, though!

I loved the name so I kept using it throughout college.  I mostly shared pictures of my nail polish and random thoughts that came up.  In 2013, I switched to SyntaxxErrorrr.  It’s what I used for all my social media accounts.  I would go to events and introduce myself as SytnaxxErrorrr because that’s how people knew me.  I had to use it for my blog’s name.

There are still photos tagged like that because I didn’t keep the PSD files and it’s a bitch to reupload everything but they’ll change some day.

What I failed to admit to myself is that “SyntaxxErrorrr” is hard to find online.  If you want to have a successful blog, you gotta make it easy for people to get to.

One day last June, I was in the garden watering my plants between jobs – I worked at Sharp Edge in the morning and interned with Yelp in the afternoon.  It’s terrible to admit, but I didn’t give a damn what I looked like for Sharp Edge; Rachel, my Yelp supervisor, always looked amazing in cute dresses and accessories, so I always tried to do it up on Yelp days.

So there I was tending to my garden wearing a flowy skirt, platform wedge sandals, and lots of jewelry while wielding a dirty garden hose trying not to get dirt smudged all over my legs.  I was rarely successful with that one.

And I said to myself, “Gardening In High Heels – now THAT would be a name for a blog.”  I was so excited, I told my mom right away.  Even she liked it (and she barely uses email).

I turned that idea over and over until I finally purchased the domain.  I just sat with it for a long time until I decided to let go of SyntaxxErrorrr earlier this year and made the leap to change my name for the third time.

Guys, I think this one is going to stick.  I really like it here.

Are you a blogger?  How did you come up with your name?

Need the prompts for the Blogger, May I challenge?  Gotcha covered.  Want to use your own prompts?  No problem!  Just grab a button to show that you’re linking up with myself, Katy, and Meghan.  Oh, and use #BloggerMayI on Twitter/Instagram to keep the fun going even after you hit Publish!