We could have called it "Clayton Clabber"

It turns out that the hardest part of setting up a blog is coming up with “perfect” name… or any name for that matter.  This morning I woke up, failed to find a sub job, started the crock pot for dinner with the missionaries tonight, and decided to seize the day and create our family blog.  The moment Jason woke up and stumbled out of the bedroom, I pounced. 

“What do you want to call our family blog?”

“Huh?”

I know, “good morning to you, too..”   But, poor boy, I wouldn’t let it go and we sat there through the morning thinking of names.  Well, actually, I thought of names, while Jason checked stocks and good-naturedly submitted some cheese-ball titles of his own.  When I expressed my frustration over the pathetic names we were generating, his response was, “Well, Sweetie, crap in, crap out.”  Gross. And I’m not really sure what “crap” we were ingesting to accomplish such a yield, but I won’t deny that I felt an odd urgency to come up with the name right then and there.  Patience has never been the shining star in my sky of virtues… can lateness count? Procrastination, maybe?  Or how about never finishing what I’ve started?  Fail. 

The thing about a naming a blog is that you want it to be cute, without being hoakey, cheesy, or flat out lame.  Blog titles with your name and some rhyming word or a word that begins with the same letter is very tempting, because it’s fun, but can just get a little too, um… much.  Yes, an extreme muchiness… not good. Things like:  The Clayton Crier, The Clayton Chronicles, A Compilation of Clayton… you see where this is going.  Here is a short list of some of our more ugly, weird, and gag, I just threw up a little in my mouth, names:

    

The Clayton Calamities

Sculpturing with Clay-tons

Cup’o Clayton

Chili Cheese Fries and Oreos (Maybe just “Fat and Sugar”… can you guess who is who?)

Homines vult decipi (To show off my near non-existent Latin skills.  It means “Men want to be deceived.”)

Two J’s in Love

J and J juxtapositions

New text message (Our entire relationship was based on these…)

The Casual Clayton

The Once Yearly Update

The Neverland Claytons

Hop on Pop

Clayton Crude; oil that is (We like The Beverly Hillbillies)

J squared n’paired (no, not impaired)

Too bad our name isn’t Lemmon

Satan rhymes with Clayton

The Storytime Circle (It’s where we got engaged)

The Clayt Night Show  Staring, Jay Son…

The Clayton Quibbler (We actually liked this one, but it was too reminiscent of Harry Potter)

Submitted by Cecily:

If there’s a Clayton, there’s a Way… ton. (Waiting?  You will wait for these posts.)

Thank you for that gem, Cecily.

When I suggested “The Responsible Haircut”, I received a pretty skeptical look from my husband.  And he wasn’t even sold after the byline “Clayton News and Clippings”, which I felt was a sure hook. You may be wondering what a responsible haircut is.  Let me begin by telling you what it isn’t…

So cute!  I think I’m in love with this boy.  Okay, so, I like longer hair on guys.  Not the pull it back into a ponytail ridiculousness, but just enough to curl up a bit on the ends, blow in the breeze, run your fingers through.  In our early dating days I used to drop subtle hints… As Jason’s hair would grow out a bit, I would say things like, “Have you done something new, you’re looking especially hot.”  “I like the way you’ve done your hair today.”  “This is a nice length for your hair.”  “I’m in love with Zac Efron.”  Inevitably, his hair would be sheared to the appearance of a thin layer of brown dust atop his head by the next day. (It retrospect, it may have been the Zac Efron comment.)  This is what Jason refers to as, “the responsible haircut”.

I know, and have been reminded on many occasions, that the military expects a clean, off-the-ear, hair style… but this somehow gets confused with “go find a clan of Indians to scalp you.”  I can’t give Jason too much of a hard time, because he grows his hair out a bit more these days, and truthfully, I love my responsible man, with his responsible hair… it’s one of the many reasons I fell in love with him in the first place… that and gorgeous blue eyes, and a dang cute bum.

So why not make it the title of our blog?  It’s not too cheesy, only slightly hoakey, and merely borderline lame.  So, what can you expect from a blog thus named… in my experience as a blogger (once yearly at best), absolutely nothing!  But with any luck our infrequent post will probably contain some news, possibly some clippings, and hopefully some sanity.   Most importantly, as this blog will likely be authored by me, and therefore will be found wanting in the responsible department, please keep in mind that at least one of us has a haircut that epitomizes just such a characteristic.