This week I…
+ actually just typed 3.1.13 up there. Oh hey, March. How you doin’?
+ had a cah-razy busy week at work — all good things, so many projects about to launch. It’s exciting times. Last night I launched a new design for Nicole (who I absolutely loved working with), stayed up late working on a big time project, and finalized details for another blog launching next week. Hold on to your hats, fun times ahead!
+ had a couple coffee dates, one with Luci and one with Jeanne. Always so nice to hear what’s going on with other blog friends!
+ am getting so excited and inspired by all the colors and prints being released in spring collections (perfect though pricey examples here and here — aren’t the colors so great though?).
+ have a big girls night out planned for tomorrow evening. Tacos and catch up time. I can’t wait!
So about last week’s question…
I get it. Not too many of you felt like answering the inherently essay-like question I asked. But, for a few of the ladies who were feeling inspired, here’s what they said:
From Emily:
The three people who have influenced me the most?
1. Lara Casey (www.laracasey.com) — a crazy inspiring, HONEST, incredible woman who is setting the internet (and tons of womens’ hearts) on FIRE.
2. Geoffrey Canada — An educator who started the Harlem Children’s Zone and has inspired tons of other educators to really buckle down and work on the education problems in our country!
3. My parents — Both raised in poverty, barely graduated high school, and have worked their behinds off to raise two well rounded kids (one college graduate and my little brother who is working hard in high school). They always pushed us towards achieving our goals and want so much more for us than they ever had.
From Elle:
3 people who have influenced/inspired me are my daddy (who has worked harder throughout his life than anyone I know), my career mentor (who reminds me on a monthly basis that women can succeed in our male dominated industry) and my friend Christen (who had the courage to quit a job she hated and start her own business, without months of planning).
From Natalie:
People that have inspired me – 1) My father. He grew up in poverty in Arizona, worked in construction and restaurants to pay his own way through college, and is now the most intelligent person I know (other than my husband). He’s a true inspiration. 2) A college professor that I used to babysit for. She had three kids, a wildly successful career, and the best personality of anyone I’ve ever met. She had so much, had accomplished so much, and yet was so humble, happy, and easygoing. I aspire to be like her every day. And 3) My husband. He’s the most even-keeled person I know. I am the opposite of that, and therefore worship him and his amazing ability to always stay calm.
This week, a question that I hope will get a lot of you laughing as we all take a walk down memory lane together. Joe and I had dinner with another couple a few weeks ago and we all got to talking about our early interactions with the Internet and social media, even when none of us knew it was social media. I was totally one of those people that was on AIM 24/7 in early high school, chatting with like five or six people at once. I was thinking about that conversation today and thought back to what my very first screen name was. Oh it’s got a good story behind it. But before I share mine, I want to know — what was your first screen name ever, and why did you pick it? Where you SuperStarPrincess01789? LovelyGirl33? Or something obvious like Lauren2002? I laugh thinking about what all my friends’ screen names were, though now I can only remember about half the stories behind them. So, share what yours was, and what the story behind it was too! I’m sure you guys will have some funny ones…
Happy Friday and Happy March!
{Image Credit: Søren Jepsen for The Locals; The Everygirl; Lydia Hudgens for My Style Pill}
I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but mine was hellokitty86! I loved Sanrio (still do).
Mine was goldie0702. It’s not the most creative – goldie for my blonde hair (super blonde at the time) and 0702 was my freshman year dorm room! That later morphed into psublondie.
Supermorgan2, my best friend and I used to pretend we were super heroes so it made sense for my twelve year old self to use it as my user name and email
Ha! Funny question. Mine was ritz84 – my whole family calls me ritz. Totally still use that as a random user name from time to time!
Catybarb99 – It was an amalgamation of my dad’s pet name for me – which I 100% knew no one else would have taken – and the my high school graduation year.
Mine was hmchalupa. My initials are HMC, but I had this crazy obsession with the chalupas at Taco Bell. (Actually, I think I still do. I want one right now).
OMG. Best. screen name. ever.
Goodness, I was obsessed with AIM too. I remember it being a huge battle with my parents to be allowed to get a screen name… how times have changed! I think my first username was akacrazy with some numbers
What up, March!?
Oh AIM. Magha2002 was my first screen name – Magha being my Hindu astrological sign, and 2002 being my high school graduation year. I quickly got flack for the name by my guy friends, who called me Magma (in the Dr. Evil-esque voice) for a solid year. I cheekily replied “that’s Miss *Liquid Hot Magma* to you”.
What a great question. I was obsessed with AIM and having a witty away message. My screen name was Rider plus some random numbers. I had a horse and rode competitively since I was six years old, and my world revolved around that. My ten or eleven year old self thought it was appropriate. Little did I know, I would get an inordinate amount of interest from people who thought my screen name had a dirty connotation.
Witty away messages? I was obsessed with coming up with them, too. I miss those days… sometimes.
I love Nicole’s redesign and ohmygosh AIM! My first screen name was ellie2323 (nickname + last 4 digits of an phone #) and which I still use for a surprising number of log-ins! Random fact, my now husband asked me on our first date in 2003 via AIM… probably explains why it took 4 years for us to go on a second date!
And I meant to say thanks for featuring my response from last week!! It was an interesting question to think about for me!
This is actually one of my favorite first date questions! haha. I had many many screen names but some of my favorites were: Xo NSYNC oX, NikDiCap, IN lI IK lK II (nikki in bubble letters) oh goodness.m
HAHAHAHA! XO NYSYNC! So good.
This is such a fun question! My first screen name was xoluckyitalian…yes I’m Italian, but I also felt like the luckiest girl in the world once my mom let me sign-up for AIM after all of my friends had it for over a year. Hence, lucky Italian.
haha – mine was “Deviltress” – i was a HUGE NJ Devils hockey fan – so Deviltress was my name – and MAN what sicko’s use to IM me – thinking it was a kinky name – oh the AOL days and chat rooms – i literally would have to explain the hockey team thing because they thought i was all about S&M – ekkkkk
Hahaha! I used to be on AIM all the time! I remember when you could change the “Welcome” and “goodbye” and “you’ve got mail” voices to different celebs. LOL. My s/n was “Dancediva784”. Can’t believe I even still remember that. It was because I was in dance at the time, we’d just won Nationals in July (the reason for the 7), and 84 was apart of our dance studio’s name.
Oh wow! My first screen name was snickerdoodle with some number after it. I can’t believe I can’t remember the number, but I went wtih snickerdoodle because I made the screenname in middle school and in sixth grade I moved from Alaska to Florida and my Alaskan friends and I made snickerdoodle cookies at my surprise going away party! I didn’t use it too much and when I got to high school I changed it to orangedreamer7 (mostly because I was drinking a drink called orange dream and 7 is my favorite number) haha and was on AIM all the time!!! And Livejournal! Oh good times!
Haha.. okay well you have to remember I was like 8 or 9 years old and I’m pretty sure it was something like KaylaCat072188. Only because I loved cats so much.. ohh Lordy.. as I type this I am thinking “what in the world?!!” Is this foreshadowing me being the crazy cat lady when I’m old and lonely? Oh well.. I guess I’ll take it.. hahah
Thanks for the walk down memory lane! ; )
Kayla
http://www.lovelucygirl.com
This is the best question! My first AIM screen name was HaberBee777 (Haber being my last name, 777 because I liked the number. And get this, “Bee” because in middle school I had the most horrendous highlights that made my black and highlighted blonde hair look like a Bee, or zebra now that I think about it…) #win #Iwasanawesomemiddleschooler
oh AIM.. weren’t those simple times? the first screen name I remember having was narnarguhnar because I grew up in southern California and often said Gnarly and that somehow morphed into “narnar.” I think my friends screenname was my favorite though: campingisintents
This is GENIUS! Mine was Daring167 because I thought that was cool and “cutie” everything was taken! Later changed to Moonz1114 people STILL call me moonz!
ALSO! You should checkout @YourAwayMessage it brings back the memories, and is hilarious!
Oh my gosh… the oldest one I can remember is “rachie38”. Rachie is my nickname from my Dad and 37 other people had the same idea before me. How original!
Oh gosh, I’m loving these answers! Mine was khakigrl55, I was obsessed with those dancing Gap khaki commercials and thought it exuded my preppy style, embarrassing!
Love this question. Mine was Moxie2004 because I thought that sounded super hip and chic (at age 11).
The best/worst was when people made screen names for their boyfriends e.g. lovenick4eva or something equally ridiculous… thankfully I resisted that trend.
Thanks for sharing my comment! My first screenname was bricestreetbrat–my family lived (and still does) on Brice Street and I am not sure why I decided it was a good idea to refer to myself as a brat, ohhh teenage problems.
Oh gosh – first screenname? I’ve had a few just wrong ones. I think my first one was buttrfl7y. Why the 7 before the y? I’ll never know, haha!
That ombre tweed dress, though? SWOON!
Colorfulbutterfly2002. Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking!
Mine was Krazy… And then guttrgrl because my mind was always in the gutter… All class back then!
Ha! I love this question. My friends and I lived on AIM. We would sit there and when the guy we liked signed on we would freak out. But of course, you didn’t want to IM them too soon to avoid being creepy (which we so were). So embarrassing. It was also how Seth and I first got to know each other and how I introduced myself to him. Thanks AIM! My screenname, or sn as we used to call it, was isk8nhockeygrl27. Because I was a figure skater and loved hockey and the Sharks.
You’ve got my mind going down memory lane now!
blizbeth7070, because my name is Elizabeth. Not sure how I came up with it. I wish I could go back and see what my AIM “profile” was like. I’m pretty sure I had one of those fancy ones where you click a link and it takes you to all these pages where I had shout outs to friends, lists of things I liked… yikes.
Elizabeth of The Corner Apartment
Talk about a blast from the past! Mine was Inigo1130, after Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride. My friends and I were all obsessed with the movie, and I liked how swashbuckling he was :)
Love this question!
Mine was MintyGirl03 I think because people said I looked good in green haha!
Smurfette818–ironically, my Smurf connection these days are the 5lb bags of Haribo Smurf gummies (they are the bessssst) I order from Germany!
I think mine was RoxyGirl83. I was big into the California surfer brands back then, thanks to an obsession with the Delias catalog, hah!
Also, loving Nicole’s new site – looks incredible!
Oh! Mine was (and sometimes still is): cairken.
I had a dream that I was at a debate tournament, and there was a list on the chalkboard of everyone I had to debate, with about 10 people. Two of them had the first name “Cairken” (and different last names). I woke up, and for some reason groggily wrote the name on a piece of paper on my nightstand.
The next day I needed a screen name for AIM – and voila! There was a unique one written on my nightstand.
OMG! Brings back such good memories, but it also makes me realize how much time I spent obsessing over making my profile pretty and obsessively putting up away messages. My user name was Aabercrombe397 and people pronounded it a abercrombe. First of all, I completely misspelled Abercrombie wrong knowingly, and although it bothered me, I decided to keep it because I just had to have a name with Abercrombie in it. Second, I couldn’t just misspell it wrong with one letter, so I had to add an extra A in from of )abercrombe). The 397 was and is still my favorite number. No reason why, just is! AIM was the coolest thing ever, and I spent hours upon hours chatting it up with my friends or just waiting for people to sign on. And how naive to think it would never go out of style! One of my good friends had the name tkw3daw which stood for (TaeKwonDo, Three Days a Week). I always thought it was so smart and witty, plus it’s still stuck with me to this day.
So embarrassing… my first screen name was “imunforgettable” with some random numbers I’m sure. It came about after some boy teased my friends and I about being “totally forgettable” – I took that as armor for my 13-year-old self. I’m very glad to have graduated to something more mature and professional. Boys are so silly!
I really can’t remember my first name, but the one I had from middle school on was Gazi225. My dad told me once that if he could do it again (and spoke Spanish) he would have named me Giselda, and Gazi is a nickname for it. 2/25 is my birthday ;)
Kristina
Kristina does the Internets
Oh man, great question! I’ll never forget my 1st screen name because it had to be perfect. It was StarRebel4. I’m a really big David Bowie fan(combination of songs Starman + Rebel Rebel)and 4 is my favorite number. :)
haha mine was loveisadrug01
it’s so lame! but it’s the only thing that I could stick with :) #flashbackmoment
Hi! I am so glad I found your blog…it’s so fun to read….I love the variety of topics!
My friend came up with it for me — it was “mayosgirl”. Mayo was the nickname of the cute boy I liked in 7th grade, and my friend assured me that it was the perfect screen name and that no one else at school would ever find out, especially not the cute boy. Needless to say, the next day the whole school knew and I was super embarrassed. Oh middle school!
Oh my gosh – the days of AIM were so funny. I used to run home from middle school & sign on to chat with my crush every day. We’d never talk in person and yet would chat for hours, complete with “LOL” after every sentence (I am cringing).
I think my first screen name was “ChicaBabe7” or something ridiculous of the sort. I wish I could have an archive of all my conversations, they’d be so funny to read today!
Isn’t That Charming.
I’d forgotten about this, but it was Catnip789. I must have been around 14, I think I chose it pretty much at random, and it was after the cat we had at the time. So, not a great story, but definitely nothing I would choose now!
Bevin
magnoliareverie.blogspot.com
Oh, I was Blaze81700… The numbers have no meaning. The name was because I thought i was a fast runner (really). As an innocent 5th grader I had no idea that blaze could have other implications. Needless to say middle school was a rough time for me and I eventually changed it to Lara024 :)
som1swt … MAN, i’m clever!
Oh man, having to rack my brain for this, but I think it was my AOL screen name: Meg75071 (how boring!).
Your writing style is amazing. My first screen name ever was Maniac89 then youngprodigyx lol ..
Ok well embarrassingly enough, mine was “swimmergurl412”, which my brother helped me create in 3rd grade, and chose my password, which I ironically STILL use as my password today (with a very small variation). I don’t even know if I really picked it, I think he just gave me ideas and I agreed to this one! But about two years later, I changed it to “dancinchik412” which really is not any better. I picked this one because I was all into my dance days, and apparently thought I was really cool.
xx
http://hotchildinchicity.blogspot.com/
Great question! Mine was Vivoosh, because my childhood nickname used to be Vivi. I fought it for years until everybody started calling me by my “real” name, but by the time I was in high school I actually started missing it. Even now, every time someone addresses me as Vivi or Vivoosh (either my family or friends I made over internet forums at the early 2000s and crossed over to real life) I have the feeling they must really like me if they’re calling me by my childhood nickname.
Supermags1 was my first screen name. Back then I was a HUGE fan of the Lois & Clark TV show. My first visit to a chat room was to discuss the sad cancellation of the show! Ohhhh the memories!
Coolest memory from that era were two Lois & Clark fans, met in the chat room, then met in real life, dated, got married and had someone posting live in the chat during their ceremony!
HA! I love this question (AND the answers!)…
Mine was “Sunkissed333”. So lame and doesn’t really have any real meaning besides the fact that I love being in the sun (Oh, hey face-wrinkles!) and my favorite number is 3. :) Fun thinking back about all of those late-night AIM convos though!!! LOL
Hahaha one of my first screen names was Silverlining , who picks a name like that ??? ME then It was PorraPrincess20 because im Half Portuguese and I was 20 uhm obviously .
xo Meg<3
Meghan Silva’s Blog
Mine was uc4335 — I’m from Connecticut and a huge UConn basketball fan so the UC stood for Uconn + the 43, 3, and 5 were numbers of my favorite players (back in 7th grade!).
Great question! Mine was a fairly generic AllysonTennis09. I caught on late to the AIM thing, although I was all about xanga – early blogging, oh the memories!