Place New Title Here

After these more serious posts recently, I feel a need to let my hair down and yak about something completely unimportant; my blog name. As we remember, I picked My English Cottage long before coming to England, and was able to use it as a title after all, despite my doubts, because although it is a house divided into flats, it's not "purpose built," but rather dates from the mid 1600s (I love living in a house older than our nation). We live on the third floor. And although it's a large house to me, the people here really do call it a cottage!
However, our sojourn nears its end, as we leave here in two weeks from today, and so I've been racking mine and Avram's creativity for another title. Now, I want this title to be (semi) permanent, so that way people can really begin to relate to it, and count on it, and then others will see someone's link to my blog, done by title name and not by name, and be head-over-heels intrigued by the AMAZING TITLE THAT GOES RIGHT HERE and then they'll visit my blog itself, and be forever smitten by my run-on sentences and made up words, and add me to their Google reader and love me forever.

Or something like that.

Not only must this title stand up to the rigours of blogging on the Internet, I also want it to represent me, and who I am; Mormon, a Mother, sometimes Social Butterfly, capitalizes Nouns like she thinks she's writing in German, you know, Me.

Last time Sarah and Matt thought up the best list, and although I didn't use any of their titles, I was still alternately laughing/blown away by their creativity. This time, I hope you can all live up to their legacy.

So far as contenders I have:

The Poisson Puissant

The Mighty Fish

(I picked up these because Avram and Samuel his brother like to speak in French together, because Samuel went on his mission to Quebec. Avram didn't; so his French is decidedly on a lower {although still impressive considering how little formal training he's had in it} par. One day Avram was trying to tell Samuel how I was mighty (Puissant), but he accidentally called me a fish (Poisson) instead. Since then it's been a sort of nickname for me).

Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

I like this title because it's a little of everything, which is kind of what my blog is about; a little bit of everything in my life and thoughts. And it's a quote, and I love quotes for titles. Although I like little known/little used quotes best. I wanted to do my title as "Kindred Spirits" from Anne of Green Gables, but it turns out there's already a blog by that name. And then I thought of "Cabbages and Kings" from the same poem the aforesaid potential title is from, "The Walrus and the Carpenter," by Lewis Carroll, but that was already taken as well. I am a little hesitant for this title, only because in the poem the Walrus and the Carpenter lure little oysters to their tragic death, which does put a pall on things.

As we explored last time, there are still some contenders I like:

Quintessential Thora

The Quintessence of Thora

My Quintessence

Quintessential Quirks

The Quintessence of Quirkiness

(I could go on...)

(Gotta love those Qs)

A Modern Subtlety

Get it? Get it? Yeah, that was what I was worried about. A Subtlety is a Medieval edible sculpture, usually made out of something like marzipan, that accompanied feasts. They're over the top, pretty large and detailed; old Quill and the Sword ones have been a dragon made out of sugar glass (thank you, Carol!), a goose named Penelope (once again, props to Carol), a Boar's Head (Heidi), etc. However, I never actually made any Subtleties, so I can't claim this as part of my creative medieval past, per se. And I think the meaning will be lost on most readers. Still, I like it.

Shakespeare and the Bible are good places for random quotes. First to come to my mind concerning Shakespeare are any speeches learned as a junior or senior in High School. I think this one has its moment describing my life:

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the Last Syllable of recorded time
And All our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28

Faulkner already took the final part of the soliloquy, but I was more attracted to the beginning, anyway. Like,

All our Yesterdays

(which sounds something like a soap opera)

or To the Last Syllable of Recorded Time

Although this second bit sounds like I'm either going to write until the end of the world, or that alternately I'm never going to shut up. This may be true in either case, but it's not exactly the image I want to project.

This Petty Pace could work too, but really my probems with all of these is that they are kind of downers. I want something in my title that shouts, Pretty and Light-filled humor and seriousness, with a dash of Lydia, Elisheva and Avram thrown in - don't forget forays into religion! That's a pretty lame title, though.

Other Shakespeare ideas are from the play Love's Labour's Lost, although I really ought to say from the film Love's Labour's Lost done by Kenneth Branagh, whom I love, because the film is a very shortened (and better for modern audiences, I think) version of the play, and I first heard these lines spoken by Kenneth (whom I love. I really do. Well, I love his voice, at least. A lot of people have their "Hollywood" lists of people they like. Mine is Harrison Ford, thirty years ago, and Kenneth Branagh, but only if he were speaking Shakespeare to me. I love how he speaks Shakespeare; he take obscure jokes and love lines and turns them into living, breathing thoughts and poetry).

Love - It kills Sheep

The real problem with this is that although I love this line in the movie, it doesn't actually relate to anything. I've never had any sheep, even. Although, once I visited Travis' family down in Bicknell, Utah, and his cute 7 year old (at the time) niece named a sheep born the night I was there after me. Then seven months later Avram and I had a messy, messy break-up, and Travis took him and others down to Bicknell, Utah for a weekend away from it all. And then his niece found out how cruel I had been to poor Avram, and so they decided that the Thora Sheep must die. And it did (they do eat their sheep, so it wasn't just a random act of revenge. She would have died at some point, anyway, just not so soon) . So in a way, our love did kill a sheep. But this story would make an odd subtitle to my blog. And we did get back together, although the poor Thora sheep still lost her life because of me, so I don't want everyone to focus on how I stomped on Avram's poor, bleeding little heart back before I decided to marry him. Because the important thing is that we're happy now. Right? RIGHT?

Then there's

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the Gods
Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.

And the way Kenneth says that line! Even remembering it makes my heart melt. Especially because it's a speech about why women are essential to men, and why they can't (or shouldn't) cut themselves off from women to exclusively focus on their studies, because women are the muse of study (or something like that).

Really this quote illustrates the difficulty of using any quote; I may love them, but they don't usually encapsulate who I am very well, especially not all of me. And this one is too long, anyway.

Speaking of "all of me", Avram saw me writing this post, and wondered why I was subjecting my poor readers to an in-depth discussion on my potential blog titles. I told him that I wanted them to know everything about me, including the color of my underwear drawer. Then I thought to myself,

The Color of my Underwear Drawer

Mmm, it's a possibility, but then I realized that since the answer is "White," it's not really that revealing, since most of you knew that anyway.

So back to the drawing board.

I'm going to put up a poll, but feel free to leave comments on what you think as well, and/or any other titles that you think could work.

P.S. You can leave more than one answer on the poll, if you so desire.

P.P.S. Even if you're a lurker/don't know me/a stalker from old times/happened on this blog today, and you've only ever read this post, still feel free and welcome to leave a vote. Also feel free to leave comments. They make me happy.

P.P.P.S You hear that? Everyone please me comments always. I love them.