Identity crisis.

Well to be honest it isn't really a crisis, but I have thought about changing my screen name a lot over the last few years. It's just that I've been "velvethare" for so long (7 years!) that's it's a lot like changing your telephone number: a real hassle. There are so many people to notify, so many e-newsletter profiles to update, so many online accounts to change. I even have a new one picked out: "scrappyhare." One day, on a whim, I decided to check with AOL to see if it was available, though I really expected it to be taken already - there must be thousands of AOL users and most screen names have to be either garbled somehow or numbers added to them to make them unique. I hate that. I was very surprised that my chosen name was actually available and decided to take it, even though I hadn't yet decided to make the switch.

I get asked every now & then how I came up with velvethare, and the answer is really quite simple: when we first signed up with AOL I had to pick a screen name, and since we were still fairly newlywed I wanted something cute with my new name. I decided on "velveteen rabbit." Well of course it was too long. Thus, I settled on "velvethare."

For years, I've tried to come up with a catchy handle that involved my other great love, music. The problem is, I play the French horn. You know what kind of spam I'd get with the word "horn" in my email address?! (Though I have problems with having "velvet" in my address too...) My very first one was "ConnArtist" - which I loved, but got really tired of explaining (my horn is a Conn 8D, as a musician I am an artist, etc...)

To complicate matters even more, on some websites I have still different usernames: I used "horn diva" for a long time, then after Hannah was born I switched to "Ma Hare" (which also happens to be a longtime nickname of Chris' grandma).

But I think I like "scrappyhare" best of all. It's me. It's cute. And it's not something I settled for. I just have to convince myself that it's worth the trouble to make the switch.

All of this to say that I have changed my username on 2Peas. "Ma Hare" has passed away... (The 2Peas user, not Chris' grandma!) Meet "scrappyhare." :)