I've had the idea to start this blog for about two weeks. However, I feel that I have a weird obession with the meaning of numbers, so my obsessive-compulsive mind wouldn't let me start the blog on an insignificant date, which is why I waited until today. Since my ultimate goal for this blog is to document the life that I have with Justin, I thought starting the blog on our six month wedding anniversary would not make me lose sleep over the fact that I started the blog on a random day. Crazy, I know.
Like I said, the idea for the blog came a couple of weeks ago when I was watching Oprah and Justin overheard the story about the woman that writes Dooce, a blog she started that now makes thousands of dollars in advertisements each month. The popularity of her blog allowed her husband to quit his job and work from home with her and help manage the blog that now supports their entire family. Once Justin heard that, I think the conversation went like this:
Justin: "What!? She makes enough money by just blogging that her husband got to quit his job?"
Me: "Yep."
Justin: "Why don't you do something like that? Get started."
Me: "Sure, babe. I'll fit that in while writing my best-seller."
Justin: "Ok."
Only he was serious. While my expectation for this blog isn't to make millions, the more I thought about the idea of starting a blog, the more I liked it. I've tried to keep a journal more times than I can count and failed miserably each time. It's the time that it takes to write in the journal and the inevitable mistake that I would make while writing in ink that would make that obsessive-compulsive mind of mine rip out the page in the journal and start over so that each page was perfect in spelling, grammar, and handwriting. Thank goodness that typing allows for instant revision and no need for me to obsess over the fact that I'm having a bad penmanship day.
I'm hoping that this blog allows for us to document every important moment in our lives, whether the moments be completely boring or utterly exhilarating. I hope that it pushes us to take more photos, create more memories, and I hope it gives us a way to look back in a year, ten years, or twenty years on how we began our lives together as Mr. and Mrs. Leavell.
Oh and that reminds me--the reason for the title. Being an English teacher, the title had to be creative, and surprisingly, it came to me quickly. There was no better place to look for inspiration than to our last name. In the six months that I've officially been a Leavell, the name has had some instances of entertainment for me. If you ask my principal, he swears we pronounce it wrong (it's pronounced "level") and that it should be pronounced "lah-vell", which I think makes us sound French. Perhaps if we are rich one day and have a mansion, that's the pronunciation we'll go with. There was also the time in class when one of my students learned of my new last name and said, "Hey Mrs. Leavell, if you have a baby and it's a boy, you should name him Laser." He then erupted in a fit of laughter like that was the most clever idea in the world. So when deciding on the title of the blog, the first idea that came to mind was the phrase "on the level." I knew it meant something about being honest so I looked it up and found that it is a term from Freemasonry which uses stonecutting and the tools of that trade as metaphors for moral qualities. Some definitions for the phrase include "straightforward" and "sincere". I also read another definition that said the phrase meant "being as one should be--truthful". The idea for this blog is to be nothing but straightforward, sincere, and truthful, so using the play on words and replacing "level" with our last name, the name of the blog was born.
Since I imagine that I will almost always be the sole author of this blog (Justin gets anxiety over writing a personal message in a Hallmark card), I'm excited about the outlet it will provide for me to write about anything and everything in our lives. At least it will give me something to do on a Saturday night while Justin is at work instead of cleaning out the area under the bathroom sink.
So in order to meet my original goal of starting this blog on a meaningful day, I better post before it hits midnight. In honor of the day, enjoy a few of my favorite wedding photos.
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