Dallin and I have the interesting challenge of choosing names for baby. A challenge because everyone seems to have their idea of the "100 best" or "most popular". Do we want a name of a certain origin? A celebrity name? A hipster name? A name inspired by mythology? A name inspired by nature? The lists are endless and exhausting.
Honestly, I just need a name simple to spell and pronounce that works with our last name. And it would be nice if our child happened to like the name too. We have some ideas, but I have been stumped on middle names for a girl, which is important to me.
My own middle name has a family history connection on both the maternal and paternal sides of my family. Margaret was my maternal great-grandmother's middle name and my paternal grandmother's first name. I did not care for the name Margaret much when I was younger, but I did like that my name came from something more than just a baby book at random. I also happened to know both women in my lifetime, which helped the name mean more to me.
My great-grandmother passed away a few days after my sixteenth birthday. She was a very short woman, 4'11" on a good day, and was quite spit-fire. She was independent and sassy. She spent her childhood in Nome, Alaska with gold miners in her father's road house in the early 1900s. After high school she did a nurse's training/lab work program in Portland and Astoria. In her later life, I was sometimes allowed to stay with her in her little apartment. We played cards and pool in the community center during my visits.
My paternal grandmother was confined to a wheelchair for all the time that I knew her.
When we visited her she would call for us to come to her for a kiss--and by "kiss" I mean a deluge of smooches all over the face. She was a very loving, affectionate grandmother, in spite of her lack of mobility. In the first grade she contracted rheumatic fever and spent six months in bed with a leak in the valve of her heart. Her physical activity was greatly restricted after that. Despite somewhat fragile health she and her husband raised a family on an Idaho homestead farm site that featured sage brush, scorpions, rattlesnakes, anthills, and powerful windstorms.
I don't know that I have "become a Margaret" just by having it as part of my name, but I can appreciate the Margaret's from my family history and make good with the name that we share.
And, between now and August perhaps inspiration will strike and help me find that right name with some kind of important significance for our baby.
It has taken me some time to appreciate Colorado horticulture. Spring has arrived here, but only tentatively so. I suppose I had become accustomed to the whiz-bang circus performance of a Georgia spring that this tiptoe-in-with-satin-slippers approach has been a little disappointing. Georgia, on the other hand, reminds me of an impetuous child who wants it all now; it is a true spring fling. In less than two weeks the landscape can become a bonanza of color and fragrance. It is a plant lover's paradise, and a pollen-allergy nightmare.
Colorado seems to approach the whole season with guarded grace, showing measured restraint, and demanding patience. There are few "stop-the-car" moments to admire some blooming tree or shrub; we have instead subtle color palette transitions. So, I am learning to slow down a little more, to savor spring in stages, and appreciate the signs of renewal and awakening that do exist. Besides, this is Colorado and there is no reason to rush in headlong; it will probably snow in April. 
