Love, Laney, & Skye

As is often the case with bloggers, I’ve chosen screen names for my family as I write about our lives. But why Love, Laney, and Skye?

At first my husband was Hubby as I wrote about him, but the name just didn’t work – too many Hubbys out there in the blogosphere. But why Love? My mother’s sister called her husband of sixty years Love until she lost him two years ago. Actually, come to think of it, she still does. Calling my husband Love on this blog seemed like a fitting tribute to both of them, especially my uncle, who was a “Master Gardener” before the term was invented.

I’m not Laney in my real life, either, but she’s there in the back of my mind. Laney Whidden was a several-greats grandmother of mine who lived in Georgia two-hundred plus years ago. I’ve loved the name since I stumbled upon it several years ago, and I often think about what her life must have been like and what she would think of mine.

And then there’s Skye. My daughter actually chose her own screen name, and she uses it, too. She’s named for Skye Penderwick, a character in two wonderful books by Jeanne Birdsall. If you have a daughter, granddaughter, or neice in her tweens, you might hand her The Penderwicks and The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, two wonderful books about a bevy of young sisters making their way in the world with no mother and a Latin-speaking, absent-minded professor of a father.