In honor of SophieMaeJames.com turning one 😍, I wanted to write about the name. How I came up with it, what it means, and why I choose the topics I choose.
Sophie Mae James is a combination of my life past, present, and future.
Future – Sophie
Sophie, as you might know, was my beloved dog’s name. Sophie was also mine and Shaine’s “first child.” I got her when he was in basic training, and she was by my side through it all. Basic training, Germany, deployment, transition home, both miscarriages, everything. Her name brings such fond memories but also hope, that I’ll have even more loving memories with our future human children.
Present – Mae
I wanted something that represented my life as a wife, as a mother, as an adult. Getting married a month after my 18th birthday meant my entire life as an adult has been as a McConnon. I associate Amanda Hardy (my maiden name) as a child I used to know. Someone who wasn’t strong wasn’t the person I am today. It was essential to present the initial M, to associate with who I am today; a McConnon, a Mother, a Mature adult. Enter Mae. ❤️
Past – James
This one was simple. Sophie Mae Hardy didn’t sound right, so I went to the next best thing. The man who gave me that name, my dad James. While the blog name took after him, it presents the family he and my mom created. Memories of my childhood, the love of travel I inherited from them, the foundation of ethical values and believes they instilled in me. My family taught me many things, one of the biggest is to be me. Be the weird, crazy, outspoken, determined person I am. It’s funny because a lot of you probably know me through this blog, work, school, etc. and think I’m just super sweet, very easy going. If you ask anyone in my family, you’d hear a whole different story.
I’ve told the story time and time again why I created this blog, but what I haven’t talked about is why I choose the topics I did. I wanted simple ideas I could expand on:
Admire
Balance
Create
Dear ____:
Explore
and recently added Forever
Admire
A page dedicated directly to relationships, because relationships are hard. Regardless if they are platonic, romantic, forced or organic. As we get older, I’m learning that adult friendships are even harder. You change, your friends change, everything changes, which I struggle with. I want everyone to get along, love each other and no have peaks and valleys. This page helps me sort through my new normals with some of the closest people to me.
Balance
Balance – a page dedicated to precisely that. Right now as I write this, I am twenty-nine years old, which in my eyes makes me older enough to know better but young enough to still not care. I am in a place that allows me to do the things I could not do in my early twenties. I have a blooming career, with a good income. I’ve also got to have some amazing life experience that has taught me valuable lessons, but I am still young enough to have those carefree nights and through all responsibilities to the wind and drink more than I should. This page is about that. About balancing life as a responsible adult, but as a still Young-loving young(er) adult.
Create
DIY, fashion, everything. If someone were to ask me to explain myself in five words, creative would be the farthest thing from my vocabulary. I like numbers; I like things black and white. However, when other people look at me, they see creativity. In the way I dress, the way I shop, the way I decorate my house. I like to describe myself as perfectly-imperfect. I get a thrill from shopping and finding creative ways never to pay full price for an item. My clothes may never be trendy, but when I wear them, they will always look cute and unique. As for my home, things have to look nice from a distance but don’t you dare look up close at the trim line on my ceiling because I promise you, it is a mess. This page is a way I like to share my ideas (Shaine’s brunt work) off, where you can go to get inspired to do something with a barely-there budget.
Dear ___
Dear ____ was something I had to include when making this blog because as you know, this blog is for me. Yes, I love that it gives me a platform to reach out and communicate with other people, but at the end of the day this is where I go to vent, bitch, scream, cry, celebrate. Dear was going to be “dear diary,” like I have always written to but the more I started to write I realized these posts were direct at other people, at different situations, life experiences and even myself. By leaving it open, it gave me the flexibility to write about anything, and everything I felt I need/wanted to share.
Explore
Simple and sweet; life is short, get out and explore. As I mentioned above my parents instilled a love for traveling into me and now that I am an adult, have the means to see the world, I am on a mission to do that. Whether it is a place twenty miles down the road or twenty hours away, it is on my list to see. Shaine and I have very little in common, but the night before our wedding we made a promise to each other that we would visit every state TOGETHER, during our marriage. The advantage of living abroad so early into our relationship it gave us opportunities to start our traveling out to other countries instead of other states. It works like this; I get the idea, I present it to him, he bitches about it. I book it anyways, he pouts. Then the time comes to go, and he is the one who never wants to go home. He’ll stay away every night reading about odd jobs we can do and how we would go about moving our life to where we are. And this goes from one extreme to another. Ireland, bam, the motherland. Find a small piece of land and farm. Waco, TX — get a job building with Chip and Jo Gaines. Hell, we went to bum-fuck nowhere Iowa, and he still had a plan to stay. As we grow our family, the ideas will get more elaborate, but the memories will still always be priceless.
Forever
And last, but not least, forever. I have learned since starting this blog that building a family, infertility to be specific, is a topic of conversation that is not talked about enough. It is something so many people can relate to and something that needs to be spoken about more. I added this page because no matter what happens in our attempts to grow our family, I will forever have the memories to look back on; good, bad, indifferent. Forever will be a place that other’s can share their experience with building families and all that comes with it. And then one day, this can also be where I share all of my mommy-shit. You know the stories that include a mass amount of shit, what accomplishment little “Timmy” did that day, and probably even how I hide in my closet to get thirty-seconds of alone time.
This blog has brought me so much joy over the past year. Some weeks I have written more, some weeks I have written less than I would have liked but what matters is I will always have these memories to look back on and remember. Remember how I was feeling, how I got through the tough times, and who was there during the celebratory times. Everything else in this world has been digitalized, and now, this blog can act like that for me, a timeline of my life.
Thank you all for taking the time to read my words, it means more than you know. Cheers to the first year down and many more to go.