That's not my name!

I felt like I was in a music video with the Ting Tings today at Molle Chevrolet. I was picking up the Buick from its oil change, and the lady at the window asked for my name so she could look up the car.

"Schad. S-C-H-err...I'm sorry that's not my name. Wow, and I've been married for two years. It's under Stapp. S-T-A-P-P. Sorry."

And while my cheeks flushed and I continued apologizing, she laughed and assured me she wouldn't tell anyone.

Thanks.

I had to wonder if I said "Schad" because of some recent researching of John Schad, the progenitor of the Schad line in America, with my brother-in-law or if it was merely my subconcious letting me know that it still wasn't okay with the name change forced upon it.

Before I married Jason, I spent a long time named Schad. It wasn't just my last name. In high school, that WAS my name. In college, "Mandie" was how I was known on the job, mainly to avoid confusion among other workers with similar names. But still, it was followed by Schad. And because of that, I spent some time researching name options after Jason popped the question. I could keep Schad and make a stand for my individuality in our union, but if we had children, I wanted us to be considered one cohesive family unit. We could combine our last names, either by hyphenating or smooshing them together, but none of those options appealed to Jason or me. Jason could take my last name, but he likes his name, and it's harder for a boy to change his name than a girl. That's also why we didn't choose a completely new name to represent our new family-that and we really couldn't think of a new name that we liked better. So, I took his last name, much to my family-history-researching mom's delight.

It would seem like it would be easy to make the switch. Both names are Germanic. They start with the same letter, so my initials didn't change. And they are both short, with only five letters each. But, for these reasons, it was also difficult.

It had been a while since had I slipped up. I think that's why today caught me off-guard. I guess it takes a little bit of time to get used to change. What about you? What changes are you getting used to?