who are the plain jane's?

I decided it was finally time to start a blog for myself. I have been attempting this blog"thing" over the last summer. I posted regularly on the daily activities of the summer camp I direct. I cant guarantee this will be updated daily, but I hope to post some memories of myself and El along the way. I have been trying to figure out a name for our blog for more than two day. I still am unsure if I like this one, but for the time being it will suffice.


I had polled my friends and their children with catchy phrases to describe myself and El. I finally just decided upon this play on our middle names.
I was given a family name of Jane, which is actually found on both sides of the family. I always wanted to try and keep a family name in my children's names. When El was born there were several names flying around. I truly loved the name Nora Jayne for my little El. Nora is my great-grandmother on my father's side. Jayne, of course, is just a fancied up way to spell Jane. Nora ended up not being the name of my beauty due to the fact of a popular singer who came out during my pregnancy. Norah Jones was the artist. I was afraid people would make fun of her name thinking I was copying that name. I must say, IF God blesses me with anymore girls. . .Nora Jane is now going to be a name for sure. I still love it. I found the name Elyssa as a surname under Elizabeth. Elizabeth (which El gets called often and Melissa) is also a family name from both sides of our family. There are actually several Elizabeth's and for some reason I just wasn't sold on having ANOTHER Elizabeth (Liz, Dizzy, Libby, Beth, Lizbeth, etc) around. I was reading more into the names book and saw the name Elyssa underneath of  the name Elizabeth. Although, Alyssa/Alissa/Allissa was a very common name that year I decided Elyssa it was. Elyssa Jayne was not named until the day I was leaving the hospital. I had many other names picked out but was made known of any type of nickname that might come of those names (thanks to my sister and brother in law). I am actually very thankful for their input, because in the end, they were right.


And for all of you out there wondering how El's name came to be. . .As Paul Harvey would say, "And now you know the rest of the story." .