What's in a name?

Found this today, from a friend's journal. I thought it was pretty neat-o.

This is me now:

• The Girl's Name Jennifer is shared by ~1,312,100 people in the USA.
• The Last Name Cox is shared by ~303,100 people in the USA.
• The First Name, Last Name Jennifer Cox is shared by ~1,410 people in the USA.
• The First Name, Last Initial Jennifer C is shared by ~76,850 people in the USA.
• The First Initial, Last Name J Cox is shared by ~24,790 people in the USA.

This is me then:

• The Girl's Name Jennifer is shared by ~1,312,100 people in the USA.
• The Last Name Mercier is shared by ~10,200 people in the USA.
• The First Name, Last Name Jennifer Mercier is shared by ~50 people in the USA.
• The First Name, Last Initial Jennifer M is shared by ~89,370 people in the USA.
• The First Initial, Last Name J Mercier is shared by ~830 people in the USA

I guess the trade-off for having a name that rolls off the tongue more easily, and matches my husband and child is a significant drop in my name-uniqueness factor. I can live with that.

Argh

So, I'm supposed to host bookclub this weekend. Normally, this isn't a problem; I like to cook, I like having people over, it's all good. This time, though, I'm going out of my mind. Among the five people in our group, we have three people who are dieting, one former vegetarian who now eats fish, one person who doesn't like fish all that much, one who hates long skinny pasta, another who dislikes most bite-sized pastas, one who won't eat eggs. About the only thing that could make this worst would be if we had an Atkin's Diet dieter in our midst. In the past, I probably would have made a big vegetarian lasagna, or maybe Macaroni and Cheese andbeen done with it, but that won't work at all for the dieters.

Add in that I'm not going to be home for most of the day on both Saturday and Sunday, and you realize that this is a total mess. I've been looking on CookingLight.com and Epicurious.com hoping to find something interesting, but I haven't found very much. Part of the problem, I think, is that I'm just feeling blah this week, due to stress and lack of sleep, and so I'm finding it hard to work up very much motivation for anything. Part of it is the weather; I don't want to commit to a big hot soup if it's going to be warm on Sunday, not do I want to commit to summer-y fare if it's going to be rainy and blustery like today. Part of it too, is that this is stretching me so far past my normal entertaining "safe zones" that I feel like I'm walking this little tiny high wire, very high off the ground, in a high breeze, and I simply don't like it.

And further adding to the stress is knowing just how critical some of my friends can be. I know, I've been a part of the catty snipe about other people sessions. It's really one person in particular; she always knows what's "proper" and judges people rather harshly by how well they live up to those standards. While she'd never say anything to my face, I always feel this incredible pressure to live up to her WASP-y, Martha Stewart-esque expectations. I always feel like I'm falling short, which makes me try harder, which probably means I fail more in the long run, because then I'm the annoying puppy-dog host, jumping all over everyone making sure they are having a good enough time.

This has been a week for feeling like I'm not living up to expectations again. I think it happens whenever I feel over-committed, which I do right now. Work has got me chasing my tail a bunch. I'm trying very hard to be a good employee, and at least pull my weight here, which included agreeing to go to Tampa next weekend, to do an overnight SQL upgrade, taking time away from my family. Home just generally makes me feel guilty - I was away two weekends ago, will be leaving Miss Widget with friends for about 24 hours this weekend, and I'll be gone next weekend as well now. I feel like I should be around more; like I'm short-changing Widget to be dropping in and out of her presence constantly, and shortchanging Wiley too, putting too much of a burden on him in terms of housework and childcare. And I miss my friends. I used to have so much more time to devote to them, and they constantly get the shortest end of this stick. They're all incredibly supportive and understanding. I miss them terribly, but I have to steal time from home to see them and that doesn't work very well. Miss Shani always says "You can't be important everywhere", and she's right. I don't want to be important, I have no need to be "the best" at anything. I'd just like to feel competent at them without feeling like I'm being pulled apart at the seams.

Addendum

I realized after making my last entry that it sounded rather whiny towards the end, and I don't think I meant it to be as much so as it did.

I think the hardest thing about the juggling act that I do is that I *want* to do all of the things I do, and I want to do them all well. I want to be a good mother (and it's almost impossible to know what that means since no one agrees beyond that yuo shouldn't beat your child), I want to be a good wife, I want to at least carry my weight at work, even if I'm not the best employee, I want to give my friends as much time as they deserve, and I want the me-time that I need so badly to keep myself on an even keel. Balancing all of those is nigh impossible, especially once you throw in my devotion to a few very time consuming hobbies (gardening, stitching, reading) that although I love them, also sometimes make me feel stretched too thin (have to read for bookclub, committed to making stitched presents, etc.).

Part of me knows how blessed I am that my hardest tasks are balancing a daughter, a loving husband, a well-paid challenging job, and an abundance of friends. But the tired, stressed out whiny part of me just wishes it was just a little bit easier.