26 years.

26 years ago today, I arrived into this world and my parents named me Asharae. (More or less pronounced ash-uh-ray.) It’s an odd name upon first glance, but I love it. When I was a kid, people would always ask my parents where my name came from. I can still hear my dad’s voice explaining it the same way each time, “It’s a Hebrew word that means ‘blessed.’ It’s the first word of the first Psalm and the word Jesus used when he spoke the Beatitudes.”

I heard that over and over as a child. “Her name means blessed.”

My dad chose my name before he even met my mom. He was in a Hebrew class in seminary when he learned the meaning of the word asharae. He decided then that when he had a daughter, her name would be blessed.

It took a long time for me to realize the significance and the truth behind my name. I always liked that I had a unique name, but it was through hearing my dad explain my name over and over that the truth of it began to sink in. Her name means blessed. I have called her blessed. She is blessed. 

Since today is my birthday and I’ve felt completely worn down lately, I decided to take the day off from photo-editing, email-answering, and all other business related things. Instead I’ve spent the entire day cleaning our house, doing dishes, and organizing our never-ending pile of boxes from storage. I laughed to myself that I really must be an adult now if an enjoyable “day off” means cleaning the house! I was lucky enough to get to chat on the phone with both my friends Lauren and Emily though – go check out both of their blogs! I’m so blessed by both of these ladies!!

Lately I’ve also been gathering artwork to create a gallery wall in our family room, and I spent the early afternoon trying to match frames to artwork. I had this one little square frame that I wasn’t sure what to do with. As I was digging through our office closet today, I came across a sheet of paper with Hebrew script on it. My name was written in English in my dad’s handwriting with an arrow pointing to the top right word. I decided to use the Hebrew lettering in the frame by photocopying it onto some old tea-stained paper I had lying around. (What? You don’t keep old tea-stained paper lying around?) I’m pretty excited with the result, and I can’t wait to see it up on the walls with the rest of our artwork.

Credit for our fabulous family portrait goes to the oh-so-talented Anne Thiele – go check out her website and Etsy shop! We commissioned her to do our family portrait a few months ago and could not be happier with the result!!

Tim and I painted the Spanish alphabet back when we were living in Seattle – as you can see we still haven’t erased our pencil guidelines from when we first painted it. Oh well.