Securing my digital future

Recently, I renewed my URL for this blog as well as the URL of my own name. You should always try to maintain the URL of your own name, just in case you become famous or something. Or, to prevent your own identity from being hijacked by someone who builds a website filled with horrible things -- like parallel parking and olives.

I rent my house and I lease my car but, gosh darn it, if I don't own URLs. Does it get any more "millennial" than that?

Anyways, as typically happens when I'm looking at URLs and protecting future me from the humiliation of having a website dedicated to parallel parking under my name, I fell down the rabbit hole of looking up what other URLs are still available. This may sound like a boring activity, but it's actually pretty intriguing. For example, did you know that www.LindsayLovesJellyBeans.com is still available? It would be perfect for when I start my restaurant specializing in wine and jelly bean pairings.

In the end, though I was tempted to purchase LindsayAndBeyonceBFF.com, I opted to just add various versions of my soon-to-be married name to my URL arsenal. And I threw in a new email address.

This is something I think is missing from all these "So You're Getting Married, Here's a To-Do List" lists you are bombarded with when you get engaged:

If you're gonna change your name, you gotta scoop up that domain. 

(I should trademark that! Searching ChangeYourNameScoopThatDomain.com as we speak...)

This is where I should note that you don't have to change your name. I just want to make it clear that I do not believe women/men need to change names when they get married. Have different names. Switch names. Make up a new name. Whatever. 

If I thought J would go for it, I'd suggest we become "The Aaawesomes." Triple A to ensure any future offspring will be in the front of the alphabet for things like Line Leader Day and Graduation. Then we can grab that diploma and skip out for ice cream faster than they can say Bueller, am I right? 

But back to my original topic. 

I'm neither an internet nor wedding expert, but you can't neglect your digital presence just because you are buying wedding magazines and picking out colors. C'mon, people, have some priorities.  We had our wedding hashtag within three days of getting engaged. We didn't have a venue or a date but, gosh darn-it, there was a hashtag. 

And now I have a URL and an email address to throw into the mix. The whole marriage thing seems very real when you see your new name in an email address. I'm ready. Let's do this.