Buttons has become an endearment that I adopted from my loving parent’s-in-law, both being from England. It came out of nowhere and stuck like dried oatmeal on a spoon. My husband and I met in college just before we graduated. We were not looking for each other, and yet, 10 years later, we are still together. This is relevant, I swear! I wasn’t looking for someone because I was preparing to leave to Scotland for my Masters program in collaborative piano. We were so close to graduation, that really, I only had a quick meeting of his parents on our graduation day before the craziness swept us all away. So on my first winter break, I made the journey back home and had a pit stop in Los Angeles, where I stayed with my now husband and his mom/dad. I embarked on the flight home and for some silly reason, I wore a pajama onesie on my journey. (this all becomes relevant) Ben picked me up from the airport and promptly brought me to his family home, where I walked through the door wearing this onesie, looking and feeling super jet lagged, and was sat down at the dinner table to enjoy a meal with everyone. I can’t say I remember much about that, except his stepmom Amanda (Milly) telling me I looked exhausted and about ready to pass out. It was a LONG travel day, to say the least.
During this trip, I received a very random message from a friend who I stayed with in England. I slept in her boyfriend’s sibling’s room as they were out of town. They prefaced this message with a “this is super out there…and strange” and yet I still didn’t see it coming. They asked me if I had walked away with their sibling’s partner’s hairband. Yes…the kind that you put your hair into a ponytail with. I thought it was a joke, but they were super serious. It was special – I remember them saying it was slightly frayed where the tie went into the metal bit (that holds the elastic into a loop). After a good laugh, I let everyone in on this story…and for the record, I did not pocket this hairband.
Ben’s parents (Milly and Kelvin) got a huge kick out of this. Of course Kelvin jumped on the wagon too and made a comment about how they’d need to turn me over to shake my onesie out and make sure I didn’t have any cotton buds (qtips) in my pockets. We all chuckled about this for the remainder of my visit and he kept referring to how he’d need to shake me down for cotton buds – which got shortened to buds – and then morphed into buttons. This nickname stuck.
As our family relationship got stronger, everyone came to realize I have a pretty wide knowledge base of random things – this comes from my relentless curiosity as a kid and my reluctance to take “I don’t know” as an answer. I’ve just filed random tidbits away in my head for as long as I can recall, and now, when I come across an “I don’t know,” I can do the research for myself. The fact that we all have such easy access to Google and the Internet in general makes answering these questions really easy. So I continue to add to my knowledge base, and my family and friends have learned to ask me for my thoughts on things. I don’t pretend to know everything, and when challenged, usually dive a bit deeper to either prove my knowledge, or provide the correct answer.
Kelvin and Milly would often ask me about xyz, and it became the running joke – “what would buttons do?” or “www.askbuttons” – bringing us to the naming of this blog.
But really, this blog was inspired by my experience (and my husband’s) with home ownership, parenting, traveling, and all things that we embark on. The world wide web is full of amazing content, a lot of it contradicting. I do my best to research products before buying them, and when we find something that works, we become loyal and will spread the word near and far. So, this blog is really a spot for us to park these experiences and explore products that help family life, keep your home safe, make things easier, or are just fun to have.
Let me know what you think! We are here for you! And welcome to Buttons Knows Best – a blog where we share our thoughts on everything, and welcome opinions on it all as well! Welcome to the Buttons community!
Buttons Knows Best 