What's in a Name?

The Catty Shack. It's an odd name for a blog and perhaps an even odder name for a house. So why did we choose it? If you remember, when we purchased the original house, the odor of cat urine was punch you in the face, slap yo' mama, kick you in the stomach, bad. The previous owner had tons of cats and fed all the strays in all of Erie county. The house was often referred to the cat house among the residents. The previous owners even had this sign in their front yard.

The house was so well known as the house of cats that I even dressed up as a crazy cat lady during a Volunteer Bay Halloween party and won a prize. Sexy!

I knew the new house was going to need a name. I think every little lake cottage should have a plaque hanging on it's exterior denoting its name. It adds to the charm. One morning, at the crack of dawn when I could sleep no more at my in laws cottage, I laid in bed wracking my brain trying to come up with a name. I always come up with all my ideas during bouts of insomnia.

I thought the name should have something to do with cats to preserve the hilariously bizarre history of the old place. I didn't want to name it The Cat House because that sounded like an out house, which I suppose the old place was an out house for the old cats that used to come around. No thank you. So I laid there googling and listing possibilities:

The Cat's Meow

Cat-amaran Cottage (nautical & about cats!)

Cats Paws Cottage

Cat O' Nine Tails (I found this when I was looking at pirate references but then realized it's a type of whip used for severe physical punishment. Not exactly the vibe I was going for.)

The Cat Around

ERAS Lakes (Nothing to do with cats, but the first initials of the 4 awesome people that own the house)

None of these names were speaking to me. So I started googling synonyms for the word house and the word shack appeared. That led me to think of the cult comedy classic Caddyshack which is about golf and has nothing to do with cats or a lake cottage but my brain immediately went to the Catty Shack. See what I did there?

And that is the story of how the name was born. Now I'm off to Etsy to find a charming custom made plaque to adhere to the front of my charming custom lake cottage announcing to all "Welcome to the Catty Shack"!