frazzled & frumpy

Welcome to Leap Blog Day! Today's guest post is by Nicole (which happens to be the name of her blog.) I hope you enjoy what she wrote, I did, since it's mostly about me. Nicole's blog is filled with her family, her faith, and some really great menu/cooking ideas. I hope, if you have the time, you'll 'hop around' and find some new blogs to read. Enjoy! A Hawk for  Jewels  – Some Leap Blog Love from  Nicole So I have been really nervous about the whole Leap Blogger event.  I love leap years, and I like the idea of a whole community of bloggers hopping around and posting for each other.  But it makes me nervous to be a part of the hopping.  So I decided that I would play it safe and type up a post that honored my hostess in some way.  It takes courage to allow a random inter-neighbor a little bit of space on your personal spot on the web.  What if they say something crazy or totally against your grain?  And I’m sometimes scared t...

Yes, this is a potato chip. Yes, it is a perfect heart. No, I did not nibble the edges to make it perfect. It came out of the bag this way. That was months ago. It's been sitting on my shelf in my bedroom ever since. I don't normally keep old food on shelves. Not even in my pantry. We have 8 kids. Food never gets the chance to age around here. I just didn't know what to do with it. I mean, how often do you find food like this? OK, people find food with images on it. Virgin Mary on grilled cheese and all that.  But, I don't believe in 'signs' or that God was sending me a message via Lay's.  But, I couldn't eat it either. So, it's been collecting dust for the past several months. I'm amazed it hasn't broken. Or attracted bugs. Or small hands that would send a dusty chip to a slobbery end. I figure I have two choices- 1- Modge-podge it and make a necklace. 2- Sell it on e-bay. (That 'Virgin Mary'sandwich sold for $28,...

I feel like I've seriously dropped the ball. Next Wednesday is Leap Blog Day.  I haven't mentioned it once and even forgot to put this cute little frog on my sidebar. The idea came from We Band of Mothers .  Surprisingly, it isn't about frogs at all. It's about guest posts and 'leaping' around to read some new stuff.   I'll be writing a post for another blog, and will have a guest poster here on mine.  I'm excited to do this, and to find some new blogs. Thing is, while some bloggers write just for themselves, if you put in the effort to put it out there in cyberspace, you pretty much want someone to read what you write.  Makes you feel important. Makes you feel loved, in that non-creepy Internet kind of way.  So, I hope you'll read my blog that day, hop on over to where I post, and maybe jump around to some others. Ribbit.

I'm not well acquainted with grief.  Not the kind that tears your soul and makes you wonder how life continues to go on.  I've been lucky, I guess.  As I started The Rules of Inheritance , by Claire Bidwell Smith, I worried that it would depress me or that I wouldn't connect with the author.  I don't have much in common with Claire.  Her life experience is so different than mine, that I had to remind myself that this was a memoir, not a novel. In the book, Claire shares the powerful and heart-wrenching story of the loss of her parents.  I wasn't sure how I felt about the way she skipped from one time of her life to another, but I soon got lost in the story and read the book in two days. Claire paints a vivid picture and her storytelling is profound.  One of the most haunting parts for me was when she described grief being her constant companion- "Grief holds my hand as I walk down the sidewalk, and grief doesn't mind when I cry because it's ...

I write because it's part of me. I ignored that part for many years.  But now, I've awakened the beast and she will not be silenced.  To have people read what I write is a bonus. To find out they like it? It's overwhelming. Imagine my feeling when my new friend at My View Through Kat Eyes gave me this-  I smiled all day.  (You like me!) As part of the award, I'm supposed to tell you 7 things about me.  I've been wracking my brain trying to think of 7 things.  This blog has made me an open book.  But, I think I may have come up with a few. 1- I am one of seven kids. I have seven kids.  If each of my children had seven, I'd have 49 grandkids. That would be amazing! (Tho' I highly doubt it will happen.) 2- Yes, I am old enough to have grandkids, tho I really hope it won't happen for at least 3 years. 3- You know the movie, 'The Vow'?  I wrote a book almost identical to that story about seven years ago. Weird, huh? (No it wasn't publi...

We celebrated President's Day in true American Patriotic fashion. Jumping in bouncy houses, scootering,  drinking root beer floats, and general goofiness. Hope you had a great day.

"He loves us because He is filled with an infinite measure of holy, pure indescribable love.  We are important to God not because of our resume but because we are His children.  He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful or broken.  God's love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked." -Dieter F. Uchtdorf I know that I am lucky. I was raised in a home where my  parents were married. (Still are. 49 years in May.)  I grew up with two loving parents who cared for me.  They worked hard and we were poor.  But, our home was filled to overflowing with love. Because of this, it's easy for me to believe in a loving Heavenly Father.  While I believe that He is all-knowing and all-powerful, I also believe He is caring.  That He wants me to be happy.  This belief brings me great comfort and hope.  I recently read a post about prayer .  The author was ask...