Category: Family

Podcast Episode 09: Longing For Simpler Times

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Pip: Welcome back to Pollywog’s Place, where the weekend itinerary includes battle reenactments, Pioneer Day festivals, and a lamb cake pan acquired off eBay — which is honestly a solid Saturday.

Mara: Susie at Pollywog’s Place Blog has been writing about what it feels like to step away from modern stress — through history, through simpler living, and through the question of whether a happier past is something you visit or something you carry. Let’s start with nostalgia and what it actually does for us.

Escaping Into Simpler Times

Pip: There’s a real tension at the center of these posts — the idea that the past isn’t just interesting, it’s actively useful as relief. When daily life piles up, stepping into a different century, even briefly, seems to do something.

Mara: The Camp Milton post frames the whole day that way. After describing a genuinely packed visit to a battle reenactment, a village general store, a period schoolroom, and a Civil War-era doctor’s tent, the post lands here: “Today also has me yearning for some of the old ways from a simpler time but I do like some of our modern conveniences, like grocery pickups, that we have today. Can I find a happy medium? Maybe one day.”

Pip: That’s the honest version of nostalgia — not a fantasy of going back, but a real wish to borrow something from then and bring it forward. The day worked because it was immersive: beef jerky rations for breakfast, wooden tops from the school tent, kids quizzing a period doctor about amputations.

Mara: And the homeschool angle sharpens that — the visit tied directly into ongoing Little House on the Prairie lessons, so the past wasn’t decorative. It was the curriculum. The kids weren’t just watching history; they were asking it questions.

Pip: Which makes the second post, Yearning For Simpler Times, feel like the quieter, harder version of the same impulse. No festival, no costumes — just a dream about a smaller, run-down house that somehow felt like relief.

Mara: That post is more inward. It’s about stress that doesn’t resolve when you get home — interpersonal friction, boundaries that haven’t been set, the feeling that having more hasn’t made things simpler. The line that anchors it is direct: “Life has gotten so complicated and I yearn for those simpler times.”

Pip: Both posts end in roughly the same place — not escape, exactly, but motivation. The festival day refills the tank for the week ahead. The harder post ends with a list, a plan, a decision to act on what’s actually controllable.

Mara: The nostalgia is real, but it’s doing work. It’s not avoidance — it’s a reset.

Pip: The past as a charging station. That tracks.

Mara: What stays with me is that both posts treat simpler times as a direction, not a destination — something to orient toward, not actually return to.

Pip: The lamb cake pan helps. Some traditions are worth retrieving. More on what gets carried forward next time.

Yearning for simpler times

Escaping Today’s Stress By Taking A Step Back In Time

Podcast Episode 04: God uses cracked pots

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

Pip: Welcome back to Pollywog’s Place Blog — where the cracks in the clay are apparently the whole point.

Mara: Susie at Pollywog’s Place Blog has been writing about something that cuts pretty close to home for a lot of people — what it means to feel broken, flawed, and still worthy of purpose. Let’s start with that question.

God uses cracked pots

Pip: The central tension here is one most people recognize immediately — the gap between who you think you should be and who you actually are, and whether that gap disqualifies you from anything that matters.

Mara: The post opens with a verse from Jeremiah 18:4 that frames everything that follows: “And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.”

Pip: So the upshot is: being marred isn’t the end of the story. The potter doesn’t discard the clay — he works with it again. That reframe is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Mara: The post names exactly what that marring looks like in practice — comparison, the “if onlys,” doubting your abilities. Things like wishing you had more money, were a better mom, looked different. The internal list most people carry quietly.

Pip: And then it pivots somewhere unexpected. It isn’t just that God tolerates your cracks — the argument is that the cracks are actually the mechanism. Light gets out through them.

Mara: That’s stated directly: “His light will shine out brighter and brighter with every crack. So in a sense, the more cracked and broken we become as we surrender our will to His will, then the more He will be able to use us for His glory.”

Pip: Which reframes shame entirely. The crack isn’t evidence of failure — it’s the opening.

Mara: The post also points to the parable of the cracked pot — a separate story linked in the piece — which illustrates the same idea through a water-bearer whose leaking pot waters wildflowers along the path without knowing it.

Pip: Useful without being aware of it. That’s a quietly generous image.

Mara: The closing call is practical: don’t hide the cracks, don’t be ashamed of the flaws, ask for help accepting them. The promise attached is that something more beautiful gets made in the process.

Pip: Broken clay, wildflowers, light through cracks — there’s a whole theology of imperfection sitting in this one.

Mara: And more from Pollywog’s Place to come. See you next time.

You can read the post HERE:

God uses cracked pots

Special Holidays Meals: Lazy Day Menu

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

Have you ever wanted permission to just be lazy for a day? Well, that’s what August 10th is… permission to be lazy.

LAZY DAZY MEAL
Lazy Lasagna or Lazy Man’s BBQ Sandwiches
Salad, Slaw, and Chips
Lazy Dazy Cookie Cake or ‘Lazy’ Kool-aid Pie

or Cold Plate Dinner

What are your plans for Lazy Day?

Podcast Episode 03: Biblical Worth, Home, And Cherished Women

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

Pip: Welcome to Pollywog’s Place Blog — where the questions are ancient and the stakes are genuinely personal.

Mara: Susie at Pollywog’s Place Blog has been writing about things that actually matter at home and in the heart — what it means to know your own worth, and what it looks like to tend a household with intention. Let’s start with identity and what scripture says you deserve.

Biblical Worth And Identity

Mara: The posts in this segment are asking a question that sounds simple but cuts deep: do you actually believe you are worth something, and does that belief shape who you let into your life?

Pip: The anchor text opens with Proverbs 3:15, and then the post speaks directly to daughters: “You deserve to be loved, but not just loved like the general idea of love, you deserve to be cherished.”

Mara: That distinction matters. The post is not talking about settling for affection that shows up occasionally — it is talking about being someone’s active priority, the person they protect and keep in their thoughts.

Pip: And the post is practical about it. Don’t chase, don’t lower your standards to accommodate someone else’s excuses, and don’t assume you can change a person — that kind of change, the post argues, comes from above, not from patience or pressure.

Mara: The companion piece, “Cherished,” works through exactly what that word means in practice. It defines cherishing as making another person your priority relationship — shown through daily small acts, touch, listening, encouragement, and showing respect in public as well as in private.

Pip: So the two posts are really one argument in two directions: know what you deserve, and then actually demonstrate it when you’re in a relationship.

Mara: That thread — worth informing behavior, not just self-esteem — carries right into how those values play out inside a home.

Home And Family Stewardship

Pip: If the first segment was about knowing your value, this one is about what you do with it once you’re building a life — specifically, what it means to take a home seriously as a responsibility, not just a location.

Mara: “Keeper of The Home” opens with Proverbs 24:3-4, then states the core claim plainly: “We are responsible for our homes and that our homes and families should be a priority for us. It means that we are each responsible for setting the tone of our homes.”

Pip: Setting the tone. That is a bigger job than it sounds — it covers what comes in, what goes out, whether people inside feel safe, and whether guests find rest there.

Mara: The post is also honest about the gap between the ideal and the reality. It names the experience of being a single mother working multiple part-time jobs and still holding the household’s emotional climate as the first priority. The practical sections — meal planning, cleaning routines, budgeting, time management — are offered as tools, not judgments.

Pip: It reads less like a lifestyle prescription and more like someone handing you the manual they wish they’d had at twenty-two.

Mara: The post closes by framing all of it as intentional work. A keeper of the home is not something you drift into — it is a decision made deliberately, then built on through routines, prayer, and the goal of passing those habits forward to the next generation.

Pip: Worth knowing. Cherished at home.

Mara: Both threads come back to the same idea — that what you believe about your value shapes everything downstream, from the relationships you accept to the household you build.

Pip: And apparently the work is never quite finished. Next time, more from Pollywog’s Place.

You can read these posts HERE:

Cherished

You are worth more than rubies

Keeper of the Home

Walking in SELF-CONTROL Devotional

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

I am hoping to make a new devotional for each month this year… that’s a big challenge, but it is something that has been on my heart. For JULY, our monthly theme will be SELF-CONTROL. We will be trying to find ways to show a little more SELF-CONTROL through routines and habits.

Here is the FREE printable, if you’d like to join us:

Walking in Self-Control DevotionalDownload
Continue reading “Walking in SELF-CONTROL Devotional” →