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 AUGUST, our monthly theme will be GOODNESS. We will be trying to find ways to show a little more GOODNESS through routines and habits.
Last month’s theme was SELF-CONTROL and let me tell you that LIFE sure has a way of putting our lessons to the test but GOD is GOOD and HE has seen us through some difficulties and HE can do the same for you!
Here is the FREE printable, if you’d like to join us:
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.
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.
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.
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:
Pollywog's Place Blog 