Mean Ole Frog!

As my kids can attest, I have a terrible habit of poking things inside of other things to store them.  No, I do not mean stacking mixing bowls or bake pans, I mean shoving any small item into something a bit larger even if the items are totally unrelated.  Grab hold to any crock, jug or box on my shelf and you will find yourself in possession of a myriad of smaller knickknacks.  This is fine and dandy as a storage method but then I promptly forget where I put things.  So instead of wasting countless hours searching through the flea-market-thick "dust collectors" on my shelves for something as commonplace as a rubber band, I resort to using whatever is handy.  The clutter continues to collect and my treasures soon become forgotten among the dust!  

Today, I was hunting for some small bottles that I had stored in just this way.  These were tiny glass bottles that were under three inches in height.  Each bottle is a different color and I wanted to display them on a window shelf in the entryway. Ha!  I will display them if I ever find them again!  Still, I hunted.  I searched high on the shelves plunging my hand in every container to see if I pulled out a treasure.  I was almost certain that the bottles were in one large crock that sat on the topmost shelf.  Reaching up, I lifted the lid and poked my hand into the depths of the crock. OUCH!  That hurt!  Something stabbed me!  First thought that came to mind was that one bottle had broken and a shard of glass had cut my hand.  Ok..I had better discard the broken glass.  Looking into the crock, I came to realize that it was not a broken bottle but a frog that had wounded me!

No, not that type of frog..the ones that croak and hop around in my pond but a Flower Frog had pricked my finger.  For those who are too young to know what I am talking about here, a Flower Frog is a utensil that is placed in the bottom of a vase and is used to arrange cut flowers.  The stem of the bud is placed into the frog and then it will be secure.  There are several different types of frogs.  The one that stabbed me looks a lot like a metal base with about ten zillion nails poking straight up in the air!  Each nail like thing is capable of holding a flower stem or drawing blood from a poorly placed finger.  I also have some that look a more like they would be cages to catch frogs.  These have metal mesh attached to a heavy base.  The holes in the mesh do well at holding the stems.  Then, there are the glass frogs.  These are large chunks of glass that have holes throughout them.  Each hole can hold one or more flowers depending upon the thickness of the stems.  Back in the day, it was the "thing" to have fresh cut flowers on the table on most days.  Frogs were in constant use.  It is kind of sad to see this go the wayside with the hustle and bustle of everyday living.

Now about all that "stuff" that is "stuffed" in every nook and cranny of the Little Bayou House.  Every once in a Blue Moon, I get an urge to do a deep cleaning and discard everything.  I just imagine how easy it would to dust if there was not a mass of items cluttering the shelves.  Then the urge passes as I look at some of the treasures that I have held onto for so many years.  Let my kids discard these things.  Just think of all the fun they are going to have some day when I am gone and they hesitantly peek inside some jug.  Oh, what delightful treasures await them!