Publisher: COZY LITTLE HOUSE

Everyone says that you need an "about" page to let readers and potential readers know just who you are. Of course it is hard to sum up the totality of who you are on one page. Blog posts say far more. But I will sum myself up the best I can. I have a professional writing degree from the University of Oklahoma Journalism school, but that's just the formal part. I have been writing since I was a child. It was my outlet then, and it is my outlet now. Somehow I feel I was born to write. Fast forward to the last day of 2008, when I began my first blog on Typepad. I had no idea what I was doing, and didn't know much about blogging. I think it was more of a "new thing I'm doing to herald in the new year kind of endeavor." That first blog was a mish-mash of things, and soon I started a gardening blog about my gardens in East Texas, on the format of Wordpress.com (not to be confused with Wordpress.org.) But somehow, that wasn't me either. In April of 2009, I began Cozy Little House on Blogger (owned by Google). Because home is where my heart truly is. I would rather be home than anywhere in the world. That summed me up perfectly. And so the third time was the charm. However, in an attempt to "grow my blog" I switched to Wordpress.org just after my double ankle surgery in the summer of 2012. I realized after a year that I simply did not feel comfortable there, and so started moving my posts back to Blogger, where Cozy Little House began. Due to unforeseen complications, my 1500 blog posts were lost in space, so to speak. Between the domain administrators and the site host, the inexplicable happened. Every post I'd poured my heart into for three and a half years were simply gone. I remember mourning this loss, but being the person I am who cannot simply stop writing, I asked myself: "Do I want to sit and cry a few weeks or do I want to wake up tomorrow and simply start over?" And so I started Cozy Little House all over again. I consider this a personal memoir blog and also a lifestyle blog. It is hard to fit my square self into a round hole. Simply put, I write about everything. But primarily focus on home, gardening, and how to live a simpler and more frugal lifestyle. The latter is because I feel I have a good education in doing so. Sort of the school of hard knocks education. I was divorced in 2011, where money was plentiful due to my husband's being an MD. I moved to Oklahoma, where I'd grown up and where I'd raised my girls. I then lived in a 1010 square foot rent house that was simply a little blue square. But I poured love into that space. I fixed it up and it reflected who I am and what I like. I injured my ankle before I was there a year and that changed my life. I had surgery on Friday the 13th of July, 2012, much hardware put in, and now either wear a medical steel boot or an ankle brace. If it's a good day, it's an ankle brace. I am told I will probably always have to wear it to walk. But then nothing is going to stop me from having a cozy home and a garden. I decoupaged my kitchen cabinets and two magazines suddenly appeared out of nowhere and wanted to feature them. One is now on the news stands (Country Woman/April-May 2014 issue) and one is due out in July, I think (Country Sampler). I managed to get this job done by rolling around my kitchen on a plastic garden cart I've had for years. That little garden cart has been my salvation. I just moved this week to a rented patio home of 725 square feet because I could no longer handle the steps going into the front or back of the rent house. I am opening boxes and working my way through them on that same cart. For anyone who has a permanent ankle injury and is having trouble getting down to almost ground level, I highly suggest one of these simple rolling carts that will move you about the room without having to stand up. I look around me at the unpacked boxes and think, well, I've set out on a new voyage yet again. This time in more of an apartment setting (I am the end unit of a four-plex), and my garden will be on a patio that thankfully is pretty big and I will garden in containers. I am looking forward to getting everything unpacked so I can get out there and decorate and dig in the dirt, which is truly therapy for me. So if you read this blog, you will see me make a cozy home once again. First in a house in Texas. Second in a small house in Tulsa. And third in an even smaller patio home. With my two sidekicks, Abigail Rose and Charlie Ross, the Yorkies. I hope you'll go on this venture with me as I scale down, repurpose, decorate on a tight budget and do it in my own style with lots of color and whimsy. I will be writing more about furnishings that serve a double purpose when space is at a premium. Just because your home might be a studio apartment, a room, or a house, does not mean you can't have the coziest of abodes. I will take you along with me and show you how I do it, which means through trial and error and money challenges. When you live in a rental, there are restrictions on what you can do. I will be writing about how you make your home just what you want and still abide by those restrictions. Where there is a will there is a way! This does not cramp my style. I actually like to live a thrifty life, because then things that you do acquire or pick up on the side of the road or just luck into means all the more to you. I love to repurpose. I love to roam through junk stores and garage sales and thrift stores, looking for that diamond in the rough. And since I do live in small digs, I have to be very choosy about what I bring home now. So I've got to get back to unpacking and making this place a home!

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