What we have here is a failure to communicate.

I am an excellent communicator. This is not open for debate.

I have never struggled to express myself and will tell you in no uncertain terms that I am happy, sad, mad, depressed, miffed, annoyed, furious, giddy, bitchy, anxious or simply discombobulated. I’m happy to share what I'm thinking even if I don’t know that is.

If I am unable to articulate my feelings, my face does the talking. 

Ironically, when Zefu began to take shape and I was cautiously starting to tell my circle about it, I could not for the life of me come up with the words to describe it.

In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was asked to define obscenity - and his response was the closest I could come to describing Zefu:

  “I don’t know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.” 

Taking the Long Way

There are many reasons the launch of Zefu took me nearly 6 years - depression, anxiety, undiagnosed ADHD, doubt, insecurity - but one of the hardest things to nail down was messaging. I read books, took classes and wrote and wrote and wrote countless iterations of my “elevator pitch”. 

Some of them were patently awful, some were ok, a few were pretty good - but not once did I have a “Yes!” moment. I still stumble and spew incomprehensible word vomit when I talk about it. 

Honestly, it’s embarrassing. 

About a year ago, Spouse and I were at our cabin for the weekend. We were  boneless on the couch, he was 3 beers into watching football and I was scrolling mindlessly on my phone with Mary Jane.

Shock and Awe

I clicked on a random Instagram post and read a story that made my arm hairs stand straight up. When I finished reading, I sat silently staring out the window with the kind of intense mental clarity that has only happened a handful of times in my life. The only words I could come up with were Holy and Shit. 

Immediately I read the story again, to make sure I didn’t misinterpret what I read. And again, the goosebumps were from head to toe.

Holy Shit.

This is it. This is Zefu.

Holy Shit.

I looked over at Spouse, he’s engrossed in the game and blissfully unaware that my mind has been blown apart and put back together in a whole new way. I blinked my red eyes at him and said “Something just happened. I have to go to bed. We have to talk in the morning.” I took a screenshot of my phone and went straight to bed, leaving Spouse buzzed and bewildered on the couch.

The next morning, I downed my breakfast of coffee and pharmaceuticals and opened my phone. Sober me was nervous that high me was an idiot, that my mind blowing reaction to the story was simply a marijuana induced mental hallucination and what had rocked my world the night before would be a disappointment in the light of day. 

I slowly read the story. The goosebumps returned. 

I had not yet looked up the author, but I was already her biggest fan. “Whoever this woman is,” I thought, “she Gets It.”

This is Zefu..

This is EXACTLY Zefu.

(Does this feel like a recipe blog where you just want the goddamned ingredients and instructions for the freaking chicken casserole but you have to first read through the life story of both the blogger and the chicken? Good. That’s what I was going for.)


The Frog Blog is so named as an ode to Toad Words a brilliant story by Ursula Vernon.

This gorgeous story describes Zefu in a way I could never in a million lifetimes do myself. I know I'm not stupid, but I don't alway "get" art. You may read it and have zero reaction. You may not get it, at all. I hope it speaks to you in some small way, but I understand everyone interprets art differently. 

I’m happy to tell you I still get goosebumps every time I read it. 

Hence, The Frog Blog.