A Frog in Your Pocket: Life Lessons from Dad

By K. J. Eraci

A Frog in Your Pocket offers forty-eight charming and entertaining stories with valuable lessons. Each simple vignette brings a timeless gift of practical wisdom, easy to appreciate and apply.

Discover a pocketful of lively inspiration for a bolder leap into everyday life as you learn about the art of speaking your mind; that its not really about luck; and theres joy in saying, my pleasure.

K. J.s short and often humorous reminiscences reveal touching family moments and a memorable legacy of a devoted husband and dad. I recommend reading this book slowly and savoring the lessons. Anita Renaghan, author of PrinceS

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Feb 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781489706416

K. J. Eraci

K. J. Eraci was married to her husband, Anthony, for fifteen short years before his sudden death. She has enjoyed her career as a teacher and reading consultant, but experienced her greatest joy as a wife and mother. K. J. is a member of the Chicago Writers Association. Visit her at www.afroginyourpocket.com.

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Copyright © 2016 K. J. Eraci.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

LifeRich Publishing is a registered trademark of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-0640-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-0641-6 (e)

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 2/11/2016

Contents

A Garden Needs Tending

Altar Boy

Christmas

Book Smart vs Street Smart

Under the Bus

Ma

Heavy Lifting

Engaged

Holy Hill

Joy

Friends Indeed

Baseball

June

A Roof over Our Heads

A Frog in Your Pocket

Headaches

Pirates

Jokes

My Pleasure

What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

Carnivals

Happy Birthday

Gravy

Life

Sugar Is Sweet and So Are You

Real Men

Pyramid Scheme

Family Man

Great America

Six Degrees of Separation

Movies

Roadkill

Pass

Perfect

Books

Swimming

Safety First

Growing Up

He’s Not Kidding

Cards and Ponies

Tell Me a Story

Lemon Shake-Up

Hobby

TITFDOTROYL

Bridges

Dad’s Chair

In Giving, We Receive

Last Lesson

For Justin and Jennie

To give color and shape

to the missing piece in our hearts

"The world is not made up of atoms,

it’s made up of stories."

—Muriel Rukeyser

Preface

He was a big man with a big heart, gentle and full of wit. My beloved Anthony and I shared fifteen years of married life together and the arrival of a son and daughter had completed our family. In 1991, Tony died suddenly and our young children and I lost a precious part of our lives. Years went by, and though I had many photographs of our happy times together, I came to realize that our children