About Sheila (And Stuart)

SheilaSheila Seiler Lagrand, Ph.D., earned her doctorate in anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. As an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego, she studied anthropology and literature with an emphasis in writing. You will find her blog on the home page of this site. As a young woman, she published poems in dozens of literary magazines. She has also contributed to anthropology journals and contributed a chapter to the book Fieldwork and Families: Constructing New Models for Ethnographic Research.

More recently, her work has appeared in Wounded Women of the Bible: Finding Hope When Life Hurts and a few volumes of  Chicken Soup for the Soul. She has work forthcoming in Soul Bare. Her Christmas tale “Yankee Doodle Christmas” is available as part of Kathi Macias’ 12 Days of Christmas series. The characters from “Yankee Doodle Christmas” are the stars of Sheila’s serial novel, Remembering for Ruth, which was released in paperback in November, 2014.

More of her Story:

Our family

Our family.

Sheila  lives with her husband Rich and their three dogs, J.D.,  Doc, and Lollipop (aka “Poppy”)in beautiful Trabuco Canyon, California. She enjoys serving at her church, Trabuco Canyon Community Church, gardening, cooking, and most of all, spending time with their children and nine (so far) grandchildren. She has lived her entire life in southern California, except for a year spent in French Polynesia as she conducted research for her dissertation. She doesn’t understand boredom and is passionate about words, their power, their beauty, and their care and feeding.

2024 Update:

In 2017, we left the Golden State and moved next door to Arizona, the Grand Canyon State. Rich will retire from his long career with Boeing this year. We now worship at Epic Christian Church, though we attend Trabuco Canyon Community whenever we find ourselves in our old neighborhood on a Sunday morning. JD and Doc have gone on to doggo heaven. Poppy now keeps company with Zinnia and Daisy, who respect her seniority. Life here is good. But then, with God in charge, life is good anywhere.

Top to Bottom: Poppy, Zinnia, Daisy

A Word About Stuart

A friend asked, Why is the rabbit named Stuart? 

Because Stuart is a fine name for a rabbit, I replied. 

I’ve always been fond of rabbits, and in graduate school, I finally had the opportunity to keep a pet rabbit. Pearl was a Siamese Dwarf and I loved her dearly. She loved me, too. It was a joyous human-critter relationship until I developed a nasty, persistent case of asthmatic bronchitis. 

I’m allergic to rabbits. Who knew? A fellow student took Pearl as his own. Then his mother fell in love with Pearl, so he left Pearl with his mom. Then his family moved from California to New Jersey, and Pearl went with them. She had a long life, as rabbit-lives go, and was well-loved. 

Until now I confined my rabbit-keeping to a Pinterest board. But I’m happy to have Stuart join us at Godspotting. I figure if all creation can praise Him, then a rabbit mascot here is just fine.

I think Stuart makes God smile. I hope he makes you smile too.