"Watch out for the hole behind you!" Summer adventures in dancing, crafts, and also some novenas!

Hello friends and happy Friday! I've had a lovely week, and I'm definitely feeling perkier and perkier as the summer progresses. I hope for the same for you. *hugging* I'm back to performing, and that has made everything right with my emotional world again. I've had two gigs in the past two weeks, both family parties, and danced with my troupe at a small outdoor festival for the first time in nearly two years. It is just balm to my soul. And butterflies in my stomach. :-0 But it's all so, so wonderful. The troupe performances are always my favorite because of the hijinks that are almost certain to ensue with a group of us dancing in inevitably challenging environs:

"Be careful when you turn around, there's a large sinkhole behind you."

"What's that on the bottom of my shoe? Oh. Goose poo."

(wearing our costume coverups) "Are you all fortune tellers?"

"Oh dear, these hair flipping turns are a bit tricky on an incline, aren't they?"

But I tell you, I wouldn't trade it for the world. We have a few more outdoor performance possibilities in August, and then an actual hafla/showcase in mid-September! It's an amazing feeling to be back to doing this thing that I love.

I've also been praying my July novenas, and am getting closed to the end of Sts. Anne & Joachim. St. Dominic begins July 30th, if you're interested in joining in that one. And I also added in something on the fly: our very own community member Sam is trying to sell her house, so I signed up to start praying the St. Joseph novena for her! Did you know that you can sign up with Pray More Novenas to pray any novena that they have over there at any time on your own schedule? I did not know that! I thought their email reminders only worked for novenas prayed during their traditional date range. So I started St. Joseph today and will for the next eight days. If you'd like to add Sam's house sale into your prayer intentions, I would be most grateful! 🤗

Summer crafting is still ongoing, and has been so lovely lately. I finished a very summery pair of socks for myself!

I'm calling these the Summer Lemonade Socks

I also started a summery cotton top for myself. I just love this pattern, I made one for my mother-in-law last summer in red:

Pattern is the Kelda Tee

Here is the red version from last summer:

I've also been keeping up with the 2021 National Parks Hats collection. June's is based on Denali:

Denali pattern

Hard to see in the light, but there are cute mountain peaks in the design! I'm catching up a bit, as I already have the yarn and pattern for the July hat, but I'm getting there!

Next week, we'll be discussing Part 4 of our Summer Book Club for Set All Afire. We're halfway there! How is everything going for you this summer? Would love to hear about it in the comments!

Next novena upcoming! And more cozy fiction...

Hello all, and TGIF! I was going to start a St. Therese novena on her feast day, but decided instead to forge ahead into upcoming October feast days. There are a couple of great ones this month, and I thought we could pray them together, and we'll only overlap on a day or two, hee hee! Our next novena will start on Tuesday, and will be praying along with St. Teresa of Avila!

She is officially the patron of headache sufferers, and of writers, and can also be an asset for intentions regarding faith and contemplative spirituality. The novena begins on Tuesday, and like before, I have the prayers listed on a page within the blog found on the main navigation menu for both desktop and mobile. :)

Beginning October 13th, I'm going to be praying the novena to St. John Paul II. I'll create a page for that one too next week, we'll still be finishing up with St. Teresa, but I don't think this will be too onerous. Two days of double novena prayers! For those with the Pray app, both of these are on there, though St. Teresa is premium. :-0 I think I'm going to actually become one of their patrons so that I have acces to all of their novenas. It's only $15 a year to support their work, which I do truly love!

By time we finish up with JPII, it'll be later October, and then we can plan for November. I feel a St. Cecilia situation coming on! And maybe Holy Souls in Purgatory! 

*virtual high five*

As it's been a bit of a stressful week, planning for these novenas has been a happy distraction. Also a happy distraction is my current cozy mystery:

This is book 1 in the Amish Matchmaker series, and book 2 comes out December 1st, so it's a perfect time to dive into this one! I've had it on my Kindle for awhile, and am so glad that I'm finally getting to it, it's delightful! You all know how much I love Amish fiction, and this one also features quilting and 2 goats, what could be better?! :-0

Between minding a pair of rambunctious goats, meetings with her quilting circle, and matchmaking, Millie Fisher has plenty to keep her busy through her golden years. But the witty widow always makes time to solve the odd murder . . .

 

Some Amish men don’t know what’s good for them. That’s what Millie Fisher told herself when young Ben Baughman set his heart on marrying Tess Lieb. With Tess’s father refusing to give his blessing and Tess’s ex-boyfriend being a wet blanket, the hapless couple was bound to butt heads more than Millie’s Boer goats. But when Ben tragically dies in a mysterious fire, Millie wonders if someone in her hometown of Harvest, Ohio, wanted Ben out of the wedding picture altogether . . . 

With the help of her quilting buddies, and her outspoken Englischer friend Lois, Millie is determined to patch together all the clues without even dropping a stitch. She only hopes it won’t be the death of her . . .

What are you reading these days? Are you planning to join in the upcoming October novenas? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

A perpetual novena? And misadventures with Zoom...

Hello all, and I hope that your week is wrapping up nicely. 🤗 I feel stressed, no big surprise, but hanging in. Things at both schools are still going well, and I guess (?) I've adjusted to working from home. It helps not having the kids here to entertain at the same time, to be sure. But the other side of the coin is that I'm lonely. I like going to my office, and seeing my colleagues. I miss them, and I miss the students. But we've been told to be prepared to not be back on campus for another year. I have to admit that I didn't take that news so well. I've felt down all week. This is all just so unnatural. I'm doing the best I can.

To top it all off, I started my teaching this week, and this year it's all on Zoom. Nothing like demoralizing bouts of screenshare fails and non-responsive audio to make a girl feel special. :-0 I did not enjoy it, to be sure. I will say that the second class went much better than the first. I got the sound issue fixed, and I experimented more with the screensharing ahead of time to troubleshoot the problems I was having and became much more adept with it. It still feels weird to only communicate with people through a screen, but it was a bit less bad. For now, I think that's as good as it's going to get.

To cheer me, I've been novena'ing up a storm. My piece over at Catholic Mom this month is about potential novenas for fall/winter 2020 (feast days that don't fall on Sundays being my criteria), and I'm pretty much planning to start a new one anytime I finish one up. I'm currently praying the St. Jerome novena, and I ended up adding in the archangels. I have the Pray novena app on my phone, and it sent me a notification about that one, so I figured, what the heck? It pushes the prayers to me every day, so it makes that one incredibly easy. If you do not already have that app, I highly recommend it! After we wrap up St. Jerome/archangels, I will be wanting to start a new one. I'll let you know which one I decide on! If you have a recommendation for early October, please let me know!

 I wanted to pray the St. Therese novena, and maybe *start* on her feast day rather than conclude on it. Thoughts? Or maybe we could select another from the list. Let me know what you think, along with how you're doing, in the comments!

St. Jerome novena starts Monday! And a few other prayerful life musings...

 

Hello friends and happy Friday! I'm so excited that we're starting our first community novena of the fall/winter season this year with St. Jerome on Monday! All of the deets and prayers are in the special page that I created for the novena, also linked at the top of the blog (desktop) or as an option on the drop down menu (mobile). St. Jerome is the patron saint of librarians and biblical scholars, and is also a great patron for students. If you have any special intentions that you would like the community to pray for, please leave them in the comments! :-)

For my part, I've been doing a lot of praying for my kids as their first full week of school wraps up. So far so good, but it's early days yet, for sure. Anne, in particular, seems SO HAPPY to be back to school, and she really loves her teacher and classroom this year. I don't even know how she's in 4th grade, as she still seems like my little baby to me. 😢 But during the spring and summer after everything shut down, I have never seen Anne so distressed and downright lethargic. And for a 9 year old, that is very worrying. Now, she gets up in the mornings very content and ready to get on with her day, whereas before she was sleeping way too much, and just languishing on the couch in her free time. With both Mike and I working from home, it was difficult to divide our time between attending to those reponsibilities, and also trying to keep the kids engaged and off of their electronic devices. It was such a nightmare, it's hard for me to even think back on it now. Needless to say, I'm so happy to see her thriving again! And Henry seems content, too, albeit in a quieter way, as teenagers are wont to do. He had an easier time adjusting to remote school back in the spring, as would be expected given the difference in their ages. But still, he's up and ready to head to school in the mornings now, in a good mood. It's heartwarming to see. 

In other big news, I am back to IN PERSON dance class again, after 6 months of online only, and I cannot fully express how good it feels. I'm grateful that I got to continue my training and learning in the midst of the nightmare that was the lockdown, plus I got to study with some internationally known instructors that I normally would not have been able to access due to geographic location. So those things were good, but still, it was *not the same* and there can be no meaningful level of correction in a group online-only setting. Not to mention how much I missed my troupemates and dancey friends. The disruption to normal socializing that this virus has wrought has been brutal for my mental and emotional health, as I'm sure it has for everyone. So I'm very, very happy to be getting back into a dance routine that involves rehearsing in the physical studio! 

Performing is still pretty unknown right now, which is an enormous bummer. As I've gotten older, I have come to treasure performing as an important part of my identity. I've been in some online shows, and while I'm SO grateful for those opportunities, those are also not the same as performing in front of a live audience. There is no energy to feed off of, no connection to make with other humans while you dance. I'm hoping small parties will be happening again soon, but the restaurant scene has just been hit so hard by all of this, I don't know when that will come back. The capacity limits plus the money they have lost make that unlikely for quite some time. We'll see, I suppose, I'm just trying to think positive. And we support our local restaurants with takeout orders every single week!

How is everyone else doing this week? It does actually feel like a new leaf is turning over this fall, yes, even in the midst of our larger global situation. What new things are you embarking on this September? :-) And don't forget to leave prayer intentions in the comments! 

Planning seasonal novenas...

Well, my kids are both at school as I write this. And I'm feeling pretty weepy. 

😭

They're both happy and secure. It's going very well. I was afraid that the adjustment this year would be much more daunting than usual because of the way things so abruptly closed back in March. But this is the best start to the school year we have ever had. Both seem happy to be back to a routine, and like their teachers. One day at a time, but I'll take it. I'm still feeling emotional, but that's just me. :-0

Given all of this, our novena chat (that I mentioned last week) couldn't possibly be better timed. 

   

What I'm going to do this year is pray 1-2 novenas every month this fall and winter. I'm going to start listing them in a separate page on the blog again, so that anyone who would like can see which one I'm planning to pray, and can join in if they like! It will be the tab listed on the far right if you're using a larger computer or laptop, or will be the last item on the drop down menu list via mobile. For September, I am planning to pray the St. Jerome novena. This will begin on Monday September 21st, and finish up on his feast day of September 30th. St. Jerome is the patron saint of librarians, biblical scholars and students! All of the information and prayers will be up on the St. Jerome page.

After we finsh that one, I think I will pray the St. Therese novena, beginning *on* her feast day of October 1st, to break things up a bit. ;-) And I'll post a new page with her information on it as soon as we finish up St. Jerome! Sound like a plan?

Are you joining in the St. Jerome novena? Or have other novena plans this fall? I'd love to hear about them!

Early fall novenas, and knitted gnomes and garments that are no longer a mystery!

Hello all, and I hope that you are having a wonderful week! It's a week of novenas on my end, and I have to say that I am enjoying it so, so much. I finished up Our Lady Undoer of Knots on Sunday, and I think I already have the answers to the questions I was praying about (not necessarily the ones I was hoping for in all cases, but answers are answers, yes?). I also started St. Monica on Tuesday. I had forgotten that her feast is in late August, and I absolutely love this one! I pray for conversions of heart back to faith, and it always gives me so much solace. Coming up in the early part of autumn, we have the archangels (Sept. 29th), St. Jerome (patron saint of librarians, Sept. 30th), St. Therese (Oct. 1st), and guardian angels (October 2nd). It's a wealth of riches! I think I'm going to start updating and publishing the novenas tab on the blog again, with what novena I'm currently praying and the link to the relevant prayers. Look for that to start again in September if you'd like to follow along. :-)

Speaking of prayer, both of my kids are slated to go back to school full time in early September. Since they go to Catholic schools, the lower numbers of enrolled kids means that they can accommodate the health mandates more easily. My kids really miss their school environments, and so I'm happy it worked out this way, although I'm worried about how it will go and if it will last. All we can do at this point is pray for the best! My teaching this semester will be mostly, if not all, online, which I'm a little sad about, but we'll get there.

To distract myself, I've been crafting, as per my pandemic usual. ;-) The mystery gnome that I was knitting is no longer a mystery, so meet the new member of the family!

Pattern is Nice to Gnome You

He is currently frolicking with our house plants, and I'm just so pleased with how he came out! This is my first gnome, and apparently there is a whole gnome crafting universe out there, WHO KNEW?! I am totally into this now. This designer specializes in knitted gnomes. Did you ever? And her next gnome MKAL (mystery knit-along) will take place during Advent.

😱

I literally cannot wait! I'm so excited for this!

I also finished the red cotton top that I was knitting for my mother-in-law:

Pattern is Kelda Tee

I kinda wanted to keep it :-0, but I managed to resist. But not before purchasing yarn to make one for myself in another colorway. ;-)

I'm also hard at work on my Advent doily:

Pattern is Wispweave Oval

This one is just SO PRETTY. The pattern is definitely a bit challenging for a beginning doily crocheter like myself, but so far the progress is good, albeit slow. I just love the different textures that this design is forming! I'm thinking I can use it for under our Advent wreath. The border is going to be silver. 😍

Do you have any novena plans coming up this fall? What is your September looking like? I know it doesn't look like it usually does for any of us! I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

Some Catholic uplifty things for June...

Hello all! Happy Friday to you, and I hope that you are doing well.

*group hug*

I've had a good week, truly. Henry is done with his school year, and Anne finishes today. Can I tell you that I have NEVER been so happy to finish a school year before? :-0 It was a tough year, not only because of unexpectedly doing it all at home for the past 3 months, but also because each of the kids went through some growing pains this year, with Henry transitioning to high school, and Anne getting used to being at school without him for the first time. But we made it!

This week, we've been talking about summer plans, which I'm looking forward to despite this particular summer looking quite a bit different than usual. We'll still carve out some nice time with the kids and with our parents. Both Mike and I will be working from home until the fall semester starts, so that will help out a lot with family time.

In Catholic stuff for June, the Pentecost novena that we prayed together really lifted my spirits. In that vein, and prompted by the Pray More Novenas site, I started the Sacred Heart Novena a few days ago:

I love the prayers associated with this novena. You repeat the intention that you are praying for, and your hope and trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, three times, and it just really lifts me up. You can easily play catch up if you'd like to join in!

Also, the new Word on Fire Bible (the Gospels) is finally available for purchase, and I've had my eye on this one! You all know how I enjoy collecting Bibles. :-)

This edition is GORGEOUS with full color artwork and lots of great commentary from Church Fathers. It's the Gospels, rather than the entire Bible or even entire New Testament, but I feel like this would make a nice travel companion when you want ot focus just on those. I'm definitely tempted to order a copy to read this summer! But the key question is what cover type should I pick? :-0 I'm thinking hardcover!

How is your June shaping up? Are you praying the Sacred Heart novena? I'd love to hear from you!

Holy Spirit Friday, settle in for a short chat :)

TGIF everyone, and this being the Friday of Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., I have to say that I'm happier than I've ever been before about the long holiday weekend. I mean, I know that there aren't exactly a lot of places to go (though that is gradually easing; here it is easing a bit more slowly than in the rest of the country), and a big BBQ is not exactly in the plans, but there is still something inherently soothing about this particular weekend. It's a good time to reflect on a lot of things, and to enjoy your loved ones.

To that point, my biggest struggle in our current crisis is the way that it has led to our social interactions being significantly cut away. Despite being an introvert, I'm very social, and love talking to people! I'm grateful for modern technology that allows to chat virtually, but a screen does not replace actual human interaction. It's definitely taken a toll on me (and I expect most people) as we are well into our third month of managing all this.

This is a roundabout way of getting to the fact that I have felt very spiritually dry since this all began, and not being able to receive the sacraments certainly isn't helping. I was watching the streaming masses at first, and then...it's just not doing it for me. I mean, of course it isn't, nothing can replace receiving the Eucharist. But I know that many people enjoy the streaming masses. I just find it so difficult to concentrate on them, and next thing I know, mass is over, and all I can remember is the row I'm on in the shawl I'm currently knitting. It's a struggle, for sure. We're dispensed from attending mass, the streaming services are simply a way of trying to fill a gap right now, but for me, I'm finding that I need to fill the gap in other ways. My daily rosary is out the window since I'm barely in my car anymore (and you all know how I love to drive and pray the rosary), but I've been trying to focus on novenas more. They keep me centered and provide a sense of purpose in coming up with intentions for them and keeping track of the days.

I've also picked up my Great Adventure Bible and have been using the reading plan in the front to make a scripture study for myself each night before I go to sleep. There is a little spot to check passages off as you make your way through their recommended sections pertaining to salvation history, and though I don't get through an entire segment every night, within 3 nights I will, and so I check it off then. It'll take me longer than the suggested 3 months to make my way through the plan, but no biggie. If I read a chapter every single night, I am happy, and feel like I'm making positive progress towards a goal. This has been helping me A LOT. I'm really enjoying it.

So I'm doing the best that I can. It seems like public masses won't start back up in my diocese until late June or early July, so I just have to keep hanging in there. I'm mourning the loss of Anne's traditional springtime First Holy Communion (no word yet on that being rescheduled), and on Henry's altar serving days. The diocese has said that when masses resume, there will be no altar servers, and he was reaching that age when kids want to step down from doing it. This was probably going to be his last liturgical year. Those are small things, but with a lot of emotional resonance.

In the meantime, we have the Holy Spirit novena starting today, and I'm so glad that we'll be praying this one together! You can sign up with Pray More Novenas to receive the prayers in your email inbox each morning, which is how I'm praying it. I'll also paste the prayers for Day 1 down below. If you'd like to leave a comment with your intentions for the novena, we can all join you in praying for them!

Novena to the Holy Spirit - Day 1

Charity (tomorrow is Joy, we can all look forward to that! :-))

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us bow down in humility at the power and grandeur of the Holy Spirit. Let us worship the Holy Trinity and give glory today to the Paraclete, our Advocate.

Oh Holy Spirit, by Your power, Christ was raised from the dead to save us all. By Your grace, miracles are performed in Jesus’ name. By Your love, we are protected from evil.

And so, we ask with humility and a beggar’s heart for Your gift of Charity within us. The great charity of all the the host of Saints is only made possible by your power, Oh Divine Spirit. Increase in me, the virtue of charity that I may love as God loves with the selflessness of the Saints. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, through Christ Our Lord, Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pentecost novena upcoming!

After considering some ideas based on my call out for novena submissions last week ;-) I decided to highlight the Pentecost novena! The timing on this is quite perfect, as it will start next Friday May 22nd, and run through May 30th - the feast of Pentecost is May 31st! I'm excited! I even have a Pentecost rosary all lined up  for it, hee hee. It's bright orange with a Holy Spirit centerpiece. 👼

So! What we'll do is that next Friday I'll put up a post with the prayers to begin the novena. I'll also feature a Holy Spirit themed post (of some kind, I'll figure the specifics during the week) and everyone can chime in with their novena intentions and Holy Spirit moments. :-)

I love praying community novenas! It cheers me up so much. So I'm looking forward to this. Be compiling your Holy Spirit reflections for use next Friday, yay. See everyone then!

*vitual hug*

Eyelash malfunctions, and need community novena ideas!

Happy Friday everyone, and I hope that you all are doing well on this May day.

*group hug*

May is one of my favoite months of the year, plus it has my baby's birthday in it, so that's helping to keep my spirits up. We're nowhere near being out of lockdown where I live, so it's been an endeavor to continue working on a new sense of normalcy in our household. I've been crafting a lot, as I've written about the past few weeks (and more to come, but I figured I'd give you all a crafting break ;-)), and dancing a lot. I had another online show last Saturday, in fact. It went very well, but as is so often the case with The Dancing Life, and with Clumsy Me generally, the instant I stepped out onto my "stage" (aka my living room) one of my new magnetic false eyelashes became dislodged. I spent the rest of my performance obsessing in my head over whether the eyelash set would fall off and stick to my face in some horribly awkward way (it didn't btw, but it was terribly distracting!). You know, these are the ways normal people spend their Saturday nights. :-0

I'll take that problem any day though! It was really fun. But I've also been trying to instill a sense of peace within myself of late by praying novenas. Novenas provide me with a built-in timeline and sense of structure and purpose, and I really love that about them. Currently, I'm praying the Our Lady of Fatima novena, and her feast day is coming up on May 13th. After that, is there any interest in praying a novena together, at the end of May or beginning of June? Maybe I could design a short series of posts on themes surrounding whatever novena we choose. I'm rather excited about this idea! Let's see, coming up we have Pentecost, feast of the Sacred Heart, the feast of Corpus Christi...

*thinking face*

If you have a suggestion, please do leave it in the comments! I'll decide next week and post about it then. :-)

St. Therese Thanksgiving Novena starts today!

Good morning friends! Our community-wide St. Therese Thanksgiving Novena begins TODAY! If you'd like to join along with us, all of the information that you need is below! I won't be posting the prayers to the blog daily, but today's post serves as a reminder to begin praying, and to pray each day through Thursday, November 28th.

Here is the link to the pdf of the prayers that you need! :-)

I am including day 1 below, but you can take it from here. If you would keep the intentions of the entire community in prayer during this novena, we would be most grateful. Know that we are all praying for you as well! You are welcome to join us in our Facebook group if you like, where we host weekly prayer threads, and where the novena prayers will also be posted daily for ease.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'll be back after the holiday with more lifey merriment, dance posts, novenas and more. :-)

First of our seasonal novenas set to begin next week!

TGIF everyone! The first of our planned community novenas is scheduled to start Wednesday, November 20th. And our gal up on deck is one of my very favorites, St. Therese!

We'll be praying the St. Therese Thanksgiving Novena, which is ever so lovely, and I had not heard of until my good friend Tracy directed me to it!

Link to Thanksgiving Novena prayers

Here's how this will work: I'll be posting a thread on Monday in our community Facebook group wherein people can add their intentions for the duration of this novena. If you're not on Facebook, you are welcome to leave your intention(s) in a comment to this post, and I can pop them in the thread over there so that everyone sees it. And of course, feel free to post "for a personal intention" if you do not feel comfortable revealing specifics.

On Wednesday, November 20th, I'll begin posting the daily prayers in the Facebook. I'll also put up a blog post on that particular Wednesday with the prayer for day 1 and also a link to the full pdf with all 9 days. After day 1, I'll only be posting the daily prayers in Facebook, it would be too tedious to do daily blog posts. But you'll have the link, so I would just keep that as an open tab on your browser or phone so that you can refer to it each day through Thanksgiving!

I think it is so lovely to pray together as a community, and to focus on the needs of others, especially at this time of year. I know that when my own intentions are clouding up my mind, my prayer time tends to get anxious (yikes!), but when I'm praying for the intentions of others, everything is all serenity and light. Win/win!

I hope that you will join us! *virtual hug*

November/December novena plans!

We have actual prayer plans based on feedback that I received last week!

*praise hands*

I received the most votes for praying, as a community, the St. Andrew Christmas Novena:

St. Andrew Christmas Novena

This will begin on November 30th, and run everyday until Christmas, so it's not a traditional 9 day novena. It involves praying a short prayer multiple times through out each day. I will post a reminder before this starts! 

The next one is a totally new-to-me novena called the St. Therese Thanksgiving novena:

St. Therese Thanksgiving Novena

We will begin this one on Wednesday November 20th, and pray until Thanksgiving day.

*heart*

I will post about each of these in detail before the novenas begin, but I won't be posting daily reminders or links to the prayers here on the blog, that would get messy in a hurry. If you're on Facebook (and I know Facebook has it's flaws, but it's an excellent way of keeping up with beloved family and friends), we have a community Facebook group wherein I'll be posting daily reminders and the text of the prayers. That's definitely an easier way of keeping up with the prayers if you'd like me to do a lot of the work for you! I'll also be creating threads in the Facebook group wherein you can post your prayer intentions for each novena, and we will pray for each other's needs!

I'm very excited about these! I've heard of the St. Andrew novena before, but I've never prayed it. Has anyone else prayed either of these novenas before? I'd love to hear from you!

With November approaching, a prayer plan emerges...

Rosaries by Allison

Happy Halloeen, everyone! This morning, I raided my embarrassingly large rosary supply 😬 and brought out my Dia de los Muertos rosary, which is absolutely *perfect* for November, the month of All Souls! It's a great time to remember our family and friends who have passed before us, and to ask them to intercede for us. Speaking of that specific rosary, it is made by my dear friend, Allison, and she's having a special in her Etsy shop for 3 days only! So if you'd like to grab one of these rosaries, definitely hop onto her site and order asap!

As I was praying and driving into work this morning (for an 8 am class 😴), it occurred to me I'd like to plan another community novena. I ended up posting the St. John Paul II novena in our Facebook group recently, kind of spur of the moment, and it was very well received. I thought we could select an upcoming feast day and decide to pray as a community for those 9 days. I can post the prayers daily in the Facebook group, for those who follow along there, and I'll link to them here, of course, so that you can follow along regardless of if you participate over at Facebook or not. So! This begs an important question...

*beams*

Which novena would you like to pray? I'll include some ideas below, and please comment on this post with your vote!

St. Cecilia (feast Nov. 22nd)
All Souls (sort of a general November theme, feast is Nov. 2nd)
St. Francis Xavier Cabrini (feast Nov. 13th)
Christ the King (feast Nov. 24th)
St. Andrew Christmas novena (this would start on his feast of Nov. 30th, and is 25 days long leading up to Christmas)

Oh gosh, I'm getting so excited. :-0 Let me know your thoughts! We could potentially pray more than one of these!

Back-to-school briskness and busyness, and school-related novenas...

St. Kateri is our back-to-school patron this year!

Anecdote of the day: Anne greets me first thing this morning outside our bedroom door, wearing her nightgown, tossled hair, and a frown:

"Mom. You have to come quick."

Uh oh.

She hustles me down to her little bedroom, where she has clearly *just* stepped out of bed, and points an accusing finger at a shelf:

"How did Peppers get up there?!"

Peppers is her new stuffed animal friend, a parrot. I actually have no idea how Peppers got up onto a shelf, as I tucked them into bed together last night, and that does seem a little scary, doesn't it? Did he fly up there?!

😂

"Daddy probably put Peppers up there when he checked on you last night, Honey. Maybe he had fallen out of the bed."

"But why would he put Peppers up there and not back into bed with me?!"

Well, I don't know. But Anne was clearly outraged. :0 Poor Peppers.

In other news, we're in full on back-to-school prep over here. Although we're still getting flare ups of humidity around these parts, September is in the air. We're getting occasional cool nights, and the campus where I work is beginning to look different. Students are arriving for orientation, and there is a bustling sensation in the air. Classes start for them on Monday. I don't start teaching until week 3 due to the way our library lab is structured, so I still have some time to breathe, thankfully. My kids don't start school until the Wednesday following Labor Day.

It's kind of a big year for my Henry, because he's going into 8th grade. That's the highest level in his and Anne's Catholic school, and the whole thing is a bit emotional for me.

😭

I'm struggling with/panicking about this quite a bit. Next year, he will start high school, and it does NOT seem like this is possible. I know, I know, I've whined about this before. :0 But I can't help it. This is big. I never pictured myself as old enough to have a child in high school, and here we are on the very precipice of that. I'll make it, but it isn't easy. At least I have Mike to share the journey with me. *heart*

As we move into the fall, Henry is facing the Catholic High School Entrance Exam. We don't know for certain that he will attend Catholic high school (i.e. whether we can afford it), but his top choice is the Catholic boys high school that is minutes away from our house. Assuming that the financial aid package is manageable, we'd love to send him there. But it's a big "if," to be sure.

Accordingly, given that the entrance exam is in early November, and sometime thereafter we would find out the financial information, Henry and I are going to pray a novena starting Sunday (August 26th) using this novena to St. Kateri.

Would anybody like to join us? This would mean that the last day of the novena would be Labor Day here in the U.S., and since my kids start school right after that, the timing seems apt. :) I asked Henry which saint he would like to ask to intercede for him, and he chose St. Kateri, isn't he precious? If you'll be joining us, let me know!

All right, I have a bunch of beginning-of-semester emails to send out, so I'd better get on that.

*groans*

How is your back-to-school season going? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

June novena nerds, report in!

My latest piece over at Catholic Mom is up, and it got me to thinking!

Novenas. I like to pray one per month, and I was slacking on June. ;-) It's always a humbling experience when you see Lisa Hendey tweet something out about a new article over at Catholic Mom, you admire the embedded featured photo, then think to yourself: "That sounds like something I would like to read." And only then do you remember that YOU wrote the article.

Middle age, peeps. It's the pits. 😄

So that's what happened again this month, and along with my hyper organized, early submission of aforementioned article, I also forgot to set things up to pray the Sacred Heart novena along with my group of friends like we had been planning.

Oopsies!

We're back on track now. And the novena starts TODAY! Pray More Novenas is hosting this novena, so you can sign up to receive the daily emails with all of the prayers included, happily. I also tweet a link out to the prayers each day, so if you follow me on Twitter you can follow along that way as well. I put the Twitter widget back on the right sidebar of the non-mobile site for the blog, so you can link to it right on there if you'd like. I remember someone asking me about that widget a while back after I removed it (Cindy?) and I've been toying with putting it back, so now here it is, back. :0 I know not everyone uses Twitter, so this way you can still see what I'm up to on there even if you don't have a Twitter account.

The feast of the Sacred Heart is next Friday, June 23rd. I talk all about it over at Catholic Mom, if you'd like to go take a peek. We love comments over there!

Winter inspiration and planning mode...

Happy Wednesday everyone! This morning, I was thinking about how pleased I am (and unexpectedly so! :0) with how much response I got to my January piece for Catholic Mom:

I guess I wasn't prepared for how many people have a devotion to St. Francis de Sales! He's a very quiet guy in my mind, that St. Francis. He's not the OTHER St. Francis that everyone always talks about. This Francis's feast day is in January, when everyone is bemoaning how much they loathe this post-Christmas winter time of year, and I think he gets overlooked a lot. I found him because he is the patron saint of writers, and for the past few years I've prayed his novena in mid to late January. When I write for Catholic Mom, I tend to write pieces that are very tied to the seasons and/or liturgical calendar. Last year I wrote about the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, so this year I switched over to St. Francis de Sales, whose feast is January 26th.

A few things resulted from all of this. First, I did set up the page for the St. Francis de Sales novena, which starts this Sunday January 15th, so if you'd like to join in, please do! There is a link on the page to the daily prayer, and we can be praying in community! I have a group of friends set up to pray it, and it will be all warm and fuzzy. The other thing is that in the comment discussion, I found out about a book based upon St. Francis's writings and philosophy towards holiness. The book is this one:

...and I have to say, I got rather intrigued after reading the sample. I think this would be a very useful book for me during the semester crunch that proved so crippling to me in the fall. I'm thinking that this may provide excellent journaling fodder for us during this stretch of Ordinary Time before Lent. Indeed, we still have some time before Lent, as Ash Wednesday isn't until March 1st this year.

Thoughts? St. Francis de Sales had a very understandable, relatable vision of holiness for laypeople. I like his everyday occurrences view of how we can become happy and holy. Let's just say that after Barb alerted me to this book in the comments over at Catholic Mom, I innocently added it to my cart over at Amazon, and then by the end of the day, had checked out. :0 It's now winging its way to me, and will be here tomorrow.

😇

Do you want to read along?! There is also a Kindle version available, so an instant download possibility. Right now, the book is $11.99 in print, or $9.99 for Kindle, over at Amazon. Take a look at the preview, and let me know your thoughts!

*Fun side note! If you would like a St. Francis de Sales rosary like mine, Allison currently has it listed in her Etsy shop, and use coupon code CATHOLICMOM for 10% off!

Tea Time with Tiffany #71 - Sore throats & finding the good amongst the bad...

It's another sick day edition of:

Today we talk about little bunnies being under the weather, exhaustion, midlife job crises, and the uplifting nature of novenas during stressful times. Join me!





**To subscribe to the audio version of Tea Time with Tiffany, just search for it in iTunes or use this link to subscribe via Feedburner in your podcatcher of choice. Intro music is "Tea Ceremony" from PlayonLoop.com

Items mentioned in this episode:

• St. Jude Novena
• Upcoming 54 Day Rosary Novena
• CNMC 2013

Let's kibitz. What's going on with you today?!

"Wait, what day is it?!" Publicly losing one's mind, but hey, 54 day rosary novena to look forward to!

Hi all! I meant to blog yesterday. I really did. But the day just...got away from me. I had two classes (the first of which was incredibly awkward owing to the fact that the majority of the class appeared half dead. I had to *physically wake up* 2 of them before the lecture even started, that's what we were working with here :0), plus Pilates at lunchtime, plus a bunch of student emails to answer and send out, and before I knew it, I was home frantically pouring a glass of wine to unwind and I realized that I hadn't blogged. Though I had meant to. D'oh.

Want to know what else that I forgot? That I had a piece come out with Catholic Mom yesterday. :0 I'm telling you, things are a BLUR for me right now, it's quite epic. That's not necessarily a good thing, but it is what it is. I'm taking one day at a time, and it's been going much better.

In the meantime, click on the graphic below to follow me over to Catholic Mom to discuss...54 day rosary novenas!

*streamers*

 

After a long day of teaching yesterday, I was super pleased to see that someone tweeted about my Catholic Mom piece. That's what reminded me that it existed. ;-) Then I had someone write to me that they were thinking of praying a 54 day rosary novena, and that my article pushed her over the prayer edge to do it. This made my whole evening.

SOOOOO, if you'd like to pray along, we're starting November 1st, the feast of All Saints! This means that we'll finish up on  Christmas. I mean, how PERFECT, right?!

I'll bookmark a page at the top of the blog with all of the details when I get a chance, but let's do this thing!! Who's in for a 54 day rosary novena?!

Tea Time with Tiffany #61 - Back to school, novenas, & Olympic knitting...

Happy Tea Day everyone! It's a hot and muggy August edition of:

Today I talk Back-to-School frenzy, upcoming novenas, and Olympic knitting. What on EARTH is that, you reasonably ask? Tune in to find out. :)





**To subscribe to the audio version of Tea Time with Tiffany, just search for it in iTunes or use this link to subscribe via Feedburner in your podcatcher of choice. Intro music is "Tea Ceremony" from PlayonLoop.com

Items mentioned in this episode:

• Sign up to pray the September novena to the archangels with us! You'll receive a "Secret Prayer Partner", and someone will receive your name and pray for YOU!
• August Catholic Mom piece is up! God Dwells in the Little Things.
• Ravellenic Games at Ravelry.com. Search for the Games in the Groups section once you become a member.
• Baby Surprise Jacket pattern.
• Spider Lattice Scarf crochet pattern. My in-progress scarf.

How is your August going, dear reader? Do you have any fall novena or book suggestions? Write in and tell me all about it!