Liturgical Year Shelf Improvements

I recently got a $200 Amazon gift card and was sure to spend it all at once. My purchases have been arriving. I got 2 white veils-an infinity one and a "regular" one. I think I'll keep the infinity one but not the regular because I don't love the color and It has a rounded edge (not a triangle edge). I've been wanting to arrange my Liturgical year "reference" books and my religious art books (although not all of them) in the same place, but not on my desk as my desk is getting to cluttered. Of the books shown I already had: Art through Faith, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, Saints A Year in Faith and Art, my Missal (Angelus Press), To Whom Shall We Go?, the red booklet missal,  With the Church Volume 2, The Catholic All Year Compendium, the Encyclopedia of Catholic Devotions and Practices and A Year with God. My new books are: Monday's With Mary, Catholic Mosaic and the Year & our Children. I haven't started to look at these books very much yet but I expect to this weekend. The pile in the front is what is in my little bag for mass but I am washing that bag now so everything is sitting there--Jesus Make Me Worthy, Rosaries, veils, a rosary card, Pieta book, The Sacred Heart and Mine in Holy Communion & St Raphael booklet. In the white binder are: liturgical calendar printouts (I have 5 or 6 in there + my tan books calendar on top of my cube shelf), mysteries of the rosary card, rosary art prints (new), various litanies and printed prayers (my favorites are always in there and some rotate with the liturgical year), some religious art, pages about my favorite nun and the Conikers, and a page of Mother Teresa. I used to use a clipboard on my desk as a place to display rotating religious art but now I have been using the cover of this binder and keep all of the extras in the back. My missal, little black bag and binder usually live on my desk so I don't know how long they will stay there since they don't really need shelf space and I use them so much. But it might be nice to have a place to store them.
Next to my cube shelf I have a bin/basket with past liturgical calendars, Lenten books, With the Church Volume 1, my Holy cards, other litanies and printables, more religious art books,my box of colored pencils, catholic coloring books, coloring pages, other religious goods (mostly things from my Grandma that I don't want to get rid of but don't want out). I also have a Latin Mass Children's Missal (new), a new book for Christmas and my next tan books calendar. These are "future" things. The Latin Mass Children's Missal I will start in Advent, the Christmas books is for Christmas, and the Calendar is for next year (although there is some overlap with this year). Also, for next year I think I will still printout several liturgical calendars that I find online when they become available.
On top of my cube shelf I have some new medals out on display that I bought a few weeks ago, some holy cards are out, a stack of books/magazines for reading with Mrs KBL-I want all of those option in one place, and I moved this stack of prayerbooks from my desk to their (I took my light up picture out to make room): Mother Love prayerbook, Sacred Heart Book, Rural Life Prayerbook, Christian Prayer and my book from/by Jerry Coniker. To be completely honest I hardly ever use these prayerbooks anymore (I used to with great frequently) but I don't want them sitting in a box or under my desk.
My cube shelf is a 2X2 shelf. The bottom two shelves contain all of my written in notebooks labeled by date (I fill a notebook about every 10 days so these two shelves are about to overflow) and the top right contains my courtship books, dating books, NFP books, spiritual motherhood for priests/seminarians booklets, Theology of the body books, "womanhood" books, the love languages, "self help" and advice books, temperaments books and such. It's it not the neatest shelf, but I want all of those books in one place. This cube shelf is basically an extension of my desk.
The rest  of my books--saints books, art books, agriculture books, nature books, catechism books, Charlotte Mason books and the rest of the homeschool curriculum live under my desk. It's not a particularly organized sight.
I still have some more new things coming in the mail this week and the next. With $200, I was able to get quite a bit.

Happy All Saints Day!

Meeting Jerry Coniker

I couldn't believe it when I found out that Jerry Coniker died. It didn't seem real. Just a month before at my Grandpa's party, Kathy was telling me how well he was doing. After his funeral in Ohio, Kathy sent me pictures and little descriptions of everything.  Ever since I found out that he died, I have wanted to write about the impact that Jerry Coniker has had in my life. It has been a month now since he died, and, The inspired words have never seemed to come yet, so I guess this is it.

As the years go by, I remember less and less of hat day. Most of that day, and the year before it I'd like to block out anyways. I want to write this down so I will remember it in the years to come. I have the moment written in my lengthy Aunt Virg epic which I wrote right after her funeral. But my focus in that writing was more on Aunt Virg and the events surrounding her wake and funeral. It was a big deal to me that I met him but for whatever reason didn't get a lot of writing space in my long epic.

It was January 25th 2015. We were at Proko funeral home for my great Aunt Virg's funeral wake. This was the third death and funeral for our family in one year. Many people were there, many feelings were felt and there was much activity in the funeral home. We had already been there for hours, some time towards the end at night. I sat down on one of those 1970's styled couches. There was a man next to me who I recognized as my cousin Kathy's dad (later on in life, Kathy and I have gotten much closer) and as Jerry Coniker, I had a rough idea of who he was/what he has done and I remembered him sitting in the very back of the church months ago at my Grandma's funeral, still I didn't think much of it. Most likely, I sat down and was paying attention to something else. Seconds later, he fumbled with a opening a water bottle.  I asked him if he wanted me to do it and he said sure. He then asked who I was and I first said "Dolly's granddaughter" and then I realized that she is dead, so that is inaccurate, So then I quickly said that I am Bruno's granddaughter. Then, as recorded in my Aunt Virg epic, this is what happened, "Then I had to explain my relationship to his daughter and his son in law. Michael (his son-in-law)’s Mom, (Aunt) Cookie, is the oldest sister of my Grandma Dolly (my Mom’s mom). We covered all the bases of-a-good-conversation-with-someone-important: My Grandma's Funeral, Aunt Virg, Me, Where I Live, My Vocation, Catholic Familyland, His Wife, Books he's written, the future of Catholic's in America, Aunt Cookie, marriage, family, vocation discernment, dating, how neither of us could believe how many people were at Aunt Virg's funeral, Grandma Dolly, Grandma Dolly's funeral; I pointed out my Mom, Dad, siblings, and Grandpa Bruno. When Kathy would come over (he's her dad) Mr. Coniker would say things like: "She's a riot!", "She's darling!" and "Are you listening to this girl?!" And Kathy agreed with him every time. And I was just glowing the whole time. After Mr. Coniker left, my Grandpa called me over to explain to me who Mr. Coniker was and about when he went to Rome. (Like I didn’t already know?) Mr. Coniker also kept talking about this book he was going to give me at the funeral. I had my doubts that he’d pull through. But, hey, this was one of the most thrilling conversations I have ever had. It was a huge deal to be talking to him. And then that I talked to him for SO long, it’s quite unbelievable!! "

I don't know how long we had talked for, an hour or more probably. If I was the notebooking person that I am now, you can be so sure that I would have written everything down....I was grateful for our time together at the time, but am even more grateful for it now. What a great blessing our time together was. What I didn't know then, is that summer I would go to Catholic Familyland, I would further grow in devotion to Gwen Coniker and now pray daily to her, how Kathy and I would become closer, how in the last year of his life every time I would see Kathy I would ask her about her dad, how just this past spring (2018) I was thinking of visiting him.....

That next day at St George's cemetery, I watched as his grandkids, two of my cousins and he walked across the snow and ice to the burial for Aunt Virg. A little bit later, before we all packed up to go to the IA, he came over to my sister and gave her the books for me. I was so excited! I received a rosary meditation booklet compiled by him and Preparation for Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary for Families also compiled by him. The week after the funeral, I began reading daily from the consecration prep book. Now that I have finished reading it, it sits on my desk.

Now, for the last month, every time I go to mass I pray for his soul and every night before bed I say "Jerry Coniker, pray for us" (I realize he is not canonized yet, but I still say that)
At Anne's bridal shower 2 weeks ago Kathy was there and she gave me a Rosary with St Pope John Paul II on the beads. She said touched it to her dad after he died and to her mom's tomb and the rosary is just for me. I couldn't believe it! What a gift!

As I read back on this, It seems as if there is more to the story in my head or something, and that in writing it doesn't seem like much. Maybe its more simple than I thought. I am very grateful for Jerry Coniker, for his example in my life, all the things that he did, and the time we had together to sit at Proko funeral home and talk.