first ever My Holy Cards order!

{I've been wanting to buy from this company for some time now, and frequently admired its website. My Holy Cards has quickly become a new favorite company of mine!!}

I have now had these treasures for a few weeks, I really have been enjoying my new Immaculata prayer book during mass. I haven't had a chance to use the booklet yet. I will definitely be buying more from this company!!!

A Polish festival!

 Sunday April 14th I went to a "Spring Polish festival" at Immaculate Heart of Mary church/school in Monona Wisconsin. I had such a blast!!!!

I can't say as I feel like I am very in touch with my polish heritage but this event made me inspired to try to be more in touch with my polish heritage.

{great fun!}

{I got this for my recently engaged sister}

{I got this for my brother}

{roll out the barrel....we'll have a barrel of fun...}

{it was at a Catholic church/school and I thought this image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was especially beautiful}

Feast of St Patrick:: 3/17/19

{plans for the day}

~ Low Mass

 {art}

{reading + notes}

{how my cube shelf has been looking lately}

~Read from A Character Calendar
~Read St Patrick's Breastplate from Catholic All March Booklet

February Feast Days- what I did- 2/4/19-2/27/19

I've been smashing my goals and have been making it to daily mass (now that the terrible frigid snap is over) and have gotten back into the swing of a daily rosary. Also, I've been reading from A Character Calendar every day since it arrived in the email. So, things are going great!
(2/4/19)

2/4, St Andrew Corsini
-Low Mass
-Father Oak: White
-A Character Calendar

2/5, St Agatha
-Low Mass
-Father Oak: Red
-A Character Calendar, Catholic All February, the Catholic All Year Compendium, Saints a Year in Faith and Art, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art
-Who/what are "the 14 Holy Helpers"?

2/6, St Titus, St Dorothy
-A Character Calendar
-Low Mass
-Father Oak: White
-Saints a year in faith and art
-Paul Miki: The Catholic All Year Compendium, Catholic All February, Saints a Year in Faith and Art

New books:
-Chalice of Strength: prayers for priests (more of a booklet than a book, filled with prayers)
-Saints and Festivals: a cycle of the year  for young people by Mother Mary Salome (a book with chapters for various days and seasons in the liturgical year)
-The Easter book by Francis X Weiser (I caved and got this book this Lent/Easter season. a book for Lent & Easter, in the same style of Weiser's other books)

2/7, St Romuald, St Richard of Lucca
(no mass because I wanted to sleep in, mass ended up getting canceled and one of the steers found his way into the horse's pen, so my sleeping in plan was not a win)
-Father Oak: White
-Lives of the Saints
-Saints a year in faith and art

2/8-2/10, didn't do much over the weekend, but caught up on readings from A Character Calendar, did Calendar Work, and Catholic All February/The Catholic All Year Compendium.
I haven't been keeping up on my letter board...it still days "Candlemas Day!" on it.

{how I like to survive wrestling meets--lots of books!}

2/11, Our Lady of Lourdes
-Low Mass
-A Character Calendar
-Father Oak: White
-The Catholic All Year Compendium, Catholic All February

New book:
-Religious Customs in the Family by Father Weiser (its so small!)

2/12
-Read from A Character Calendar

2/13
-prep for next day reading: the Catholic All Year Compendium, The Year and Our Children, Catholic All February booklet; changed letter board
-Read from A Character Calendar, looked up Therese Neueman

2/14, St Valentine
-Low Mass
-Father Oak: red
-Catholic All February

2/15
-Calendar Work

2/16
-Mass
-Read: Religious Customs in the Family, The Easter Book
-made: lent plans

2/17, Septuagesima Sunday
-finalized lent plans
-Calendar work
-Read: With the Church Volume 1

2/18, St Bernadette
-Calendar Work
-Mondays With Mary
-Catholic all February booklet (repeating pages from the feast of our Lady of Lourdes)
-Lives of the Saints, Saints: a year in faith and art
-Caught up on Readings from A Character Calendar
-looked over lent plans
-watch CCC video of St Bernadette

2/19
-Read from A Character Calendar

2/20
-Read from a Character calendar

2/21
-Mass (St Peter Damien)

2/22
-Read from: Catholic All February booklet, A Character Calendar, Lent for Children 2018 Supplement, missal/mass readings of the day

2/23-2/24
-Mass (Saturday and Sunday)
-Liturgical themed choral & organ festival
-Calendar Work
-Reading from: With the Church volume 1

2/25
-Mass
-New Books: Catholic All Year and Catholic All March booklets (both so beautiful and I can not wait to use them!!)

-Caught up on readings from A Character Calendar
-looked over lent plans

2/26
-Low Mass, Votive Mass of the Angels

2/27, St Gabriel
-Low Mass
-caught up on readings from a character calendar
-printed off lent calendars from the Pondered in my heart blog

a Saturday {in pictures}

1-19-19

{waking up to snow} 

{the morning light on my desk}

{Monroe Wrestling Tournament-for my brothers}

{my books for the day}

{win!}

{me}

{taking notes}

{I finished this  book!}

{my first order from Hopewell/Heritage Essential Oils arrived!}

{Catholic all February arrived!}

Feast Day of Saint Anthony of Egypt/the Great/Abbot (1/17)

Today, as I like to do, I pulled out my Tan books calendar and looked to see whose feast it is today--Saint Anthony of Egypt/the Great/Abbot. If I don't have much to say about the feast day then, I will just state it and go about my day. But, today, I went on a bit of a crumb trail. And, what a great crumb trail it was!

(my sister updated my letterboard for the day--I told her to make it festive. And, I made sure my priest/"Father Oak" was in white vestments for the day.)

Reading/Notes from:

Lives of the Saints by Hoever

Signs and Symbols in Christian Art

Saints: a year in faith and art

Tan Books calendar

1962 Daily Roman Catholic Missal (Angelus press)

(Saints: a year in faith and art---right away reminded me of "the Scream".)

(so now, I'm thinking of this image)

I added "the Life of Saint Anthony" by Saint Athanasius to my "Books to Read" list on Evernote.

Happy Feast day!

Epiphany:: What actually happened (in pictures)

I did not end up going to any of the festivities at Saint Marys Pine Bluff on 1/5. There was a change in the schedule in that Fr Z was giving the talk instead of Fr Gernetzke so that made me less interested in going. I like Fr Z and all but I hear sermons from him nearly every week so I wasn't as inclined to go after an already full day.
1/6:
In the morning, I went to mass at Saint Mary's Pine Bluff, and when I got home my siblings were all awake so we opened our epiphany gifts (from Old Befana). I got a Mother Teresa of Calcutta Statue and some of the kids got Pac-Man(!!). I had a sudden spur of inspiration and I reorganized and rearranged the top of my cube shelf. It looks SO much better!!
I did some readings, I took some notes.
Cube shelf before:
all of the statues, the candle and rosaries were on my desk in a corner; on my cube shelf was the letter board with an overflowing bin of books for "right now". It just felt...cluttered...

(the overflowing basket) (I put the basket on the corner of my desk nearest my cube shelf where I had my statues and such before and I straightened out my books and such in it a little better. )

(some "before" pictures-all from a few weeks ago)

How the top of my cube shelf looks now! I really like it!

Pac Man!!

"Father Oak" Peg dolls! +a seminarian

A few more peg dolls! (Immaculate Heart of Mary, St Therese, Sacred Heart of Jesus)

Bishop Morlino Peg doll!

Readings for the feast day

(Lives of the Saints-Hoever, Latin Mass Children's Missal, With the Church volume 1 & Catholic All January (turns out I've been calling this by the wrong title ever since I got it)

(from Saints: a Year in Faith and Art)

Jennifer Mackintosh Planner + Notebook, ready for the day

A note on projects

It's been a full year of liturgical living for me, and I hope that the next year will be even fuller! With lots of research, I have been diving into all sorts of liturgical year projects and organizing lately. I have so many ideas that I want to do! I have been buying lots of things and books, and have more ordered/coming as well as some Amazon gift cards left to spend. (I kind of need to set up a budget for this) I have also been moving things around on my desk and cube shelf. I am trying to come up with a good solution to organize my liturgical year things. (it's a bit of a mess right now) This is just a little glimpse.... I still have a long way to go, but here are some projects that I am currently working on...

I got a  letter board!
I don't think I am really a letter board *person* but I want to try using one to display what day it is in/on the liturgical year (feast day/season/month theme/day theme).  That's my vision for this brand new  letter board that I got. A dry erase board seemed too tacky (although I did see some small/compact ones at Target that I half thought about getting..), but the letter board seems tedious to fill... If I feel like the letter board is not working out, I definitely won't have any other use for it. In any case, I got the cheapest letter  board I could find on Amazon (I couldn't believe how expensive most of them were!) (Also I'll admit that the one I got isn't the most attractive looking/best matching for my desk and cube shelf) I bet you didn't think that I had this much to say about letter boards, did you?

Peg dolls!
I have three Shining Light Dolls that I love, and I have know the existence of peg dolls for some time but never had one of my own. (I'm kind of into whimsical decor) After Bishop Morlino died, a friend was making Bishop Morlino peg dolls, and you know I jumped immediately at the chance to get one. (Seriously, I think I was the first person to ask for one, and I was so proud when I received mine) (Side  note: I really like having "art" of Bishop Morlino...this sounds weird, but it helps me remember he is actually dead---I think I'm still in denial about that). Later on, I said to the same person how I'd potentially want more peg dolls of various saints and people, and so I have requested  some (which should be coming soon!!), which leads me to...

My own replication of a Father Oak! And felt vestments!
So I had an Idea.... I want to replicate Father Oak to remind me to pray for priests more often. I printed off the instructions and found some templates, and at Catholic Schoolhouse a mom made some felt vestments to use with a felt board so I wanted to by felt vestments. Ideas #1 was get a wooden figurine of some sort and buy felt to make my own vestments to switch around on a figurine for the different feast days based on what the priest would wear. Execution of idea #1: I had a random spur of inspiration and bought one of those bendable drawing figurines on Amazon, a bit lanky, but I thought it would work. And I bought some felt. I bought the wrong felt, it is 2X2 inch pieces and the figurine is just too big, so I am returning those. I couldn't believe it when I opened the package that the felt was so small! Idea #2...I order some peg dolls of priests in various colors. (If you are wondering about more of my Amazon shopping mishaps...I wanted paperclips to do some paper clipping. I thought I was just buying a box, but in reality it was 10 boxes of 100 paper clips each....(!) so I am returning the paper clips as well. That many paper clips should last until my grandkids if I keep them!
so where we stand on this project, are some priest peg dolls in different color vestments (to rotate out) and a seminarian peg doll are being made for me. The plan is to switch around the priests as a reminder to pray for priests and also as a reminder of the color of vestments for the day. And the seminarian is to remind me to pray for my seminarian friends. And the plan is to have these live (somewhere) on my cube shelf.

New books!
My Daily Bread (small wine colored book from the Confraternity of the Precious Blood)
Art Through Faith (Seton grade 8) (reading now)
Bible History by Johnson & Hannan (finished, but now have the workbook to go through)
Bible History by Ignatius Schuster
...and more coming soon!!

New Things!
Not directly a liturgical year thing, but does enhance things for me...I got beats!! No more borrowing my brothers!! My beats are super slick!
About 2 months ago I had a friend make me some of those knotted cord rosaries (in black, of course). I love them a lot! and I recently got some more. They are my favorite rosaries now!!

Also, I still need more paperclips...

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!