On Thursday, the husband's Aunt Maureen passed away after a battle with lung cancer. On Sunday afternoon we were all in Chicago at the wake. A real, no kidding, Chicago Irish wake. The whole family and close friends, kids included, spent the afternoon and...
Welcome to another edition of Answer Me This. Here are this week's questions: 1. Do you hate happy clappy church music? Will you all throw me out of the club if I say that I don't? I know I shouldn't like it. Intellectually, I understand that the jazzy...
Did you see it? It's my new favorite. It also just happens to star Frankie's godmother, my good friend Blythe of The Fike Life. It shows the beauty and joy of our Catholic faith, lived in the particular vocation of a big family. If this somehow...
Happy Easter everyone! He is Risen. . . Are you guys getting tired of that yet? Sorry. I just found out about it this year. It's possible I'm getting carried away. Also, I've eaten a LOT of candy. They're always saying how easy it is to take candy from a baby. But...
If you know me in real life, fair warning, I have every intention of doing this to you over the next fifty days or so. The Paschal greeting, also known as the Easter acclamation, is an Easter custom among Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic...
As you may have already read, Holy Week is a busy week around here. Today, when we handed out chores, somehow Jack ended up with blog duty, and *I* had to clean out his closet. "Content," I told him, "The people want content." Let's see what he came up with...
How much of Jesus' suffering and death to share with little ones is a question many parents struggle with. It can be overwhelming to feel like you have to introduce so many facts and concepts and characters all at once, especially if your kids are perhaps more...
Before you rush out the door to the dollar store to put together an Easter Basket, here are a few ideas for lovely and edifying Easter gifts that you can make happen in a hurry. And sometimes for nearly free! Printables Shining Light Saint Printables! Just a word of...
Updated! (now even MORE stuff at the bottom) Welcome to Answer Me This, a new Sunday link-up here at Catholic All Year. If you missed the big introduction post, here's a quick recap of the rules: I ask you questions, you answer them. You can answer in the...
You guys actually read my crazy Day in the Life post. All the way to the bottom! And some of you had questions about it. So, I'll be addressing those questions over the next few weeks. How we do bedtime routines, why our kids don't have their own beds, letting our...
a grandfather clock built by . . . my grandfather (is your mind blown?) Okay, you asked for it. Here it is. You have no one to blame but yourselves. My days start at about 11 pm, since that's when I can usually put Lulu down for an hour or two and attempt to...
I had such fun reading all the answers to Friday's Liebster post, that I've decided to make a regular thing of it, at least as long as you folks are up for participating. Here's how it will work. (Unless I change how it will work. As with a Liebster Award, in...
Gus, Gus, Gus. The boy of whom a priest once remarked, "Well, if you didn't want him to give you trouble, you probably shouldn't have named him Augustine." Touché. Gus is athletic and earnest and affectionate and goofy and confident. Really confident. Really, really...
I have once again been honored by a Liebster award, that most flattering of all chain letters. This time by Tammie of TTE Designs. I'm trying to talk her out of some of her amazing handcrafted jewelry for my upcoming Mother's Day giveaway, so here goes . ....
This is me. I'm 37 years old. My hair is probably sixty percent gray now. And neither one of those things bothers me. Here's why: 1. I have no interest in misleading people about my age. Mostly because I would much rather people think I look good for forty than kinda...
It's Laetare Sunday! If you just said, "Huh?" You're not alone. But here's a hint: You know how almost never, but it seems like maybe a couple times a year the priest wear pink vestments? That's today. From Scott P. Richert at the very excellent About.com Catholicism...
Well. After telling you what I think you should do on your blog, and what I think you should do on my blog, I figured it was time to let you tell me what you think I should do on my blog. So here goes nothing. Wait, before you read any further, go read this at Carrots...
A big part of our family culture is celebrating the feasts of the liturgical year. And heaven help me if I try to mix things up any. Tierneys have waffles for dinner on the Annunciation. They started off as toaster waffles. Now they are usually homemade waffles. One...
via Pope Francis' comments at a weekly audience last summer really hit home for me: “This culture of waste has made us insensitive even to the waste and disposal of food, which is even more despicable when all over the world, unfortunately, many individuals and...
--- 1 --- When we are expecting a baby (which is pretty often) we don't find out the baby's sex before birth. We like to be surprised. But when you don't know whether it's a boy or a girl, people very often ask if you would prefer to have a boy or a girl. I really...
Salad. Tastes good. Good for you. Huge pain in the neck to make. Even when it was just the husband and I eating dinner, I would mean to make us a salad, but end up running out of time or motivation and just steam some broccoli again. Now with a houseful of kids to...
Hey, if you like radio or books or squeaky voices or awkward silences, you're probably going to want to check out my radio interview debut on the Son Rise Morning Show tomorrow morning. I'll be on at 8:40 am Eastern time. It's possible that we'll be talking...
Another Hooley at the Tierneys' is in the books. We are so grateful to our family and friends who spent the evening with us. It was the best. You rock. To those of you who were not here: You should have been. Come next year. It was really fun. Please look at these...
Last Friday, I shared with you some things I really enjoy about many of the blogs that I read. In response to some comments on that post, this week I'm going to share with you some things I love about the folks who read this blog, whether they have a blog themselves...
As I chop and measure and mix and bake (and try to decide if finger-batter counts against Lenten disciplines) in preparation for our big annual Hooley at the Tierneys.' hooley: Irish slang for party or celebration; by extension, some substance with which you...
Frankie here. My favorite pastimes include throwing things away in the trash can, getting my fingernails clipped, and banging on stuff in quiet places. But a very close fourth is finding Goldbug in this book. So when the fine folks at Quirk...
UPDATE: I'm now back on board with my original post, thanks to some advice from Scott P. Richert of the About.com Catholic page and your comments. Whew. But I'm leaving this up because it happened, and because the photoshopping is pretty profound. Dear...
Sundays in Lent seem to be a genuine source of confusion among Catholics. Both the "I don't cheat on Sundays" people and the "Sundays don't count" people believe that Church teaching is on their side. Or perhaps they just think there isn't a formal Church teaching on...
I have a blog. Maybe you do too. My blog happens to have recently had a Lent-related explosion of popularity. But don't worry, I'm not going to get too big for my britches. I'm not even going to talk about my blog today. Today, I'm going to tell you the things I love...
Pshew, we did it. It took a whole day, and we didn't get ANY schoolwork done (double day tomorrow!) but we went to Mass, got our ashes, decorated the house for Lent, and . . . Cleaned Out the Toys! Here's our day in pictures . . . ashes remember, baby, you are...
