Mailbag time! The Question: Hi Mrs. Tierney, My name is Sanasi and I am a 21 year old university student. I stumbled across your blog when I was looking for more Catholic blogs to read in my free time and it's kind of weird, but I feel like I see so much of...
Ladies. We do not have to be suspicious of homemaking. Our talents and aptitudes may afford us opportunities that weren't available to earlier generations of women. But most of us also desire to have a husband, and children, and to create a home for them. To aspire to...
Dear Mr. President, So, you gave a speech last weekend, huh? And . . . three, two, one, BOOM went the mommy wars. I'm pretty sure you didn't intend to say that being a stay at home mom isn't "a choice we want Americans to make." I mean, that IS what you said, but it...
Before school started up this week, I did a major tidy up of the playroom and the desks in the kids' rooms. We do our twice yearly clean outs during advent and lent, in which we select things we don't love or use all that often to donate. That's not what this was....
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...
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...
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...
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...
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how we were able to start celebrating the liturgical year in our home only by taking baby steps. And I mentioned how overwhelmed I had felt reading the first book I found about the celebrating the liturgical year in the home....
Hey all, I'm super excited to be guest posting today for my friend Haley from Carrots for Michaelmas while she finishes up the edits on her Liturgical Year Cookbook. The Three Most Important Things I Do Before Having a Baby If you’re expecting me to say things like...
Monica from Equipping Catholic Families was one of the first friends I made in the blog world. We've got lots in common, including Catholic faith, general craftiness (but she's got me beat), and youngest sons sent by God to ensure our humility! If you were around for...
This week, I solve your problems. (I know, people hate that. But it doesn't bother me when *I* do it.) --- 1 --- Problem: You think cutting onions is unpleasant. Solution: I hate cutting onions, too. They make me cry. And not in an awesome BBC period miniseries kind...
In the early years of marriage and kids we lived in a series of small apartments and houses. I had a little system in which I allotted specific tasks to specific days of the week, which I had written down on a schedule that was taped up inside a cabinet door. I won't...
One isn't better than the other. They are complimentary. Both are good. Of course, that's easy for me to say, since I'm the flower. But it really does seem to be true of all the marriages I'm party to the ins and outs of. And it doesn't always break down according...
It's a question I have heard many times. Not as much anymore, though. I think people figure that with six kids already, I must be a lost cause. But I used to hear it a lot when I had three and four kids, and even when I had two (since I got my boy and my girl right...
Dear Mom With Two or Three or More Small Children, Your life is hard right now. I know, I've been there. You wanted these children, or maybe you didn't at first (oops) but you do now, and you love them like you never imagined you could love anything, but also they...
Hey, summer re-runs aren't just for network TV right? If you saw this post, you'll know that I'm planning to run some of my earliest blog posts over the summer while I try to accomplish some other things. So in case you missed it, here's a post from...
--- 1 --- Now that Bobby has had his First Holy Communion, he qualifies to be an Altar Boy at the Old Mission. I so love it there. No classes, no sign-ups -- if you've had your First Communion you show up and suit up and the older boys start showing you the ropes....
--- 1 --- I have to admit to being a Pope Benedict XVI kinda gal. He's been the Pope for most of the time I've been paying attention. He gave my oldest son his First Holy Communion. He's a writer and a thinker of thoughts. And, like myself, he...
Happy regular ol' day between two feasts! Today I want to share some photos from the Hooley and also share why we have parties (aside from the obvious reason of us being pretty cool). The husband and I got married, went on our honeymoon, and then immediately moved...
The Solemnity of St. Joseph is coming up soon (March 19th), so I thought I'd share how we celebrate this very welcome feast in the middle of Lent. When I was in high school, one of my best friends was from an Italian family. Mrs. Vitale is an uh-mazing cook (if...
It's a funny thing about leprechauns. If you don't believe in them, they seem to leave you quite alone. For twenty-four years I didn't bother with leprechauns, and they didn't bother with me. But then I married into a south-side Irish family, and I learned about...
I don't see this jar as mostly empty,I see it as a tiny bit full Our clipart Lent calendar and our Lent RemindersOnly forty-three pictures to go Our school/dining tableWith purple cloth, potted succulent, and rocksAlso, in-progress mortification(Just look at that...
If you're like me, you like your husband. You like getting dressed up. You like eating food. You like general adorableness. And being waited upon. And little bells. But if you're like me you do NOT like sitting in traffic on a Saturday night (seriously, what is...
Our dear sweet Betty turns NINE next week, and to celebrate she wanted a Snow (Princess) themed birthday party. We ended up getting some great bargains, since on January 1st anything with a snowflake on it goes on clearance to make way for the swimsuits and Easter...