I have some fun news!

I have three little books out and published today!

Rosary by Chews Life Dolls by Shining Light Dolls: Our Lady, and Pope St. JPII the Great

I have not forgotten about my *REAL* book! It now has an official name: <trumpet fanfare> The Catholic All Year Compendium: Liturgical Living for Real Life. 

I’m going through the copyedits on the almost four hundred page liturgical living in the home beastie this week, and I am really pleased with how it’s turning out. It’s been so long since I actually did the writing (I know, I KNOW) that I’m reading through it almost like a real reader and quite enjoying it. Does that sound terrible? 😆💁But I AM! It’s my truth. I can’t wait for you guys to get to read it too!

The copyeditor is amazing, by the way. She has fact-checked every quote and saint story and wild speculation in the book. She has fixed my grammar while retaining my “voice.” She has crossed-out approximately one thousand “actually”s and “particular”s. It’s been a very long process, but I hope you’ll think it’s worth the wait.

And it actually (there I go again) won’t be as long a wait as it was going to be. The book was originally slated for a spring 2019 release, but I talked the powers that be into moving it up to fall 2018. It’s set to head to the presses in August.

The cover is currently being created by the very talented Tricia Dugat of Providential Co. She’s an amazing Catholic artist I first encountered on Instagram (go follow her @providential_co !). I was thrilled when my editor at Ignatius agreed to let her do the cover. Here’s a sneak peak at one of six panels she’s working on for the book.

But back to the books that you can get NOW!

Here’s the story . . .

I had a reader write to me through my Etsy shop and ask if I’d be willing to design seven prayers in a superhero theme for a boy with Down syndrome in her first grade religious ed class who would benefit from fun but easy-to-read versions of the prayers. I did NOT have time to do that. I had improperly formatted hundreds of citations in the liturgical living book manuscript and had to go back through and re-do all of them. <headdesk🙇> I was trying to get two bathrooms, a hallway, the guest room, the schoolroom, and the back staircase painted and decorated before our big St. Patrick’s Day Hooley for 300 people. Also, I needed to plan a party for 300 people.

But I got this idea in my head of Superman demonstrating the sign of the cross, and I knew it just had to exist in the world. So I said I’d do it as soon as the party was over, and I did.

THEN I got to thinking about how Frankie was making his First Holy Communion this year too, and wouldn’t it be nice if I did fun, superhero versions of ALL the prayers with which I’d like him to be familiar? And why not get them printed up for him in a little book and put it in his Easter basket?

*This is what it’s like to be in my head, people. It’s a whirlwind.*

And as long as I was making one for him, why not make them for Gus and Anita, too? Because aren’t they also my students? Yes they are.

So, partially as an excuse to not start painting and decorating the last three rooms of the house that need it, but also as a loving mother . . . I increased the number of prayers to 23, added how to say the Rosary, made three versions, and researched the best way to get them printed. It turned out that far and away the most cost effective was Createspace . . . which is affiliated with Amazon. And with a few clicks, I could make them available to all! So I did that too. And here they are:

My Superhero Prayer Book

You can find it at Amazon here. (If you get one — and like it — will you leave a review?)
And as a printable pdf at my Etsy shop here. (You can see lots more interior images here.)

My Fairy-tale Prayer Book

You can find it at Amazon here. (If you get one — and like it — will you leave a review?)
And as a printable pdf at my Etsy shop here. (You can see lots more interior images here.)

My Woodland Prayer Book

You can find it at Amazon here. (If you get one — and like it — will you leave a review?)
And as a printable pdf at my Etsy shop here. (You can see lots more interior images here.)

The illustrations are by Sarah O’leary. She’s got an Etsy shop called Prettygrafikdesign that’s super DUPER cute.

Here’s a very impartial review by three of my progeny:

And now, I need to get back to work on finishing the copyediting review on the Compendium. Then it’s off to finish paint/wallpaper/decoration in the laundry room, baby storage, and . . . the chapel. I have some BIG ideas for that. We’ll have to see what I can actually manage. (Oh, by the way, if anyone has any leads on beautiful old Catholic art or furnishings that are languishing in storage somewhere, please let me know. We would love to rescue it!)

I also want to create expanded prayer books for young men and women (Jack will be confirmed this year!). I want to put together a family prayer book companion to the Compendium, of all the prayers I recommend in there. I want to put together a recipe book companion to the Compendium, of all the recipes we use. And I want to blog! I really do want to blog. I miss blogging. I’m around Facebook and Instagram on the regular, so comment here and come say hi there. And please let me know what you think of the prayer books and if there’s anything else that you think I should put on my to do list. I live to serve. 😃


P.S. There was an error in the original version of the books that went up on Amazon. It’s corrected now, but if you have a book with a backwards sign of the cross page, please see this post for more details!