Thanks for putting up with this week of me trying to sell you stuff.* But hopefully you think it’s good stuff and . . . it will mostly be over after this last push today.

So, here’s what I’ve got to tell you about . . .

The Catholic All Year Liturgical Living Weekly Meal Planner

I’ve been making attempts at creating a Catholic meal planner for years. Seriously. And they just never seemed quite right. Until now. I finally think THIS meal planner setup is one that’s going to be useful for many years to come.

It has undated weekly pages with the liturgical seasons, a place for notes, and a tear-away shopping list. In the back it has a list of all the feast days on the universal liturgical calendar along with a bit of information to inspire your meal planning, like a country or particular foods with which the saint is associated.

It’s available as a printable PDF now, or for preorder as a beautiful, sturdy, hardcover, wire-bound, 6.5 x 8.5 inch, lay-flat book including 54 weekly pages plus the calendar of feasting and fasting in the back.

Why preorder?

Because if we learned anything from the subscription box launch, it’s that I am not great at estimating interest in things. I hoped we’d sell 50, maybe 100 boxes. And I had to shut it down at 450 because we had NO PLAN for being able to fulfill that many orders. (We are now set for the first box and working on figuring out how to open more spots.) So, if you don’t mind ordering now and waiting a while to receive your order, I’ll hopefully be able to get the correct number of books printed. I really think you guys are going to love it. The moms at my parkday liked the prototype. And they’re vicious. (#thatwasajoke)

A hardcover copy of the planner is included in the Praying and Planning Level Membership and above. And if you sign up before March 2021 you’ll also get the PDF version AND a sweet liturgical year recipe binder. That cute engraved pencil on the right is part of the thank you pen and pencil set early sign up bonus for the Benefactor Level. (It says “I am a little pencil in the hand of God. -St. Teresa of Calcutta”)

New Wooden Devotional Sets are Coming

I’m in the midst of trying to set up a more practical solution for creating my wooden devotional sets than me cutting them on a laser cutter in my guest room twenty hours a day and having my kids peel the masking off while watching TV. Fun, yes. But not sustainable in the long term.

This is the Tabletop Stations of the Cross. Fourteen stations on two panels, with engraved images from an 1898 Roman Missal and fourteen 100% beeswax tea light candles.

This is a Tenebrae Hearse Candelabra. A bit more obscure, I know, but we started doing a short at-home version of the beautiful Tenebrae Holy Week liturgy last year and really loved it. Read more about it in this post. I think you’d love it too. It can be done with any fifteen candles, but you guys know my policy re: overdoing things. #imforit

The stations should be available for purchase next week, and the tenebrae set will be available in mid-March.

My hope is that by next year, I’ll be able to offer the Jesse Tree Sets and these new sets to everyone who would like one. But we aren’t there yet. Right now it’s just me and my new laser-sidekick Ashley. We are working hard, but I doubt we will be able to meet demand.

People with a Catholic All Year Membership will get early access to limited-edition product releases.

Catholic All Year Membership

Here’s a video I made yesterday wherein I explain the whats and whys of a Catholic All Year Membership, and Barbara makes funny faces and tries really REALLY hard to get her thumb into her nose.

Recipe Keeper Binder

I created this binder for myself to try to keep my liturgical year recipes organized as I work on a Catholic All Year cookbook.

Then I realized that it’s a great complement to a bunch of the products I’ve launched this week. You can keep the PDF meal planner in it if you got that in the Catholic Mom Bundle or as a membership bonus or on its own. You can keep the monthly recipe packets in there if you have a Praying and Planning Membership. You can store the 5×7 recipe cards that come in the Subscription Boxes in it with these add-on sleeves. And you can, like I did, cram all your internet liturgical year recipe print outs in there, helpfully sorted by liturgical season.

Get one here. It’s got my favorite liturgical calendar-themed quote on the cover.

The feasts! What precious memories these simple words bring to me. I loved them; and my sisters knew so well how to explain the mysteries hidden in each one. Those days of earth became days of Heaven. –St. Therese of Lisieux

And that’s what’s new around here this week. I hope it will be helpful!

One more thing to add:

Babies and Dreams

*I didn’t realize at the time how meaningful it would be to have done the launches THIS week. Emily, with whom I started the subscription boxes, pointed out on IG that this has really been a #babiesanddreams moment for us. A week ago, the behind the scenes tech stuff for the memberships and subscriptions was finished on Friday afternoon. Saturday was the anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision, and the day of prayer, so we decided to wait until Sunday to launch everything.

The launch was a success beyond what we had hoped for, and beyond what we can really even handle. But that means we are hiring more help, which is such a cool thing to be able to do. I’ve got three women on this team helping me right now: Emily, Grace, and Ashley, and all three of them are pregnant! #theresacatholicjokeintheresomewhere We are pushing hard to get things set up now, before everyone takes some well-deserved time off, but other friends and family members are stepping in to help as needed, and it’s really just such a cool thing to be in a position where we can not only provide a product that people are very excited about, but also help provide for our families, and do it with our babies and because of our babies. So, thanks for making that possible for us.