My Simple Daybook Vol. 2: November Edition

For Today: November 2nd & 15th, 2022

~Daybook template from The Simple Woman Blog~

Looking out my window...

The sky is cloudy but the sun is coming out!  It was very windy yesterday and today so I'm assuming the clouds blew in and they'll blow out just as quickly.  That's kind of sad because I do really like cloudy weather.  We don't get much of it here.  But there is a chance of rain tomorrow so maybe it'll stick around for a little bit!

Ps.  I've been working on the post over the course of a couple of weeks so we actually did have nearly a full day of rain and it was glorious!!  I was babysitting in the morning so it was so fun to show the baby the rain. 😊

I am thinking...

...Of all the upcoming plans I have!  I teach Latin class on Thursday (more on that in a later post probably,) have some upcoming babysitting jobs, my aunt and Granny are coming into town for Thanksgiving, I'm planning what Christmas gifts I'm making, and therefore knitting all the time!!  So much to do, so little time!

I am thankful...

...For all the dear Saints in Heaven who intercede for us, especially my patron Saints, especially on All Saints Day at the beginning of this month!

One of my favorite things...

I have a few favorite things right now!  

*cuethesoundofmusic*

First off, my new junk journal (it feels wrong to call it that because it's so beautiful!!) made by my dear friend, Cecilia!  She put so much time, effort, care, and thought into it!

Also, (story time...) I've had the same brown boots for probably 12 years (at least 11 because that's the earliest I could find a picture of them.)  I've been wearing them for probably 11 or maybe 10 years because when my mom bought them for me on clearance at the outlet, they were too big. 😂  But since my shoe size hasn't really changed since I was 13 or so, I've been wearing the same boots all these years.

The first photographic sighting is of my sister wearing the boots in May 2011, me wearing them in April 2012, the first sighting of them being worn regularly in December 2012, and the last photographed sighting of them in November 2021.

So you see, I've been wearing them for quite a long time.  So long in fact that the sole of my right boot has cracked clear through!  My sock is visible from the outside!  (I do believe that is due to all the genuflecting I've done at church.  I wore these a ton to Eucharistic Adoration.)  It was high time for a new pair.  (I may end up getting them re-soled in the future, who knows!  They're such dear shoes. )

But in the meantime, I've been looking for a nice pair of brown leather boots to be a staple in my wardrobe.  Well, I finally found these on Poshmark!  They're the same brand as my children's boots and just as comfortable!  I got them brand new but the price was decent!

And finally, I saved the best in this list for last... I found my very special Friend at a thrift store of all places for just $30 and there was a discount as well!!  Isn't He just adorably perfect?!?!  I love my Little King.

I am creating...

... all the knitted things!!!  I just finished knitting the "The Classic Tee" by Darling Jadore.  It's currently being blocked and soon I'll be weaving in the ends!  (Look out for a post all about the knitting process!)

I also just finished my first pair of knit socks!!  🎉  (Slip Stitch Socks by Yarnspirations.)

Oh!  I almost forgot!  I also knit my first pumpkin in about 3 days!  😍

Also working on knitting Christmas gifts! (sshhhh!)

I am wearing...

The aforementioned brown leather boots all the time as well as cardigans, fall colors, and the scarf and hat I knit last year!!  So glad this fall/winter is colder than last year.  (and by cold I mean lows in the high 30's low 40's. 😅  I hear that's balmy for some people.)

I am reading...

"The Story of a Soul" by St. Thérèse of Lisieux, my patron Saint!  I believe this is either my 3rd or 4th (probably 3rd) time reading it in my life but I am sooooo incredibly excited to say it's as if I'm reading it for the very first time!!  If you've read a book more than once, you know the feeling of rereading it doesn't usually compare to the feelings you have when you read an instant favorite for the first time.  It's indescribable but for some incredible reason, I'm experiencing it again during this reading.  Thanks be to God!!  He is so good!  I'd love to do a whole blog post after I'm finished reading this and I'll rave explain more then.

 I am watching...

...plenty of different things from black & white movies, to YouTube vlogs, to a Hallmark movie or two, but the thing that our family keeps coming back to is a YouTube channel called "The Veggie Boys!"  It's such a fun show following a family farm in Pennsylvania!  I highly recommend checking them out!  They also have another show about their horse boarding called "A Stable Life."

 I am listening to...

It's that time of year again!!!  (No, not Christmas music time yet.)  I mean the time of year I listen to Autumn playlists!  Of course, I'm always gravitating toward my own curated list but I also discovered this other playlist of instrumental music that is just so cozy! 

I am hoping...

To make a trip to the yarn store.  I've been plenty of times to Hobby Lobby and Michaels but I have yet to venture to an actual yarn store.  I'm a little nervous to do so but I'm hoping my sister will go with me and help me pick out some yarn for gifts!  

I am learning...

How to knit cables and I am LOVING it!!  I want to cast on a cable knit sweater immediately! 😍

In my kitchen...

I'm just surviving really.  Leftovers all the time.  I help my mom make the meals for the most part.  Last night we got creative and made a pretty great chili mac 'n' cheese.  😛  It was really rich though and I'm really hoping to start eating healthy again before the Christmas season.  Of course, there will be Thanksgiving but other than that I'm going all in health nut! 😅  Forget about waiting for the new year!  

Some other highlights of the kitchen recently have been fall french toast!!  😍  For my mom's birthday in October we made pumpkin french toast which was delish and then this last Sunday we made Trader Joe's Maple Streusel Bread into french toast and that was absolutely dreamy!! 🤤  If your local TJ's still has the bread, I highly recommend making it into french toast!  Sooo good!!

(I know this post is really documenting early to mid-November and I'm sorry for the delay, but I guess I can include my Thanksgiving make as well.)  I made two green bean casseroles this year; one for our young adult Friendsgiving meal and one for our family dinner on Thanksgiving at my cousins' house.  Other than that I actually haven't done any Thanksgiving cooking!  But I've definitely been enjoying the food! 😜

Board room

Ok, my Pinterest is just such a cozy spot full of autumnal aesthetics so instead of choosing just one pin, here is a little sampler.

Post Script

This section is to share a favorite link or account.  Well, today I'd love to share Ravelry.  It's an incredible database of knitting and crochet patterns, yarn, and more!  There are tons of free patterns and great features that allow you to organize your knitting like nobody's business.  (This is not an ad although it sure does sound like one.  😂)  If you'd like some knitting inspiration, here's my list of favorites over on Ravelry.  It's really like Pinterest for yarn art! 😍

Shared Quote

"To dedicate oneself as a Victim of Love is not to be dedicated to sweetness and consolations; it is to offer oneself to all that is painful and bitter, because Love lives only by sacrifice and the more we would surrender ourselves to Love, the more we must surrender ourselves to suffering."

~St. Thérèse of Lisieux

A moment from my day

Three things...

Praying at the cemetery for the Octave of All Souls.

Saturday morning coffee and breakfast with some beautiful young women after Adoration!

Organizing my yarn stash before the Christmas gift yarn run!  Isn't it scrumptious?

Closing Notes

Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end of this post if indeed you did!  I hope you enjoyed it.  I really like this daybook format.  Please let me know if you do too in the comments below!  (If not, that's ok too.  You'll just have to let me know what other kinds of posts you'd like to see! 😉)

God bless you and keep you, friends!  I hope you have a wonderful rest of the month of November!! 🧡

Remember, O Thou Man - Lenten Reflections on Hope and the Four Last Things

Well, we are officially in the season of Lent, a time of penance; prayer, abstinence, fasting, and almsgiving.  Those things can sound sort of somber but believe it or not I'm usually very excited and happy when Lent kicks off!  Every year I forget how helpful Lent can be in my spiritual life until it comes around again.  This season really continues the work of Advent and Christmas in my soul bringing the cycle to completion at Easter.  So first off in this post, I'll explain the justification I found for my happiness and secondly, I want to talk about the hard-hitting stuff.  This is the stuff I'm actually excited for even though it sounds extremely hard.  I'm hoping to tie it in to The Grim Writer's Lenten blog link-up (otherwise known as The Penance Party 😉) finishing up with meditating on the Four Last Things.

I don't think my joyful peace is entirely unfounded.  So far this Lent, I've been very blessed to be able to go to Mass quite a few times just in the first week.  Starting with Shrove Tuesday and the Feast of the Holy Face, Ash Wednesday, First Friday, First Saturday, and then the First Sunday in Lent, I was able to read and meditate upon the Propers of each Mass.  And you know what?  They are actually quite comforting and even hopeful!  On the First Sunday of Lent, the Propers center around the beginning of Psalm 90.  If you aren't familiar with it just by that name, let me help you out.  (Traddy raised kids, you might want to cover your ears; I don't want to scar you.)  NO raised kids, do you remember the hymn "On Eagles Wings"?  Yeah, that one.  Well, that hymn was loosely based on this Psalm.  Now most people may just read through this Psalm in the Tract rather quickly thinking that they've heard it countless times and if they were raised in the NO like I was, it may bring back some less-than-savory memories.  But this Sunday, I decided to read it slowly and carefully as the schola chanted through it.  I was surprised to find it very comforting and encouraging and not just in a flowery way.  It is encouraging me to put my trust in God this Lent through my penances, fasts, and hardships.  When we rely on Him, then He will give us His grace, support us, and protect us.  God doesn't promise that he will raise us up on eagles' wings to avoid adversity or suffering.  (In fact, wings like eagles' aren't even mentioned in this Psalm.  Go figure.)  But God does promise,

"Because he hoped in me I will deliver him: I will protect him because he hath known my name.  He shall cry to me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him."

~Psalm 90:14-15

Doesn't sound very "Lent-y" does it?  But the Church is an emotionally balanced entity and assures us there is hope even amidst the greatest suffering. 

We must place our hope in God (this means not abandoning ourselves to the depths of despair, no matter how romantic that sounds), we must know His Name.  To me, that sounds like keeping His Holy Name foremost in our minds and making it the subject of all our lives.  We should make all we do pleasing to His Holy Name and make reparation whenever we hear or see it blasphemed.  

St. Paul tells us in the Epistles of these first days of Lent how we are to live this way.  In the Gospels, especially the first Sunday's, Our Lord shows us how to live this way.  Most notable of His actions are that He loved us 

"Usque ad mortem et mortem ad crucem." 

 ...Even to death and to death on the cross.  (Credit to our priest who said this quote in his homily on Sunday.  I'm hoping I remembered the Latin correctly.)  We are called to love just as Christ loved us but how can we love "ad mortem" (to death) if we do not even contemplate our own death?  Have we ever questioned ourselves, "Do I love this person enough that I would be willing to die for them?"  This is a question I may have asked myself while in a courtship but honestly, it's a very good question to ask ourselves during Lent.  Do we love Our Lord enough that we would honestly die for Him?  Do we have what it takes to be martyrs?  It probably won't come to that for most of us, but we should still be prepared regardless because, as Our Lord tells us,

"Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

~John 15:13

And what more worthy or better friend do we have than Jesus?  It's one thing to think about and a whole other thing to actually do it.  But as Christians, there are actually two kinds of martyrdoms, red martyrdom and white martyrdom.  White martyrdom is, in short, the complete dying to self in all things.  (It could be argued that all Christians are called to white martyrdom in accord with their state in life.)

"Let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God... as dying, and behold we live..."

~ 2 Corinthians 6:4,9 

If we work on dying to ourselves and our passions every day, we can prepare ourselves for death.  If we live "as having nothing, and possessing all things," (2 Cor. 6:10) if we live with Heaven as our one and only goal, we will be unattached from the things of this world and better prepared for death.  Penance and mortification are the means by which we deny our passions, crucify 'self', and prepare for death.

St. Therese's "Little Way" is not only a good way to make ready to become the spouse of Jesus but also to prepare for death.

 But we can't just prepare to die and go straight to Heaven.  Most likely, we will die with at least temporal punishment still due for our sins, if not venial sins on our souls.  God forbid we die in the state of mortal sin.  So after death there is judgement, where we will stand before God and render an entire account of our lives.  We will be fully exposed and not one word of our life will be hidden from Divine Justice.  Meditating on your personal judgement seems even more fruitful in avoiding sin than meditation on death by itself.  The Church in Her goodness anticipates this and follows the theme of the four last things in the Propers of the Mass because Monday of the First Week in Lent uses Jesus' description of the last judgement for the Gospel reading.  Our Lord will say one of two things to us at that final judgement.  Either He will say,

"Amen I say to you: What you did for one of these, the least of My brethren, you did for Me: come, blessed of My Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

Or He will say,

"As long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me.  Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels."

If we meditate on the words of Our Lord and make the everyday choices of our lives in light of what we would like Him to say to us, we can prepare ourselves for judgement.  Will we have a bouquet of charitable acts stored up to present to Our Lord at our judgement?  (We'll talk about this a little more later...)

Looking ahead in the missal, the Gospel selections also point our attention to Heaven and hell.  First, the veil between Heaven and Earth is pulled aside in the account of the Transfiguration.  Both God the Father and St. Peter show us what to do to prepare for the Beatific Vision.  First St. Peter, when confronted with the dazzling white vision of Our Lord transfigured concludes,

"It is good for us to be here: let us make here three tabernacles..."

Then God the Father broke in,

"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him."

These are two aspects of prayer which are highlighted here; adoration and listening to Our Lord in the silence of our hearts.  To best prepare for the Beatific Vision, we are called to prayer listening for the directions of the Lord.  The highest form of prayer is Heaven itself so what better way to prepare for eternity than attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass where Heaven and earth come together?

Then on Thursday of the Second week in Lent we hear the account of the rich man and Lazarus.  This parable reminds us of the reality of hell and serves as a warning.  Either we make ourselves comfortable, feast sumptuously on the goods of this life, and forfeit Heaven, or we join our sufferings in this life to those of Christ and become partakers in His eternal reward.  We can fast from the pleasures and fine things of life in order to unite ourselves to Our Lord's poor, storing up for ourselves treasures in Heaven.  Hell is very real and so is the torment.  Let us heed the call of Our Lord to pick up our crosses during this Lenten season that we may avoid the flames of hell. 

This account and that of the final judgement also stick out to me as calls to almsgiving, one of those four pillars of Lent.  Almsgiving is usually thought of as the act of donating money or goods to the poor but is also performing other acts of charity which are equally important.  Almsgiving begins with your family.

"If you want to change the world, go home and love your family." 

~St. Mother Teresa

I'm learning not to ignore the needs of my family or procrastinate when they ask me to do something because in serving and obeying them, I'm really serving and obeying Jesus.

"What you did for one of these, ... you did for Me..."

~Matthew 25:40

 I discovered that March 9th is the feast of St. Frances of Rome and she put this virtue into practice very well in her life. Fr. Alban Butler tells us*, "Whilst she was at her prayers or other exercises, if called away by her husband, or the meanest person of her family, she laid all aside to obey without delay, saying:

'A married woman must, when called upon, quit her devotions to God at the altar, to find Him in her household affairs.'”

"Be faithful to your family responsibilities; it's a holy thing to do and what Our Lord expects of us." 

~St. Frances of Rome

I know this post has been a bunch of rabbit hole tangents one on top of another but let's recap because I promise you it all comes together.  (At least it does in my head...)

There are four pillars of Lent: prayer, penance, fasting, and almsgiving.

There are also the Four Last Things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell.

The readings at the beginning of Lent have already shown us that the four last things should be in our direct focus and we can tangibly meditate on these four last things by practicing the four pillars of Lent.  If you miss the correlations I tried to mention so far, here are all four of them:

Death - Penance

Judgement - Alms

Heaven - Prayer

Hell - Fasting

Maybe others would come up with different correlations, but this is how I'm choosing to meditate on them this Lent.  So you see, my dear friends, the Church draws our attention to a very important part of our lives, the end of them here on earth.  She also gives us practical means to prepare for this end.  And all of this is displayed in the readings chosen for the holy season of Lent.  But we can't just attend Mass on Sundays and think we're set.  Every day of the Lenten season is filled with the exhortations of the Church Fathers and the example of Our Lord.  So even if you can't make it to Mass every day to hear these readings, maybe crack open your Bible or Missal at home once in a while during the week.  The Church's liturgy is filled with rich lessons if only we care to look.  I know there are so many ways to meditate on these four pillars and four ends but I hope you found something useful among my ramblings to help you grow closer in virtue to Our Lord.  I didn't even mention how all of this can help us walk with Our Lord to Calvary.  But alas, this blog post is far too rambling and long as it is.

So what have you learned or meditated upon this Lent?  I'd love to hear from you in the comments below!

May God bless you and bring your Lenten practices to fruition.

Join the Lenten Blog Link-Up over at The Grim Writer's Blog!

*Quoted from the March 9th Daily Meditation in the March 2022 edition of Benedictus

New St. Therese Phone Wallpapers!

 Praised be Jesus Christ!

In working out the new design for this blog, I've been experimenting with Canva, a social media content design app.  I discovered that I could make countless Catholic quotes into simple, beautiful, and inspiring phone wallpapers!  Here are a few that I made with quotes from my very dear patron Saint, St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.  Please feel free to share and enjoy!

God love you!