What’s New

December 4, 2022

  • Added an Advent Giveaway. This is sort of a flash giveaway because I only decided to do it at the last minute. Entries close at midnight on December 8, drawing on December 9. Details and entry form on this page.
  • Oh, and I’m back posting on a regular schedule again. Mondays for now. Maybe evenings. As in, ’bout midnight. Might happen earlier but I ain’t makin’ no promises. I don’t dare. I know me.

October 18, 2022

  • Added a page to the Devotions section for the conversion of communists and Freemasons. Included some links for more information, other prayers, and an encyclical, for starters. Will add more in time to this page as it is an important topic and one that does not receive nearly enough attention.

October 3, 2022

  • I’m back from a much-needed summer break. Posts will resume on a new egular schedule soon. Stay tuned. :)

October 1, 2022

June 1, 2022

  • I’ll be taking off for the summer to focus on music and writing projects, including completing the Rosary ebooks and turning my ROUGH draft of an awful novel into a real honest to goodness novel. That’s gonna take some work, believe you me.
  • I plan to continue the Friday Rosary threads on Twitter.
  • For the summer I’m not *planning* to post anything here, but I’ll check messages and comments.
  • We’ll wrap up the current book of the month this week, hopefully. and then pick up the series in the fall.
Book Cover

May 27, 2021

  • The story continues and begins to take shape in my wee little brain, and A Journey inaugurates the new Fiction section of the blog. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and if the last few years have taught me anything, it’s to go for it while I can. So I am. You’re welcome to come along with me if for nothing more than to see how not to write a novel. I’m sure I can teach you something about that, lemme tell ya. ;) Parts 1-8 are available now, such as they are. Read at your own risk. Use only as directed. Not responsible for any damages. I’ll be hiding under the bed. Turn out the lights when you leave. ;)

May 11, 2021

  • For the Book of the Month for May I’m posting a book-in-the-making, posting the rough draft as I write it. It’s more of an exploration before I write the rough draft, so it’s a really rough draft. Think of it as picking up your guitar and noodling around to see what you can come up with. It’s a lot like that. Whatever it ends up being, I’m posting it during May on Mondays and Thursdays. After Pentecost I plan to resume the Story of Salvation series on Thursdays, and I will keep going with the story. That means I’ll pick a new book of the month and share a little from it, then post more of the rough draft. It’s all an experiment, we’ll see what happens. A Journey: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. See All Series TOC.

March 23, 2021

  • Working on a new blog section for the Year of St. Joseph. Hope to finish putting it together and get it on the site by this coming weekend. This is also the Amoris Laetita Family Year. I didn’t even know about that one until I began gathering things for the Year of St. Joseph. I put up some things about that one, too. And get the Rosary threads done. And work on the Rosary ebook. And some other writing projects. And I need to face the fact that housework is just not gonna get done unless and until I hire someone else to do it. Le sigh. ;) (I may have some help coming now, in May, and I never have finished putting the St. Joseph page together. I need to do that this week.)

March 9, 2021

  • Added a Novena to St. Joseph, which begins March 10, 2021, leading up to the Solemnity of St. Joseph on March 19. Note: there are different dates given by various sites, but the USCCB has March 10 – March 18.

February 21, 2021

February 15, 2021

  • Added a new series, Catholic Book of the Month. What? Am I only going to write series from now on? I dunno. Maybe. They’re a lot of fun to do. But this way it’s limited to one month per book. No more 30, 40, or 50 posts on one idea or book or whatever. Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it’s probably a lot for people to wade through. Hindsight, 20/20, and all. Yeah, my hindsight isn’t so good, just like my eyesight. Live and learn the hard way, that’s what I always say and do.

January 19, 2021

December 31, 2020

  • Posted an afterword to the Weekly Series on the Soul, which ran for several months here on the blog. Still thinking about what to do for 2021. One thing on my list of resolutions is to spend more time writing. I have several projects lined up and I need to knuckle down and get some serious work done. The Rosary ebooks come first, followed by some projects that are still in the daydreaming, er, I mean, planning phase. (Some are a little farther along than daydreaming and some aren’t even that far along.) Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR to you and yours!

November 18, 2020

  • I’ve been working on a new chapter for the Rosary Project. Ebooks! I’m asking for some feedback about how you might want the text arranged to make it easy to use. Leave a reply in the comments. Thanks! (Experimental cover in the photo above.)

November 15, 2020

  • Added some more prayers and devotions, corrected some prayers and devotions, added a few images and some navigation to the pages.
  • Corrected some other things, oh, like making a note of the fact that the Divine Mercy Twitter threads are not currently being posted. (I’d noted it elsewhere but I keep finding places where I forgot to change it.)
  • Corrected the Litanies link that I corrected twice already but somehow managed to undo it each time. I think it’s time to stop for the night!

November 12, 2020

  • Finally changed the sidebar from “October is devoted to…” to “November is devoted to…” Oy.
  • I’ve got some new projects that I hope to be able to show you soon-ish. I’ve got a lot of work to do on them. But, lemme tell ya, I get up every day so excited to get to it. This is big for me. I am NOT a morning person. ;)

November 1, 2020 Happy and Blessed All Hallow’s Day!

  • Added a new post for All Saints’ Day and a couple of new pages for litanies to the Devotions section. I’m still building that section so forgive me if things move around a little in there. It’s a cumbersome process, unfortunately, and I sometimes miss that something didn’t go where I thought it did.
  • Re-wrote the Voting page and updated it for the 2020 elections in the Resources section. Why didn’t I do it sooner? Well, when you are “a [small] Bear of very little brain…” Better late than never, I suppose.

October 31, 2020 Happy and Blessed All Hallow’s Eve, y’all!

  • Planning a re-boot of the entire Resources section. In the planning and gathering information stage but I’m leaving the current pages up for while I work on the new ones. Pages whose links I edited tonight are marked on the TOC list.
  • Finally got around to adding a site map to the blog,
  • a new What’s New banner (above),
  • and the Litany of Loreto to the closing prayers of the Rosary (but on its own page), to be prayed after the Fifth Glorious Mystery.

October 26, 2020

Added a tip jar to the sidebar to help pay for the site and the Catholic Heart and Mind project, an ever-expanding labor of love.

October 22, 2020

  • I realized tonight that EWTN has changed their website (yet again), so I’m having to re-do a lot of links in the Resource section. Bear with me. I’ll work on it after I get my Thursday post written and posted. Will add some new links soon.

July 27, 2020

  • 4:30am: Finished the annotated Table of Contents for the series, Something About Mary Every Day in May. Whew! And it should say Almost Every Day in May because I started a few days into the month and missed a couple of other days as well. Oh, well, it was a valiant effort. Remind not to ever do that again. ;)

July 25, 2020

  • 8:00pm: The Something About Mary Every Day in May series TOC is now complete through Part 9 (May 13, 2019) and I’ve got to take a break and rest my eyes. And my back. And my hands. Oy. Getting old is hello, Miss Lucy Dawg, are you hungry again? I am! Later, y’all. ;)
  • 2:30pm: Just realized that I left out my biggest series so far, and by biggest I mean the one with the most posts in it and the largest sustained effort I’ve made so far: the Something About Mary Every Day in May series. How could I!! Making a page for it this afternoon and adding it to the main series page. Oh, my, dear me. Whatta maroon! 😆
  • I’m also adding navigation to the bottom of all posts in the various series. Then going forward I’ll only have to add it to each post as I post it. Whew! Should’ve thought about that before now. Well, I did, think about it, that is. I just didn’t do it. Sigh.

July 12, 2020

  • 9:30pm: Forgot I needed a Featured Post and Series section so I made a new page and moved the annotated TOC for the soul series under that page. The link doesn’t change, just the navigation menu.
  • 9:00pm: Finally got around to writing a Mission Statement. Hey, the blog’s only about eleven years old, I didn’t wanna rush things. ;) I’ll probably edit and refine it a few times before I settle on its more permanent form, but it’ll work for now.
  • 7:45pm: Got the Poetry Corner posted, finally. Original name, huh? Only a few poems there now but I hope to add more soon-ish. :)
  • 6:00pm: Finished the annotated Table of Contents for the Weekly Series On the Soul. Made a page banner for it and for this page. Now on to create the Poetry page. I only have a few short poems to post there, each one of which is already posted on the blog within a post. I promise they won’t make you gag the way a lot of poetry makes me gag. At least I hope they won’t. ;)
  • Forgot to note the time for this: Finally added an annotated Table of Contents for the Weekly Series On the Soul posts, complete up to and inclusive of post 16. There are currently 18 posts so I have a few more to go. I’ll be editing and tweaking it over the next day or so.

May 28, 2020

  • Moved the Live Twitter Rosary and Divine Mercy Threads to their own Twitter Devotions Threads page so the What’s New page will be easier to use.
  • Added a new Giveaways section tonight. Now all the giveaways will be listed on the main Giveaways page and then they’ll have their own pages under that one.

Apr 19, 2020

Apr 15, 2020

  • 8:00pm CDT: Winners are listed now in a post, I’ll be adding them to this page tonight. Thank you to all who participated in this giveaway. More giveaways to come. Stay tuned!
  • I’ll be announcing the winners of the Anniversary 2020 Giveaway tonight, April 15, 2020, at 8pm CDT. Will post it on social media, too. Writing up the post now. See ya soon!

Apr 5, 2020

Checked and edited links on some Resources pages.

Mar 26, 2020

  • I guess the What’s New page only works if I remember to update it. Yeah, well. I’ve added a page about my triple Anniversary Celebration Giveaway. (That rolls trippingly off the tongue, doesn’t it?) I’ve also brought back the Live Twitter Rosary Threads due to the Coronavirus situation. See more on the Rosary Project page or the post.

Feb 4, 2020

  • Soon I’ll be re-doing the navigation along the top of the blog, the archive menu, and the categories that are presently in the sidebar. I have to be careful not to mess with the web addresses of posts and such, but I want to make it easier to find things around here. I have older posts on here that are still relevant but they have scrolled far away. Perhaps one day a week or whatever I could feature one of those older posts. I’m experimenting so forgive any messes I make while I play Mad Blogger. ;)

Feb 3, 2020

  • My post, Another version of my conversion story, has gotten a few hits lately, so I took some time tonight and spruced it up a bit. And because I can’t change one tiny thing without going full tilt at it, I did somewhat more than I had originally intended.

Feb 2, 2020

  • Added some more new headers because once I start messing with how the blog looks, I just can’t stop myself. I have a ton of images from the days of scouring the web for beautiful art for the Live Twitter Rosary Project threads. Since the new theme has a place for headers, I couldn’t resist.

Jan 31, 2020

  • 5:40pm: So, what’s new around here? The site theme, for one thing. And the banners I made for it. Fastest I’ve ever made banners, didn’t have to mess with text. Just had to resize and work on getting them to display right. That was a bit of trial and error, given that the theme messed with them in ways I didn’t expect.

Nov 7, 2019

  • 1:15am: I had hoped to finish writing the next post in the Occult Phenomena series, but I’m still working on it. Aiming for Friday late evening now. Life. Always sumpin. But I’ll take it over the alternative! ;)
  • Seven days into NaNoWriMo my word count is 11,715. And during this afternoon’s writing session the story suddenly began to dimly glimmer through the fog of my imagination. Up until that moment I could honestly say I hadn’t the fog where this thing was going. ;)
Ahoy, matey, here there be fog and lots of it!

Nov 5, 2019

  • Five days into NaNoWrimo and my word count is 8,528 out of the goal of 50,000 total. After beginning to write scenes, I’m now taking a few days to do what I should have done the week before NaNoWriMo began: pondering the story, messing around with it in a very low pressure way, exploring themes and the story world and such. In the second week I’ll get back to writing scenes with some notion of what those scenes need to do.
  • Also working on a couple of posts for the blog: the next in the series based on Fr Wiesinger’s Occult Phenomena in the Light of Theology. Read the first part here. There’s a link to a free copy of the book in PDF format in the post. Blew my mind. Interesting stuff, the kind of stuff I’ve been searching for my whole life: how to make sense of certain experiences I and others have had, and how it fits into a Chritian worldview. No small matter, that.

Oct 29, 2019

  • I was gone longer than I meant to be. Gone where? Well, nowhere, really. I mean, nowhere exotic, just at home. But I’ve been so wrapped up in reading and what-not that I haven’t blogged since early August. Shame on me! (I’ll be sharing some of my reading here and on Twitter during November, beginning perhaps a little earlier.
  • On a positive note, I did finally notice that my beautiful Rosary Project image galleries were behaving not so beautifully. Instead of displaying in a grid with three columns, the images were one long column on each page. So I went through every page and changed it to two columns and it worked. I have no idea how long that had been happening and that’s what I get for not blogging and checking on things regularly. Or, at least, more regularly than I have been. Serves me right. But it doesn’t serve you right and for that I apologize.

July 25, 2019

  • 2:00am: I’ve been away from the blog for a while, reading and doing some research for a writing project. But tonight I’ve been back at editing the Rosary Project galleries, getting rid of ugly filenames and replacing them with more readable text. Hopefully I’ll be finished with that soon. Really, I should’ve been through by now but I got busy with other things and forgot. Getting old is such a delight. ;)

May 24, 2019

  • 1:09am: Changed the Rosary Project pages to a no-sidebar template. Hopefully this will prove more helpful and less distracting when you use the pages to pray the Rosary. Let me know if you find it helpful (or not) via the Contact page.

May 21, 2019

  • 1:55am: Yep, I’m a nightowl. But this is when I can work on things without getting a phone call in the middle of things, ya know? Anyway, I’m working on the Rosary Project pages tonight to address those tacky filenames showing up in the image galleries. Ugh! My beautiful galleries deserve better! May take me a few days to get them all done but done they will be.

May 15, 2019

  • 2:40pm: Added some books to the Booklist page. New additions go to the top of the list until I can work them into the lists properly. I wanted to share these right away. :)

May 3, 2019

  • 4:15am: Finally added images to the Closing Prayers of the Rosary. Had to re-do the page due to the way the new editor works in WordPress. It’s based on blocks and I had all the text in one block. To add images I had to separate all the prayers first. And when did I start doing all of that? Why, at a normal person’s normal bedtime, of course. And then I had to select which pictures to use. And had to make sure they were all in the public domain. And had to adjust the color on some. And now I’m going to bed. ZZzzzzzz.

May 1, 2019

  • 4:30pm: Navigation is added to all of the Mysteries, at the bottom of each page, after the gallery images. I’ll add the same links to the top of the pages later, and a better version if I come up with one. :)
  • 3:00-ish pm: I opened accounts at Pinterest and Instagram. There’s not much there yet but it’s a start. I have graphics I made for the Rosary threads on Twitter and for the PsalmsJPII project, so I can post those. After such a long time not doing much other than tweeting, this is a flurry of activity for me. Feels good! :)

April 30, 2019

  • 8:30pm: I’m adding the much-needed navigation to the individual Rosary pages tonight. Later I’ll tackle the unsightly titles in the image galleries. All those filenames. UGH! That will take some time. Look for them to be edited over a period of days. At least.

April 29, 2019

  • 7:55pm: Spent the day adding a note to the Resources pages, saying that I’ll be checking links and repairing or removing broken ones, and added a note about affiliate links. (Amazon requires that, so I’ve been putting it in place.) Then after I put those notes up, I decided to move them from the top of the pages to the bottom, so they wouldn’t be all that showed up in search results. My motto: why do something right the first time when you can do it over and over instead? Oy. ;) If I hadn’t abandoned the blog for so long, this wouldn’t be such a mammoth task. But, you know, life and all, and the near loss of it. I’m back now and that’s what matters. Yesterday the blog stats were off the charts. Well, for me they were. All the more reason to get this place in order. And after that, I tackle the house. Now THAT will be a mammoth job for real! ;)

April 27, 2019

  • 3:15am: Just finished adding some images to the Table of Contents page for the Rosary Project. That meant making sure I had decent quality images, that they were in the public domain, that no photographer had put a copyright of any kind on them, and putting a caption on them with artist’s name and source. I think I’m going to stop here for the night. I was up all night (Thursday night) dealing with an upgrade to a piece of software that I use for information management. It syncs across all my devices. And it almost went off without a hitch. Almost. Until it had a glitch. But I came up with a workaround and ended up not losing any info. I hope. ;) Thanks for visiting. God bless you. May His peace be always with you.

April 24, 2019

  • 10:10pm: Tonight I tweeted that the Rosary pages are posted are ready to use. Added a Prayer Requests page. I’ve been missing that part of posting the Rosary tweets, so I added it here. I depend on y’all’s prayers and I want to pray for you, too. And this way we can continue to pray for each other, and more people can join us, people who never even heard of the Rosary Project. (I’m sure there are a few of them.) ;)
  • 12:24am: Whew! The Mysteries of the Rosary are complete, for this first phase, anyway. The basic texts are there, the image galleries are there, it shows up in the top menu bar on every page, and it’s all linked on the Table of Contents page. I’ll be adding Previous and Next links to each page soon, and some other things, after I give my eyes and hands a break. May you find it all somewhat useful. God bless!

April 23, 2019

  • 6:30am: So I was gonna go to bed. But I checked in on Twitter instead. Then I checked my To Do list for tomorrow, er, later today. Then I–well, you get the picture. I’m still up. And I just realized that I never mentioned the most obvious thing that I should mention on the What’s New page, namely, the whole site! It’s gone from a free blog at WordPress.com to its own domain, something I’ve wanted to do for years. With this change comes another: I will at long last be adding some Amazon Associate Affiliate links soon. Maybe that will help me check off some of the bazillion books on my wish list. ;)
  • 3:27 am: As of now the Joyful, Luminous, and Sorrowful Mysteries are on site. The basic text is there, the prayers, and the image galleries. Tomorrow, well, later today I’ll do the Glorious Mysteries. I’ll add more text and images, navigation on each page to make it easier to use, and whatever else I think of, periodically. But I’m through for tonight. Deo gratias!

April 23, 2019, 1:48 am

  • Well, finally, the Luminous Mysteries are all posted. You may have been looking at one of the pages and noticing the mysterious comings and goings of its image gallery. It wasn’t your imagination but it was my nightmare. After multiple tries I coaxed the thing to behave, so all is well now. I hope. (And as you can see by the timestamp up there, I am, indeed, a night-owl. Always have been. Sarcoidosis and Prednisone only magnify my natural tendency to night-owlishness.)

April 22, 2019, 9:15 pm

  • After a full day of interruptions, editing images, and checking to see if they were definitely in the public domain (and having to retire one of my favorite ones because I discovered that it was licensed through Shutterstock, argh), I finally got the Third Luminous Mystery posted. So work. Much long. ;) Taking a break now. Miss Lucy Dawg and I are gonna snack and snuggle, two of our favorite things. Later, y’all. God bless you!

April 22, 2019, 3:00 pm

  • I’m back at work on the site right now. I’ve been putting together the Luminous Mysteries but I slid down a rabbit hole, looking at images, searching for better ones, editing them to get rid of that awful yellow-green dark tint so many of them have. I have a method. Not a scientific one but a method nonetheless. Eventually I’ll get all this uploaded and you’ll be able to pray the Rosary all the way through. Huzzah! :) PS: I just found some books I really want and some articles (I’ll link these later on in a blog post) on sacred and profane images, their religious use, etc. Fascinating. Now if I can find my way out of this rabbit hole and get back to work. Anybody got a ladder? ;)
  • I was putting these update notes at the beginning of the Rosary Project page, and there instead of in a blog post, mainly so you email subscribers wouldn’t be hit with a flood of posts from me. That would just be annoying. So I’ll annoy y’all here instead. :)

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