What’s the best part about the start of a new school year? New crayons, new pencils, fresh pink erasers, and (for moms) a brand-new calendar all ready to be filled with school schedules, sports schedules, play rehearsals, parties and dinner menus.

I use Google calendar (and various apps that support it) on my computer, phone and tablet, but a lot of my best thinking, planning and dreaming is done with pencil in hand, so for me, a paper planner is a must. I’m picky about my planner too–I like to have a Catholic planner with daily readings and the saint of the day listed. That way I don’t have to go somewhere else to get that information.

The Catholic Through the Year Planner from Catholic Sistas covers all the bases. In the sample page at left (half of a 2-page weekly spread) you’ll see that the top box for each day is dedicated to the Catholic part of the planner: daily readings, saints/feasts of the day, and even the daily mysteries of the Rosary. Fridays have a little fish icon to remind you to plan a meatless meal (here’s my opportunity for a shameless plug for my pet project, the Meatless Friday feature at CatholicMom.com!) Three boxes per day below that allow you to customize your planning to your own family’s needs. Then there’s a handy checklist along the side and an area for other notes at the bottom–with a quote from a saint each week.

Customization is the name of the game with this planner. You can choose a calendar, homeschool planner, blog planner and household planner–or any combination of these. Want it all? Grab the Whole Enchilada. Everything is on sale through the end of today (7/31), and the prices can’t be beat!

My favorite items from the household planner are definitely the monthly menu calendar and the reusable to-do list and daily, weekly and monthly cleaning lists, which can be placed in sheet protectors or laminated.

If you don’t have your new calendar for this school year yet, there’s good news–your new planner is as close as your printer. Print it out and get it bound at an office-supply store, or punch holes in the pages and slip them into a binder. (For some of the household pages, I use a clipboard.)

And now for the GIVEAWAY!

Catholic Sistas is generously offering a planner for one Franciscanmom reader. For your chance to win, name your favorite feature from this planner–check the list below for ALL that’s inside. The winner will be chosen at random from all comments made before August 7, 2015 at noon Eastern and will be notified by email.

Remember, you’ve got to be in it to win it! Leave a comment to enter!

I’m sharing the full table of contents below from the Catholic Sistas page, so you can get an idea of what’s inside.

Here’s what’s in it:

CALENDAR details

• 154 8.5″x11″downloadable pages to print using your own home printer or take to a printer to have it professionally printed – your choice! {you can also adjust your printer to print it in booklet size, making it perfect for tossing in your purse}
• print in COLOR or B&W — your choice
• beautiful cover sheet
• 2015/2016 academic and 2015 traditional calendar available
• this liturgical planner was created using the standard guidelines of the Church calendar, both the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969 used in the Ordinary Form of the Latin Rite {the Novus Ordo} and the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope St. Pius V and reissued by Pope St. John XXIII in 1962 used in the Extraordinary Form {the Traditional Latin Mass – TLM}
• year at a glance
• 12 month at-a-glance pages {two-page spread per month for maximum use}
• weekly planners for each month, giving you plenty of customizable space to meet your family’s needs
• includes a personal information page,
• contact sheet for friends, family, & acquaintances,
• multiple pages for note taking {or doodling, if that’s what you like to do!},
• and a meaty section on prayer, including verses from Sacred Scripture, quotes from saints, & references pulled from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as well as a truncated list of common prayers.

HOMESCHOOL details

o   beautiful cover sheet
o   48 pages total
o   36 pages of blank lesson plans waiting for you to get ready for the school year! Verses from Sacred Scripture, quotes from saints, and snippets from the Catechism of the Catholic Church laced throughout.
o   grade sheet printable to print as many times as needed
o   an evaluation sheet to monitor your kiddo/s’ work habits, as well as yourself!
o   and a report card printable for you to print on card stock, making your homeschool reporting look professional!

HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT details

• beautiful cover sheet
• 40 pages
• a re-usable to-do list to keep track of what needs to get done throughout the day {lamination recommended}
• 12 month of meals calendars, August 2015-July 2016
• weekly meal planner printable to print as many times as you will use it through the year
• daily cleaning list {lamination recommended}
• weekly & monthly cleaning lists {lamination recommended}
• fall & spring cleaning lists {lamination recommended}
• 23 day organizing challenge which outlines different tasks to tackle
• household tips sheet with some cool tidbits of information to make your life easier
• around the house master project list
• budget list for finances for all months of the year
• birthday & anniversary list, by month
• AND a gift list, with a breakdown to designate Christmas, birthday, or anniversary

CATHOLIC BLOGGER details

• beautiful cover sheet
• 53 pages
• additional cover sheets for each blogging month
• goals sheet for each month
• daily maintenance sheet to keep track of your posts and what you’ve done with social media, did you pray?, etc.
• brainstorm sheet with room to spread out and jot down ideas, tags, categories, SEO, where to promote, time and supplies needed, and any offshoot post ideas
• guest post sheet to keep track of details for those who wish to write on your blog
• sponsor sheet to keep track of ads, $$ coming in, and start/end date for the ads
• AND a month of posts sheet to jot down all the post titles for the month, as well as recording numbers for all your social media

Copyright 2015 Barb Szyszkiewicz, OFS.
Planner image and header photo copyright 2015 Martina Kreitzer. All rights reserved.
Menu planner photo copyright 2015 Barb Szyszkiewicz, OFS. All rights reserved.