Welcome to this series celebrating the launch of my booklet from Our Sunday Visitor,The Handy Little Guide to Prayer!I’ve asked some friends and colleagues to share prayers and tips to supplement the information in this booklet.
Are you unsure about where to begin when you pray? Try this!
Is Advent coming up faster than you expected it to this year? It’s like that for me, for sure. While I can’t help you with the pink and purple candles, I’m happy to say that thanks to my friends at Creative Communications for the Parish, I have 10 Advent prize packs to offer readers this year (plus 3 bonus prizes)!
Wonderful Life in Christ prize pack from Creative Communications for the Parish (Advent wreath and gift bag not included in the prize)
Wonderful Life in Christ prize
This prize pack includes:
Our Greatest Gift: A Wonderful Life in Christ by Michael Hoy, a page-a-day devotional based on the scenes and themes of the Christmas classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life, placing the events of the fictional George Bailey story in the context of our faith.
Hark, the Herald Angels Sing by Stephanie Hovland, a daily prayer book for Advent based on the angel messages in the Old and New Testament.
Prayer bookmark for Advent
Prince of Peace prize pack from Creative Communications for the Parish (Advent wreath and gift bag not included in the prize)
Prince of Peace prize pack
This prize pack includes:
Sarah Reinhard’s new booklet, Prince of Peace, offers four weeks of family devotions and related activities. The Advent themes of hope, peace, joy, and love are embodied in a weekly activity focused on helping others.
Heavenly Peace, an Advent daily prayer devotional by Sarah Thomas Tracy, written to prepare readers for the coming peace of Christ.
I also have three bonus copies of Prince of Peace to give away!
To enter: Leave a comment on this post or on the posts on Facebook or Instagram stating your biggest Advent challenge.
More opportunities to be entered to win these prizes will be offered on social media, so be sure to visit the posts at the accounts linked above for bonus chances to win!
The fine print: This giveaway is open to winners in the USA only. This giveaway closes at 6 AM Eastern on Tuesday, November 17. 13 winners will be chosen at random and will be notified by email (for winners on this blog) or by direct message on Facebook or Instagram. Winners will have 48 hours to reply with their mailing address; unclaimed prizes will be awarded to alternate winners.
Image created in Visme.co
Copyright 2020 Barb Szyszkiewicz Photos of prizes provided by Creative Communications for the Parish
I’m extra excited because I am one of the contributors to this book, which was organized and edited by Sarah Reinhard. Here’s the background on the idea behind the book, in Sarah’s own words:
This book was inspired by my favorite prayer, the one I call my “blankie prayer.” I got an idea in my head that every word of the prayer was important, and that, of course, I should ask 40 or so of my favorite writers to explain that.
The book will be out on October 16, but since today is the day when the Church observes the Birthday of Mary, Ave Maria Press is having a one-day preorder special! You can order your copy of the book for $10, including shipping. The book is usually $14.95 plus shipping, so this is a very special deal indeed.
I’ve been inspired by my friend Lisa Lawmaster Hess and working on getting things a LITTLE more organized around here. It’s a slow process. I did figure out that the set of small rocking chairs behind my desk, while cute, were too much of a temptation for me. They’re toddler rockers–one for each of my kids–and 2 are so small that no one but a small child can sit in them. So…they became tables for my Desk Overflow.
Shameful.
I took All The Stuff out of those chairs (and out from behind those chairs) and it pretty much covered the whole sofa.
So I moved an upholstered chair into the space where the rockers had been, because I know I won’t pile stuff onto that chair. Then I put away All The Stuff.
And my living room looks a lot nicer now.
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It’s time to get ready for Lent, and I’ve been working hard over at Cook and Count to load up all the meatless recipes I can find. You can find all of them right here: Meatless Recipes at Cook and Count.
Grilled Veggie Burrito: recipe coming soon to Cook and Count!
There are more to come, and as I post them, you can access them through this same link.
(AND I learned how to add a copyright line to my photos!)
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If you’re reading this through a link at CatholicMom.com, that’s because I successfully installed the link tool in the CatholicMom post. I’m in training right now to be the Substitute Blogmother during Sarah Reinhard’s upcoming maternity leave. (And she is super patient while she gets me up to speed on All The Things.) This was my very first linky-thing, and it worked! It worked!
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In other CatholicMom.com related news (AKA more shameless self-promotion), I have two posts about Lent that you might want to visit. Click on over!
Linking up with Mary Ellen Barrett’s weekly feature!
A few changeups of note from last week:
On Monday I took the night off and got Chick-Fil-A for myself and the Kid. Hubs called just before I started cooking to say he’d be so late that he and his team at work had ordered pizza.
Friday, Big Brother was supposed to come home for dinner and we were supposed to have fish. But his car (Hubs’ old 2002 Hyundai, with over 170,000 miles on it) broke down JUST before he got onto a terrifyingly busy Philadelphia highway during the afternoon rush (thank you, Guardian Angel!) I had to feed the Kid at a reasonable hour, so while Hubs rescued Big Brother, I revamped that fish plan. I needed some comfort food, plain and simple, and something that I could keep warm until the guys were home. So I cut up half a pound of swai fillets and mixed it into Barbara Mahany’s mac n cheese recipe and served that with a salad. Big Brother suggests that next time I season it with Old Bay. It was GOOD STUFF.
Saturday, BOTH the Big Kids were home for dinner, and I was a happy mom, even though the Notre Dame football game didn’t go the way I wanted it. We had steak fajitas based on Father Leo Patalinghug’s recipe. I guess I’ve changed it up enough that I can write up how I do them. I highly recommend this cookbook!
I’m not assigning days to this week’s meals. Here’s what we’re having. I have all the ingredients for all of these meals, and I’m going to pick and choose as the mood strikes.
Here’s what’s in the plan:
Miss Jill Chicken, French fries, vegetable. The Kid would eat this 5 times a week if I’d let him!
Asian turkey wraps, fried rice
Sarah Reinhard’s beef & noodles, carrots. This one needs a write-up too!
