Housekeeping

Year in review: 2017 (blessed beyond measure)

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Happy New Year you wonderful readers you!! 🎉 🎉 🎉 🎉 🎉 And happy feast of Mary, the Mother of God!! ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

The past two years I’ve posted my “Year in review” post on New Year’s Eve (2015 and 2016), and so I intended to this year (er, last year) as well, but life. Kids, husband, family, etc. You know. We had a busy and fun New Year’s Eve! So instead of ending 2017 by looking back, we’ll begin 2018 doing so!

I always find it fun to look through the year’s posts and see what happened, and I love sharing it all with you, since it’s because of you that all of this has happened!

Whew!! What a year it’s been!! I continue to be so blown away by the blessing of this blog and all of you!! I can’t wait to share 2018 with you!!

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

Merry Christmas!

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All you all ready for Christmas?! We’re getting there!

I just wanted to let you know that if you were expecting your Black Friday consultation before Christmas, check your email! Please let me know if you don’t have an email and expected one!

I also wanted to leave this list of my past Christmas-y name posts in case you’re expecting a little one in the next two weeks!

Names for a Christmas Baby here on the blog

Names for an Advent Baby at CatholicMom

Holy Family Names for Christmastime Babies at CatholicMom

Names for a Yuletide Babe: The O Antiphons at Nameberry

And this tag for “Christmas names” here on the blog, which brings up birth announcements and name spotlights for names that I think can be Christmas-y.

I’m signing off until Tuesday, when I’ll post my weekly consultation (a day late, because of Christmas being on Monday). I hope you all have a wonderfully merry and blessed Christmas!! ❤

 

 

Consultations closed!

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You guys! I’m so pleased my Black Friday special was such a big hit!

Because of the number of orders I received, I’m closing all further consultations until after Christmas (though you can still purchase gift certificates at the regular prices).

Thank you all for your enthusiasm!! ❤

Sneak peek of my contribution to The Catholic Hipster Handbook!

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First off, thank you all for your lovely birthday wishes!! I had a wonderful day, and discovered that Arwen‘s birthday was also yesterday! Happy birthday to her, and to all of you and your children who were born on August 23/feast of St. Rose!

Secondly, and the point of this post: the time for the release of The Catholic Hipster Handbook is drawing nigh!! It releases on September 22, but I’m pretty sure if you preorder it you’ll get it sooner than that.

You might have seen that Tommy Tighe (Mr. Catholic Hipster) gave a sneak peek of my chapter at the beginning of the month — I can’t wait for you to read the whole thing! (He was using an older draft — I’m confident that my last name will be on it when it’s published, and the typos will have been fixed. 🙏) And don’t forget all the other amazing authors who have contributed to the book, including Sister Brittany Harrison, Lisa Hendey, Arleen Spenceley, Anna Mitchell, Mary Rezac, Melissa Keating, Matt Dunn, Sarah Vabulas, Fr. Kyle Schnippel, Steven Lewis, Tiffany Walsh, Sergio Bermudez, and Leticia Ochoa Adams, and the foreword written by Jeannie Gaffigan — lots of favorites here!

And of course — the cover. I’m still dying over being in a book with him on the cover. ❤

The_Catholic_Hipster_Handbook

Thanks for bearing with my shameless plug! I guarantee you won’t be disappointed to have The Catholic Hipster Handbook in your library! 😊😘

Congratulations to our winners!!

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Ellen, Laura, and Danielle are the lucky ladies who have won the St. Anne chaplets from my blogiversary giveaway!! Congratulations to them!! And thank you to all who entered! I know St. Anne is watching out for us all in a very special way. ❤ Have a great weekend!!

A last couple of things, and happy Easter!

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I intended to be off the blog all week, but I feel like I didn’t properly wish you all a very blessed Holy Week and happy happy Easter!!

First, I wanted to share with you this really cool thing: One my dearest friends, who was one of my two original readers (the other being my mom) and has been so supportive and encouraging and helpful to me since I started the blog, referred a friend of hers to me when the friend was trying to come up with a name for a ministry she was starting. It was such fun to work on a project like this! And I was pretty pleased with the ideas I came up with, and she seemed to be too — I just recently read about her new ministry, sporting one of the names I’d suggested, and I’m really delighted to direct you all to her in case you have what she’s looking for. Check it out: The Madonna and Child Project by Alexandra Sullivan Photography (and be sure to check out her work, she’s so talented!).

Second, the consultation scheduled for Easter Monday is going to be a gooood one! The mama’s back again for help naming another baby, and she’s kind of well known in the Catholic blogosphere, and I canNOT wait to post my ideas for her! You’re all going to love it! Such a great way to celebrate Easter!

Finally, I’m going to try really hard to quiet my mind and focus my heart the next few days, which I haven’t found so easy lately, and I hope for the same for all of you during these days we remember Jesus’ Passion and Death, and of course when we celebrate His Resurrection! There’s such a cloud lifted when Lent is over, I always feel like I’ve been holding my breath for six weeks and now it’s time to breathe again. Have a beautiful next few days and weekend!! ❤🙏❤🙏❤🙏

Year in review: 2016 (more of the wonderful same)

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Happy New Year’s Eve everyone!! 🎉🎆🎉🎆🎉🎆

I saw this interesting tidbit on Twitter today:

silvester

I loved that! And it reminded me of this mama, who’d considered Sylvester for her baby … I’m not great at predicting trends, but with lots of old names coming back, I’m saying it now: maybe Sylvester’s next!

What a year it’s been! I myself am glad that 2016 is over … it’s been a rough one for me and mine and lots of people I know — maybe a lot of you as well! Here in my house, our whole year was marked by the sickness and death of my mother-in-law and the aftereffects of dealing with her wishes and her house … I’ll be glad for me, our kids, and especially my husband to move on from it all in 2017! And of course, THE ELECTION! No matter which way you voted, I think we’re all still recovering! I hope our little corner of the internet has been the bright spot for all of you that it has been for me. ❤

It was fun to look back over the year and see what notable things happened here on the blog. I’m still amazed at how many people love to read and chat about the names of our faith like I do! As of today, since I started the blog in June 2014 (but really since January 2015 with Simcha’s consultation post):

Can you believe it?? What a year!! As always, I remain so grateful for all of you — your interest, enthusiasm, and kindness to me and each other. ❤ ❤ ❤

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year’s Eve, and a very blessed and holy New Year! (And be sure to check out Jennifer Fulwiler’s Saint’s Name Generator for a patron saint for 2017! I got St. Margaret of Antioch — check out my IG post to read more about her!)

New CatholicMom article up! And some housekeeping

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My December column at CatholicMom posted today! Names for an Advent Baby.

catholicmom_screen_shot-12-21-16

I used this post, as well as your comments on that post, to put it together — thank you for your thoughts!

I also decided to use PayPal buttons for consultations after all (I’d previously said I’d use invoices instead) — I just updated my baby name consultations page with that info — might be the perfect last-minute Christmas gift for any expectant parents you know! 😉

Happy four days until Christmas!! 😁🎄🎁

Changing things up a little

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Happy Monday everyone!

Some housekeeping items this morning: I just posted an automatic response on my email that I won’t be able to accept any more name consultations for a short while — I’m so backed up! I need to take some time to focus on the consultations I already have — I currently have eleven in the queue, which isn’t the most I’ve ever had pending, but the beginning of the school year is totally swamping me, and it takes me a good day (at least) to pull together a consultation that is ready to email to the parents — that’s after doing the research, which sometimes takes a couple of days. I love doing consultations, you know I do! But when I have a bunch that I still have to do, and I get more coming in daily (how I love that you all have such trust in my thoughts/ideas/suggestions!), and my 2yo is following me around crying, “Mommy! Need hold you!” and my 6yo is asking for help with homework and my almost-12yo needs to be picked up from his after-school activities and the other boys are beating each other up and I’m trying to cook dinner and be present to my darling husband when he comes home from work … well, I know you know. And I love you all for your beautiful hearts and for totally getting me. ❤

I admit I’m also thinking of changing from a donation-based model to a fee-based model for consultations. So many of you have been so wonderful and generous with your donations, and I’ve been humbled and honored more than once that it seems you’re giving your own “widow’s mite”! And I love that the names we’re talking about are the names of our faith, and how much you all love Jesus and Mary and the Saints and the Church — I’ve often told people, when they gasp that I don’t charge for consultations, that I just don’t see how I can ask for money to share such beautiful information! And yet … we’ll see. I’m thinking about it. It’ll make it easier for me to spend time on them, and many of my family members and friends have good ideas about how to structure such a model so that it retains the ministry aspect that I so love and believe in, including a financial aid allowance.

On the up side, I’m going to try to do a little more Instagramming and Tweeting — they’re so easy to do! It just takes minutes to post a photo or write a tweet, you know? I also have to catch up on my name reading, which I’ve woefully neglected (and I think my consultations are showing that — I’m feeling a little bit like I’m offering the same ideas every time) — I recently bought Mary’s Flowers: Gardens, Legends, and Meditations by Vincenzina Krymow (Vincenzina!) and I can’t wait to dive into it! I never followed up on my question to you all about whether I should buy the off-putting-title-but-otherwise-drool-worthy Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Names: For Pagans, Witches, Wiccans, Druids, Heathens, Mages, Shamans & Independent Thinkers of All Sorts by K.M. Sheard (I was sort of surprised that you were all in favor!), but I’m ordering it today (I’ll definitely be putting a cover on it, and maybe that holy water suggestion too 😉 ), and I still want to do a review of Duana’s book The Name Therapist: How Growing Up With My Odd Name Taught Me Everything You Need to Know About Yours as well as  African Saints, African Stories: 40 Holy Men and Women by Camille Lewis Brown and Ablaze: Stories of Daring Teen Saints by Colleen Swaim. I also have a bunch of things I want to post of my own that I haven’t been able to get to, including two spotlight requests; I also pitched an idea to Nameberry ages ago that I still have to make good on; and a bunch of other things, most of which will have to wait until I’ve caught up on the consultations, but one is an exciting guest post that I’ll be putting up tomorrow! I can’t wait for you all to read it! And I’ll be posting an extra consultation on Thursdays for the next three weeks for families that had interesting dilemmas or situations that I thought you’d all benefit from seeing (as I did).

I hope you all stick with me as I try to shake things up a little so they settle down better! I would love it if you’d think to include me in your prayers, and you and yours are always in mine. ❤ St. Anne, please pray for us!