Living Memento Mori Is an Award Finalist!

I am insanely happy to announce that Living Memento Mori has been named a finalist in the Association of Catholic Publishers Excellence in Publishing Awards! Publishers submit books to the ACP and the finalist list was just announced. The winners will be announced in June.

I am thrilled to be a finalist (just like all the Oscar nominees say, it’s an honor to be nominated—because it is). My book is in the “general interest” category. Here’s the entire slate of nominees in the category:

You can see the entire list here, as well as click on links to find out more about each book and purchase it.

Thank you to Ave Maria Press for submitting my book! (And thanks to all of you for reading it! :) )

The Massive Birthday Yarn Along!

OK folks, settle in for a nice, long YARN ALONG!

There is so much going on here!

First project: Whatever the Weather Knit Along (KAL)

This project has been going all year! I’ve been loving it. Every month there is a different stitch pattern, and the color of the day is determined by the high temperature. Ravelry notes here.

Here you can see February (some of it) and March, as well as a seasonal marker (the lace) in Kerfuffle, one of the shades I haven’t used (yet). The pattern said to use one of the colors you haven’t used or haven’t used much, so I chose the coldest temperature color (-2!). April has seen the addition of a new color, “ablaze”, which is a really pretty pink-coral (which you’ll see next month!)

You could choose to make a scarf, a wrap, or a blanket, and I chose the wrap size. I’ll try to get a photo for you of how it looks as a whole, as opposed to just this little bit.

Second Project: Riverwild Quiviut Scarf

Ravelry notes here

So there’s a story about this one.

Last fall, a twitter friend sent me a big box of yarns she wasn’t going to use. At the time I briefly looked through the box but put it aside to dig into more carefully later. That time didn’t come until last week—bad me—and I was looking through and deciding wht yarns would be good for which projects, I found a tiny cake of QUIVIUT yarn.

This is yarn from a musk ox. It being from a musk ox—aka, a very large, very strong animal—it’s hard to get and is expensive. I had never thought I’d actually knit with it because it’s, well, expensive. It’s softer than cashmere!

So I double-checked with my friend to makes sure that, indeed, she meant to send this little jewel to me, and she did. Wow!

Now I had to find a project worthy of this yarn. I found this one, because the yarn was just crying out for lace, and I like the pattern very much. It’s simple, repeated over 12 rows 27 times. I’ve been working it in sets of 12, so I have two repeats done so far.

It’s a project that I’m taking my time on, which is just fine!

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So let’s talk about BIRTHDAY YARN!

These weren’t actually gifts—they were bought with birthday money people sent me. :)

First up is “London”, from Frabjous Fibers and Wonderland Yarns. They do a wonderful “around the world” series of yarns, which each month having a different country/city/region as the focus. Past destinations have included Egypt, Japan, China, India, Jerusalem, New Zealand, and New England.

At first, I wasn’t thrilled with this yarn, even though I love London, because it seems too dark brown and sort of boring. WRONG. When I got it in person, it is a rich chocolate/coffee brown! It’s their “Lory” yarn base, which is DK weight and 100% Superwash Merino (280 yds per skein).

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I’ll be using it in the pattern that came with the yarn, called the Pub Crawl Cowl. It features some different stitch patterns and will be a great thing to wear in the fall!

Second is some beautiful Nua Sport for a Twining Wrap.

This is the “figment” color way. This yarn is so fun—it’s mohair/yak (!)/linen blend. There’s also a worsted weight, but this is the sport. I don’t like knitting with straight linen but I love it in blends!

This wrap will take awhile—the pattern is fairly complicated, at least it looks complicated to me right now! But since I love this yarn I do not mind. :)

Third and Fourth come from the Loops Yarn store in Tulsa. They are responsible for the fabulous Knit Stars series of online knitting summits, which have done so much for my knitting skills!

The first two (going from the left) are for a lovely cowl called, well, “co.wl” :) When Loops knit it up, they made it smaller than the pattern calls for, and it’s SO pretty!

From the Loops website

I mean look at that! So they were selling a kit of the two colors, which I got: Robin’s Egg and Dandelion. It’s just such a phenomenal combination! And I’ll get to learn fisherman’s rib!

The last yarn is Loops “house” yarn, Luxe Royal Alpaca. It comes in four color ways (Luxe Natural, Loops Blue, Luxe Charcoal, Luxe Perfectly Pink, and Luxe Light Grey) sold in a pack of three. There are a few patterns I can make with this so I’m considering. They’re all fairly simple, which is nice because sometimes you just want a simple project, right? I don’t see them on Ravelry right now so I can’t link to them, but they’re all variations on cowls or scarves. Obviously I had to start with the Loops Blue. I can see myself working all four patterns with this yarn over time in various colors, or even trying some other patterns. We’ll see!

And of course it being my birthday, there were also books.

The two knitting books are Tudor Roses and Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitter’s Almanac. Tudor Roses is gorgeous—the designs are based off the royal women of the Tudor court—but complex. I might make one or two of them but I just love looking through it!

I haven’t read any Elizabeth Zimmerman, and I know that she’s An Authority in the knitting world, so I picked up her almanac as well. It has a project for every month of the year, as well as tips and notes about what’s going on in her life at the time, so it’s sort of journal-ish as well.

My friend Andrea sent me the Little Library Cookbook, which I am about to dive into (cooking-wise, I mean). It’s so lovely and the recipes are delicious sounding. My parents got me Dark Tides, which is the second book in Gregory’s Fairmile series. In the Name of the Rose and How To Be A Tudor were also gifts from them after we had birthday lunch!

Finally we have Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, which wasn’t really a birthday gift—I bought it for myself—but it came the day before my birthday so it belongs on the pile. :) This is the Ignatius Press edition which I got right from their website. (Amazon doesn’t always have the “nicest” editions of books, and I wanted a nice edition of this one!)

So the is the massive pile of books and yarn which will keep me busy for, oh, a month? :) (just kidding)

What are you reading/knitting/making right now?

Seven Quick Takes--BIRTHDAY EDITION!!!!

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IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

via GIPHY

I get really excited about my birthday, mostly because I wasn’t supposed to be 39. I was supposed to be dead by now, and I really LIKE NOT BEING DEAD. (even though, yes, #mementomori. :) )

Next year I will be FORTY! And I am flabbergasted by this. I actually want to turn 40. So let’s hope I get to do it! :) You can always ask me how old I am.

Remember everyone that being alive is a gift, and so is getting older! (Really, it is!)

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Links from this week:

A guest post I wrote on the Catholic perspective on organ donation

EASTERRRRR

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Birthday plans involve going shopping and having lunch with my parents, and then dinner with my brother, and then cake and such at my parents after dinner. It will be a fun and full day, unlike last year where it was just my parents and I and it was the first time I had seen them in a month. There were birthday hugs and I loved them.

Hugs are good.

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I completely forgot to do a Yarn Along this week! Bad me! But there will be one this coming Wednesday so you can see progress on the Whatever the Weather KAL and fun birthday yarn things. :) And also there is SO MUCH BIRTHDAY YARN and so many KNITTING BOOKS that I just have to share them. So a super special yarn along!

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I am really thankful for a lot of things. For turning 39, obviously.

For this little girl

And her whole family….

For going to SEE THEM this summer!!!!!!

For my vaccinations

for my great doctors who keep the entire machine going :)

for my book’s first birthday

For all of you reading this!

via GIPHY

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One of my hockey teams is doing OK. One of them is not. So we’re batting about .500 there. My baseball team, as usual, is not doing well. Ah, sports.

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And….did I mention it’s my birthday? :)

via GIPHY

Have a great Friday!!!!

What does the Catholic Church say about organ donation?

I wrote a guest post for my friend Kelly about what the Church says about organ donation, and some tips for parents whose child/children might be facing a transplant in the future!

He Is Risen!

Fra Angelico “Resurrection” (one of many he did!)

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Happy Easter everyone!

Patty had a very good easter…. (her first!)

When she wasn’t giving her oldest brother the Glare of Death for waking her up….

Apparently he made a VERY LOUD NOISE that WOKE UP THE PRINCESS. She was not pleased.

Whether you were back in church, or watched from home, I hope that you had a joyous Easter Day—which in the Catholic Church is still continuing—and that you remember to celebrate the Resurrection for fifty days!

Easter is a season! Living liturgically is a great gift and I want us all to make the best of it by actually living the liturgy!

So after 40 days of fasting and penance, we have 50 days of party!

I was so glad to get back to church.

Holy Thursday is one of my favorite Masses of the year.

Before Holy Thursday Mass—the beginning of the Triduum, the holiest three days of the year.

We didn’t have the washing of the feet this year—I’m wondering if that had to do with COVID stuff—but it was beautiful Mass, especially the singing of the Tantum Ergo, which is special to Dominicans anyway because it was written by St. Thomas Aquinas (OP).

There’s also adoration after the Mass in the “place of repose”—where the Sacrament is taken out of the main church to another room. My parish had adoration until 10 PM. I went home well before that, said compline, and then read Jesus’ “great and final discourse” from the Gospel of John (John 14-17) .

Hear more solo chant from Donna Stewart: https://www.mignarda.com/cds/index.html ANDhttps://mignarda.bandcamp.com/album/adoro-te-gregorian-chant-hymns-maria...

Good Friday my parish had two services, one t 3 PM and one at 7. It’s. service, not a Mass, because there’s no sacrifice of the Mass on Good Friday. The priest consecrated enough hosts on Thursday for Thursday and Friday.

The fourth Station of the Cross: Jesus Meets His Mother

Since I was born on Good Friday I really love Good Friday service. I hope that next year I’ll be reading the First Reading from Isaiah at the service!

After Good Friday Mass I go home and watch The Passion of the Christ. The rest of the day is pretty quiet and I try to go to bed early.

On Holy Saturday there is no Mass until the Vigil, which I attended with my parents. It started at 8:30 and we were out by about 10:45, which led to the annual blasting of the Hallelujah Chorus:

WHEWWW!

And then yesterday my parents went out and had dinner together. And I got lots of cute pictures of Patty and her siblings!

(And Patty is CRAWLING NOW!)

So that was my Holy Week. How was yours? Let me know!

I am so, so, SO glad to be back at Mass. Have I mentioned that?

Home

Oh, Jesus, I have missed you.

The last Mass I attended was March 1, 2020. I went to confession and then heard Mass.

I have never gone a year without Mass, and I’ve definitely never gone this long without The Eucharist. During my longest hospitalizations, I still had the Eucharist almost every week (except for the time I was in the ICU and, you know, not able to swallow things). Right before my transplant I was able to receive a sip of the Precious Blood. After transplant, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion came to our house to give me the sacrament.

I haven’t had the Eucharist since July, when my good friend Fr. H came to hear my confession, give me communion, and have lunch with me.

That’s so long without Jesus.

I was so excited to go to Mass that I couldn’t sleep last night. The idea of wearing nice “church” clothes, of getting all my prayer books together from their disparate places around my house, and actually attending Mass and not listening to a podcast homily, was…really exciting. I’m not going to lie.

Entering the pew and being in the presence of God was a thrill, and I’m not lying. Usually I come to Mass “prepared”. I have a list of who I’m going to pray for and what I’m offering Mass for.

This Mass? Nothing but pure thanksgiving.

The closest thing I can compare it to is when I was in the ICU in college. I was flat on my back or two weeks. My muscles had completely lost the knack of doing things like sitting up, or standing, or going to the bathroom. I was amazed at how my body just took those things for granted.

That’s how I felt today. Receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, being filled with that grace—it was like, “I got this every week?” It felt completely new and I was so grateful for it.

Discover & share this Disney GIF with everyone you know. GIPHY is how you search, share, discover, and create GIFs.

Catholics, let’s talk for a second.

I am totally vaccinated. You might not be. You might still be wary of going back.

Please go back soon. Jesus misses you!

One of my goals was to get to Mass for Holy Week. The idea of celebrating Holy Week, going to the Masses, going to confession, having real holy hours again…I’m a bit verklempt thinking about it.

I wrote in the back of my prayer journal that “Jesus is essential.” I had missed Mass but I didn’t realize how much I had missed it until I was back in the parking lot and getting out of the car.

It really was like coming home.

Seven Quick Takes: BACK TO MASS!

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Hello all!

Yesterday I wrote a little post on the Annunciation so check that out. :)

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I AM GOING BACK TO MASSSSSS!

Yes! Tomorrow! Palm Sunday! Holy Week! Easter!!!!!!!!

I am super super super excited in case you cannot tell.

Oh, and CONFESSSSSSSSSSSSIONNNNNNNN.

Gonna be great, cannot wait.

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Your weekly Patty:

LOOK at those teeth!!!!

I cannot WAIT to get to Texas, people. I just miss them all so much and I want to snuggle Patty until she giggles like mad. (Wouldn’t YOU, I mean LOOK AT HER.)

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Last Stations of the Cross tonight at 7:00 on my Facebook page! Come join!

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OK so I want to talk about something sort of quickly. This might merit a larger blog post but we’ll see. :) (Or this might go on long, either way.)

I was listening to a YouTube video the other day and the speaker—who is a sort of generic Christian (but has a statute of St. Therese in her office, so, I dunno!)—was talking about how if we have faith, we shouldn’t ever be worried about anything because God will take care of us. We shouldn’t have any fear.

OK so…I have thoughts.

First off, and this is really apropos as we get into Holy Week, Jesus was afraid. In the garden of Gethsemane he asked God to let this cup pass from Him. Those aren’t the words of someone who’s like yeah this is totally cool. On the cross, he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

Jesus knew fear and he knew pain and he knew sadness. The shortest verse in the New Testament is “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35—some versions have “And Jesus wept.”)

Jesus wasn’t just wholly divine. He was also entirely human. He knew all the things we knew. The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus knew everything we know, except sin:

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Jesus KNEW all these things. Let’s not act like because He was God he didn’t cry, or feel tired, or need potty-trained by Mary and Joseph. :)

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The other part of this is that, yes, God wants us to trust in Him and not be afraid—Jesus tells us not to be afraid as well: “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1), and later in the chapter:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. (John 14: 27)

This isn’t something that just magically happens. We have to work at trust. I wrote a lot about this in my book. It’s one of the reasons I love the Divine Mercy chapelet, because I think it helps me grow in Trust. I know that God has me. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not afraid sometimes. And I think that’s perfectly Biblical, because Jesus was afraid! He was sad! He knows what it’s like to be human.

Flannery O’Connor once said:

“What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”

Faith is scary, and, like Flannery said, it costs. The entire life of a Christian is growing in our faith, hope, and trust. It’s not an immediate thing. We have to work on it and it might take a lifetime. But the thing is, you’re working on it. You’re growing (I hope!) in the spiritual life. You’re learning. It’s like looking at Patty and saying, “well, you’re a human! So let’s do some quadratic equations right now!”

She’s a baby. When she’s older, sure, we can ask her that. I don’t want her to be reading BabyLit Pride and Prejudice for ever. I want her to read the real thing! But I don’t expect her to do that right now.

Every person is in their own place and progresses at their own pace.

(And, um, look at the apostles? What did they do right after Jesus said all this to them? Ran away and denied him!)

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OK so that’s that. :) No quick takes next week because Good Friday!

Annunciation

Fra Angelico, “Annunciation” (one of many he did! More of them are below.)

Hail, Mary!

The Annunciation is a solemnity on the Church calendar—meaning that it’s treated like a Sunday. During Lent, when it usually falls, you can relax your penances because it’s a day that we are meant to REJOICE.

A few years ago the Annunciation fell on Good Friday and it was transferred to my birthday, which was pretty cool. The Church wants us to celebrate with her, so the feast was moved so that we could celebrate it.

Botticelli, “Annunciation”

There’s a lot of baggage associated with the word “handmaid” these days. But let’s remember that it’s Biblical—in the Annunciation account, Mary said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord"! And that’s what we’re all called to be, man or woman—handmaids of God. Let’s follow Mary’s instructions and “Do whatever He tells you.” (John 2:5)

We’re afraid to do whatever God tells us, aren’t we? We don’t think that God really wants our ultimate good. But He does. He wants it so much that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1: 14)

Mary shows us how to do whatever God asks of us—with trust and confidence, a confidence and trust that carries her even to the foot of the cross where she watched her son die. She pondered these things in her heart (Luke 2:19). She might not have always understood, because Mary isn’t God. She’s not omnipotent. But she knew that God’s plan, “crazy” as it might be, lead to her good, and the good of her son.

Here’s a poem about the annunciation that I really like, so I’ll leave you with it:

The Annunciation

Edwin Muir

The angel and the girl are met.
Earth was the only meeting place.
For the embodied never yet
Travelled beyond the shore of space.

The eternal spirits in freedom go
See, they have come together, see,
While the destroying minutes flow,
Each reflects the other’s face
Till heaven in hers and earth in his
Shine steady there. He’s come to her
From far beyond the farthest star,
Feathered through time. Immediacy
Of strangest strangeness is the bliss
That from their limbs all movement takes.
Yet the increasing rapture brings
So great a wonder that it makes
Each feather tremble on his wings.

El Greco, “The Annunciation”

Outside the window footsteps fall
Into the ordinary day
And with the sun along the wall
Pursue their unreturning way.
Sound’s perpetual roundabout
Rolls its numbered octaves out
And hoarsely grinds its battered tune.

Fra Angelico, “The Annunciation”

But through the endless afternoon
These neither speak nor movement make,
But stare into their deepening trance
As if their gaze would never break.

Leonardo da Vinci, “The Annunciation”, 1472.

Seven Quick Takes--Second Shot!

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Hi!

Let’s start with what was on the blog this week:

Living Memento Mori on Catholicmom.com!

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Depending on when you’re reading this, I will either be on my way to get my second COVID vaccine, or I will have it! My parents and I are fully vaccinated!!!! Woo woo!

That means—MASS NEXT WEEKENDDDDDD. Church for Holy Week!!!!

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It also means the I’ve booked a trip to see Patty and crew this summer!

Patty and her oldest sister, Susie, on their grandparents’ Texas ranch.

Looking for cows.

Do I even NEED to tell y’ll how excited I am to get to see Patty? No? OK. :) :) Seriously SO EXCITEDDDDDDDDDD. And to see everyone else, of course. I haven’t been to Houston in a few years. My sister used to live there before she got married, so I’ve been there twice. Once to see Mel, and once to see Diane when her daughter holding (Susie) Patty was A BABY. Seriously. She’s 12 now and playing lacrosse for her school and I’m thinking, you were just Patty’s age!

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I am prepared to spend the weekend feeling not good, but that’s OK. I have meds here and entertainment. Worse comes to worse, I just sleep it off.

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I am actually KnoMari’ing everything. I’ve done it before, but it wasn’t really thorough, I sort of half-did it, which is a no go. So the first thing was clothes. Oh my goodness WHAT a clothes purge. I’ve gotten rid of all sorts of things and it definitely makes me feel good. (I am donating everything, not tossing it unless it’s really just I crappy shape, like shoes with holes [why do I even have them?!] or things that are ripped.) I’m not really going to do books because I ddi them before I moved and I have my own system. So I’m finishing clothes and then I’ll move on to papers, which I actually have a fairly good handle on, but it can’t hurt to go through them again. I don’t think I need my tax return for 2006 anymore, right? :)

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Don’t forget STATIONS OF THE CROSS on my Facebook page tonight at 7:00 EST!

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And finally, if you’ve read Living Memento Mori, please leave a review on Amazon or goodreads? THANK YOU! They’re so helpful in getting the word out! (It can be the same one both places!) Also on goodreads, be sure to add it to your shelves!

-BONUS-

Do you remember Little Billy? He would’ve been a year old on St. Patrick’s Day. Please pray for his parents and family!

Living Memento Mori on CatholicMom.com!

I’m so happy to see a lovely review of Living Memento Mori up at Catholicmom.com!

Seven Quick Takes--Fourth Friday of Lent

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Hi everyone! Sorry no quick takes last week. I was on the last day of the Evil Antibiotic and my body was just blah. So there was no blogging, or really much of anything. But I feel much better now and my sleep schedule and energy and coming back! Yay!

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Most recent posts:

The Cardigan is DONE!

Podcast Interview and Best Of List for Living Memento Mori!

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This Lent has been sort of meh. I didn’t really make a good plan this year, if I’m being honest. I did my usual things of no book buying and no chocolate but I wanted to stay off social media more than I have. So….Lent’s not over and I can still do something about that! I’m going to try to be better with set limits. How’s your Lent going?

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I am doing Stations of the Cross every Friday on my Facebook page during Lent, however!

(yes, I just wrote about social media and here’s Facebook. It’s the best way to communicate with video, I’ve found. IG live is sort of fiddly for me and I need to figure out videos without social media…it’s on my to-do list.)

I post a prayer request thread every Wednesday on my page as well! So these intentions are prayed for during the stations and in my own prayer a well. We use the prayers from Living Memento Mori for the stations, so you can follow along in your own copy if you want.

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Here’s your weekly dose of Patty:

She also got her blanket!

And you can also clearly see her two teeth! She’s working on an upper tooth now, her mom says, so she’s sort of crank-tactic. This week she tried to eat a spider and was very put out when her mom didn’t let her.

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If you would like a signed copy of the book, they are $20 and they include a bookmark, a prayer card, and free shipping! Drop me an email.

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I’m still waiting for the second dose of my COVID vaccine to be scheduled. It hasn’t quite been a month yet, but it will be next weekend, so…..I’d like to know if I’m going to be getting it then! I am totally chomping at the bit to be fully vaccinated!

Yarn Along: The Cardigan is DONE! (and so many other projects!)

Well, well, well.

My people. After starting it as my Quarantine Project, the Boothbay Cardigan is DONE!

Check those seams, folks!

Wearing it in an Instagram Friday Introductions post.

The back—you can see the collar curling a bit.

I promise that at some point we will have a photo of me wearing it that’s full-length. I promise! :)

So, final notes:

1) The sleeves are long. I knew they would be, because my arms are like T. rex arms. So it’s nice that the cuffs have a garter stitch detail, so that when I roll the sleeves up it still “works” with the overall design and doesn’t look like Emily has rolled the sleeves of her cardigan and made the sleeves too long! (Well, I did, but I was following the pattern. So.)

One of the KnitStars 5 lessons I watched during quarantine was all about how to adjust clothing measurements to your measurements, and I’m going to use that a lot the next time I make a cardigan, and there will be a next time.

2) Picking up stitches is much easier when you’re moving vertically, rather than horizontally. At least, I find it so. So the one thing with this cardigan that I don’t like is the bottom collar. The collar for boothbay is picked up and knitted all around. When I picked up the stitches on the bottom, I must have done it wrong, because it’s a little more “cocoony” than it should be—as in, if you look at the piece as a whole the collar is an oval shape. It doesn’t really hang “open” at the bottom as much as it should. However, I realize this is a very picky thing and if I hadn’t mentioned it you might never have noticed.

3) I didn’t use all the yarn called for in this pattern. I think I had two or three skeins left over. Not a problem, because it’s always good to have extra yarn!

4) One of the things I am happiest about is my decision to size up. I wanted this cardigan to have some extra give in the arms so I could wear it over things. That also probably led to the arms being longer, but I have exactly the right amount of ease in the arms, and I can wear it over things, as seen in the photo above. That makes me really happy.

5) Knitting clothes is like an entirely new world. To knit something for you, that I can throw on and wear hen I go out to get the mail or whatever, is sort of mind-boggling. I can make clothes!

6) Like I said above, I will definitely be knitting more clothes! I have my eyes on the Lesley sweater which was in the same pattern collection as booth bay—and honestly, it should be easier because it’s only FOUR pieces as opposed to six! (I definitely like seaming.) I don’t think I’d go for the negative ease that it’s shown in. With my body I’d want a little more give around the tummy area. But we’ll see when I go to look at the schematic. I’m also looking at the Georgetown Cardigan (also from the same collection).

WHEW! OK that’s it for the cardigan! If you want to see all the posts in this series, here you go.

Onto my other knitting projects!

Patty’s blanket has been sent to her….

I’m working on the Whatever the Weather Mystery Knit Along—you could knit a scarf, a wrap, or a blanket, and I chose a wrap, using the daily highs as my temperature guide:

January and February

And I also knit an insanely fun, chunky cowl with Knit Collage yarn:

I love pairing the cowl and my cardigan together when I go out. Together they’re perfect for the late winter/early spring weather we’ve got here in Central Ohio right now:

Now that the “big” project is done, I’m in the middle of finishing some projects that have been hibernating, and working on smaller projects. For Christmas I got the Harry Potter knitting book, and I’ve decided to knit the seven horcrux washcloths, because they seemed fun and easy. I started with Ravenclaw’s Diadem. I’m not too far into the pattern yet so you can’t see the design that well, but it will come:

As for what I’m reading—I’ve been on a bit of a Chesterton kick. Part of that is reading all of the Fr. Brown stories, which I’ve actually never read, but I’m working to fill that gap!

What are you reading/creating? Let me know in the comments!

Book News: Podcast Interview and a Best Of List!

Two things in the book news category!

First, my episode of the podcast “How They Love Mary” is live! Go check it out!

Second, Living Memento Mori was named one of the best books of 2020 in a Catholic World Report piece! It asked its contributors to name the best books they read last year, and Living Memento Mori was on the list.

Seven Quick Takes--Second Friday of Lent

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Hi, everyone! How was your first week of Lent?

Mine was MEH. I thought I could get away with king just little social media. No, I really can’t. I need to be strict about it. So I’m really going to try to only use it for book/writing things and some random updates on my personal page on FB. Because man I use way too much SM. So. Time for timers!

In other news, we WILL start Stations tonight! 7:00 PM EST on my Facebook author page!

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Patty and her family are safe and warm in Texas. :)

Patty was supervising her mom’s yard work when this was taken. :)

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I got my first COVID vaccine!

Yayyyy! My parents and I all got it at a drive-through clinic here in town. It went really fast and really well. I did have a sore spot the next day, but it was minor. Didn’t stop me rom doing anything or sleeping on it.

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I had clinic on Monday. It was….special? I mean, not bad special. I get to go six months without being seen which is the longest I have ever gone in my life between pulmonology appointments, so yay! And my old transplant coordinator at Children’s is now at the New Resort, double yay!!!!! As I told my doctor, “We’re getting the band back together!”

But in some non-yays, I am learning the ways of the new place. The first thing being, they will not take you early. Doesn’t matter if they have time, doesn’t matter if the doctors are ready. They will not take you early. So I now know I don’t have to get up as early as I did, because if I’m there early I just….sit there. Until it’s my turn to be called.

Actually, you can tell this hospital is not used to people being on the ball, because they say they want you there a half hour before your appointment time. I’m assuming this is because people tend to be late. I, however, am almost never late. If I am late, I am probably dead. :-p So, now I know!

Also in the lab, I had a freak out with the tech because she saw all the orders for me in the computer—we were doing vitamin levels and that always require like 40 orders—and she freeeeeeaked. “Well, what do you normally have drawn?! There are orders from two doctors in here! Who do I call!? What labs do you normally get drawn?”

I do not know. I tell her that. She asks me again, in increasing levels of panic.

We did this about four times.

Then I had to give her the clinic number so she could….call and ask them if they really wanted all these labs.

It was insane.

If it’s in the computer….it gets drawn. Sigh.

But, everything was good. PFTs were good, a random treadmill test was good, everything was good. Everyone is happy. We’re working on getting my colonoscopy scheduled….what joy. :-p (it’s a little tricker for me because we have to use the port, and we have to make sure I have lots of anti-emetics (anti-nausea) drugs on hand because my stomach hates the prep. We’re talking projectile vomiting hates the prep, folks. )

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The nice thing about this clinic, however, is that it’s close to a French cafe and a local yarn store! So I went to the yarn store and picked up a really quick project—the yarnicorn cowl.

Knitting in clinic!

Done the next day!

I’ve never used a really chunky yarn like this before and it was SO FUN. It’s from Knit Collage, if you want to check it out. I definitely am going to use more of this in the future! (I used the Lagoon and Nomad color ways here, in the Cast Away yarn.)

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Quick ad break! If you haven’t picked up Living Memento Mori, please do so? Support your local Catholic author! :) I also have a patreon, with memberships starting at a buck a month!

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Next week’s yarn along is going to be AWESOME because…..the cardigan is finished. But more on that next week!!!!!! :)

Seven Quick Takes--1st Friday of Lent

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Hello everyone! How’s your Lent going so far? (The weather might be providing your penance….)

So far mine is going well. I’m adapting this monastic horarium for my use, which is great for adding in extra prayer and also dedicated times for spiritual reading, Lectio, and work. So I get a lot more done, partially because I use this schedule and partially because I’m on social media less, although I think I might need to cull that even further. We’ll see how it goes.

(Fun fact: I was discerned being a cloistered Dominica nun! At Summit!)

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Little Patty and her family are definitely getting penitential weather. They live in Texas, so they lost power, gas, and water, and then had to go to her grandparents’ house for a bit. Now they have gas, power, and “60% water pressure” (according to her dad) so Patty and her family are warm, but so many families aren’t. Pray or them!

Patty does not seem to mind being bundled up….

And yes, she has two teeth now!

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Patrice Fagnat-McArthur wrote a lovely review of Living Memento Mori! (You can find all the reviews of the book here). If you’d like a copy, there are nine left on Amazon! Yes, more are coming, but you know you want it now, right? :)

In other book related news, don’t forget that I’ll be doing Stations of the Cross, using the prayers in my book, starting next week! (We were going to start tonight but….see next point.)

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This is going up later than usual because I had an ENT visit this morning. No, not Tolkien Ents, Ear, Nose, and Throat. I knew that it was going to be AN APPOINTMENT, meaning we’d have lots of thing to do, and we did. Ears were vacuumed (that’s the BEST seriously), and my sinuses were found to have infection. Yayyyyyy. (Not) So that means cipro, which means not moving for two weeks so I don’t rupture any tendons. Seriously, no working out. It sucks because I just started working out again yesterday and it was great. But, alas. Cipro for two weeks.

So because of that I am headach-y and dehydrated (because of all the heat that’s on), so my cochlear implant is hurting my head. So it’s going to go off making me deaf for the rest of the day, but that’s OK. But it does mean no stations tonight. Next week, though!

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I also have clinic on Monday. I have basically three hours between the testing part of clinic (labs, chest X-ray, and PFTs) and seeing my doctor. So I might go to the yarn store. I’ll definitely hit the local French bistro for lunch because it’s one of the perks of being at New Resort. I’m close to really really good food.

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My cardigan is ALMOST DONE! Yay!!!!!!!!!! Just about an inch more to knit on the collar and then I can cast off!

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I get my first COVID vaccine tomorrow! REJOICE!

Read Living Memento Mori for Lent!

Although one can read Living Memento Mori any time, it’s really great for Lent. If you haven’t picked it up I hope you will!

The book is divided into fourteen chapters and an epilogue, each chapter focusing on one of the stations of the cross. There are discussion questions at the end of each chapter and an appendix that contains the Stations of the Cross with a memento mori focus.

If you are reading the book with a book club or small parish group, I would love to come talk to you! Just email me and we’ll set up the details.

If you would like a signed copy, same deal—email me. They’re $20, which includes shipping and a book Mark and prayer card.

You can check out the book’s resources page here, and more about the book here.

Seven Quick Takes--Feb. 11, 2021

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Hello everyone! Happy Valentine’s Weekend!

Here’s your weekly Patty to kick us off….

Somebody really likes butternut squash! :)

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So yes, Lent starts on Wednesday…are you ready? Need Lenten reading? Pick up a copy of my book!

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Like I said last week, sales are super important, especially now that there aren’t in-person conferences (yet), so Ave Maria doesn’t have their awesome tables at these conferences to sell books! So it’s so important for me to get book sales, because they have sales goals for my book. So every purchase means so much to me and my publisher!

I am really awful at selling things. I hated selling Girl Scout cookies! But it’s part of the deal with writing in the 21st century, so, I do it. THANK YOU to everyone who has bought the book!

I will also be doing Stations every Friday in Lent with the prayers in my book, so come join us on Facebook!

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If you are using Living Memento Mori for book club or small groups at your parish, I will come talk to you! Yes! I will answer questions, talk about the book….whatever you need that can be done via Zoom. :) Email me to set things up!

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In the “well, you never know what will happen in Emily’s week” category: I spent Monday morning in the local ER because I was having crazy weird chest pain and I thought I might have pneumonia. So I went to get myself checked out. I’ve also been having productive cough, which I never have, so that also made my eyebrows go up a bit.

I was tested for heart attacks, COVID, pneumonia, and anything else—and I’m clear. So my body is ust being weird, and I think the issue with the coughing is that it’s coming down from my sinuses. I see my ENT next week so we can talk sinuses then but I wouldn’t be surprised if they needed some work. We’ll see, and I’ll let you know.

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I am FINALLY vaccine eligible on Monday! Huzzah!!!!!!! So we’ll see how long it takes for me to get scheduled with the local health department. Hopefully not too long!

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And in #emilyknitsacardigan news: I AM KNITTING THE COLLAR!!!!!!!

This is the LAST STEP before I block the cardigan, and I am so excited. At this point I just knit 5” worth of garter stitch to get the nice shawl collar you see here:

You can see that the collar is a pretty big design element here. So once it’s done I can bind off and block! And then wear it! I am excited!

(Unlike the photo, I will roll the cuffs on the sleeves. I have short arms.)

Seven Quick Takes--Let's Talk Lent

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Hello friends!

From the blog this week: Yarn Along with progress!

Also speaking of yarn, I’ve started this Whatever the Weather knit along from Wonderland Yarns, and I LOVE IT. Essentially you take the low/high/average temp (whichever you choose) of the day, and that correlates to a yarn color. So you can see the temperatures of the year in yarn!

Here’s January—I chose the daily highs.

It’s a “mystery” knit along because we get a new “clue” every month. I think that every month is going to have a different stitch pattern, bordered by garter stitch rows (at the top of the bit here, you can see the rows) . But that’s just my guess. And I love working with these yarns—they’re so buttery and squishy!

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OK let’s talk Lent.

First, get a copy of my book. Please and thank you. :) If you would like to choose your retailer, here is a list of places you can get the book. You can also get it from your local Catholic bookstore!

Really, though, every sale means so much to me. My publisher has goals for sales, and I want to meet them so I can write another book! This really is a team effort. So thank you!

(also please leave an Amazon review if you haven’t.)

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I will be praying the Stations of the Cross, using the Living Memento Mori reflections, every Friday during Lent (except Good Friday), on my Facebook page. Check the events tab for all the dates! (If you like my page then you’ll get updates and you’ll know when I’m going live, so that’s another option to following along!)

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Since I can’t give up anything food related for Lent, and I am also VEHEMENTLY TOLD NOT TO FAST, I’ll be giving up social media usage except for book related and Stations related things. Also no yarn buying. :) Normally I give up buying books during Lent, but given that I’m still sort of stuck in my hobbit hole until I get the vaccine, I’m letting myself buy books.

I want to use SM as a force for good—hence doing stations on FB—but I also have to use it mindfully. I’ve found a lot of good on social media—I’ve made wonderful friends and connections. But, gotta use it mindfully, just like any other tool or “thing”. This is also a very Dominican thing—things aren’t bad in and of themselves, it’s how we use them. And as preachers of truth, we want to use media! That’s how we get the Word (and the word) out!

I’ll also be doing the Consecration to St. Joseph again, as well as 33 Days to Greater Glory. Last Lent I read about St. John of the Cross and then I read his Dark Night of the Soul. Not entirely sure what I will read this Lent. Probably more of the books I have stock piled here? :)

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It is probably not likely that I will receive both doses of the vaccine before Easter. However I am VERY much hoping to get to Mass during the Easter season and then be back to normal Mass going and sacramental life!

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Next week is clear but then I have three doctor appointments to round out February: eye doctor, ENT, and then transplant clinic. I hope everything goes well but I will keep you updated.

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And finally, here’s your weekly Patty. She cut her first tooth this week!

Yarn Along: Picking up stitches and finishing a baby blanket

Welcome to the February Yarn Along!

The big news: I have learned how to pick up stitches for my collar cardigan!

I went to the local yarn shop (LYS) after asking ahead if it was OK, because , COVIDtide. Normally they have sit and stitch hours all day but…not right now! One of the owners said sure, come in.

So I went down after endo last week, and she (one of the owners) sat with me and showed me how to pick up stitches—and she was so patient, and sat there until I told her to do what she had to do because I think I had it! :) So that’s when I bought some of this delicious yarn…

From L-R: Wonderland Yarns, Mary Anne fiber base in Jerusalem, Seaography, Egypt, and Biscotti

So that is a huge step forward and the best tip she gave me was—look at the Vs, not the windows. HUGEEEEEEEE.

See the vees here?

So we picked up the collar and then picking up the rest of the body is easier because it’s a 1 for 3 ratio, meaning pick up one stitch for every three stitches. Sometimes those Vs are hard to find! So I’m not quite done yet but I’m making progress. There’s only so long you can concentrate that intensely, or at least, only so long that I can. But the plan is that by next Yarn Along it will be done!

The nice thing about this—besides knowing how to do it—is that it’s not really an exact knitting science.A lot of it is by look and feel.

Speaking of things that are done, or almost—Patty’s blanket!

I’m on the last stripe and then I can weave in ends and send it off to her!

I’m reading G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense and I’ll be following that up with Common Sense 101: Lessons from Chesterton. Yes, I’m on a Chesterton kick right now. I also read The Survivors last night and really liked it, so if you like crime/mystery novels, try this one out. Jane Harper is a fabulous Australian author, and The Survivors is her fourth book.

What are you reading/knitting/making right now?

Seven Quick Takes--What a Week!

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Oh my goodness what a week around here!

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On Sunday I celebrated the birthday of my book! So that was a nice start to the week (or end of the week, depending on how you count the weeks!).

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Monday was…OK? I mean my body was still being sort of silly and my sleep was nuts, but it was all right.

Tuesday, however…..no bueno.

It began with finding an email saying that one of my favorite flower companies supports Planned Parenthood. This makes me sad and angry on several levels. One, that the lie that PP is for “women’s health” continues to have traction, whether or not people believe it or if they’re just parroting something that sounds good. Second, that people still think that being able to murder your babies is an OK thing. And third, that politics has to be in everything, even flowers!

Endo kept calling my parent about check in stuff and we couldn’t get ahold of them. (More on endo in a bit). THEN it was port access day, and my port decided not to work.

via GIPHY

“Work” in this case means—get blood return. Really quickly: When you access a port, you put in the port needle, with a syringe full of saline attached (used to flush the line) and if the needle in the port, when you pull back on the syringe, blood will come out.

No blood came out. We tried several times.

So, this means that either 1) there is some sort of issue in the line that needs professional help, or 2)the port is broken. The port is 16 years old, so that’s pretty likely. They don’t last forever, sadly.

So I had to email Kim, my transplant coordinator, and see what’s up.

And then both my hockey teams lost in OT.

Tuesday was not good.

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Wednesday.

Kim gets back to me and asks me if I want to see what happens with my port when I come in for blood work on 2/22. I say, yes, let’s do that. If the nurses can’t get it, then we will try a dye study to see if the port is really broken. And if it is, then surgery to remove the old one and put in a new one, which I hope fervently will be a POWER PORT! A power port means that I can get CT contrast through that line! Yayyyyyy!

So, OK, one issue dealt with. The port doesn’t hurt me, so the fact that it’s not currently working isn’t a huge deal.

I have an endocrinology appointment so my parents have to play phone tag with endo and I wail about how the fact that they won’t email me is just insane. Sigh.

So, the office is crazy, but my doctor is good, and I really like her. My appointment with her goes really well; my A1c has dropped two percentage points since last year, so that’s great. She’s “not worried about me” and is pleased with my progress. (I really like it when I don’t worry my doctors.) We make a few little insulin tweaks and set up some more appointments, including an education appointment. So I’m really glad that endo went well.

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And I was so glad that endo went well, and I was all dressed and pretty, so I went to the local yarn store! I had emailed them earlier in the week about stopping in for some help and the owners graciously said yes! (Knit ins aren’t happening right now, obviously, but this was OK.) So with the help of one of the wonderful owners, I finally have figured out how to pick up stitches for my cardigan collar! Huzzah! The end is near!

And then Ince I was there I had to get more yarn, right? So I did. Firstly because the woman had given me her time—she really had, she sat by me until I said I was comfortable doing it!—and also because…..YARN.

Behold the pretty—this is all Wonderland Yarn from Frabjous Fibers in the Mary Ann fingering base. Tonals: the bright turquoise, called Seaography; variegated: Biscotti, from the Tea Time Collection (the cream/gold/sienna speckle), and then the last two are from their De-Stitch Nation special collection: Jerusalem and Egypt.

Right now I’m thinking about doing a Free Your Fade shawl with Seaography, Egypt, and Jerusalem. Biscotti is a great neutral that will work with anything and makes me really happy.

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The other issue is vaccine roll out here. I am in group “1b” , but that’s been a group that’s been subject to a lot of political pandering. I might not get the vaccine until February 15 because, while I have lots of health issues that are in this group, I don’t have intellectual impairments. I’m not sure how that affects your immune system, but…..the state has decreed it so. Sigh.

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So yes it’s been a busy sort of insane week. But there are good things in it, as always. Like Patty!

She’s scooting now and it’s so cute—her mom video called me to show me. I just adore this child. And check that dimple!

As soon as I get vaccinated I am RUNNING to see her.