June Reads: Books Read During the Month of June

Are there some good books out there, or what? Unfortunately, my stack of books to read is growing instead of dwindling. Following below are brief reviews from books I read during the month of June. Get ready to add to your "To Read" shelf!

📗 Hungry Souls: Supernatural Visits, Messages, and Warnings from Purgatory      
     (Gerard J.M. Van Den Aardweg- TAN Books)
If you want to get a glimpse of purgatory and realize the importance of praying for the deceased, this is the book.  This book was fascinating. Purgatory is a difficult concept for Catholics and Non-Catholics to grasp, but this book did an excellent job of making that concept a little more concrete. There are saints' and laypersons' accounts of being visited, as well as how prayers and penance aided these souls during their time in Purgatory.

My recommendation: 👍

📗 Pope Joan (Donna Woolfolk Cross- Three Rivers Press)

Before I say anything about this book, I have to say that the author clearly states

that this book is fiction. In the back of the book, the author notes that there is some speculation that Joan was, in fact, a real person, and she makes some strong evidence to suggest that there may have been a Pope Joan. But, as I said, this book is fiction. Was there really a Pope Joan? That's just one of the answers we'll have when we get to Heaven!

My recommendation: 👍

📗 Knight of the Holy Ghost- A Short HIstory of G.K.Chesterton (Dale Ahlquist- Ignatius Press)

Yes, I knew who G.K. Chesterton was before I read this book...kind of. I knew he was an author, but this book delves into everything he was: The Man, The Writer, and The Saint. He was before his time; things that he said about the early 1900's still hold true today. For example, in the book What's Wrong With the World, he identifies four main things that are wrong with the world: big government, big business, feminism, and public education. His reasoning is that all of these things undermine the family, which is the basic unit of society, the thing that must be stable for society to be stable, the thing that must be strong for society to be strong, and the thing that is most under attack in our society today. (page 73) There are quite a few prophetic things that he wrote that are of specific interest.

The man was constantly writing, if not with pen & paper, then in his head. Constantly. If he wasn't writing books, he was writing poetry or articles for newspapers.  I was pleasantly surprised to read that G.K. is the author of the Father Brown series, which I have watched all the way through on Netflix. I had no idea he wrote the books, which now I think I have to start reading. 

Biographies are one of my favorite genres to read, especially one that is well written. I learned a lot about G.K. Chesterton by reading this short history, so much that I want to start reading some of his books. I dog-eared quite a few pages in this book so I can take notes on it and refer back to as needed. 

My recommendation: 👍

📗 Letters to a Suffering Church (Bishop Robert Barron- Word on Fire)

This little book packs a punch in explaining why, during this critical time in Church history, you should stay instead of jumping ship. Chapters touch on how this scandal is a "diabolical masterpiece", what scripture says about human sexuality, former history of scandals, dimensions of the treasure that explains why we should stay with the Church, and what we can do to fight for the Church. This is a short book (only 102 pages) and a very easy read. Bishop Barron hits the nail on the head when he says the Eucharist is the single most important reason for staying faithful to the Catholic Church. You can't find it anywhere else; and no wickedness on the part of priests or bishops can affect it. (page 74) One other thing about this book: it's free; you only pay shipping & handling. You can order it here.

My recommendation: 👍

Getting Back on Track With My Prayer Routine

Ah, summer. I always do so well with being on a schedule...until we go on vacation. Then it goes by the wayside. I always have good intentions of sticking to my routine but then...vacation. And I get lazy. Getting back on track with my prayer routine is a struggle. Anyone else?

Getting Off-Track

My pre-vacation morning routine looked like this: Wake up at 5:30, out the door with the dogs by 5:45 (before the squirrels are awake!), come home, eat breakfast, feed the dogs, take a shower, pray and reflect, daily mass. All of that before 9:00 a.m.! Surprisingly, I haven't been crashing in the afternoon. Well, most afternoons anyway.
Then we went on vacation. The next week I attended a conference. I did pretty well with my prayer routine on vacation...I at least prayed The Divine Office and my daily prayers. The Daily Mass Readings and journaling went by the wayside, but at least I had my talk with God. The next week at the conference, I prayed The Divine Office in the mornings while my roommate was in the shower. So that's something, right?

Except that I feel a distance to God that wasn't there 2 weeks ago. To keep a good relationship with anyone you have to communicate. It would only make sense that to regain a relationship the communication has to be there. I don't doubt that God was certainly trying to communicate with me while I was gone. It takes 2 to communicate and I'll be the first to admit that I didn't give it my best shot. I may have panicked just a bit when I returned home from the conference, realizing that I have 1 full week of summer left before I go back to work. (I know, I know! That's early for teachers to go back! Our students start July 31st!) Y'all, I really need  God to be on my side when I start the new school year!

3 Answers

The answers are quite simple:
1)Discipline yourself to start over. You had discipline in the first place, right? You know you can do it, so just do it!
2) Forgive yourself. It is what it is and there's no sense in beating yourself up about it. Our God is a merciful (and forgiving) God. If He forgives you, why not forgive yourself?
3) Slide back into it if you need to. I was so tired when I first returned home from my conference that I needed to slide back into my routine. It took me a few days but I did it.

Personally, I'm the kind of person who thrives on routine and schedules. Even so, it is kind of nice to get away from that every now and then. Getting totally out of the routine can make the return a little more difficult, but who said life is easy? So it seems that I'm getting back on track with my prayer routine just in time to have to tweak it a bit for the school year. 

In this post, I discussed why I need a daily routine and what happens when I get off track. There's even a quote included from a book that I read from every now and then that really drives things home.

Need more inspiration?

• Take a peek into Brandon Vogt's prayer life in this post.
• This article tells you why Daily Prayer is important and explains the how.
• What, how, why, and where is discussed in this post.

{SQT} Netflix Binging

I'm linking up with Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum for Seven Quick Takes. Thanks for hosting us every week, Kelly! 😁

Even though technically Summer just started, mine is halfway over already. As I mentioned in a previous post, binging on Netflix is one thing that an empty-nester school employee does during the summer. Here are some shows/movies in which I've been indulging. 

--- 1 ---

House of Cards. I started from the very beginning since I only watched Seasons 1 & 2 before, and I couldn't remember what happened. Claire & Frank are some devious people, for sure. I don't know why they had to make Frank bisexual. I guess they thought they needed to for the ratings, which is sad. It wasn't necessary at all.

--- 2 ---

Queen of the South. This one was really good. Even though Teresa is in the drug cartel, she has a good heart; I found myself pulling for her through all of the misfortunes she goes through.

--- 3 ---

The Ranch. There are a lot of big names in this show: Ashton Kutcher, Daniel Masterson, Debra Winger, Sam Elliot (BIG reason to watch!), Megyn Price, Kathy Baker, and some cameos by Wilmer Valderrama. (Kutcher, Masterson, and Valderrama all starred in "That 70's Show"). The downside is that there is a lot of f-bombs flying around and premarital sex (I don't recall any nudity), as well as a hokey laugh-track. In spite of all that, I think it's actually really funny.

--- 4 ---

Bloodline. This is one show that I kept up with, so I only watched the last season. I don't know if they had a different writer, but, man! it was weird. I didn't like that Kyle Chandler played such a bad guy in this show, and last season left off with such a cliffhanger. This was definitely a dark show.

--- 5 ---

Manchester By The Sea. My husband & I started watching this, but had to stop. It was just too weird for us & we didn't "get it". Maybe if we kept watching it would have been better, but I can't believe it won all of those awards.

--- 6 ---

Full of Grace. I saw this as an ad in my Divine Mercy emails, and it was on Netflix. The movie follows Mary through her last days, and Peter is there with her. Other apostles also come, but Peter is there first. He is in quite a dilemma as the leader of a new church, he has no idea what to do. It really makes you think about what he felt and how lost he felt as the leader of the Church. Mary guides him back to ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. The only disappointing thing of the movie was that Mary quietly passed away in the movie...she wasn't assumed into Heaven.  Disappointing end, for sure.

--- 7 ---

Father Brown. First off, the British do tv and movies so much better than we Americans do! This is a BBC series about a Catholic Priest who is quite a sleuth. The man who plays Father Brown also played Mr. Weasley in the Harry Potter movies. There are quite a few tongue in cheek jabs as only the Brits can do. 

I'm watching so much Netflix because I'm kind of stuck at the house waiting for my kitchen to be done. We're on week 3 (when we were told it would only take 2 not counting the countertops) and it looks like we have about 3 more. There was a problem with the cabinets. Every Thursday on my Life in a Small Town blog I am documenting what's going on. You can read it here. 

{SQT} An Empty Nester School Employee's Summer List

On Fridays, Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum gives us a chance to spurt seven things out. Some do lists, some do randomness. Some weeks I link up, some weeks I don't. This is one of those weeks when I do.
Exactly what do school employees do during summer break? When my boys were still at home, my list would have looked very differently than it does today. I'll break down what an empty nester school employee's summer looks like.

--- 1 ---

The first thing I did after our last day was....(drum roll)...attend a tech conference presented by our school system. Yep, that's right. Contrary to popular belief, we don't really get our summer's off. The payoff is that I now get an extra day off for Fall Break.

--- 2 ---

I allowed myself this week to just veg out and decompress. I've promised myself to get away from Speech Therapy-related things this summer. That means resisting reading blogs and looking at Pinterest for speech things. Things will start gearing up for me next week. 

I'm getting ready for a kitchen remodel, so there's going to be all kinds of craziness around here. The kitchen is the last thing we need to update in our 1960's fixer-upper, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. Then we can start on the outside (like the driveway, which is in desperate need of a re-paving!) If you're interested, I'm starting Thursday updates on my Life in a Small Town Blog. 

This is what my kitchen looks like right now. See all the crap junk on the countertops? I can't wait until I have a place to put all of that!

--- 3---

Hulu/Netflix binging. So far this week, I've caught up on Designated Survivor, Sherlock, and The Last Kingdom. If you like Vikings, then you'll enjoy The Last Kingdom. I think it's one of the best shows out there that people don't know about. Another one is Underground. My husband & I started watching Season 2 the other night. If the Underground Railroad is an interest of yours, you'll enjoy this series, too. It airs on WGN, but, since we don't have cable, we watch it through Hulu. There are no bad actors on this show. Definitely one to put on your watchlist!

--- 4 ---

Read. I am in the middle of several books: 
The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood): I finished this the other day. Weird. Would not recommend.
Resisting Happiness (Matthew Kelly): How could I not recommend a book from Matthew Kelly? This has me thinking about how much I really do resist doing things. It's also getting me off of my rear to do things I should be doing.
Getting Past Perfect (Kate Wicker): This is a Catholic Mom's read. Even though the author has children at home and I don't, I'm enjoying this book. It's helping me to realize that it's okay that I wasn't a perfect mom when the boys were home.
The Shack (Wm. Paul Young): I started this a few months ago and put it down. I just didn't have time. I'll pick it up when I finish the 2 listed above.
Plan Cee (Hilary Grossman): This is a sequel to Plan Bee. She has also written Dangled Carat. If you're looking for some good beach reads, check these out.

--- 5 ---

Writing. I have several (ahem) blogs: a personal blog, a professional blog, a camping blog (that is supposed to be a combined effort, but I can't get my husband to write a post!), and this one. I haven't had time to write; there have been other things taking precedent. Oh, but summers are for writing!

I prefer to go outside on the porch with my laptop, but there are days when I need to be inside.

--- 6 ---

Dust off my camera. I could spend hours on my porch watching these little ones:

I love watching these little territorial birds flying around, chasing each other.

It always takes me a while to get that perfect setting, but once I do, I click like crazy! There's no telling how many pictures of birds, rabbits, and squirrels I have! The past couple of years, we had some birds visit who didn't realize they weren't small hummingbirds.

I haven't seen any of these guys around yet.

--- 7 ---

Travel. I have the travel bug. Unfortunately, there won't be much of that this summer (see #2). I do, however, get to take my first trip to New Orleans. The bad news is that it's for a conference. The good news is that I won free registration at our state conference. More good news is that I'll get to spend a day or 2 with 1 of my sons. The bad news is that it's in July...with the heat and humidity. NOLA in July, y'all. I'll be thanking God every minute of the day for air conditioning! 

That's my list of summer plans. Even though I'm swearing off speech things, I do have that conference to attend, and the Friday after I get back I have another professional-related inservice to attend. I may write a blog post or 2 on my professional blog, if the spirit moves me! June is my month off; in July I start gearing back up for another year. 
How does this compare to your summer?

Make it a Routine...not a Rote Thing

In my last post, I mentioned that I had fallen off the prayer wagon during vacation. I maybe read the daily reading once and made some quick notes. I don't think I said my daily prayers at all. I could tell, toward the end of the trip, old feelings coming back. The feelings of jealousy, and righteousness. It's so easy to stay in the routine when you're able to stay in your little bubble, but life is meant to live. Unless you're called to religious life, it's impossible to stay there in your safe little bubble.

I jumped back into my routine today; I gave myself a few days to try to slide into it by going to daily mass. I relied on my dogs to wake me up in time; they're fantastic alarm clocks, but they require a routine as well. When that routine is messed up, they're not so reliable. I barely made it in time for the Rosary before Mass on Monday & Tuesday; Wednesday the dogs decided to sleep in a bit so I rolled in just after the opening prayer. My dad sits in the 2nd pew, so everybody knew I was late. One lady asked me if I got caught in traffic, but I had to 'fess up and tell her that I lived in the other direction from church and just overslept. 

Today's reading (Jer 2:1-3,7-8, 12-13)seemed to really reach out and grab me. When I'm "feeling" it, it's like I'm in a honeymoon; I can't get enough of  God and His word. This I hit "dry periods". It's hard to get back in the swing of things like daily prayer & reading/reflecting. 

I picked up A Catholic Woman's Book of Days (Amy Welborn) this morning after I said morning prayers and read the readings. It was a total fluke; I've only picked up the book once since I bought it at the end of May. I turned to today, and was astonished at what it said. The topic was having rituals/routines, and applying that to your prayer life. In the last paragraph Mrs. Welborn says,

...For me at least, setting my prayer times and settling into ancient ritual keeps me on the right course, even when my feelings tempt me to skip prayer for today. More important, the tried and tested habits of old give me a safe place from which to enter into the mystery.

Whoa! That's exactly the way I feel. Isn't it amazing when God gives you just what you need to hear, whether it's to help you out or for affirmation? 

Make prayer a routine , not a rote thing!

{SQT} Summer Plans

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum  for Seven Quick Takes.

1) It's not taken me long to get into a summer routine. Now that my parish offers a noon Mass on Tuesday/Thursday, I can sleep in a bit on those days. And if you believe that, I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you. I have these 2 dogs that will get me up at the same time every day...they're better than an alarm clock!

I do like going to Daily Mass in the summer. Getting there early to say the Rosary with my dad is one memory I'll be able to hold on when he's not here any longer. This morning, it was just the 2 of us reciting the Rosary for a couple of decades before some more people came in. It was really, really nice.

2) Reading. I read a lot in the summer. I've already read a few books so far. I'm trying to read 1 Catholic Book for every "regular" book I read. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears!

3) Netflix. Seriously. Teachers/school employees will act like they're kidding about binge-watching Netflix, but they aren't kidding. At.All. Even though I've been pretty good about keeping my tv off, I've managed to watch the first season of a couple of shows so far. 

4) Cleaning. Ugh. Forget about spring cleaning; this is the time of year I get my house back in order. I clean/organize closets, the pantry, the refrigerator...you get the idea. I hope to have our bedroom painted in the next couple of weeks.

5) Believe it or not, school employees still work during the summer, even though we aren't getting paid. There is a teacher website where teachers can make materials and put it online to be sold. Kind of like an etsy for teachers. I've already put a new item in my store & am working on another. I took last week off, but now I'm back to working on that. 

6) CEUs. In my school system, we have to have so many hours of professional development on our own so we can have a couple of extra days off during the school year. I like to do mine online so I can do them when I want to.

7) Relaxing. Down-time is a must. We all need to get away from our hectic lives every now and then. Relaxing for me is doing all of the above, taking it slow, and doing what I want to do. 

1 more thing...this morning, I read/heard 3 different people mention how seeing the Sacred Heart of Jesus frightened them, and 2 of them were priests. I don't remember ever being scared of seeing the statue or icon. Funny how we have different reactions to things!

So...does this sound like your summer?