And Jeff, the Catholic Foodie Extraordinaire, has a new site! And look! There’s a whole section devoted to Mary in the Kitchen! Check it out!
Tech Talk Tuesdays & From the Kitchen
October 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
At CatholicMom.com, I’m doing a weekly feature called “Tech Talk Tuesdays.” This week, I’m sharing my favorite rosary apps. I’d love to hear about yours in the comments…join me there!
Is “funner” a word? It is to me!
July 17, 2011 By 2 Comments
I keep hearing “funner” around my house, and it’s usually in relation to the great new Berenstain Bear apps that have caused my iPad to be in high demand.
I even used “funner” in my latest column at CatholicMom.com, where I’m reviewing Berenstain Bear apps and even giving TEN of them away!
Go over and read it and enter to win!
My iPad Prayer Book
May 27, 2011 By 1 Comment
In my column this week over at CatholicMom.com, I share my favorite part of my iPad, that it’s my all-in-one prayer resource center. Come on over and share your favorites!
Also, if you were listening in this morning on the Son Rise Morning Show, we were talking about last week’s column, “The Myth of Converts as Better Catholics.” It is a myth, in part because I believe we are all converts. I’ll update as soon as I have a link to the archive of today’s show (the archive page is here).
Divinely App-ed
February 17, 2011 By 3 Comments
My prayer during Advent was very much enriched by my “borrowing” of my husband’s iPod Touch and downloading the Divine Office app. Now that I have an iPad, Divine Office remains my favorite app (and that’s going up against the six-year-old’s book app and my own new fascination with electronic reading!).
There’s really nothing like a major life change (i.e. birth of a baby) to throw my prayer life into a tailspin. Thanks to this app, though (and the iRosary app, which I used to help me pray my morning rosary), I was able to keep some semblance of a prayer routine.
I have long enjoyed praying aspects of the Office, whether Morning or Evening Prayer or, for a stretch of Lent, Night Prayer. There seems to be something for every season of my life, for the times that can best expand to hold prayer.
With Divine Office, I can either read or listen…or both, at the same time. For a mom-weary brain, this is gold.
Then there’s the content, which the Divine Office folks don’t control, but they do enrich with the loveliness of their production. I have the book of Christian Prayer, which is the shorter form of the liturgy of the hours, and I have enjoyed using it. Right now, in this nursing/hands-full-with-other-children/pray-as-I-go season of my life, though, the Divine Office app meets me where I am.
The beauty of praying the ancient prayer of the Church from the middle of my life is made possible — and even more relevant — thanks to the fine folks at Divine Office. I hear it’s also available for the Droid now and also through the new Mac app store.
You deserve this app, if you have the device for it. And if you don’t, why not visit their website and use the resources there? They’re free and always available. There’s also a podcast, also free.
With the words of the Psalms, I find myself immersed and closer to God. It’s a beautiful thing. You deserve to experience it. What are you waiting for?
(I was not paid or compensated for this review. I just really love this product and wanted to share about it.)
The Miscellany of Quick Takes
December 17, 2010 By 5 Comments
1. Snow, snow, and more snow.
It has been a cold, white December. My newly-moved-from-Louisiana nieces are LOOOVING the combination of snow and school delays/cancellations. Snow is still a novelty to them. I’ll document their reaction to it come February. 
2. A new person in the house.
So we have a new person in the house. And he is cute. And laid back (a trait he surely gets from his father, as I have not a laid back gene in my body). And…an adjustment. So far, so good. Yes, we have our challenges, but nothing I’m going to document here just yet.
3. Um, oops.
Advent? What’s THAT?
Or that’s how it feels to me this year. I ended up putting away the Advent wreath that my sister-in-law so thoughtfully got out for me while I was in the hospital with the baby. It had gone two-and-a-half weeks with no candles, and I didn’t know where to find the new candles, AND I knew better. There was just no way we were going to use it.
So. Our Advent, it seems, is about the baby this year.
But I guess that’s as it should be, and maybe not as far off-track as I think. Advent is, after all, about preparing for a Baby…
4. Whatcha reading?
I have a review pile of books about a mile high and I’m working my way through two different books right now. And…I feel compelled to ask what YOU are reading, because…well, nothing’s really shakin’ in my reading life, ya know? I’ll finish the two I’m working on (one’s a middle grade and the other’s YA, so if I buckle down, it won’t be hard), and then I’m reading something *I* want to read. Got any suggestions? I’m leaning toward Neeta Lyffe, though I only have that electronically, and unless he lets me take ownership of his iPad for a long weekend, I will need something non-electronic too.
5. I love his iPod Touch.
In fact, I don’t know if he’ll get it back. I “borrowed” it while I was in the hospital with the baby, and I’ve kept it. In my defense, I “need” it! My life is now structured around apps that keep lists, remind me that the baby needs to eat (don’t judge me; it’s either an app or a notebook, because, no matter how “experienced” I am as a mom, the fact remains that I just will. not. remember. on my own.). I have been using Divine Office and iRosary and without them, I’m not sure what kind of prayer life I would (or, more likely, wouldn’t) have.
6. But it’s NOT for reading.
The two big faults of the iPod Touch, as I see them:
1. There is no arrow pad on any of the keyboard screens, so getting back to the word that you misspelled in the email reply is nearly impossible.
2. As an e-reader (at least, of PDFs), it gets a C. The screen is just too small for me. With non-PDF files, I am not nearly so annoyed. But when I get manuscripts, they’re usually in PDF or Word format, and…well…90% of the reason I want an e-reader has to do with manuscripts.
7. Because you KNOW you wanted this.
(And if you didn’t, just keep quiet about it.)
Our lovely hostess, Jen at Conversion Diary, has more Quick Takes.
Odds n Ends
January 22, 2010 By 3 Comments
1: A thought for today
“A most important means of acquiring interior mildness is to accustom ourselves to perform all our actions and to speak all our words, whether important or not, quietly and gently. Multiply these acts as much as you can in the time of tranquility, and so you will accustom your heart to gentleness.”
St. Francis de Sales, A Year with the Saints (from today’s Mary Vitamin)
2: Keeping an eye on Joseph
Next week, come barking preschoolers or creamless coffee, I will share my thoughts about a phenomenal book that I can’t wait to reread, Go to Joseph, by Fr. Richard Gilsdorf. I couldn’t put it down, and it made me feel such a conviction — dare I call it a “call”? — to write about Joseph, to read more about Joseph, to deepen my devotion to a saint who has long been a favorite of mine.
3: The Twitter Conundrum
To post my tweets as daily updates here on the blog or not? It was annoying, at least to me as I puttered around on the back end of things, and so I stopped posting them and decided to try a weekly update. I bring it up here in case anyone has any great ideas for this sort of thing. There are a few people (ahem, the grandparents, for one!) who don’t read my Twitter or Facebook. Arguably, they’re not missing much. I put them back into the sidebar, but…but…that part of me that wants everything organized and tucked into one place protests. Your thoughts? (Am I over-thinking? Yes, I probably am.)
4: I can’t make this stuff up (a sampling of tweets)
- 5yo to me: “Watch out! [2yo] is going to act sick so she can ride in an ambliance.” (“Ambliance” ride a few weeks ago made an impact!)
- Wait a minute! You mean it’s NOT normal to have ketchup (only ketchup) for breakfast? My kids DO NOT know this.
- The past month’s stress melts away in the warm breath of a pony and the squealing giggles of my girls.
5: The Tolkien Professor
If you’re a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, then you should check out The Tolkien Professor, a podcast that is, in a word, AMAZING. It’s done by Professor Corey Olsen, a tenure-track professor in the English Department of Washington College, where he teaches courses on Chaucer, courtly love, Arthurian literature, the Bible, Greco-Roman mythology, and a full-semester course on the works of Tolkien. It’s well-done in terms of audio quality and the content is both easy to listen to and thought-provoking. I’m still at the very early beginning of the series, but this is completely worth downloading all the way back to the beginning.
6: My introduction to texting
When my 12-year-old niece Ree was here last week (was it only last week?), we found out that we both have texting. She has unlimited texting; I do not. (But she could be the reason I invest in it.) Since she’s gone home, we’ve texted every day.
In the past, I’ve always been annoyed by texting. In the last week, I have realized that I was just approaching it wrong. Texting with Ree has been fun. My goal: to make her really laugh out loud.
(A rant about the overuse and abuse of LOL as a substitution for “uh huh” in the English lexicon will be forthcoming, be warned!)
I love how I can send her a little message — one she gets pretty immediately — to let her know that I love her, to share a thought (yesterday: “Scientists assert that wasps are useful. I disagree.”), to let her know in real time (without the investment of a phone call, where she’d just stay silent anyway) that I’m thinking of her.
This morning, I woke up to a goodnight text from her. It made my day.
7: TWO giveaways of some of my favorite books
Regina Doman’s Fairy Tale Novels are some of my favorite books. I do not say that lightly. Here’s your chance to own them…TWO chances. At CatholicMom.com, we’re giving away one each of the four books to four winners. At Faith & Family Live, we’re giving away three complete sets to three winners. So go. Enter. And please add the family to your prayer intentions. These giveaways are inspired by a desire to help raise awareness for the family.
You’ll find the full collection of Quick Takes over at Conversion Diary.
Here at Snoring Scholar, you'll find marriage and motherhood, book talk and rambling remarks, observations and distractions, in the midst of life in rural Ohio on a farm, with kids, critters, and Catholic flair.
Catholic Family Fun: A Guide for the Adventurous, Overwhelmed, Creative, or Clueless is now available for ordering! 
