Just One Small Thing Podcast for Catholic Parents

I suspect that it is a nearly UNIVERSAL problem faced by new mothers: when do I find time to pray? Many of us had pretty good prayer lives before that first baby arrived. We had a routine and a set time that we prayed. Perhaps we had adoration hours or a nightly routine that involved prayer. And, if you are like me, you had no idea that having a baby would change everything, including prayer. But...

December 31st was the feast of the Holy Family. I love this feast day, and to celebrate I posted a picture of my own family on my Facebook page. The picture was one we took just 4 days before our little Max, whom I had carried in my womb for 20 weeks, flew to heaven, so it really was a picture of our whole family. But, to really celebrate I asked my entire community to post a picture of their Holy...

First of all, Happy New year, and feast of Mary, Mother of God! I love New Years and an opportunity for a fresh start.  A chance to evaluate the previous year and look ahead the the year on the way. Because of this I'm really into goals. Are you? I have given a lot of thought to my 2018 goals. I set goals for all parts of my life and in this new episode I share some of my major goals for the comin...

Hey friends! I have a beautiful, challenging and inspiring new podcast episode to share with you today.  Stephanie, a wonderful podcast listener emailed me with a RADICAL idea for a podcast episode: Praying the Rosary with your Husband.  Daily. My husband and I are definitely not getting in a rosary together right now so I was super interested in what Stephanie had to share--and I wanted to knot i...

Today's episode is all about gratitude.  Yes, gratitude, even though we are now on the other side of Thanksgiving.   I had originally recorded an episode on gratitude shortly before thanksgiving...but I forgot to save it and the episode was lost.  You'd think I'd know better by now.  Nope!  I thought perhaps it might not be worth it to rerecord on this topic after Thanksgiving, but that's just sil...

A few days ago I wasn't sure I would be publishing another post...or recording another podcast episode.  As you maybe already know, we lost our little Maximilian on Thanksgiving day, whom I had carried in my womb for 20 weeks.  Loosing a baby at 20 weeks is hard both physically and emotionally, and the week after we lost the baby was really dark. Things were made just a bit worse because one week...

It often feels like I am on an endless (and fruitless) quest to make my life at home raising kids just a little bit better.  Maybe if we stayed home more...or went out more...or had better toys, or fewer toys. This sort of searching leads to an awful restlessness and discontentedness.   For this very reason I was given so much peace by this simple idea shared in my woman's Bible Study: This Side o...

Housework is an unavoidable part of many of our days.  It is something we dread, and put off and force ourselves to just get through. But, housework can be much more than that. Housework is a call to and opportunity for Holiness. Although I struggle with this as well, I worked hard to research and pray about this topic and I have come up with 3 points to consider when it comes to housework and hol...

I love a good story of hope, healing and mercy.  Thanks be to our good and gracious God, our faith is filled with them, but the message of continued hope and the redemptive power of suffering never gets old.  For this very reason I loved the interview I did with Jennifer Ringwald of Mercy Every Morning .  Jennifer agreed to join me for episode 19 of the Just One Small Thing Podcast, and in this ep...

The talented Genie from Barefoot Abbey ( https://barefootabbey.wordpress.com/ ) is on the podcast today to share simple, beautiful ways to bring music into your home.   She has many wonderful tips and advice for engaging more in music, but her whole story is beautiful.  Her love of music, her family, her conversion, her choice to homeschool, we cover it all and all of it ties back to music in some...

In this beautiful episode, Christina from the Evangelista ( https://www.theevangelista.com/ ) share on the cross of waiting.  I promise that you will be inspired as Christina shares all she as learned from waiting through her single years, and now waiting for the birth of her son. We all have something that we are waiting for right now, and, especially for women, waiting is HARD!  But, the cross,...

The idea of obedience has haunted me for a few weeks.  Eventually I read everything that Mother Teresa wrote about obedience, and I was not let down.  Much of what I read was written for her community and talked about the role of obedience in religious community life.  However, nearly every point she made could also be perfectly applied to the family and marriage. So that is basically what this we...

No matter the sage of life, there never seems to be enough time or money or energy...and we can quickly become overwhelmed. Here are a few quick tips to deal with the overwhelm you might be feeling, along with a big announcement about what is going on in our lives (and contributing to our overwhelm greatly). Enjoy, and blessings!! Nancy

Taking little kids to mass each week is tough.   And yet, we do it every Sunday and genuinely love it, because kids and babies need to be at mass and as mothers there are ways for us to get more out of mass with a little preparation, correct formation about the mass and some practical tips, which is exactly what I share in this episode.   One of these tips is to prepare for Mass with a Mass Journa...

Today my friend Katie from The Joyful Leap ( https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheJoyfulLeap ) is joining me to talk about so so very many beautiful things, but they all have to do with the support that mothers need. Support from other mothers. Supports from our communities. AND, the support that we have as Catholics.  The support of the saints, of Our Lady and of the sacraments.  It's all about support!...

Today's episode goes out to all the married ladies out there with imperfect marriages...so all of us!   The ideas behind today's episode come from the months of research and prayer and soul-searching I have been doing to create the Catholic Wife's Academy (which will be open for enrollment on August 8th).  And here is the major take away I have to share with you today: To live out our marriages we...

The little way of St. Therese applies so perfectly to the life of mothers.  We live a life of small things are our mission is to do those things with great love. But, how do we actually endeavor on this Little Way? Well, I have some ideas for you.   The little way of St. Therese can be broken down into three steps: Recognize, Trust and Try.  I talk through each of these steps and discuss how the l...

Today Shannon Wendt of www.chewslife.com  joins me to talk about doing BIG things, even when they are scary, even when you don't have everything planned out...and even when you are a homeschooling mom of soon to be 7 little ones. Sometimes you just need to be brave and do it, and through that God can make amazing things happen. Shannon should know!  Listen in to hear how God used 3 back-to-back mi...

We know the truths of the Catholic Church.  We love the truths...and yet it can be so hard to say those truths to the people we love.  Why is that? Today I dive into these issues and talk about why it is so important that we have the courage to say those hard words to the people in our lives.  We need to move beyond causal friendships and seek the good of the other by confronting the sins or ignor...

In this episode my friend Nell ( www.wholeparentingfamily.com ) and I talk all things friendship, focusing especially on the importance of friendship in the mom years. We talk about how having a good mom friend can be essential to the health of your marriage. We talk about our own struggles in making and keeping mom friends. We talk about the difficulties women face in friendships, and how easy it...

The years of having and loosing and avoiding having babies offer us a remarkable opportunity to say YES to the will of God over and over again.  And surrender over and over again.  And work through serious decisions with our spouse. This is the topic of this episode of the Just One Small Thing Podcast.  Since issues of sex and fertility were such a HUGE part of the survey I did of Catholic Men and...

Be warned, this episode is SUPER Catholic! My friend Katie joins me to talk about the transforming nature of the Eucharist.  Our conversation takes us from College to Marriage to Motherhood, all while focusing on the Eucharist. We talk about The Theology of the Body, St. Faustina, The Catholic Wife Academy and little ones receiving 1st communion.  It's all there, along with a quick movie review of...

We dive deep into a very specific topic today: the mental health of new mothers and soon-to-be mothers.  My guest, Emily Reiter, is the mother of 5 little ones and hails from Texas.   After her own struggles, Emily is quite passionate about helping women get mentally healthy after the birth of their children.  To connect with her and help spread this important message, head to Emily's page, Be Lik...

Episode 5 of the Just One Small Thing podcast is all about our desire to control, it's root cause of fear, and our need to surrender. How control damages our marriages.  How our need to control pulls us away from God. So, if you are a control freak like me, listen in.  I talk candidly about many of my struggles with control, tracing all the way back to the days when I was dating my husband.   And,...

In this podcast I speak from my heart to all Married Catholic Women about how love is a choice.  From struggling to really love my husband while he was sick in bed, to dealing with going negative on our husbands, to the difference in the choice to have sex in men and women, I cover it all and really challenge all women to take seriously the choice they made on their wedding day.