And the Patron Saint for 2014 Is...

St. Raphael the Archangel

Y'all chosen St. Raphael the Archangel as this blog's patron for 2014... as well as the saint some of you apparently want me to pray for when y'all have prayer requests. Interesting. ;) Thank y'all for your votes. I hope that St. Raphael the Archangel will help bring us all closer to God in the upcoming year.

And if you're wondering how the votes ended up being distributed, this was the final result:

Now, if y'all will excuse me... I have two days (today and tomorrow) to do my annual clean-a-thon; I lost yesterday because I was sick in bed. Seriously, I slept 19 hours and couldn't even keep water down for the first 16 hours of the day. Please pray that the worse is behind me. :)

I shall be back tomorrow for my annual end of year post. ;)

As always, thanks for reading and God bless. :D

7 Quick Takes Vol. 12: Blog Anniversary Edition

-- 1 --

As many of you know, Christmas Day is also this blog's anniversary. However, I don't think my blogging anniversary is bigger than the reason for the season (Happy Birthday, Jesus!) so I didn't mention it on the post I wrote that day. Anyway, this year marked the 6th anniversary of this blog (it was created before midnight, on the 25th). Crazy. Even crazier to think about how much I've grown in the past 6 years... and how I've blogged for the majority of my 20s. I wonder how many more years I can keep it up...

-- 2 --

Some of you who read Monday's blog post have been wondering if I went through with wearing a mantilla to Christmas Mass (I have been asked since the day of) and the answer is: YES! It felt so good to not only attend Mass (haven't gone the past years due to illness or transportation issues) but to also wear the mantilla. I felt a bit self-conscious at first (due to previous experience) but, thankfully, the parishioners where I attend Mass are so lovely that I felt at peace. In fact, I saw two other veiling ladies (a mother and her young daughter) and another mother said to her little girls "oh, look! she's veiling!" in a manner that made me feel really nice. Also, who knew mantillas were such guy magnets? I'm talking to you, dude who kept looking at me throughout Mass a few pews in front of me. 'Sup? lol.

-- 3 --

This Christmas marked the 5th one we celebrated without my father (he died in mid 2009). Though it was hard, it was the first time that we weren't sad little pandas. Of course we still feel his death but we can now look back (and talk about him) in a way that celebrates his life instead of mourning his passing. I'm calling it a Christmas Day miracle.

-- 4 --

Is it weird that I was kind of bummed that I couldn't do a What I Learned Wednesday post this week? Yep. I won't be able to next Wednesday either as it's New Year's Day and I try to save those days for other things. I have a lot of awesome things to share but I must wait a couple of days. You'll see the post eventually... and you'll see why I felt like a kid on Christmas when I learned something about the faith (on my own!) that I had confirmed as true. ;)

-- 5 --

I finally got through the novena of this blog's patron saint for 2013, Mary, Undoer of Knots. I finished it (and two others) on Christmas Eve. It was a hard one to get through. I basically had something go wrong on almost every single day that I did the novena. It was like a mini-version of the 54 Day Rosary Novena in which everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. I'm proud of myself for sticking it out though I was tempted to stop a couple of times. Seriously, I almost stopped on the last day as I felt faint, I was sweating cold, and I felt like my anxiety was out of control while I prayed it in front of the tabernacle. Still, I stuck it out and I would do it again... and most likely will.

-- 6 --

Friendly reminder that it's STILL CHRISTMAS. Yes, I had to bold and capitalize it. I know that (in Los Angeles) KOST 103.5 stopped playing music yesterday but it's still Christmas time for us Catholics. Christmas doesn't end (at least not liturgically) until the Octave of the Epiphany (the Baptism of the Lord) but it will continue being Christmastide until Candlemas. Who's up for celebrating until February 2nd? lol.

-- 7 --

And here's one of my favorite works of art of baby Jesus, found of tumblr. I wish I could frame this. If anyone knows who the original artist is, let me know!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Anyway, I'm starting my annual clean-a-thon super late this year (today!) and I have less than 5 days to finish so... I need to go get started like right now. ;)

I hope y'all had a lovely Christmas Day. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! :D

7 Quick Takes #4

I haven't done one of these since December. I did promise a blog post so here we go. :D

--- 1 ---

I finished Spring Cleaning today. It took me two (almost three) weeks to finish since I went through the entire house (every corner). Goodness gracious. I think I threw away about half of my filed papers and about a third of the other things I'd accumulated over the years. I am not big on clutter so it was wonderful to see it all go. Now I can relax, work on my novel (hey, it's the only free time I'll have), and count down 'til Thursday. :D

--- 2 ---

Oh, if you hadn't heard, I have made my decision over the possible name change... and I'm going to keep it for many reasons. Yes, I'm still headed to grad school to become a Speech-Language Pathologist but I'm still going to write... and I want to have some control over what content is published under "nerdwriter" and "catholicnerdwriter". I wouldn't want anyone scooping up the name and then creating illicit content, posing as me. I've seen it happen before.

--- 3 ---

I've noticed that, since I went on vacation, I've slipped back into my social media (mostly Twitter and instagram) addiction. Well, I don't know if addiction is the right word but it'll have to do for now. I was doing so well, taking time offline, and I didn't even consider what would happen if I didn't keep my schedule away from social network. Le sigh. I'm going to try to fix that during my last week of vacation.

--- 4 ---

Wedding month is about to wrap up for my lovely gal friends. Emily got married earlier this month and Clare got married last Saturday. Both were beautiful brides. And to round out the month, two more #CathSorority gals (Trista and Elizabeth) are getting married this weekend. Please join me in praying for all of them and their new husbands. :D

--- 5 ---

One more thing I'm excited for: my birthday next Thursday! I had one of the worst years (starting with my birthday misadventure) and it all went downhill from there. It was just a bad, bad year. I don't care that I'm that much closer to 30. Bring on 28 and the new, exciting things it will bring (including start of new career)! :D

--- 6 ---

This Catholic New Agency article on the American seminarians winning the Clericus Cup reminds me that I still need to post part two of my Catholicism and Soccer post. I hope to get to it soon. So many ideas, so little time.

--- 7 ---

Finally, as I wait for my birthday present from Frassati USA to arrive, I'm gong to melt over this picture of Bl. Pier Giorgio as a baby. How incredibly cute was he?! Those cheeks! I still have to write reviews on a couple of this books too. ;)

That's it for now. I want to go enjoy waffles or sugary cereal to celebrate the end of the Spring Clean-a-thon. I would've baked something but I'm too plumb tired. Don't worry, I won't be gluttonous (which, reminder, is a deadly sin). ;)

Hope y'all have a great weekend. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God bless.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Saying Goodbye to "Catholic Nerd Writer"?

As many of you know, I've decided to switch careers from a freelance writer (underpaid, unstable, job that leaves me feeling unfulfilled) to a speech therapist (stable and more fulfilling, especially if I can work with autistic children after grad school). After I made that decision it dawned on me that the title of this blog was "Journey of a Catholic Nerd Writer."

While I will still write (I have a million and one ideas for novels and short stories), my focus for a while will be solely on doing well in grad school and learning as much as I can to help others as a speech therapist. That is, besides trying to better myself and grow as a Catholic. I still plan on blogging and, basically, writing the way I have up to this point; journal-style entries. Still, I feel that maybe it's time to change the title of this blog and possibly Twitter handle. I don't know. I take a long time to think through my ideas/plans. Like I said, I'll still write but my career path has changed and that's okay.

As soon as I save up for it, this blog is going to get a whole new makeover as well. Things are a-changin' and I need to update a lot of things. Have patience with me on the blog posts as well since I'm officially on vacation from now until the first week of June and I won't even be in L.A. for part of it. I may just write posts and have them scheduled for when I can't actually write. Hmm, there's an idea.

Anyway, just wanted to give y'all a heads up on the ideas that are currently bouncing around in my head. I've been the "Catholic Nerd Writer" for 6 years now and it's been a blast but I'm changing. I started this blog when I was 22. Some of the earliest blog posts show just how young I was. I know it's not ladylike to say my age but my mother taught me not to ashamed so I'll just say that the 22 year-old that started this blog that Christmas night in 2007 is a lot different from the soon-to-be 28 year-old that I am now.

There you have it. What do you guys think? Should I stick to the blog title/name and Twitter handle or should I change it to something that will better reflect my new career path? I'm interested in hearing your ideas... and, okay, I'm incredibly indecisive so I am hoping your helpful comments will help sway me one way or another. ;)

That's it for now. I have to go back to tackling the (bigger than I imagined) Spring Clean-a-thon. Seriously, if any of you stopped by and just took a peek into the living room, you'd see the aftermath of Tornado Emmy-Sorts-Through-Everything-She-Owns... and-Leaves-a-Mess.

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! :D

Clean-A-Thon Update

Just a little update to let y'all know that while I am doing the clean-a-thon (which usually goes until the last day of the year) I won't be posting full length posts. Instead, I am going to be writing little blurbs of random thoughts. The end of year review WILL be posted in full length since I wrote it a week ago. I plan ahead. ;)

Please say a little prayer for me as my father was a hoarder (no, seriously... you should see his old room) and I am feeling under the weather and have to do most of the cleaning myself while my mom works. Thanks in advance. :D

Online "Spring" Cleaning and Catholic New Media

If you're following me on Twitter then you saw my "tweet" about going through my list of nearly 500 people and trying to "clean" it so that I would only be following those I actually communicated with or those whose posts I follow regardless. At this point, I have less than 300, which is huge for me. I am not done yet and would like my list to be closer to the 200 mark. Part of the reason for this is that I felt bombarded with information that seemed superficial. Twitter, which I originally joined to keep in touch with friends who weren't on Facebook or who were too busy to email long messages, has become more and more impersonal. The data overload was making me feel disconnected from people, not to mention I was missing a lot of important information some of my closest friends were posting because they were buried in between posts that I wasn't interested in. It's been a long time coming and I'm glad I finally got the bulk of it done.

I'm current going through some major online "spring" cleaning. Taking a cue from Dan and Dustin, I've decided to make my life online just a little easier. They've bravely deleted their Facebook account but I think I would have a hard time doing that since I keep in touch with family and friends when I'm too busy to email. I am, however, going to delete a lot of information and photos that are unnecessary. We have so much information overload every time we get online, and much of the time it's information that is irrelevant or damaging to us as Catholics, and I'm tired of it. As my free time has now become precious due to the insane amount of homework the professors have assigned to us this semester, I need to have my priorities in order and I want to keep my friendships intact and the only way this can happen is with the "spring" cleaning.

I was able to step back and see how much time I was wasting online when I could be doing other productive things. Since the semester started mid/late August, I've spent more time playing games, taking quizzes, looking at sites like eOnline... and none of it was contributing to making me a better person. On the contrary, it's sites like eonline (which I like to read for movie news) that were actually hurting me. Is it really necessary to read who's being cast in what movie, what these so-called celebrities were doing on their off-time, and spoilers to shows I don't even watch? Not at all! Slowly I realized that I would often skim stories of celebrities that were gossip... and I hate gossip! I have a "no gossip policy" that I enforce: I don't gossip about people and don't like to listen to gossip, even if it's about me. It somehow didn't click that by my skimming these articles I was partaking in what I didn't like. *facepalm* Those were the first things I cut out when I started my "spring" cleaning (and since I'd only recently started reading them it hadn't become a bad habit.) The games were easier to cut out because I only like playing the games that take a couple of minutes to finish (i.e. puzzles). I still occasionally do quizzes on Blogpost but it's because it only takes a couple of seconds and I can do them after I am done with what's more important.

I've begun substituting a lot of what I browsed online with what has been dubbed "Catholic New Media." I've been keeping up with it since I returned to the Faith 4 years ago but I'd sort of put all the podcasts I once listened to (i.e. The Break with Fr. Roderick) on hold once I went back to school. Not only that, I haven't been keeping up with the numerous blogs and websites that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I'd gone into full on academic mode and had shut out anything that wasn't school related. Well, everything except the sites I previously mentioned. It was a BIG mistake to this. I missed a lot of great articles and blog posts that would've helped me, both spiritually and mentally. In light of everything that's happened at school, in my classes with my professors, I think it's important that I begin to use the vast online resources we Catholics have. I've gotten to the point where I know how to handle my classes and professors so I am having a lot more free time and I'm also stressing out less. Now that I've gotten the courage to speak up and defend our faith (in the majority of my classes), I have time to do research and to fully immerse myself in what is true so that I can combat whatever heresies my professors unleashed on us. There have been times I've felt I haven't been able to defend something properly and that's both infuriating and sad. (side note: I still can't defend anything in one class because the professor won't allow us but at least there's a growing support group amongst us conservatives.) I don't know whether it's my utter detestation of what we're "learning" at my school or Our Lady answering my petitions during the 54 day Rosary (I'm on day 34)... or a combination of the two things... but I'm definitely making some major changes in my online life (as well as my personal life).

Before I end this post, I was wondering if y'all can help me out on something. As I've previously mentioned, I started this blog to give y'all an insight on the life of a Catholic revert. I'm still learning (there's so much I have to learn and so much I will not get a chance to get to despite how long I may live) so that is why I keep posting. Since I have a huge mountain (school) I'm slowly climbing, I was wondering if it would be too repetitive for me to write about what's going on with that. Of course not a day goes by that at least one heretical utterance is said at that school but I've been thinking about writing about my progress at that school once a week, like on Fridays. I want to try to not complain about what's going on (although, the complaints are not actual complaints; I write them because of my amusement by what's "taught") but maybe just write about my progress with what's going on and how I'm handling my time there. I just wanted to see what y'all thought because I don't want to become repetitive with what I write. :) I hope that, if I do these weekly updates, it'll be a positive contribution to the evangelization we Catholics are doing online.

I actually want to get some "spring" cleaning done in my "offline" life (y'all should see my poor desk) so I will end this post here. I hope to post some back posts tomorrow and this weekend since I have a 4-day break from school.

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless.

Darn Anxiety!; Clean-a-Thon '08

This darn anxiety's been bugging me lately. In the past couple of days, it's gotten worse. I've had my first blown attack in months. I didn't even make it through Mass today because of how bad my anxiety was. The important thing is that I tried. I went to Mass, mid-panic attack, because I was determined to be there... even if I was there only a minute or two. I toughed it out only 15 minutes when I felt very lightheaded and like I was about to faint. Bah. :( As I told a friend of mine, earlier in the day, I just have to look at this as a little trial God's placed before me that will only make me a stronger person once it's over. I had so many things planned today and they'll have to take a backseat to this darn anxiety until I get better. I will... eventually. :D I kept saying that I would endure my anxiety for souls in purgatory. It's my suffering and I'll offer it as I wish. lol. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few things done tomorrow morning-afternoon, while I still can. I have the big clean-a-thon to do tomorrow through Wednesday.

Ah, yes... the clean-a-thon. I do this every year between the 27th and the 31st. I go through every single thing I own and throw away, file, or donate things I no longer need/want. I do it all by myself. It's a tradition I started in my late teens. There hasn't been a year I haven't done it. Last year I got through it very slowly because of my anxiety and lack of strength (had to have my dad move my heavy wooden desk for me). Despite the darn anxiety, I feel better than I did around this time last year so hopefully I'll get it done in two days. :D

That's it for now. Very short, eh? Yes, well, unfortunately, I'm very tired. It's still early but the Seven Blossoms tea I drank for my anxiety always has this effect on me. Yes, the Seven Blossoms tea is good for anxiety. Haven't had any since I drank it. I am, however, sleepy. So yeah. :D If you don't get a post from me until the 31st, it's because I'll be busy with the clean-a-thon. Hopefully I'll get done pretty quickly... and that I am able to do a special I have planned for this blog. :D

Oh, and a quick prayer request, if y'all can please pray for me. I've been feeling pretty crummy lately. That and my fingernails have started turning a purple-ish/blue color which is apparently lack of oxygen or something equally scary. I won't be able to see the doctor for another month so... please pray that it gets better and goes away or that I have the strength to wait until the end of January to have it looked at. Thanks. :D

Hope everyone had a great weekend. :D 'Til next time, thank you for reading and God Bless. :D