Merry Christmas, Everyone! Happy 11th Anniversary, Blog!

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1:14) 

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you've all had (and are still having) a lovely day full of happiness, joy, laughter, and love. 

My mom had the rare Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off from work so we went to Midnight Mass last night. It was our first ever Christmas Midnight Mass (or Midnight Mass, period) and we fell in love with the Latin Mass all over again. It was a High Candlelit Mass and it was the most beautiful and reverent Mass I've ever had the blessing to witness. If ever I needed anything to breathe new life into my spiritual life, this was it. I was already planning on stepping up my Mass attendance to at least 2-3 times a week but now I'm downright giddy with anticipation about the next time I can attend daily Mass at my parish.

Today also marks the 11th (!!!) anniversary of this blog! I know I went M.I.A. for a month but I had a good reason. Basically, I was burnt out. I've been busy with work while running on empty from social media overload. I needed a break from everything and the last 10 days of Advent seemed like the perfect time to take that break. Thankfully, I also got a break from work this week so I'll be able to de-stress even more. Cue a self-care montage of me watching movies, reading books, drinking tea, baking, and silly dancing around my apartment for the rest of the week. lol.

To be completely honest, I was also unsure if I was going to continue this blog. It seems like almost no one reads blogs anymore. After some soul searching, I decided to keep my blog... and severely cut back on my social media usage. The break from writing and social media showed me that I truly missed blogging and that social media brings out the worst in me. Yes, it's wonderful for catching up with friends and all but I saw a very vain, proud, and angry side of me coming out lately and I hated it. I didn't feel like myself. I wasn't sure what was triggering it... until I completely cut social media out of my life. Not only do I feel like myself again, but those horrible traits -- especially anger -- also seem to have virtually disappeared. There is peace in my life and I feel happier and less stressed. I'll keep my accounts to catch up with those who choose to contact me through them and to post newly published articles but I'm done using it as I had for the past couple of years.

I also decided that I'm going to change the format of my posts. They'll be a lot more like the ones I posted when I first started this blog 11 years ago. If you weren't around that long ago, you'll see what I mean. ;)

Anyway, this is just a little update for y'all. 

Yes, the winners of the Magnificat Advent app were notified and given their codes before Advent, even if I didn't post it on here. 

Yes, we were able to do the 54-day Rosary novena (thanks, everyone!), even if I had to schedule the tweets and FB page posts for the last couple of days while I was on a social media break. :) 

Yes, I will be returning to blogging more often... God willing. 

Again, I hope you are all having a wonderful day and that you continue to have a lovely Christmastide season. For those of us who celebrate through February 2nd (Candlemas), let's do this! ;)

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

2018 Magnificat Advent Companion App Giveaway!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the year once again! The awesome folks at Magnificat Magazine have sent me 2 iOS and 2 Android Advent companion apps to give away to the lovely readers of this blog! That's the app, not the physical booklet.

No, I don't get paid for any of this and, no, I don't gain anything out of this. This is simply a giveaway for you faithful readers.

Normally, I'd use Rafflecopter for these giveaways but there was some shady business that happened last time I used them so we're going to do this a bit old school.

Here are the instructions:

1. To enter, leave me a comment on this blog (with a way to contact you if you win), send me a tweet (@MelissaCeciliaG), or leave me a comment on the blog's FB page.
   
2. You can enter once a day from now until November 30th at 8 a.m. PT.
   
3. If you want additional entries, tweet the link to this giveaway (and be sure to include me -- @MelissaCeciliaG -- so I can see the tweet) or share the link from the blog's FB page onto your page (make sure the privacy setting for the shared link is public). I'll give you two additional entries per day (per social media platform) if you do this. That's 4 more entries per day if you share them on both.

That's it.

I'll be putting all the entries in two little jars -- one for the iOS app entries and the other for the Android app entries -- and I'll randomly select the winner in the afternoon of November 30th. I'll even post a video of the process so you guys can see that I did it fair and square.

And, that's it for now. I have two blog posts coming up that aren't giveaway OR article related that I really want to share. I'll schedule those for next week so there's no post overload for y'all. It's been a while since I've shared anything of substance and there are two amazing things that have happened lately that have been too good not to share. 😉

I hope you're all having a lovely Thanksgiving Day weekend!

Don't forget to enter the giveaway by the 30th!

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! 😊

Written Wednesday #6: Favorite Saints and Millennial Debt

Hello, everyone!

I have a deadline to meet in a couple of hours so I will make this a quick post. Don't worry, I hope to have at least two (yes, you read that correctly) more posts by next week... including a giveaway! Intrigued? Stay tuned...

First, there were only two articles published this week: one for EpicPew and another for Verily Magazine, both posted on the same day.

For EpicPew:

• 15 Inspiring Facts About St. Giuseppe Moscati That Will Leave You in Awe (November 20, 2018)
  Pretty self-explanatory; I give you facts about St. Giuseppe Moscati who is one of my favorite saints of all time.

For Verily Magazine:

• In Overcoming Debt, There's Motivation in Numbers (November 20, 2018)
  In this article, I introduce you to the #debtfreecommunity which gives everyone (especially Millennials) in debt some hope and resources to eliminating debt and stay debt-free!

That's it!

I'll give you guys two hints about the giveaway that begins on Friday:

1) It's Advent related

2) It's now become an annual tradition on this blog.

Any guesses? 😉

Okay, now I must get back to my writing frenzy. Three more articles to finish this week and I have my novel to (still) finish editing.

I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving Day weekend! Come back on Friday if you want to enter the giveaway! ;)

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! 😊

Written Wednesday #5: Thursday Edition

Um... oops. I'm a day late but I have a good excuse: I've been busier than usual. I'm actually slightly behind on a couple of things; it's been so crazy hectic.

I'm in currently in a season of life when I have more on my plate than I have time for. God has blessed me with more work but sometimes the work and the deadlines are short notice with an even shorter turnaround time. All of that stresses me out because it messes up my schedule. That's the nature of the freelance work, I'm afraid. I'm learning how to deal with the stress of having to modify plans on such short notice and with a lot on my plate, which I know I'll need to get used to if and when God blesses me with a family.

After helping take care of my father those 7 years between his initial cancer diagnosis and his death, I feel as if God gave me some time to really get to know myself and have a little bit of selfish independence. I was 17 through 24 years old when my father had cancer and a lot of that time was spent helping him, especially towards the end. Then I had a couple of years to focus on degrees and career paths that led me to where I am now. Now I feel like God is preparing me for whatever is coming next. It's exciting... and a bit of work because it means challenges that take me out of my comfort zone and undoing years worth of habits and routines I'd fallen into. I know it's all for the best so I welcome them... and all the naps I can manage to smuggle in on particularly exhausting days. lol.

Because of the lack of time, I dropped the ball reminding people of day 12 of the 54-day Rosary novena (we're on day 15 today!) and now I'm a day late on the blog post. Oh well. The important thing is I'm catching up now so... here we are. Verso l'alto, right?

Although I've been busy with work, only two articles were published this past week. (reminder: I have no say on what is published when but I share what is published during that particular week.)

For EpicPew:

• How to Avoid Being a Victim of Cuffing Season, Catholic Edition (November 14, 2018)

For Verily Magazine:

• Tips to Feel Less Stagnant If You're Single & Longing for Marriage (November 8, 2018)

And that is it for now. I have two new articles I write, a third article to edit, the third novel to edit, and other things to do. I hope to blog about something wonderful that happened the last time I attended a low Mass (I'm attending only Latin Masses nowadays) in the near future. It has a lot to do with what's been going on with me lately. That's all I'm saying! 😉

I hope you're all having a lovely week thus far! 😊

As always, thank you for reading and God bless! 😊

Written Wednesday #4: Cemeteries and Charities

Hello, everyone! This is going to be a quick post because I'm in the middle of a crazy month that's full of work... and NaNoWriMo... and more work... and the third novel deadline coming up in 2 weeks... and other stuff. I have to remind myself that I need to breathe, drink water, and basically practice fundamental self-care. I'm currently in this sort-of stress-cocoon that is not healthy and will make me forget to eat and rest if I get a little too into my writing zone. I'm trying to carve out some non-work reading and lots of prayer time two hours before I drift off to sleep because it's the only way I will not burn myself out.

Anyway, down to business...

There are only two links to share with y'all this week, both from EpicPew:

• Why You Should Visit a Cemetery November 1-8 (November 5, 2018)
• These 4 Catholic Charities Made the Top 100 Largest in the U.S. (November 6, 2018)

I'm not sure when CatholicChemistry and Verily Magazine will post the rest of my articles but I'll keep y'all updated. As far as I know, the third novel publishing date is still set for November 22 (the feast of St. Cecilia!), unless something happens and it needs to be pushed back once again. We shall see.

And that is it. Seriously. I told you I was crazy busy. I hope to blog again by the weekend... if I manage to find the time amidst the chaos. 

Also, if you make a drinking game out of the number of times I wrote "crazy" in this post, please use tea or something that won't get you drunk. Thanks! 😄

I hope you are all doing well.

For those of you doing the 54-day Rosary novena with us, you've got this! We're already a week into it (how?!) and only two days away from being a third of the way done with the first half of the novena. We can do it!

Have a lovely rest of the week!