[00:00:00] hello you guys, what’s up. Welcome back to another episode of Hear and Now podcast. Thank you so much for joining me this week. I am so excited to welcome ms. Kendra. Tierney onto the show. Hi Kendra. Thank you for joining us today. I’m so excited to have the audience hear all about your story and all about the fun things that you do.
So why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about yourself, where you’re from, what you do. Things you want people to know. All right. Well, thank you so much for having me. my name is Kendra Tierney. I, am a wife and mother of 10 kids. I live in Los Angeles, and I write a blog called Catholic all year.com.
And I, have a book that is associated with it and a YouTube channel and social media. And it’s all basically about liturgical living in the home, which, is kinda my favorite. That’s amazing. I can’t believe you have 10 kids. So how, what are the age ranges of all your children? The youngest is [00:01:00] one and the oldest is 18.
and everybody is. So home now because he is having to do his freshman year of college remotely from yeah, from the office upstairs. It’s super bummer. Oh, that’s so sad, but that’s yeah. Crazy and 10 kids. I can’t believe that. So do you homeschooled them all? Not all of them. I have. two that are below a school age, and then I’ve got, four who are in homeschool and then three that are at, a, attend a local Catholic school.
And then one who’s in college. Crazy. Oh my gosh. I can’t even believe it. 10 kids. That’s amazing. So, how about you and your husband? How long ago did you guys meet and how long have you been married? So we, have. So my oldest is 18. We’ve been married 19 years and we, we have known each other for 20. So [00:02:00] we met volunteering at a youth group where I grew up in, in San Diego, these groups that I attended, but we were both back volunteering as young adults and we met and got engaged within.
Like two months of meeting and then married within a year and, and moved and, and, found out we were expecting our first baby and had a baby with us at our first anniversary dinner. And it’s just been a whirlwind ever since. I can’t even imagine. That’s crazy. that’s so great. I was going to say.
What’s it like to homeschool during coven? Was it any sort of adjustment for you guys at all compared to what it was like before? Yeah. So, I mean, there are definitely big, there are definitely things that are different because we, we have a really active, great homeschool group and we’ve got a weekly park day and we, are used to going on field trips [00:03:00] and things like that.
But really, I feel like we were. You know, prepared for this situation and, and, you know, especially having to bring my, my school kids back home. So we had everybody at home and, you know, I work from home with my, with writing and, and making videos and things and, and all of my public speaking is now from the house.
but we really are in. A, an enviable position of my life already being set up for that. I’m used to working in off hours, surrounded by my kids. Our house is set up for it. you know, I, I. Work from home. my husband has been, going to work this whole time. He’s, he works in healthcare and so he has been essential since the beginning.
And, you know, everybody has been saying how well, you know, at least my husband’s home all the time. I can’t say that because he’s been busier than ever with all of this [00:04:00] trying, you know, trying to sort out their response to all of this. And, but really. I like having my, my kids in the home, I really enjoyed sort of the family culture of homeschooling and, and you know, and, and, and being together.
And so it’s, it was a little bit of an adjustment and we really do. So we nest, I miss entertaining a lot. yeah. Because the, the big parties that we’re used to throwing on a really regular basis are still illegal in California. the, the number of people that you’re allowed to have, over that are not in your household is still zero in Los Angeles.
Yeah. yeah, that’s crazy. So it is really crazy. so we really miss that, but, eh, and even when you have 10 kids and you, you know, 12 people that live in your house, your kids will still complain that you don’t, if you don’t invite people over, our liturgical living celebrations have been just. [00:05:00] Us mostly.
but, but again, we’re, we’re set up, we’re set up pretty well for, for this kind of thing. No, a hundred percent. my sisters are homeschooled as well, and I do college from home pre COVID too. So it was my brother that was really affected, but he’s like, I kind of like being home, like it’s really fun. And it’s side.
If I don’t have friends to hang out with and stuff. But that’s crazy. Only zero people allow. Yeah. I love that. But, I was going to say, talk about a liturgical living a little bit more. I love your book, Catholic, all your compendium. Well, what was it like to find all of these fun activities to celebrate such a kind of unknown part of Catholicism for people?
Yeah, absolutely. It really started for, for my husband and I, when. Well, when we, when our oldest kids were little, when we had, you know, maybe two or three kids and they, the oldest old enough that we’re feeling like, all right, well, we want teach the faith to our kids. How do we go about doing that? So even [00:06:00] though, well, my husband and I were both raised Catholic, had all our sacraments, but not with any of sort of, you know, liturgical year, these day celebrations.
It was just, you know, all of our sacraments mass every Sunday. Our families were great about that, but, but that’s sort of where it ended. And so we were feeling inspired as we became parents to look deeper into it. And we knew, Hey, aren’t there supposed to be days that we’re a fast, like I have rosaries, I don’t know how to use them, you know?
And so we, I started listening to. Two podcasts and listening to, you know, and, and reading books and learning more, more about, about the more cultural aspects of Catholicism. And the first thing we started was like, all right, we’re going to do lent, we’re gonna say the rosary. We’re going to, you know, make our kids do all this stuff.
We’re going to give up stuff for, for lent. We’re going to learn how to fast [00:07:00] and. The more I looked into it, the more I realized that, you know, going from lukewarm to, you know, to really strict what’s sort of felt like a natural progression, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t right. That was because it’s not a balanced picture of what our faith really is because the days of fasting are supposed to end seasons of fasting are supposed to lead to seasons of joy and celebration and especially in community.
So as. We looked deeper into these faith traditions. We realized, you know, I have to learn to not just do the fasting and the, you know, sit still and pay attention in mass. Sunday has to also be a day of joy and fun and family time and special meals. And, you know, we have to be able to do less, but we also have to learn how to celebrate Easter.
We have to learn how to do these celebrations and there’s just a whole, these [00:08:00] great, hilarious, fun traditions that some of them yeah. Are thousands of years old. Yeah. And to sort of, to discover this and realize this has always been here for us. And so many of us have never heard of any of it. And it’s just such a fun way to teach the faith and learn about the faith and be inspired and in a, in a joyful, complete kind of way.
Yeah. what have been some of your favorite traditions that you guys have done from your book? Yeah, so. one that we really love and was, was I think the first one that we started the first feast day that we celebrated by inviting a bunch of neighbors over with us was for, Mikel MIS, which is September 29th.
And it’s a, you know, feast of Saint Michael and the other. Also the other archangels now, but, we, we had, I had the idea that we should have a [00:09:00] devil pinata and that we should hit the devil pinata with our wooden swords. And if we try on over him, then you know, you get the sweet reward. Of the candy.
And so that was really the first thing that was like, I’m going to do this weird old, you know, I’m going to celebrate this weird old timey holiday that I’ve read about in Jane Austin books, but I’m going to do it in a very me, like let’s make a homemade devil Kenyatta and invite the neighborhood over kind of way.
and now we’ve done it every year since. I mean, it’s gotta be with the same cardboard box Kenyatta, which must be 12 years old. Now. That’s amazing. That sounds like so much fun. I guess we’ll have to do that this year. I remember for, I think it was st John, the Baptist few stage. You guys do all of your kids participate in the weird, like food kind of traditions like that too.
Yeah, absolutely. So for the feast of Saint John, the Baptist. in, June [00:10:00] 24th, I think. And, but you normally celebrate it on the Eve that that’s, the tradition is to celebrate it on the 23rd with bonfires and, and you gotta have something to eat. And what does st. John the Baptist eat? He eats honey and wild.
Yes. Are crickets. And so you can get crickets are a usually consumed food and a lot of places in the world and then in Mexico. And there’s a lot of Mexican grocery stores near where I live. So they’re pretty easy to come by, but you can also get them on Amazon. And it is so fun to have a bunch of people over and, and dare them to eat crickets so that they can get a honey stick.
gosh, but again, it’s so. We’re learning about the Saint’s life. We’re having important conversations, but we’re also creating these fun memories and, you know, and, and these things that we come back to year after year, and now my kids will totally eat crickets. No problem at all. And it’s not [00:11:00] even like, it’s, it’s not a dare you think anymore.
Now they’re like, Oh yeah, crickets. But we like to invite new people over in shock and horrify them. That’s amazing. That’s so much fun. I was going to say, did your kids participate as you were kind of making this book, did they help along the process of like, Ooh, let’s do something fun like this, or was it all your idea?
Well, a lot of it’s sort of. Like I was explaining with, with Nicole, miss that a lot of times I find these old traditions from different countries in different times, but I always sort of tweak them for what’s going to work for our family and for now. And so my kids have definitely been a big part of, of what’s going to work for us.
And what’s fun. one thing that I as being a Mikel, miss again, the traditional food to eat for MIS is goose. and that’s what they talk about. Like the Mikel, miss goose. And they, my family [00:12:00] basically has insisted, did that. We, not that I not cook a goose for us for michelmas, so I never have, but I did the first time I tried to throw this Mitchellness party, I actually special ordered a goose from the grocery store and it just didn’t never come in.
So they were, there was a great rejoicing and so chicken or. Or game hen instead. but yeah, especially as the kids have gotten older and now we have teenagers and sometimes I’ll be busy on a project or something and they’ll look at the calendar and they’ll say, Hey, isn’t it. You know, say whatever day today, do you have the whatever food it is like, Oh, no, I don’t.
But now I’ve got kids who can go to the grocery store and pick stuff up and. I have a couple kids who are just as in to, you know, party planning and, and cooking as I am. And so they’ll sometimes take over the whole thing, which is really great because it allows them. [00:13:00] Even as, as teenagers to, to still want to be involved.
Cause they, they want to share these things with the littler kids. Absolutely. Yeah, no, I was going to say the same thing that it just seems so much fun to like, look, Oh my gosh, there’s such a special feast day to day. Like what can we do? And even for like the smaller ones that are not as well known, I thought that would be so much fun.
so was there a lot of research that you had to, we have. Oh, yeah, a ton of, well, let me jump back for a second. Say that. I talked in the book about, you know, the, the moral, complicated things, the more traditional things, the things that, that have been celebrated, particular foods that have been eaten, in honor of the, particular same stays, but we don’t always know do it like that.
I have a standing rule that we only eat dessert on feast day. So whether or not. It’s a feast that I was planning something for. If the kids want to look into the life of the Saint and give a little Saint [00:14:00] report at dinner, then we’re allowed to have dessert. So they do, they take me up on that one sometimes, especially if they, you know, if there’s a dessert they want, but yeah, it took a lot of research.
It was, and it took years to, To, to finish writing that book. And, and then of course, you know, as soon as I submitted the manuscript, I’d find out about, you know, three new, coolest things. Oh. but you know, I feel like it’s a, it’s a pretty good overview, as it is. And the nice thing is that, you know, there’s no one right way to do it.
And, and that you can definitely just sort of tweak whatever your. Family traditions are to sort of go with, with whatever, if he stay is. And it’s, you know, we, we tend to not go out. We, we don’t eat out a lot. We more eat home, but you know, if you do eat out, there’s no reason you couldn’t go to a Mexican restaurant for the feast of the Mexican martyrs.
[00:15:00] And, you know, it’s just, it’s about starting the conversation and, and learning about. about the lives of the saints and these, events in the lives of the Holy family and the early church that, that the, that the church civically puts on the calendar so that we will learn about them. So that we’ll have this, you know, shared knowledge about, about.
The saints and about the early church and, and that we can be inspired by those things in our lives today. Yeah, absolutely. one of the things that I love the most about the saints is how inspiring and so much. Like they just offer so much, I guess of a model for us as things that they’ve done in the past, but they’re also human too.
And so we can know that it’s okay to make mistakes and that they still end up in heaven and the right place in the end. Anyway. so what was the wildest, I guess, tradition or thing that you found. In the book? well, I mean, the, [00:16:00] the bonfires for st. John the Baptist are just so moving to me because you can find these old, like woodcuts and etchings and stuff of all of these.
Hillsides in Europe where every different family is on a different spot on the Hill with their own little bond fire. and just the idea that, that, that, that tradition is thought to go back to before the year 1000, that, and. And the idea that like that, that liturgical living, has like, they have a record of it, but, you know, Ben, and it seemed like it was already an established tradition at that point.
So, you know, this, this idea that. That, that we’re sharing in traditions like that, that are there are so, you know, that are so old and yeah. And, and have gone through so many generations and so many places in the world, but the weirdest [00:17:00] one is in that I know of is in Malta. and I think that they actually do it maybe in, like Boston or someplace on the East coast to, for an eye.
I’m going to get this wrong, but I think it’s the feast of st. Peter, which is in the summertime. Think, I think it’s the saints, Peter and Paul. but they have like a giant telephone pole. And they extend it. It’s like 20 feet in the air or something and they grease it. And then the person has to run, try to run down this grease pole, and make it all the way to the end.
And then obviously you fall off into the water, but you have to like run down it to the end and. Nobody really knows what that has to do with st. Peter, but except I guess, you know, he was a fishermen and they are fishing, like port villages that they do it. and I guess it would have been a mass, you know, at the time, but it’s just so bonkers and people fall down and it looks like a really fast, so I don’t have plans to [00:18:00] incorporate that one into our liturgical living, but my kids would.
Very much like to see it live. I think that would be so much fun. I’d be down for that too. That’s so much fun. So kind of shifting from the book to blogging, how long ago did you start blogging on I’m Catholic all year? I think it was 2013, maybe. Yeah, it was right when, right when everybody started saying that blogs are dead, I think it’s probably the opposite.
Now. I think everybody has a blog. what kind of inspired you to start blogging and then kind of making this transition to compiling everything into a book? Yeah. it’s, it’s kind of. How I do everything in my life, which is like on a gut feeling and on a total whim. And, yeah, so my, my spiritual director had, had suggested, or instructed me basically to write a book because I had been complaining to him as I was. [00:19:00]
helping my oldest son prepare for his first confession and I was complaining that there weren’t any books that I liked to, for, you know, for preparing him at home for his first confession. And so my spiritual director, you know, don’t complain to your spiritual director, right. He told me to write one and.
I was like, all right, fine. I’ll write one. So I wrote, I wrote this book and it is a book now it’s called the little book about confession for children. And so I wrote the manuscript in like a couple of weeks and I sent it out to two different publishers, which you’re not supposed to do. You’re only supposed to send it to one, but I sent it to two and they both accepted it.
And then I decided to go with. Ignatius press. And, but no book publishing experience has ever gone more smoothly and easier than, than that did. And I was like, Oh wow, this is so easy. I should just write all the books. So I tried to write a couple other like secular picture book type books [00:20:00] and send those out to secular publishers.
And no one was interested in that. And so it was not as, you know, a hundred percent easy. As I thought it was going to be. but as the confession book was in the production process that, you know, I kept having to fill out information forms and I’m like, what’s your platform? You know, how do you, like, I don’t have a platform.
Like I have my kids. Okay. but so I decided just because I had this book coming out, I was gonna start a blog and, and then, I had a silly situation happened to me where some lady yelled at me a mask because my baby was being, noisy. And I was like, she is mean I should write a blog about it. So that was my very first blog post was me trying to come to terms with the main church lady.
And, and then yeah, just sort of went from there and it’s always been just about sort of whatever I feel like writing about. it [00:21:00] was, it was called Catholic all year because I always meant it to be, you know, sharing these liturgical traditions because, when I first started looking for this stuff back in 2013, I could really only find.
Sort of craft-based things that were meant more for like religious ed directors and CTE classes and stuff, which is great and awesome. And those still exist and are out there. But I am just not a sit my kids down for organized craft time. Yes. So I wanted. It to be more focused on food and conversation, which is, which is what we do as a family, you know, food and prayer and conversation is really the focus that I wanted.
So, so I decided, yeah, I’d better start one because what. What I wanted didn’t seem to exist, but, but really there were a few, a handful of bloggers that were not Catholic that I followed pretty regularly. And back in 2013, there was a lot of community around particular [00:22:00] blogs and in the comment boxes.
and so I wanted to create that for liturgical living and, and it, it did, it happened pretty quickly and pretty organically. And, you know, I, I know a bunch of people who were, you know, found my blog really early and who still follow it. And, and so now it’s on social media and YouTube and everything too.
When a book. Yeah. But, but it, my blog is kind of neglected right now for the past few months while I’m working on other projects, but that’s still the heart of it and I will definitely be back there. Absolutely. That’s amazing. When did you start to, I guess, expand on to other platforms because it had been so long ago just to have a blog, you know?
Yeah. I started a Facebook account because I, I started the blog, but so it was a very late adopter of Facebook, but, but you know, yeah. And then Instagram came along. I still, you know, I still think that people who are [00:23:00] interested in. You know, in, in getting a message out who have something, some sort of evangelization that God has put on their heart.
I still think blogs and, and sort of the email last is, is the medium by which, Where you can have the most control over your message. So, you know, social media is so easy and that’s why a lot of people do it. and, but, but you don’t really have control over who sees your, your, your posts and, You know, and they can just, you know, shut you down anytime you want.
So if you’re what they call, you know, they refer to it’s microblogging these people who are only on Instagram or only on Facebook. And again, it’s so easy to reach people and so easy to build your platform like that. But it could all go away at any moment. So I really do feel like the, you know, the blog is still the heart of, of what I do and, and the, and the way to that I like to [00:24:00] reach people.
I also haven’t had emails that I started just a few months ago where every two weeks, my assistant and I put together. A Roundup of all the feces that are coming up and what we do, because my habit is to just post about it that morning on Facebook, which for everyone, but me is not enough time to decide, you know, to decide that they’re throwing a party tonight, but that’s how I roll.
So, you know, that’s how I do it. That’s what people always ask me. Like, why don’t you give us more notice? Like, cause I didn’t notice until this morning that it was the feast day. And I’m going to the store right now to get the stuff. but yeah, so if you want a little more advanced notice, you can sign up for the emails now.
So yeah. Lengths for her will be in the show notes below, for sure. but no, I think that’s amazing. And I loved the whole, the spontaneous spontaneity thing we were talking about before we jumped on here. no, I I’m totally a last minute party [00:25:00] planner. That’s just how it well, too. That’s super fun.
Yeah. So I agree with the whole thing on blogging and social media. My mom and I are just talking about it the other day. That Instagram and Facebook could all just disappear in a second. and you kind of have your own blog to kind of house everything. so what are some of the other things besides just, you know, the compendium and like the feast days and stuff, what other things do you talk about on your blog and social media?
I try to talk about. You know, Catholic culture stuff, Catholic living, homeschooling, since that’s all, that’s been a part of our life ever since I started. The blog. I do a lot of like movie and book reviews on there, you know, not as recently, but, but yeah, just basically it’s, it’s just sort of a look into our, our actual lives, which, which I did on purpose because we’ve been so fortunate.
in the places that we [00:26:00] live to have really good Catholic families as part of our community and, and that I was able to, you know, watch their families and learn, you know, and be able to see how, how their big family works and is possible because you know, like, like you. But, you know, we’re saying at the beginning, it’s this shocking to have 10 kids and, you know, a person I grew up with one sister, so, you know, a person might think, how is that even possible?
And so I’ve always sort of tried to give, an, an open sort of look at what, you know, what our family life looks like. So, I don’t know, again, not, it’s harder to do one when your platform gets bigger and bigger, you know, I think 10,000 followers is just about right now, you know, with 30,000, it just gets harder to act, to reply to everybody and feel like you actually [00:27:00] know people.
And, And you get more people who get mad at you about stuff, but, but yeah, so yeah, I was really have sort of tried to be open. No, absolutely. It’s, it’s definitely difficult to be open on social media for sure. but I was going to say, what does a typical day in the life look like for you guys with 10 children?
Well, I mean, as far as for, for me, for my work schedule, I. Get up a really crazy early in the morning, so that the house will be quiet. So I get up at like three o’clock in the morning, usually, and work until we start. So the rest of the kids get up around six 30 and get ready for our school day, which starts at eight.
somebody I will often end up with the two littlest, just sort of. Crawling around in the office with me while I’m working on recently footnotes and, and stuff on a, [00:28:00] on a book I’m almost done with, and yeah, so much of it is typed holding a baby or, you know, being circled by baby. And so then we start school at eight and.
And since I just, my, my oldest grade right now, is six. And so we’re really usually able to get through all, everything that I need to do with them by noon. So we really, we, we do about four hours of school a day between, you know, with me bouncing around between all the kids. And I really try to not do.
not to try to work while I’m doing homeschool, because then I do both of them badly. I try to also stay off of social media while I’m doing homeschool, because, you know, if you were teaching in the classroom and you’re like on Facebook, people would get mad. So try to get, extend my kids that same courtesy, but [00:29:00] of course, If you go back and look at what time I’m posting stuff, I’m not hundred, effective at that, but I do, I do try and I’m mostly off of my phone then.
And then we do lunch and then little kids go down for nap and I take a nap so that I can get up at three o’clock in the morning and the big kids, can finish up their schoolwork. And then in the afternoon they usually get to watch a show, after the little kids wake up from naps and then. The afternoon is.
housekeeping stuff, errands getting ready for dinner, making dinner. And then when the husband gets home, then we have dinner together and, you know, sort of family time and evening, and then little kids go to bed. And then I go to bed after that and then it starts all over again. Oh my goodness.
That’s crazy. That must be super fun. And loud to live in your house though. that’s that seems kinda fun though. one of the things that I was going to say is my favorite, series, I guess [00:30:00] see how on your blog and your Instagram was creating a family chapel in your house. So do you want to talk a little bit about kind of the process of creating that?
What it’s like to have it in your house, et cetera? Yeah. So when we, we moved three or four years ago now into, into this house, and it was specifically because, we wanted my oldest son to be able to go to this small, fateful Catholic school that has, it has an elementary and a high school, but we wanted to be able to go to high school there.
And so we spent a year driving in 45 minutes. in well, 45 minutes home, more like an hour to get there. and while we were looking for a house to buy. So that we will be closer to the school. and so we found this house and it’s this old 1920 house. It was very dilapidated. It had been flooded. It, it was full of bees.
I mean, it was just beautiful old house with really great [00:31:00] bones, but, but yeah, it was just. It’s a mess, but we are walking through it, like crunching on dead bees. as we were walking through the house and we go upstairs and there’s this weird old, like storage room off of, off of the back room. And, but it has this.
Cathedral ceiling in it. And what in, you know, like the shiplap walls, which is not common in, I know it’s all over in Texas. We don’t have that in California, but, and it was right when fixer upper was super cool. So yeah. and this cathedral ceiling, but we just looked at it and it had these, this like little tiny window and it really just looked like a chapel and that’s kinda, I mean, I already knew I wanted this crazy.
Broken down house. My, it’s a wonderful life dreams, but, but it just, it just screamed out to be a chapel. So, you know, we did, we hired a contractor first for some major stuff, like replacing, [00:32:00] replacing windows. And, but, but when that ran out, you know, I was the one who was doing all the painting and all the decorating, of the, of the whole house.
So I decided that. you know, as always anything worth doing is worth overdoing. So I got myself a, cricket cutting machine. So it allows you to design things and then you send it to this machine in it, and it cuts out what you’ve designed on the computer. So you can cut out on adhesive vinyl. So I was able to make all these custom stencils of Bible verses to that that are on the, you know, wooden siding.
And there’s st. symbols all over the floor. it sounds wacky, but if you find it, if you, if you want to look for it on, on Instagram, if you search hashtag Gramble wood, G R a M B L E w O O D, which is just sort of an inside joke of what we were always [00:33:00] gonna. What we decided we were going to call our estate when we, yeah, I forgot one of which, you know, we never to end up in a big house with land, but we did.
And so it’s called, we call it Gramble wood. So if you look for Gramble wide, you can find the. The chapel, but it’s been so nice to have that space sort of set apart in the house. And, you know, I really loved doing the work on it. and I love that. It’s beautiful, but, but that’s not really the point. The point is to have, some places set apart in the house where everybody can, can go and just have quiet prayer time if they need it.
And it’s especially. I think important in, in our big family that, you know, the kids, all, it was important to us that they share rooms. And so all the, you know, I’ve got five boys in one room and five boys and four girls in another, and the baby has her has a storage closet. She sleeps in, you know, but so we’re, [00:34:00] you know, when, when we sit in the school room together, the, we, the kids never do screens alone.
They always have to have a buddy. So, you know, the, the, the place for alone time in our house is, is the chapel. And it’s so that if you need, you know, if you need a place that’s quiet, if you need, to be by yourself and your prayer and your thoughts and, and God, then, then that place is there for you. I love that so much.
Do you guys ever get to celebrate mass and your chapel? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and especially, we had had a couple masses in it. before all of the, COVID stuff went down, but then in California, first, they shut down public masses, but private messages were so loud. And so our pastor was coming and saying masses every week at our house, it was really awesome.
Then they shut that down and, and maybe he stopped coming or maybe he did, Yeah. it’s so [00:35:00] it, it was great. Yeah. To, you know, to have that. And then, and even when we weren’t. Actually having NASA’s. But, with when the, even when we didn’t have a priest who would come, we still were able to, you know, go through the readings and, and have that, you know, and then so on Easter we had our little pretend, pretend, but you know, our little family prayer time.
Because we couldn’t be at the mass. so yeah, I will. Oh. And, and my daughter had her first communion in the chapel at, with, you know, with the priest there. So that is a very special memory for us that she got to have her first communion in our home chapel. That’s so cool. Do you guys get to have adoration in your chapel as well?
We didn’t have never had adoration. We, we actually have looked into what it would take to reserve the blessed sacrament in the chapel. And. You know, it is a very good thing that they are [00:36:00] very good, careful about that. because you know why we would, of course always want to treat, the Eucharist with great reverence.
it’s something that you can apply for, but apparently in Los Angeles, anyway, they almost never grant it. There are a couple of, there are a couple of sort of side. Angles that you can take centered. and you know, my husband’s, so might look more into it at some point, but Jesus has been there. He’s just not ever, you know, stayed.
but yeah, so that it would be so amazing, but we haven’t, we haven’t had a juice exposed in the monster or anything here, just, just at mass. Right. but I would love it if we could figure out a way to reserve the. The sacrament here, longterm, that would be really great. And we do, you know, in normal circumstances, we actually, I mean, we, we have a lot of Catholic events and clubs and, that’s w [00:37:00] when my husband and I decided, all right, we’re going to get this big, crazy house with the big yard.
And, you know, we’ll, we’ll just host everything. So we do, and I have. And normal years, I host a women’s conference here for 300 people. And. so I think we could, you could make a case that we are a, you know, a Catholic place with a lot of Catholic events, so we might be able to get it. No, that would be so much fun.
I think that would be absolutely amazing. and it’d be so cool. And I love the fact that you guys have a chapel. That would be that’s so cool. so do you have any fun, special projects coming up that you kind of want to hint at and talk about a little bit. Yeah. so I actually have two books that are coming out soon.
I haven’t officially announced, either, either one yet, but I’m really excited about both of them. One is coming out in the fall, and it’s specifically geared towards the advent and then I have another one coming out next spring that. That is also very on brand and, [00:38:00] and, and that will be something, anybody who likes the compendium.
This is sort of really it’s really to go alongside it and help with liturgical living in the home. So I’m really excited about that. And then, I have also recently been working on, on, on creating these little, st. Calendars every month, that, that have been really helpful for, for our family in our, in our homeschooling.
And I know so many people are doing homeschooling that haven’t before. So I just create a little. clip art medallion that has different saints symbols, or helps tell the story of the Saint in, in, you know, cute little pictures with the kids looking at. And then I make a little short one paragraph description of, of the Saint.
And so those come out, a new, a new one comes out every month and those go out to my, my Patrion subscribers just cause that’s an easier way for me to get things to people. they’re sort of automatically [00:39:00] subscribed to it. but that’s something that, that I really, I love putting, putting those together and finding things that are gonna, you know, make kids curious.
I love when I see the kids. Up there, looking at the different symbols and trying to figure out what the story of the Saint is based on, on what little, you know, images I, I picked, for it. So those have been really fun and I, and have been really helpful, you know, for our family. So it’s something I want to share with people.
Absolutely. That’s so much fun. So I’ll get all the links will be down below for you to check out. And so my last question is where can readers connect with you and find you on social media? Yeah. So I have two different Instagram accounts. One is under my name, Kendra Tierney, and that is just sort of life, you know, our life stuff.
And the other one is Catholic all year. And that’s where I do, you know, sort of more graphic design and Saint quotes and things like that. And then I’m over on Facebook. I’m on Pinterest. my. My [00:40:00] assistant gracefully mad if I don’t mention that because she has been doing amazing work on getting all of my stuff onto Pinterest, because that’s not something that I had.
And then add it all organized. So she has been fixing all that up. So if you like Pinterest, you can now find my stuff in a way that makes Oh, what’s that then? yeah, I’m not, I’m only sort of. By name only, on any of the other social media sites. so I’m mostly active on, on Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest.
Perfect. Perfect. And where can we buy your book if anybody’s interested? it’s available, anywhere. If you want to support Catholic publishing, you buy it from ignatius.com. Otherwise it’s also. You know, on Barnes and noble and Amazon. Perfect. Alright. Well I think if you have anything else you want to add, feel free, but, again, I just wanted to thank you so much for coming on the show this week.
I am super excited that I was able to connect and you’re able to tell everybody a little bit about your [00:41:00] behind the scenes and living with 10 kids with. Of course and writing your book. so make sure you guys check out all of the links down in the show notes for Kendra. thank you so much and I will see you guys next time.
Thank you you for joining me. Thanks so much. Bye guys.