Today on Home But Not Alone we’re talking about marriage and marriage prep. Marriage is a beautiful, joyful, challenging, thing. And we’re all familiar with Church marriage prep programs designed to help engaged couples prepare to enter into the sacrament of marriage. With the proper mindset and preparation, a couple can increase their odds of having a strong, Christ-centered marriage. But no one is ever truly ready for what marriage brings. So today we’re talking about questions that they didn’t ask during marriage prep, but probably should have.
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re celebrating our differences. Often, we’re quick to recognize differences in how other people parent, practice Catholicism, and so much more. And once we see those differences, we can be even quicker to critique, criticize, gossip, or offer unsolicited advice and unwelcome opinions. And while we would never advocate for a relativistic approach to life, it’s important to celebrate and learn from our differences. So today, we’re talking about our differences.
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re going around the world for Easter. We're currently in the Holiest week of the Year and the Church celebrating the resurrection truly is a global Church. And how people celebrate can vary based on geographic region, religious practices, and even family habits. We don’t always know where these traditions come from, but we know that they are meant to help us celebrate the glory of Christ’s resurrection. So today we’re traveling to different countries to find out how they celebrate Easter.
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re traveling back to the 90s to get advice from the greatest teacher of all time, Mr. George Feeny. On the classic sitcom Boy Meets World, Mr. Feeny served as the educator, mentor, and surrogate father to the main characters. But his classroom lessons paled in comparison to his wisdom and life-lessons. So today we’re looking at some of the life-lessons from Mr. Feeny that we want our kids to hear.
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re talking about the movies we miss. Movies are great! Carrying on the centuries-old tradition of storytelling, movies can entertain us, allow us a brief escape to feel refreshed, and even inspire us. But as parents we rarely get to PICK the movies WE want. So today we’re logging out of Disney plus, turning off Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, and saving the veggies in VeggieTales for dinner. Because today, we’re talking about grown up movies.
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Have you ever told your kids to take a break and “Think About the choices they made”? This is a practice that not only toddlers need, but parents, too! Our lives are filled with choices to make. Today we’re going to talk about discernment and prudence - two things needed to make good and holy choices. And we’re going to play a game of Would You Rather to put our decision making skills to use!
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re learning new languages, love languages! Love languages are just methods of giving and receiving love. Just like how we most often speak the language we best understand, we tend to love in the way we want to be loved. Which is why we need to recognize our love language and the love language of those whom we love.
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re talking about things your grandma lied to you about. Old wives tales: we’ve all heard them before; and they’re easy to believe. Whether they were passed down by grandma (who I’m sure WASN’T lying to you intentionally), based on bad science, or even spread as a rumor by British military intelligence, these fictional tales have been adopted as facts. And today, we’re gonna fact-check them!
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re finding inspiration from the lives of some pretty holy people. We’re talking about Saints, Blesseds, and other Holy people. Too often we think of Saints as people from hundreds or thousands of years ago. But even when people overcome that temptation, many of us still think of Saints as people from the other side of the globe (such as. Mother Teresa, John Paul II, or Blessed Carlo Acutis). So today we’re chatting about American Saints, Blesseds, and other Holy people.
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re talking about things we’re bad at. Have you ever compared yourself unfairly to other parents? We have! But living humbly requires us to embrace our success and our failures, our strengths and our weaknesses. So we’re going to fight the temptation to be pinterest perfect parent by sharing just some of the things we aren’t good at.
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re working on our communication skills. As parents, we spend a lot of time with our kids. And when we do get the opportunity to chat with other adults, we quickly realize that we’ve forgotten how to have adult conversations.
So let’s practice breaking the ice with some fun and unconventional icebreaker questions.
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re wrapping up 2020.
This year has been a whirlwind. Things have been different from what we’re used to, different from what we expected. It has been a real challenge.
But we have learned a lot of lessons from dealing with the craziness of this year, and we want to share those with you today!
This is episode number 50!!
This show closes out season two of HBNA, and our first year of this podcast. We love that you all have been with us for this crazy ride of parenting. We’re going to take a few weeks winter break, and we’ll be back in 2021 with more encouragement and real life conversations!
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re talking TODDLERS!!!
Sara recently challenged herself to “A Day in the Life of a Toddler” - in which she spent her entire day doing everythinggg her kiddos did (and especially focusing on her toddler!)
Today, she's going to share with you what the day was like and what she learned.
We want to encourage you to try this challenge as a practice in empathy and charity for your kiddos, whether you have toddlers, elementary kids, teens, or any age!
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re going to learn about another virtue (you know this is one of Sara's fave topics!)
This time we’re talking about Fortitude!
Sara is really excited about this episode, because when Tim asked her what virtue she wanted to talk about, and she suggested Fortitude, he wasn’t quite sure he knew exactly what that meant…
And a lot of us have been there - unaware of what these virtues mean, exactly, and how to practice them. Which is why studying and practicing the virtues is so important!
So let’s dive into Fortitude today!
Book on Virtues:
If you loved learning about the virtue of Fortitude and want to learn more about the theological and cardinal virtues, check out Sara's book: Becoming Holy, One Virtue at a Time.
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Happy Liturgical New Year! Today on Home But Not Alone we’re talking all about the season of Advent.
Tim has 10 Advent quiz questions - play along to see if you can beat Sara's score!
Sponsor:
Thanks to Katie Kinuthia of Spirit Within Studio for sponsoring this episode. She sent us one of her hand-painted Christmas canvas decorations to share with you!
Check out her Etsy shop for more seasonal and liturgical decor, Sacrament gifts, and beautiful wall Rosaries.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/SpiritWithinStudios
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re going to give you some unsolicited parenting advice.
In fact, we’re going to give you the WORST unsolicited parenting advice from the last 300 years. So please, don’t follow this advice. If you think the parenting advice you hear at the grocery store is laughable, prepare yourself for some of the absolute funniest, craziest, and sometimes most cringeworthy advice throughout recent history.
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re going to continue exploring what the Catechism says about the Family!
Back in Episode 42 we chatted about “The Family in God’s Plan” and today we’re going to look into “The Family and Society.” Both of these topics are found in the section about the 4th Commandment, so they’re really important topics to help us learn how we’re called to live out God’s plan for our lives, and especially our vocation as spouses and parents.
CCC 2207 - 2213 can be found here: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a4.htm
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re talking about idolatry. But we’re talking about it in a way that most of us have never considered. Today we’re talking about making an idol out of the family.
If you want to love your family more, we invite you to take some time to examine whether you're loving God Most. And if your family is getting in the way of loving God - if you're treating your family as an idol - it's time to get back to putting God first in your life so he can give you the grace to love your family more!
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Today we’re diving into Scripture!
As Catholics, we really ARE called to live Biblically - and sometimes we joke that Catholics “don’t know our Bibles” (as well as our Protestant brethren) which is all fine in jest - unless it’s true. We HAVE to have a relationship with the living Word of God, along with our love for Tradition and the Magisterium, to live out our lives and vocations as true Catholic Christians.
Today we’re going to focus on Scripture verses that are helpful to us as parents.
Sponsor:
Deanna Bartalini: DeannaBartalini.com
Our sponsor today is Deanna Bartalini - On her website, Live Not Lukewarm, Deanna creates courses to help you live your Catholic faith. These courses are for a person who wants to know more, has questions and wants answers spoken clearly and simply. Both live and recorded, the courses made for those who are interested in learning more about the faith and/or study scripture (which is perfect for today’s topic!). Check it out at deannabartalini.com under the Live Not Lukewarm Community heading.
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Today on Home But Not Alone we’re going to talk about “The Family in God’s plan!”
We’re taking our topic and our inspiration from the Catechism of the Catholic Church - so as you listen, or after you’re through with the episode, we invite you to open up your Catechism to paragraphs 2201-2206 to read the section and see what your thoughts are on it!
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