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Blythe Fike is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. We love any chance to chat (and laugh) with Blythe. By the end of this episode you’ll want her to be your life coach, I promise. (She’s not a life coach, you’ll just wish she was, and that she was taking on new clients, and that one of the clients was you.)

Blythe is a blogger at The Fike Life, wife to Kirby, and mom to eight kids. She lives in sunny LA in a fantastic mid-century home. Blythe has a great conversion story and is full of love for her Catholic faith.

In this episode we talk about everything from being bad at prayer to finding God in the daily tasks He puts in front of us. We discuss the importance of having an eternal perspective and how the heck it’s possible to love God more than we love our kids. We felt so inspired by talking with Blythe and we know you’ll love the conversation!  So if you’re ready to laugh, and maybe cry, grab your cup of coffee and enjoy.

Our first episode with Blythe (also with a title about pants!)

How to connect with Blythe:

• Blythe’s blog
• Instagram
• Facebook

As we mentioned in the episode, Haley’s new ebook about motherhood releases May 1st (Wednesday!) as part of the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle. To be sure you don’t miss the sale, head on over with Haley’s author link and enter your email address to be notified when the sale goes live!

Patreon!

Do you love FoC and want to help us keep doing what we’re doing (and more!)? Well, we have just the thing for you! Our Patreon is finally up and running so listeners can support the work we do.

Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to special episodes available exclusively to patrons!

Come hang out with us!

Haven’t joined in on the fun with 4,000 other FoC listeners in our facebook group? It’s your direct line to some fantastic folks who also care about faith, culture, books, and whatever our current masterpiece theatre craze might be! Join in with the link below.I

• The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
• Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
• Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.

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It’s Holy Week and we’re here to talk about how we do it. Now that we’ve all survived Palm Sunday Mass (AKA “stop poking your sibling with that palm during the LONG reading of the Passion, the palm is NOT a sword”) it’s time to really dive into this week that prepares us for Easter.

We recorded this episode before the Notre Dame fire and, to be honest, we’re both still reeling from that loss. If you’re grieving over it, too, we hope you find some joy in this episode and inspiration for walking with Our Lord in this holy time.

In this episode we talk about what Holy Week looks like at our houses. With 9 kids between us our homes are hardly filled with monastic silence, but the week does feel set apart. We share all about what Masses we try to attend, how to set a tone of somber reflection even with lots of kids, how we do Good Friday fasting for kids, whether we brave the Easter Vigil, special Easter traditions and more! So grab a cup of something penitential and listen in!

Patreon!

Do you love FoC and want to help us keep doing what we’re doing (and more!)? Well, we have just the thing for you! Our Patreon is finally up and running so listeners can support the work we do.

Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to special episodes available exclusively to patrons!

Come hang out with us!

Haven’t joined in on the fun with 4,000 other FoC listeners in our facebook group? It’s your direct line to some fantastic folks who also care about faith, culture, books, and whatever our current masterpiece theatre craze might be! Join in with the link below.I

• The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
• Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
• Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.

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Links to books in these notes are Amazon affiliate links.

We live in a hookup culture that fears authentic intimacy above all else. What kind of problems does that cause in marriage? And how can sacramental marriage heal those wounds? That’s what we’re talking about in this episode with Dr. Timothy O’Malley, author of Off the Hook: God, Love, Dating and Marriage in a Hookup World, the book we wish would be used EVERYWHERE for marriage prep.

Tim is a husband, father of two, and the director of education at the McGrath Institute for Church Life as well as academic director of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy. He and his family live in South Bend, Indiana.

In this episode we discuss how married sex can be overemphasized as the center of married life, how the true nature of marriage is communion and deep friendship, and how raising children fits into everything. We also chat about misconceptions about marriage we have personally suffered from and how a Catholic view of marriage as two people helping each other to Heaven differs from the cultural concept of marriage as achieving personal fulfillment. It’s a great conversation so grab a cup of coffee and listen in!

Tim’s book:

Off the Hook: God, Love, Dating and Marriage in a Hookup WorldT

Connect with Tim:

• Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal
• Twitter
  

Patreon!

Do you love FoC and want to help us keep doing what we’re doing (and more!)? Well, we have just the thing for you! Our Patreon is finally up and running so listeners can support the work we do.

Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to special episodes available exclusively to patrons!

Come hang out with us!

Haven’t joined in on the fun with 4,200 other FoC listeners in our facebook group? It’s your direct line to some fantastic folks who also care about faith, culture, books, and whatever our current masterpiece theatre craze might be! Join in with the link below.

• The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
• Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
• Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.

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Can a Catholic be a feminist? What does a Catholic feminism look like? We’re tackling some of these big questions in this episode with the wonderful Samantha Povlock. Samantha is a Catholic mom and Notre Dame grad working in project management in downtown Chicago. She’s also the founder of the popular online community FemCatholic. The first FemCatholic conference, which was wildly successful and inspiring–you gotta check out their speaker lineup!–wrapped up just a couple of weeks ago. We’re so jealous of everyone who got to attend!

In this episode we discuss how our economy and cultural attitude toward families make life difficult for women. We also talk about challenges facing working moms and we dive in to the issues of feminism and the Church. There’s a lot packed in to this episode so grab a cup of tea and listen in!

Links to what we mentioned in today’s episode:T

The FemCatholic Conference 2019

Connect with Samantha:

FemCatholic

Patreon!

Do you love FoC and want to help us keep doing what we’re doing (and more!)? Well, we have just the thing for you! Our Patreon is finally up and running so listeners can support the work we do.

Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to special episodes available exclusively to patrons!

Come hang out with us!

Haven’t joined in on the fun with 4,000 other FoC listeners in our facebook group? It’s your direct line to some fantastic folks who also care about faith, culture, books, and whatever our current masterpiece theatre craze might be! Join in with the link below.

• The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
• Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
• Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.

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Lent is upon us! We have some great lenten episodes about the hows and whys of observing Lent in the archives, but we wanted to do something a little different for this year’s Lent episode. Then we had the brilliant idea to have Tolkien aficionado Kaitlyn Facista join us to to help us bring wisdom from The Lord of the Rings to our lenten journey!

Kaitlyn is a Catholic wife and mom and when she’s not spreading joy on Catholic Twitter, she’s sharing a love for Tolkien’s work through the lovely online community she created: Tea with Tolkien. She also hosts a podcast of the same name.

In this episode we discuss the challenges of Lent and how drawing from Tolkien’s themes can inspire us in our lenten journey. We chat about what we can learn from the fellowship in LOTR and their mission, how having companions on the journey enriches our lenten experience, and why even seemingly insignificant small acts can be powerful. Kaitlyn is a delightful guest, so grab a cup of tea (or a brew from the Green Dragon?) and enjoy this episode!

Links to what we mentioned in today’s episode:

(links to Amazon are affiliate links)

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

A Lent of the Lord of the Rings: Reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Over the Season of Lent

Kaitlyn’s book:

To Middle-Earth and Back Again

Connect with Kaitlyn:

• Kaitlyn’s Tea with Tolkien web site
• Twitter
• Instagram

Patreon!

Do you love FoC and want to help us keep doing what we’re doing (and more!)? Well, we have just the thing for you! Our Patreon is finally up and running so listeners can support the work we do.

Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to special episodes available exclusively to patrons!

Come hang out with us!

Haven’t joined in on the fun with 4,000 other FoC listeners in our facebook group? It’s your direct line to some fantastic folks who also care about faith, culture, books, and whatever our current masterpiece theatre craze might be! Join in with the link below.

• The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
• Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
• Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.

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Every so often we like to do an episode with just the two of us to answer some of the questions we get frequently from listeners. Today we’re covering….drumroll….MARRIAGE! It was Valentine’s Day when we recorded and considering how we are indeed the queens of romance (har har) we got to talking about love, marriage, and all that mushy stuff. We try to keep things real and honest.

We’re hoping that all our single listeners don’t run straight for the convent after listening to this episode. (Or maybe that was our plan all along…increasing those religious vocations!)

In this episode we talk about the ups and downs that all marriages go through, what mindset shifts have helped us in embracing our vocation to marriage, and how we’re awful at romantic gestures but we’re pretty sure they aren’t what really matters in a committed relationship. So grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

In this episode we talked about:

(Link below is an Amazon affiliate link.)

Paris, je t’aime

When a mentally absent spouse is apportioned a third of a marriage: Elizabeth Scalia for Word on Fire

Patreon!

Do you love FoC and want to help us keep doing what we’re doing (and more!)? Well, we have just the thing for you! Our Patreon is finally up and running so listeners can support the work we do.

Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to special episodes available exclusively to patrons!

Come hang out with us!

Haven’t joined in on the fun with 4,000 other FoC listeners in our facebook group? It’s your direct line to some fantastic folks who also care about faith, culture, books, and whatever our current masterpiece theatre craze might be! Join in with the link below.I

• The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
• Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
• Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.

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After reading an inspiring piece by Brandon McGinley about a vision for the future of the Church, we knew we needed to have him back on the podcast to unpack some of those ideas. Brandon is editor of EWTN publishing and he also put together a great book about Catholic fatherhood titled The Joys and Challenges of Family Life. He lives in Pennsylvania with his lovely wife and three kids.

In this episode we discuss how the parish landscape has changed dramatically, especially in urban areas, and how faith life is different now that not everyone can walk to their neighborhood parish. With urban parishes closing or merging, is there hope for urban parish life? What can lay people do to create community in an isolated society and what can parishes offer that’s distinctively Catholic? We also cover how offering beautiful liturgy, prayer, and the sacraments is what will truly attract young people as well as the importance of welcoming and cherishing small children attending Mass. We cover a lot of ground and have a great time tossing around some weighty ideas so grab a cup of coffee and join us!

Links to what we mentioned in today’s episode:

Brandon’s article: America’s Catholic enclaves have vanished. But I can imagine a beautiful future: Catholic Herald

Our first episode with Brandon: The Challenges and Joys of Catholic Fatherhood

Our second episode with Brandon: Attracting with the Transcendent: Why the Beauty of Catholicism Speaks to the Heart

This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Brandon’s book:

The Joys and Challenges of Family Life

Connect with Brandon:

• Brandon’s web site
• Twitter

Patreon!

Do you love FoC and want to help us keep doing what we’re doing (and more!)? Well, we have just the thing for you! Our Patreon is finally up and running so listeners can support the work we do.

Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to special episodes available exclusively to patrons!

Come hang out with us!

Haven’t joined in on the fun with 4,000 other FoC listeners in our facebook group? It’s your direct line to some fantastic folks who also care about faith, culture, books, and whatever our current masterpiece theatre craze might be! Join in with the link below.

• The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
• Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
• Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.

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When we read two fabulous recent pieces by Dr. Abigail Favale on gender, feminism, and Catholic tradition, we knew we HAD to have her on the podcast. We were thrilled that she was willing to come on the show to talk about her journey from evangelical Christian to progressive feminist to faithful Catholic. It is a fascinating discussion!

Dr. Favale is a mother of three young children and the Director of the William Penn Honors Program and Associate Professor of English at George Fox University. Her new book Into the Deep chronicles her compelling conversion story.

In this episode Dr. Favale shares her discovery of rich Catholic teaching on gender, femininity, masculinity, and Theology of the Body. We discuss  Catholic saints like St. Hildegard von Bingen and Pope St. John Paul II whose explorations of these issues impacted her. We also talk about the difficulty of dialoging about these topics due to confused language and simplistic philosophies that ignore the deep, Catholic alternative to both “traditional gender roles” and modern secular feminism.

So grab a cup of tea and get ready to tackle some exciting ideas!

Things we talked about in this episode…

(links to Amazon are affiliate links)

Into the Deep: An Unlikely Catholic Conversion by Abigail Favale

Hildegard of Bingen’s Vital Contribution to the Concept of Women (article for Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal)

Confessions of a Feminist Heretic (article for Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal)

Theology of the Body by Pope St. John Paul II

The Concept of Woman by Sister Prudence Allen

The Eternal Woman by Gertrud von le Fort

Essays on Woman by Edith Stein

Follow Dr. Abigail Favale:

• facebook

Patreon!

Do you love FoC and want to help us keep doing what we’re doing (and more!)? Well, we have just the thing for you! Our Patreon is finally up and running so listeners can support the work we do.

Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to special episodes available exclusively to patrons!

Come hang out with us!

Haven’t joined in on the fun with 4,000 other FoC listeners in our facebook group? It’s your direct line to some fantastic folks who also care about faith, culture, books, and whatever our current masterpiece theatre craze might be! Join in with the link below.

• The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
• Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
• Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.

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We’ve got a treat for you because in this first episode of 2019 we are chatting with the lovely Rosie Hill, homeschooling mom of six with one on the way, voice behind popular site A Blog for My Mom, homesteader, and generally fabulous and fun gal!

Rosie’s family lives in a 19th century farmhouse an hour outside of Washington, DC so we had to talk about rural live versus urban life and which natural predators we are most worried will attack our kids (obviously). We also did some real talk about the twelve days of Christmas and how moms might not be feeling joyous due to all the work it takes to coordinate the holidays for their families.

And since we just entered a new year we discussed the whole idea of new year’s resolutions/word of the year/goals and whether we do them, what worked for us in 2018, what never works for us, and some things we want to shoot for in 2019.

So grab a cup of tea (and somebody please help Christy with her lunch dilemma)!

Follow Rosie:

• twitter 
• instagram
• facebook
• blog

Patreon!

Do you love FoC and want to help us keep doing what we’re doing (and more!)? Well, we have just the thing for you! Our Patreon is finally up and running so listeners can support the work we do.

Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to special episodes available exclusively to patrons!

Come hang out with us!

Haven’t joined in on the fun with 4,000 other FoC listeners in our facebook group? It’s your direct line to some fantastic folks who also care about faith, culture, books, and whatever our current masterpiece theatre craze might be! Join in with the link below.

• The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
• Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
• Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.

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It’s almost Christmas, one of the great festivals of Christianity, so in this episode we tackle festivity.  Haley just finished a book on the topic by the fabulous Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper and is now on a Pieper kick. When we were thinking about Pieper aficionados who could make philosophy a lot of fun to podcast about, we knew Bo Bonner was the man for the job and he did not disappoint!

Bo is a Catholic convert, father of four, and the Director of the Zita Institute as well as Director of Mission and Ministry at Mercy College of Health Sciences. He’s an instructor for the Faith Journey Catechetical Institute for the Diocese of Des Moines, and Co-Host of “The UnCommon Good” on Iowa Catholic Radio. He’s also hilarious and a blast to talk to.

In this episode we discuss how our culture fails in it’s celebrations of Christmas and what an authentic festival of Christmas would look like. We touch on everything from Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” to hot takes about ugly Christmas sweater parties. We tried not to say things that will offend anybody but we probably failed so our apologies in advance!

Christmas is on it’s way so grab a glass of egg nog and enjoy the episode.

This post contains affiliate links.

Things we talked about:

In Tune with the World by Josef Pieper

Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper

Divine Madness by Josef Pieper

Things we talked about:

This article about Christmas Festivity on Public Discourse

Hayes Carll song Jesus and Elvis

Follow Bo:

• twitter 
• radio show
• The Zita Institute

This episode is sponsored by Louise Boychuk of Vitae Fertility Education

Louise is a Marquette Method of NFP Instructor and provides one-on-one teaching to clients anywhere in the world over live video. She’s written two comprehensive user manuals (one for regular cycles, and one for the breastfeeding transition), so clients have a resource to help explain the science and research behind the method. For more information about the method, to register for services, or to sign up for a free consultation, Louise can be reached through the Vitae Fertility website.

Patreon!

And bum ba da da! Our Patreon is finally up and running!

Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to our first special episode available exclusively to patrons. It’s a Christmas Spectacular episode in which Haley and Christy fight over whether you should or shouldn’t do the Santa thing. Okay, we don’t really fight we just DISAGREE. (So much drama!) Fine! It’s not dramatic but it is fun.

Come hang out with us!

Haven’t joined in on the fun with 4,000 other FoC listeners in our facebook group? It’s your direct line to some fantastic folks who also care about faith, culture, books, and whatever our current masterpiece theatre craze might be! Join in with the link below.

• The Fountains of Carrots Raspberry Cordial Social Club on Facebook (our Facebook group)
• Connect with Haley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her blog
• Connect with Christy on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog

You can listen to us on iTunes, and we’d love a quick rating or review. If you have an android device we’re also on Stitcher. And as always, you can find all links, show notes, upcoming guests, and listen to all episodes at Fountains of Carrots.com.