This is part of our Team Spotlight series, where we get to know each member of our team through 6 questions. We’re always looking for new team members!
Today we meet Tracy Bua Smith, homeschooling mom of 5 and cake-lover who has been a tremendous source of support and collaboration with Saintnook.
1. What’s your background?
I grew up in Southeastern NC with my parents, 2 older brothers, and a younger sister. I attended a Catholic elementary school and public schools thereafter. After graduating from NC State in Psychology in May 1997, I married my best friend, Anthony, in July 1997.
I taught briefly in public elementary schools before starting our family in 2000. We have been blessed with 5 children and I have been homeschooling them since 2005.
2. What are your interests?
I enjoy living and learning more about my Catholic faith, running, sports and making and making and preserving memories with my family by making and decorating my childrens’ birthday cakes through the years.
As a homeschool mother, I have also grown to take a great interest the lives of the Saints as I read a Saint a day from this great book with my children during our morning Couch Catechism time.
What I love most about the Saints’ lives is that they were ordinary people with extraordinary faith. They are all such great role models for myself and for our family.
3. What do you blog about?
My blog’s tagline is “Savoring the Sweetness of Faith, Family, and Homeschooling” so my blog is about how our family lives out our Catholic faith while homeschooling.
It is my prayer and hope that my blog will inspire others with their own faith journeys and families as so many have inspired me in real life and in blog life.
4. What do you like about Saintnook?
I like that Saintnook is able to gather various information and resources about the Saints into one site. This makes it easy for visitors to learn more about the Saints’ lives vs. having to search through the hundreds of sites that are available for each Saint.
I also enjoy the fact that SaintNook is able to share the Saints easily and quickly on social media with the attractive and eye-catching graphics. Included with the graphics is a link to the Saints’ profile where we can find various social media links like Pinterest and playlists.
Saintnook is a work in progress, so I enjoy the adventure of where it will take our team and how it will impact our lives and others’ lives. There are so many ideas that the Saintnook team has brainstormed together to improve Saintnook and make it the place for all things saintly. These brainstorming sessions have confirmed that Saintnook has potential to grow and improve over time.
5. What do you do on the Saintnook team?
I input the various Saint profiles that gives visitors basic information about the Saint (birthdate, death date, patron of, feast day, family, canonization date, etc.).
I also add resources and links into each Saints’ directory. The Saints’ Directories are filled with links to posts, books, crafts, products, recipes, and videos that pertain to each Saint. After I add each link into the Saints’ Directories I try to contact the author/owner of the link and let them know that Saintnook has inputted their resource into the directory.
This is a great way to support so many great Saint resources on the web and to get the word out about Saintnook . On the day of a Saints’ feast day, the Saint’s image and information is shared on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, and I then share the Saint’s link on my personal and blog Facebook pages and in various Facebook groups.
6. Who is your favorite saint?
St. Therese of Lisieux is my favorite Saint. In 2009, I took a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. I had heard of St. Therese before, of course, but it was on this 9 day trip, that St. Therese caught my attention in several ways.
Her name came up in various conversations and I noticed her image and statue in unexpected places. It was during this trip that I vowed if I ever had another baby girl (I had 3 girls and a boy at the time) that I would name her after my favorite Saint. In July of 2013 Leah Therese blessed our hearts and home.
With further study of St. Therese, I was intrigued by her life and her “Little Way” of doing the ordinary with extraordinary love. As a homeschool mom to my 5 children, I have an endless amount of opportunities to follow St. Therese’s “Little Way” example. I also find it quite fascinating that my first name, Tracy, is related to the name Therese so I could say St. Therese has connected with me since my birth.
