A Busy Summer

My sister reminded me that I have not blogged since the end of June. It's been very busy with one thing and another.

We run a youth conference in Louisville at the end of July. Every year through the Dominican Fraternity in New Hope (no, "Fraternity" in the Latin sense, not the "Greek" sense! - it's what we have to call the Dominican Third Order now.) We had 200 wonderful young men and women attending, and nearly another hundred staff, chaperones, speakers, and other adults involved.

After that, I had to get ready and work the Dublin Irish Festival in Columbus, Ohio; that's always a lot of work, as I am authenticity officer, and they never seems be enough time in the year to prepare everything we really need to have to re-create 10th centuryViking Age Ireland.

I used to take the whole month off in August; it's now down to a week and two weekends. I count the Festival as time off, even though it's crazy busy: I do two cultural workshops, say the Mass in Irish on Sunday, and spend the rest of the time portraying a Gaelic nobleman in the age of Brian Ború.

We took down the cultural exhibit on the Monday after the festival; but that took the first day out of War Week for me at Pennsic. We finished take-down in the early afternoon, and I should've left; but I was bushed and then crashed at friend's house for a few hours. By the time I got on the road to Pennsic it was evening; I didn't get there until about 10:30 p.m., and had to set up my tent in the dark. The Baroness Brise informed me the next morning that I have exactly 48 stakes in my tent set up, and of course she is correct (how did I know she was to be sleeping in camp that night??)

As I have been so derelict about heavy weapons practice, charging right into four and more hours of heavy fighting a day, to say nothing of hauling my 68 pounds of gear up and down the hill we camp on, took a certain physicaltoll. I actually was in good shape for fighting, and founded this one to be easiest war in that regard that I have attended a long time. The difficulty is that my armor no longer quite fits me, and especially around the thighs, my cuisses are chafing in a most distressful way. At the end of each day I found myself going to bed early; I stayed in camp, socializing with the other members of the Duke's household. I don't think I went to town once except as I passed back through it once in armor to pick up a canvas satchel at Panther Primitives.

I was back on deck In Kentuckyfor Sunday Mass, and then the week hit, harder than usual because of all the work that had landed on my desk while I was away. The first week back I had two major funerals to organize, finish a writing project that didn't get done until this week; prepare an end of the year report for the Angelic Warfare Confraternity; organize the festivities for the Feast of St. Rose, which include a festival Mass and a parish picnic on the lawn; and of course, last weekend was the fourth weekend of the month, which means I had to prepare a Spanish sermon in addition to everything else. This does not include beekeeping meetings and duties, a class in basic brewing for some of the young men of the parish, and the usual desk full of letters, correspondence, forms, sermon preparation, and the rest of my usual duties. At this time we also have to renovate the electrical system for the parish as the utility poles are shot and need to be re-figured it replaced. its going to cost a bundle. So that's why I haven't blogged.

I'll get back to it, never fear. And I hope to be more efficient in writing it. Shorter, more concise articles, are ,I think are called for.

I found my weight after Pennsic had fallen to 295 pounds. That's 32 pounds from the start of my program. A good thing, certainly; it's just too easy to fall back into that old habits.