Family Time Hiatus

Hello everyone,

As you know if you catch my personal updates, and apparently you do because you're listening to one now, I got a new job recently. And it's been amazing I'm finally putting my library degree to use in the service of my hometown. I run mobile operations, so I schedule the bookmobile- or rather, I schedule the Mobile Library, since Marketing wants to make sure people know it's more than just books. I drive it too, along with an amazing team. Last week I pulled up to my kid's school as the hero in a slight modification of the kindergarten dream I had of being a bus driver.

I--we--had very high hopes for this change, and it's exceeded them.

One area that's been especially positive is work-life balance. I've gone from over an hour commute to five minutes tops. I come home for lunch most days, and hang out with Mrs. Popeular History and my preschooler while the other kids are either at school or napping.

At the end of the day, I come home and spend time with my family. I used to never quite know when I was coming home, because there was always a chance I'd wind up with a customer, and it would be my job to try and sell them a bed to keep the lights on. Now, I help preschoolers get books, and have weekends off. Weekends off! What, like a normal person? I can't tell you how much of an improvement the schedule has been. I even have more time for podcasting, now that I'm no longer commuting.

Or at least, I thought I'd have more time for podcasting.

In reality, the more time has gone straight into the family bucket, which is where it needs to be. It turns out that now that I no longer work most evenings and weekends, I can be home and active when my kids are.

Life is good, except for one thing.

The podcast.

Look, it's not you, it's me.

I've said from the beginning that family takes priority over this. It has to, and what's more, it should. And that's not a sad note, I can't tell you how much everything has benefitted from there being more proper daddy days on the calendar.

But this one piece isn't how I thought things would go. I'm still coming to terms with it. The plan was for the podcast to continue uninterrupted. Yet, here we are, with, it would be generous to call it a shaky release schedule, and it's only going to get shakier, at least for a good while. You're going to get *something* from me next weekend in connection with the new Consistory, perhaps just the next Cardinal, and on February 8th I'll be speaking at Intelligent Speech online, so, you know, get your tickets today (intelligentspeechonline.com). But I'm not in a position to give a more specific forecast than that, except to say stay tuned to Pontifacts for cool stuff on that front.

Popeular History isn't done, I've got more things prepped for the podcast than I ever did in years past, including some collaborations, which, my podcasting friends, thank you for bearing with me.

It's time for me to embrace my role as dad, first and foremost.

[Clip from Cat's in the Cradle by Harry Chapin] Thank you for listening, God bless you all!