I like to keep my blog on topic as much as possible. I don’t assume that readers care about my personal life, so I tend to stick to posts on writing, language, and grammar. But I’m going to take a quick departure from that policy.

Maybe you’ve noticed posts have been less frequent here in recent weeks. It’s not because I’m losing interest or running out of ideas. It’s just because I’ve been unusually busy this summer and have had less time than I’d like to keep up the blog. Have no fear, however. I’m expecting to get back in gear soon. At the very least by the end of August.

Really, it’s been all my kids’ fault. I have four daughters and they are at their activity-peak over the summer. T and K work at a summer camp for needy kids. They work as counselors and in the kitchen and barn. It’s an overnight camp, but they need to get dropped off and picked up weekly.

S and M are competitive Irish dancers. It’s a weird world. Since school go tout, they have competed in New Jersey and Maryland and just recently flew to southern California for the North American championships. S is also working at a large local amusement park, dancing in their daily Irish dance show. M will be going to upstate New York in a couple weeks for a week-long Irish Dance camp.

K, when she is not working at camp, plays AAU basketball. We are new to this world, and it’s exhausting (but fun). My wife pretty much handles the Irish dancers, so basketball has become my purview. We spent a long weekend in Hershey, PA in mid-June and just returned from five days in Nashville, Tennessee. That trip concluded with an all-night drive home to save money on hotel rooms. I bet it’s the first time in twenty years I’ve stayed up for 24 hours.

We’ve got two more basketball tournaments ahead — one in Washington, D.C, and the other near Baltimore. Once that’s done, we’ve got our annual church youth camp (I lead the youth group at church).

And did I mention that I’m training for a half marathon in early September?

Once we get back from camp, things should return to normal, including more regular blog posts. I’ll do my best in the meantime. Thanks for understanding. I love this blog, but I love my kids more!

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As always, your comments are welcome!