Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast, still a part of the Agora Podcast. At least I think it is. I haven't been told otherwise. I'm still your host, Heather Tesco,

and I'm still a storyteller. Who makes history accessible because I believe it's a pathway to

understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and being more deeply in touch with our

own humanity. This is episode 176, and it will be on religious fasting because that's just the kind of nerd I am.

Also, it's been a minute.

And I have a couple of things to personally share before I start this episode.

A lot of you wrote to me asking me if I was okay because it's been so long and I sort of

disappeared from the podcasting world without a word of goodbye and I'm suddenly ending all of my

sentences and upward inflections. I think I kind of reached a wall from last September

until about two weeks ago, we have been ridiculously nomadic.

We went from Spain to Pennsylvania for TudorCon and a visit.

That was October.

While we were there, we decided that we were officially moving back home.

So then we went to California for an extended visit, which had been planned anyway. But having made the

decision to move back home, we decided to sell our house in the mountains of Southern California,

which really kind of broke my heart. It was our first house that we bought right before the

market crash. It wasn't the best timing. But, you know, it was a special place to me,

still is. And then we went back to Pennsylvania for Christmas and then back to Spain to pack up

our lives and say goodbye to our friends. And at that point, I was professionally contracting with

two different library groups, which is my career.

I work with libraries on technology and journal procurement, all that kind of stuff.

So I was working really crazy hours, which I said was to keep my mind off of all of the things I had to do with the move.

...