Not really. In fact, I had hoped to be on vacation about this time, if not earlier. Since last April I’ve been completing the renovation of my house — repairing drywall, installing fans and fixtures, sanding and refinishing the floors, repairing brickwork, and painting, painting, painting and more painting. Not to mention, moving, disposing of, and assembling furniture. And, except for the brickwork and sanding and refinishing the floors — I hired a couple men to do that — I did all of the work myself.

And I vastly underestimated how long all this would take. Back in April I had guessed that renovating the first floor (except for the floor refinishing) would take me about a month. It took me three. And the basement took more than a month.

The good news is that this renovation project that I began two years ago with the installation of a new driveway, porch and front walk is done (although I still have to put something in my flower beds other than weeds).

The bad news is that it took a physical toll on me. At some point during this process I injured my knee, and the pain is now so bad I can barely walk. For the past month I’ve been going to physical therapy twice a week and doing all the assigned exercises, but there has been little improvement. It appears to be a meniscus tear (I’ll know for sure when the orthopedic surgeon reads the MRI results Tuesday) and it probably will have to be surgically repaired. Hopefully the death panels haven’t kicked in yet and Medicare will cover it.

Anyway, that’s why I haven’t posted anything to this blog since last April. After a full day of work on my house I was too exhausted to do anything at night except plop myself down in front of the TV. A lot has happened since last April and I would have loved to comment on it, but researching and writing about this stuff takes time and energy that I just didn’t have. If there’s any good to come from my knee injury it is that my enforced leisure has given me the opportunity to get back to writing.

I’ve been giving my house a long overdue overhaul. And it is taking up virtually all of my time.

However, I do have something for you to read. Thomas Sowell has written a four-part series, “Dismantling America”, which makes a lot of the points I would be making if I had time to write anything these days.

Here are the links:

Dismantling America — Part 1

Dismantling America — Part 2

Dismantling America — Part 3

Dismantling America — Part 4

Those are the installments as of this morning — there may be more. I’d love to expand on this discussion, but I just don’t have the time, and probably won’t have the time for at least three more weeks.

For the curious, so far I’ve had all of my entry doors replaced, my old roof ripped off and a new one installed, new gutters installed, the soffits covered, and the exterior trim wrapped in aluminum. A crew is arriving on Monday to gut and completely replace my kitchen and both bathrooms, install new windows and replace some living room drywall that was damaged during last winter’s snow storm.

This week I’ve been shopping for appliances. The big ones are being delivered today, and I’ve been working feverishly to make some space for them, as well as for all the stuff I’ll have to remove from the kitchen before Monday.

After these jobs are done, all I have to do is paint the interior walls and woodwork and refinish the floors. I’m not at all looking forward to doing the latter, so if anybody has any ideas on how to make it easier, I’m all ears.