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.