Wow. How long has it been? Have I been inactive, or did I just drop dead?

No. Neither, really.

Sorry to have been gone so long, dear friends. I've been devoting my precious time to offline endeavors, including working in my garden and soaking up some sun. I'm approaching the second anniversary of my medical disability soon, and I have been trying to adjust to my new life as much as possible.

It takes me much longer than a normally-enabled person to accomplish things, but to me that just makes each project more precious. As a good example, I bought some redwood lumber and built an 8-foot by 4-foot raised garden bed for my backyard and planted tomatoes, snow peas, corn and butternut squash. That would be a good weekend project for most of you, but it took me nearly two months of sweat and toil to accomplish.

Mind you, I'm not looking for any sort of sympathy, and I mention it only because I am inordinately proud of my persistence and ability to complete a project like this in spite of the obvious. I can hardly wait to taste the sweeter-than-possible fruits of my labors when they start bearing fruit in a couple of months!

Along with my garden projects, I've been reading again. I used to devour books like candy, but the combination of my neurological difficulties and massive doses of painkillers made it much too difficult to maintain the focus to read...at least until my dear wife bought me a Kindle 2! I spend hours and hours in the sun reading the exploits of Harry Dresden, Anita Blake, Marla Mason, and other supernatural types, along with some classic SF I'd lost touch with over the years, and mainstream fiction from Tom Robbins, Steven King, Vonnegut, Eckart Tolle, and others. What a great joy to have it back in my life again, and all thanks to a marvel of technology.

If you have not heard of the Kindle, I suggest you take a moment or two to visit amazon.com and check it out. While I never would have paid the extremely high price for this thing myself, I am so addicted to it now that I am no longer even aware of holding it in my hand any more than I paid attention to the physical books I used to read. Love it.

To anyone who might have missed me during my long absence, sorry if I worried you at all. I am still here, still plugging along, still loving life, and still grateful to have you all in my mind and heart, even if I am so terribly bad at expressing it, or staying active in this social network I still love so very much.

Thank you all, love you all. Smile when you think of me from time to time, eh?

-=b=-