I was to take six weeks off until a minor but very painful condition afflicted the plan’s back end: instead of returning from a fitness retreat, I’m recovering from (very minor and extremely helpful) surgery. It was convenient, as events were unfolding, that those last three weeks had already been fully allocated to improving my health. And this was an ideal wake-up call — impactful, constraining, ultimately easily fixed and nothing serious — for a fellow approaching yet another birthday since the last time he was in playing shape. Next week at this time, thanks to the flexibility and support of my employer, I’ll be at that fitness retreat after all.

One perk of working from home

This week I’m taking a brief meta-sabbatical from taking time off, doing some fun company-internal stuff I don’t usually get to spend my workdays doing. And I’m doing half of it from home, which affords such activities as sitting outside with the dog and writing, and which constitutes both a change of pace from last year and a setting of the pace for when I rejoin my current client (in a new role) at the end of February.

Modulo CodeMash and this week of doesn’t-really-feel-like-work, I’ll have been away for two and a half months. I seem to have backed into hibernating for the winter, which is a neat trick, though I’m not at all eager to repeat the experience. What I’m plenty eager about is expecting to be returning in my best health in years.

Here’s a bit of what I got done during my time off:

I’ll tell you the rest when I get back.