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For all you who have asked: No, I'm not dead. Neither am I incapacitated. I just simply have not had enough hours in the workday to write a column the past two weeks, especially since last week was my long-awaited and much anticipated vacation.

My main goal for the week was simply to relax. I did that, although not exactly as I had planned. A visit to the doctor revealed a sinus infection in my upper part and a painful sacroiliac in my lower, which was why I spent most of the week in my nightie watching inane shows on television. No leaf-peeping and leaf-jumping photos with the 2-year-old granddaughter, no trips to the mountains, no super-scrub-downs of various rooms in the house. By the time I saw the doctor, the week was almost over -- but a shot in the back and plenty of snoozing helped me start feeling much better in time to come back to work Monday.

Do I know how to party, or what.

I did enjoy my time off, though; just getting away from the normal drama that a workplace entails is refreshing. I treated myself to something I've wanted to do for years, too. My dial-up Internet connection is now a thing of the past. The new, high-speed service was installed that Friday. It's been fun to sign on and immediately have something happen instead of finding something else to do -- wash the dishes, mop, take a shower, etc. -- while the computer churns its way into cyberspace. There are advantages to coming into the 21st century.

I wasn't able to get all the cleaning done that I wanted to do because of the back pain, but I did finish one big task. Remember the extra bedroom I started emptying out last summer? The one where I discovered anew that you have to make a mess to clean a mess? Well, pat me on the back. It's clean. That's right, I scooted out the rest of the boxes, organized my bookshelves, dusted and vacuumed, and got that carpet cleaned. It took awhile, since I had to keep a chair handy to rest my back every few minutes, but I am now the proud resident of a home with a room -- an entire, clean, organized room -- dedicated to genealogy at my convenience. I even have an old dining table to move in there to enhance the experience, as soon as I clean it off and move it from the den.

I repeat, do I know how to party, or what.

Lest you start feeling sorry for my vacation gone awry, I did get to do a couple of fun things. I took Halloween photos of Ellie in her Dalmatian outfit, and I went to dinner one night with an all-girl group of classmates from the Everett High School Class of 1973. We had a blast bedeviling our poor waiter. One of the girls told him he'd get a good tip if he could guess our alma mater and the year we graduated. Bless his heart, he was a good sport and used the hints we gave him to figure it out. Maybe it was deliberate, but saying that we graduated in the 1980s endeared him to our hearts right off the bat.

Vacations are great, and I'm glad I had the time off. Now, just when is that next one scheduled ...

Linda Albert is Women's Times editor and a staff writer for The Daily Times. Her column runs every Sunday in the Women's Times section. You may contact her at 981-1168 or linda.albert@thedailytimes.com, or follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lalbert_editor.