Hello and welcome! This is the first post to my new blog. I hope some of you have followed me from my year in Japan blog and also hope you understand that sometimes a book has to end and a new one must be begun because the subject and plot and characters all change. Certainly not that I would ever compare myself to Shakespeare and Dickens but just imagine if they had written and written and written on the same book or play. We would be faced with 10,000 page novels that sucked and 4 day plays that no one could sit through.

So welcome.

OK. Now what?

Since I returned to the US in December I have been taking inventory of the things that need to be done. This is a huge list.

In January I purchased my very first, non-dead-relative piece of furniture. I bought an oak file cabinet from a really good unfinished furniture store. I bought it bare. It was available for pick up exactly 5 days after my surgery and so has sat in my bedroom waiting for sanding since then. Tonight I started sanding and I am hoping that by this time next week it will be ready to accept the paperwork that has lived in a plastic bin and a box since 2001! Above is the photo of the cabinet and the drawers - the feet are on the shower stool at right - this is my bedroom and hopefully in the next week I can reclaim it! Getting things done one little bit at a time.

gaga