I rang in the New Year by staying up for almost 24 hours straight. And I can tell you one thing: I am too old for that kid stuff. But all went well: I did not drive into any trees or fall asleep onstage, and now here I am again, back in the cottage and ready to start my first work week in my new study.

I am also alone in this house for the first time since moving here. The furnace is grumbling comfortably; the dryer is ticking; the refrigerator is humming. Otherwise, the only sounds I hear are my fingers on the keyboard.

I am standing at my desk, looking up at a clean blue wall, looking peripherally at snowy gardens and fences and sheds and roofs and the thick ridged trunks of enormous old maples. In a moment I will say goodbye to you and do some editing, but I am loath to stop lingering here. It just feels so good to be alone in my quiet room, writing whatever words I choose to write. It feels so good to know that later I will go out for a walk in my new neighborhood, and then I'll unpack some boxes, and then I'll venture out for groceries, and then Tom will come home, and I will light a fire in the wood stove, and cook our dinner on the new range, and we will listen to music and complain about not having enough closets and laugh about how charming the tiny brass frog looks in its new home on the range hood.

Here are two more in-process photographs . . . first, the island of civilization--a dinner table--in the midst of chaos (seven unpainted doors, a vacuum cleaner without a home, old plywood shelves waiting to be lugged to the basement, plastic containers full of who-knows-what. . . . )

This is a not very good photo of the refrigerator and the pantry, and pardon the banality of the subject matter, but I am thrilled to have a place where I can see all of the food in the house without crawling on my hands and knees to poke around in the back of cupboards or balancing on a step-stool to dig out whatever might be behind the stuff in front. Also, notice that Tom has made a recess for the refrigerator so it is not sticking out into the room like a snorting behemoth and getting in the way of everything else.