Back to the old grind

So I've been away from walling for nearly a year. This isn't that I've completely stopped walling, it's that I needed a break, and real-world obligations became more important.
First, I'd been making roughly 1 wall per month from 2007-early 2009 (this was down from about 2-3 walls per month in years past.) That's actually quite a bit of walling considering I have a full-time job and a desire to have a social life. I felt obligated to keep walling at that speed because I had done it for so long, and it was beginning to weigh down.
Additionally, work suddenly turned up a notch. There was a major new Toolbar release (version 6), and I also picked up responsibilities for Chrome which had several launches (although I did get to sneak in a few of my own designs in the Google-created themes gallery, which is awesome.) I also went to New York for a week to kick off themes in Google Spreadsheet Forms (again, I added some of my own designs in the mix -- Zen Spring is every~where♥.)
All of a sudden, in spring of 2009 I was asked if I was interested in working from the Tokyo office for a year. The branch of our team that handles Asia/Pacific requests needed some help and was hoping to get a seasoned webmaster out of HQ, and asked for me.
To which I almost immediately said, "Sign me up!"
The next few months were spent getting ready for the move (paperwork) and transferring some projects to others so I could take on new ones in Tokyo. And then, I moved!
It's been a busy few months transitioning over, finding an apartment, figuring out how to pay the utility bills, and meeting all the awesome people in the Tokyo office. Now things are finally settling down, and I'm ready to get back to some walling!
I don't expect to be able to match the 1 wallpaper/month speed I had previously. I'm not going to try to. I'm just going to make walls when I feel like it. I have some ideas and I'm going to fly with them as I see fit. So sit back and relax, and perhaps subscribe to the feed for updates (or add me to watchlists on Minitokyo or AnimePaper) because I'm still here, and I still mean to stay.
Also, I have totally, utterly missed DA!'s Nth birthday in May. I'm working on a new layout right now, actually. Maybe it'll be up in time to celebrate 2010. It's always good to start the New Year off with a clean slate, right?

The state of the site

So obviously I haven't been making any walls lately. I've been busy with work, and a whole lot of it. Toolbar, Chrome, and Docs have all had numerous launches, and I've also been working on a variety of other projects. I have also recently bought a Nintendo DSi and have been rediscovering my love for SNES RPGs, as well as a love for BBC America programming. I haven't even turned on my desktop computer in several months, doing all my stuff on my work laptop.

I'd like to continuing making wallpapers, but right now I don't feel a whole lot of motivation. Maybe I'll find some inspiration when...

I move to Japan!

I will be working from Japan for a year starting in August, helping out our team in Tokyo. This is a big change and I'm really excited, and also kind of freaking out over all the stuff I need to wrap up before I do so. Definitely not going to have anything out before then. Maybe afterwards. Time will tell.