It is amazingly quiet here!  No toys to trip over.  No baby locks to struggle with when I try to get in a cabinet.  I can leave my knitting lying on a table and it's still there (and on the needles) when I return.  I don't have to worry about my hot coffee sitting on the edge of a table.  However, there also are no little voices calling, "Nana! Nana" first thing in the morning and no hugs and kisses to greet me when I get up.  But those hugs and kisses are only an hour and a half away.  I'm not saying that the past two months have slightly fried my brain, but when I was getting laundry out of the linen closet today, I found a cup of coffee in there!  I don't know how long it's been in there, but I'm thinking weeks.  I know it was mine because I'm the only one in the household who takes cream!

Ben & Abby finally moved into their house last weekend.  We kept the girls for the weekend while they got things organized.  Since we had the girls for Halloween, we took them trick or treating.  A local church had a great festival and even had a professional photographer doing free photos:

On the way down to deliver the girls to their new home I told Isobel that we were going to their new house.  I told her that she would be living there with Mommy and Daddy, but that Nana and Yeh-Yeh could come visit her often.  She said, "And you can watch me grow up!"  I got a little teary eyed at that one.  Out of the mouths of babes!  Poor Ivy was so sad, she cried all the way down.  Not screaming, just quietly sobbing.  I think she was tired and missing her parents.  When we drove up to the house and she saw Abby, she was SO happy.  And when she walked into the house and saw all of her familiar toys, she was grinning from ear to ear. 

So life is settling back to normal.  We are enjoying the peace and quiet so much.  I have begun knitting again and have started two new projects:

These will be Abby's birthday socks – she chose Coriolis.  I think it's a good choice – she wanted something fairly plain, but I wanted something interesting to knit.  Oh, and don't freak out Abby – the yarn really is grey – it's Dream in Color Smooshy.

I also started on a  Flower Basket scarf to go into the Christmas basket:

I'm using a lovely fingering weight alpaca/wool mix, but I'm too lazy to get up out of my chair and check the ball band.

I also got a goody in the mail this week.  Lorette had blogged about a neat little container for stitch markers and what-not.  I love little containers almost as much as I love tote bags and ordered one immediately.  How cute:

I ordered it here, but who knows if there are any left.  I imagine Lorette caused a run on them!

The countdown to retirement continues – only 18 1/2 working days!!  Are you tired of hearing about it yet?  It just seems that the drama is such a large part of my life right now.  Every time I turn around I discover yet another boneheaded move by the computer guys that makes my work more difficult.  Starting tomorrow, though, I get to do one of my favorite things – teach.  Our new employee starts and I think I'm really going to enjoy the training aspect.  

Speaking of learning, I've spent most of this weekend learning myself.  I got my new copy of Photoshop Elements 8 for the Mac and have been going through Linda Sattgast's marvelous tutorial.  I can't say enough for her video. I made four scrapbook pages, but they'll have to wait for another post.  I'm debating whether to start another blog just for scrapbooking.  What do you think?  One all purpose blog or two specialty ones?