As I'm sure you've inferred from the photo, we are selling our house. We hope. And, we hope, leaving town. It was never our intention to stay here, in Greencastle, and we like it less and less as the years pass. Our plan is to move to a larger, more vibrant town, about an hour from here.

Selling a house is more than just hammering a sign out in the front yard, and preparing the house has been keeping us busy for several weeks. You know, all the stuff we were going to get to eventually - new vinyl in the bathroom, fresh paint, fixing the leaky basement, replacing a cabinet in the kitchen - we've been rushing to get that done. We're hoping to sell it, or rent it out, by January. Yes, we're really ready to go.

Selling the house hasn't kept us out of the Christmas spirit, however. This weekend, we chose a tree (a Frasier fir - a new standard has been set for trees in this family), set up the village on the piano, and downloaded the Frank Sinatra Christmas album from itunes. The decorations have not escaped Loulou unnoticed - every morning as we descend the staircase he exclaims "wow, tree!" or "wow, beau!" I anticipate the season will hold many lovely surprises for my sweet boy.