Hurray the weekend is here! It felt like a long work week. I sailed through it without any issues, and I was really tired and ready for it to be over by Friday. I am loving having Friday afternoons as a work from home time because it feels like a great wind down for the week.

I have been closely monitoring the progress of Hurricane Helene as it made landfall and across its path thru the south. I hope all is well with you and I have been really concerned for all in its path. I have also been really concerned about the third murder that has happened in our small community over the last month. These are very rare but the ripple effects as always felt by all. To cope with all of life I make, do exercises and meditate. Let me tell you what I did:

This week I did my Qigong exercises for at least 10 min every morning. It is a great start for each day. I am going to try to work in 15 min exercises a few times a week. These are more challenging to do than meets the eye! I may join the membership site to get more programs unlocked from the website. I am feeling more balance and mobility in my body.

I am really starting to make a progress on finishing the Happy Haunting Halloween cross stitch. This was a free mystery stitch along with FQS last year. All I needed to do for a finish is the full moon behind the Happy Haunting text and as of yesterday I had the moon all outlined. Now it should start to finish quickly.

I am finishing the last row today on a quilt I am long arming for my Mom. I have 3 quilts to do for dear friends. I am trying to incorporate daily 15 min on the long arm. As I learned while cross stitching these little capsules of time make progress happen! It is also not too much energy spent on one thing that can drain me so that I cannot do all I need to do in a day such a work, lol.

I found a yard of the green fabric used for the sashing and borders at MSQC on the quilt pictured above. I bought a yard because that is what my quilters calculator app said I needed to finish this project. The green was the perfect fabric. It is from the very hard to find Strawberry Lemonade by Chelsea and Sherri. I have a layer cake in that line and I may hoard it for a while, by the way. I had only one 10 inch strip left when I was finished. Whew, that was close!!

I did open a phishing email and thought I was checking my Social Security statement. Good thing my virus protection in my computer and phone wouldn’t let any of the links work. I was so mad. I really need to check where it is coming from before I open any email because everything looks so real when you open it. Anyways all of my retirement programs tell me that I need to wait until I am 62 before I can retire and only then if I can buy insurance that is affordable. Deep sigh. 4 more years, I can do that.

I am going to start a small apple quilt from my Lori Holt book Scrappiness is Happiness. I have a fall theme Stitchy Stars table runner that I was struggling with to finish from last year. I want to finish it this month, too. The local quilt shop owner is a huge Lori Holt fan and she said she would look at the pattern and help me if she can. Also she is going to do a Lori Holt club. I may need to get coverage at work so I can go!!

Vicki