Shopping, no crowds!

Are there reports of brisk holiday sales this year? From here it seems unlikely. Yesterday afternoon [Saturday, a prime shopping time, one assumes] Rachel told me she had just come back from the mall and it was not very busy. My own plan was to go there this morning while many people would be in church. There were very few people about, I did not have to wait in line to check out, the parking lot was not packed. This experience may be atypical but it seems few people are frantically shopping.

Happily I had time and space to wander and, as always I shopped with an open mind, not a firmly defined list in my head. I had some basic ideas and thought it would be unlikely I'd finish my shopping. But I did! In about an hour and a half and then I went to the Starbucks in the Barnes & Noble where I got a remarkably fresh cranberry-orange scone with their Christmas special coffee. I enjoyed my snack while I looked through a Quilting Arts Magazine thinking I would find it as pretty as usual but, as usual, not offering many ideas I would be likely to use. Actually, it seemed to have a different, more useful slant this issue so I bought in order to read thoroughly and keep it on hand for reference. It was a most satisfactory morning even though rain was splattering down.

I'll have the mail-away gifts in the postal system's hands in a day or two. What a satisfying feeling! I have a couple of quilting projects to finish but I've got two weeks to do it. No prob'. Ho, ho, ho ... I'm holiday-ready.