While hundreds of thousands of people along the Atlantic Seaboard prepared for the arrival of Sandy, I tended to a few errands that I had been able to ignore for the weekend. But as I ran my errands, the events of another October were never far from my mind.

In October of 1999, I lived in the area of North Carolina afflicted by Hurricane Floyd. I was relatively new to the area, and did not really know what it meant to get ready for a hurricane. so while I made some preparations, there were many things I did not get done because I did not realize their importance.

Once the storm was over and it was time to assess the damage, it turned out that I had weathered the storm just fine.

I did not live in an area of town that got flooded, but I lived within easy walking distance of many homes that did flood, and I learned that getting through a hurricane without injury or damage is part preparation and part dumb luck, and I am hoping that the people in Sandy’s path get a good measure of each so that they are able to first ride out the storm and then recover from it.

So, as I went about my errands today, and then, when I finally picked up my crochet, the people in Sandy’s path were never far from my mind because I know that they will need material assistance and reserves of resilience once Sandy has passed, and I know that crafters everywhere are going to want to contribute to the rebuilding as so many of us believe that a good crocheted blanket can make anything better.

But today, I had more modest goals.

First, I added another round of border to my granny square sampler inspired fat-bag-to-be:

and I toyed with the idea of adding yet another border round, but ultimately, I was unable to decide a) if I wanted to add yet another round to the border, and b) what colors I would use if I did.

Unable to reach a decision, I set the fat-bag-to-be aside and made an effort not to get any further behind on the 101 Crochet Squares crochet-along I am working on. This week was week 95, so I have just six weeks left to get caught up, and I worked a square from many weeks ago, square 54, using an 5.5mm hook, and Red Heart Super Saver bright yellow, grape fizz, and light periwinkle. Here is the resulting square:

As for Sandy, I know that when the waters recede people both near and dear to me as well as total strangers will be needing help, and I for one, plan to be ready when they do.