A Quick Update on Maddy

I am retired!

Yes, Friday October 2, 2026 was my last day at the day job. I worked for Medicare for 25 years. Like with every job there were good and bad things, but in general it was good. I sure don’t miss the work, but I do miss my coworkers. My start time was 7:00 am Monday through Friday. I expected that I would still wake up at 6:00 every morning. No. I sleep in every morning until 8:00 or even later. Boy, is that nice!

Cancer Front

I finished my last chemo treatment on September 28, 2026. Now I have a two month break. I have scans December 7, 2026 and then I see the oncologist on September 9. It took until this past week for me to feel human again. I do not have terrible side effects like some people do, but I get so worn out that I can barely function. I expect I will start chemo again in December, but maybe not. If the scans and other tests look good he might give me a couple of more months off. Fingers crossed for that.

Writing Front-The Fire Prince & More

Well, since I don’t have the day job any more and I’m feeling pretty good after chemo, I have set up a writing schedule. I did take the first two weeks of retirement off to clean my apartment (cue maniacal laughter. I didn’t do much cleaning!). I had to blow dust (figuratively) off the manuscript for The Fire Prince, Book 2 in the Lords of Erabir trilogy. I plan to write at least 3 days a week for 3 hours. That is the minimum. I did that this week, with a total word count of 4398 words. Not much, but it’s more than I had last Sunday. No plan yet for a release date. Let’s see how my schedule goes so I can have an idea of a reasonable goal for the release. Early summer of 2027? We’ll see!

I also plan to get into a regular schedule of blogging and sending out a newsletter. I used to do a Christmas Stocking Giveaway every December, but I love Advent Calendars, where you unwrap a little treat every day. This year I plan to do a 12 Days of Christmas Reading advent calendar. I have been collecting little gifties all years for this. I will send out a newsletter about it in a few weeks.

Crafting

Another thing about being retired that I love is having time to knit and quilt. Now that the weather is FINALLY getting cooler I don’t mind having a pile of wool yarn in my lap. I recently finished a big squishy shawl for my self. I’m calling it the strawberry Parfait shawl. Just the thing for wrapping up in to read on a chilly night. Kindly ignore the boo boos. 🙂

Also, I have a few quilt tops finished that I need to quilt. I make these nap sized quilts to donate to the Roger Maris Cancer Center. That is where I have my treatments. They give a quilt to every new patient. Sadly, there are always new patients. Cancer isn’t going away. So they need a lot of quilts. I have donated about 10 so far. Maybe. This peacock quilt top is one of my favorites.

So that is my little update. I hope you all have a great weekend and have lots of good reading material to keep you happy!