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I was at the farmers market yesterday (briefly, it started raining again) and managed to score some of the first crop of China Honey oranges and pecans. The China Honeys tend to sell out very quickly, but I got there early enough to get a 1/4 bushel. Mmmm...sweet, easy to skin, juicy China Honeys.

But the real prize was the pecans. I'd been a bit nervous because Leo didn't have his pecans in at the beginning of November because of the unusually warm weather. Now I can shell them to make my pecan pies for Thanksgiving.

Normally my dear husband shells the pecans, but he's having a busy month so I'm giving him a break. That custom of him doing the shelling goes back to early in our marriage. We were broke, and the packaged, shelled pecans in the supermarket were too expensive for my budget. He needed to go to Tallahassee on business and on the way back passed a roadside pecan stand. Knowing how much I love pecan pie, he bought a bag, brought them home, and shelled them all for me so I could have pie.

There have been many romantic gestures from that man over the 30+ years since that time, but I'll always remember those shelled pecans as one of the most meaningful and heartfelt. And that's what Thanksgiving is all about, isn't it? Remembering our true blessings and giving thanks.

So long, and thanks for all the rain!

We got brushed with the edge of Ida, which dumped some much needed water over our part of the state. A couple of inches of precipitation, spread gently through the afternoon and evening, was just right for rehydrating some extremely parched areas of North Central Florida.

The excellent weekend forecast (rain chance 5%, temps topping out at 80F) makes me feel even better because I'm looking forward to attending the Downtown Arts Festival, one of my favorite fall events!

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I've got my galleys for The Bride and the Buccaneer! Now I need to gather my red pens, my manuscript, and my lip balm.

Why lip balm? I do the final read-through of the manuscript aloud, and this chaps my lips. In the old, pre-Bluetooth days it would also garner frightened looks from people around me in the coffeeshop. They would see this woman talking to herself, gesticulating wildly, and move to another table. But I've learned that reading the manuscript aloud is a good way to catch typos. Your mind tends to fill in the blanks while you're reading. That's why you can look at a sentence like "Hr ns ws rd frm cryng" and figure out it means "Her nose was read from crying" without too much difficulty. Your mind fills in the missing vowels.

The other thing that happens is I'll take a break from reading the manuscript, read my daily paper over lunch, and find myself reading it aloud with my lips moving. Sure catch a lot of their typos that way.

But I'm excited because galleys = book. It's the last step before publication, and now I'm really looking forward to holding my own copy of The Bride and the Buccaneer in December.

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Had a library foundation meeting this afternoon, and the news is encouraging. Our library use is at an all time high and our endowment fund portfolio is starting to recover from its swan dive last year.

I'm not surprised the library usage is up. In tough times people depend on their public libraries more than in good times. All the more reason to work hard at ensuring public libraries stay open, vibrant and available to the people.

We also heard who our author is going to be for our next Gala. Can't say who it is yet, but it's another NYT bestselling author who I know will be a crowd pleaser. Stay tuned!

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I'm reviewing the University of Florida's Zombie Attack Preparedness Plan. You just can't take chances this weekend.

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I was writing away earlier and discovered my pirate villain is allergic to cats.

I know writers, excellent writers, who make elaborate profiles of their characters before they start writing: "He's got hair like golden wheat, ice blue eyes, hates beets, and was beaten by his tutor for not being able to grasp the intricacies of French verbs..."

Me, I'm a seat of the pants writer. Though I prefer the more elegant term "organic" writer. I sometimes start with a notion of what my characters look like, but I let them reveal information to me as we go along.

For example, In Castaway Dreams the hero and heroine, and the heroine's small dog are rescued by pirates. There's a conversation between the pirate captain and the hero over rats in the hold, and the hero asks why there's no ship's cat? The answer is because the captain's allergic to cats.

A small plot device, but one that could loom large later. Maybe I'll have the villain end up trapped in a room full of long-haired kitties after the heroine escapes. I'm still working on it. But I'm glad Captain St. Armand told me he's allergic to cats. Makes my life more interesting. And my writing more organic.

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I've been noticing I don't blog very often compared to some others. Y'all can thank me later.