We've been having temperatures in the sixties in the northeast but yesterday cold weather arrived in a rush. A gusty wind blew sheets of rain across the yard. The windows in the sun porch steamed up. Within a couple hours the temperature had dropped 20 degrees. Tonight it is supposed be be significantly below freezing for the first time this year.

I'd already cleaned the roof gutters and took the lawn mower out for one last spin, less to cut the grass than to grind up fallen leaves. There's not much point in raking leaves back into the surrounding woods.

The pantry is all stocked up, in anticipation of those days, or weeks, when we're snowed in and now we can only wait, and hope, the snow and sub-zero temperatures arrive later rather than sooner.

The cat, having forgotten how she shunned me during the heat of summer, is back on my lap full-time, assisting with the clean-up of the soon to be completed new novel. By the time there are leaves on the trees again, Mary and I might have one of those mythical six figure book deals.

One good thing about writing...there's always hope, even at the beginning of the winter