The holiday weekend

Have you noticed that when you go back to work or out in the world after a holiday weekend, everyone asks, "How was your weekend?" I've thought about that, and my answer this time is that it was busy, but it was busyness of my own making. One of the women in my office said, "That's a really good thing," and I agreed. Last night my neighbors and some other friends came for a potluck barbecue--there were six of us and we had enough food for 15. But it was a lovely, convivial evening on the porch--casual, interesting conversation, good food, a tad too hot but who cared. I thought once again how blessed I am by friends and neighbors. And with everyone taking their serving dishes home and having used paper plates, cleanup was a snap. (Okay, I do try to save the environment and not use disposables, but there are some times when it surely is a blessing!).
One thing I learned this weekend, a lesson learned over and over, is that both cooking and yoga are hard work. I cooked for two hours yesterday morning--puttered really, but I did some freezer work (and need to do more), made a black bean salsa (soooo good!), brownies with chile powder and cinnamon added to the Ghiardelli mix (that mix is very moist and maybe the best I've ever had--and the spices were pretty good), and a baguette stuffed with pesto cream cheese, chopped sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan, and chopped spinach--good but messy and hard to deal with. When I got through I was really tired and ready to sit down. And then in the afternoon I did some of the yoga exercises Elizabeth is teaching me--and I was tired again. Today, as so often happens after a weekend of cooking, I had aches and pains that I usually don't have--but my feet didn't hurt.
The weekend was made even better because I really got into a P. D. James mystery--Devices & Desires. British mysteries are hard for me--they're slow to engage when I went the quick action and drawing into the scene of an American cozy. But when I force myself to persevere and stick with James or Martha Grimes, I find I really am hooked and want to keep reading. But, always, my own mystery--number two in my great series of unpublished--rattles around in my brain, and I have what seems like absolutely great ideas. I wrote some today and will do some more tonight. The plot that I thought was minor seems to be taking over, while what I thought was going to be the main story, is moving more into the background. Fun to see how it develops. I'm thinking of calling it No Neighborhood for Old Women, with a bow to Cormac McCarthy, because if it comes out as I envision, there will be a serial killer stalking old ladies. I doubt that, should I find a publisher, I'd get away with that title, but I think it's fun for now. I'm trying to keep a careful list of what agent and when I query, so I can follow up. They're pretty rude about not answering if they're not interested.
Meanwhile, the idea has come up that maybe Colin and I should go to Scotland this fall. My good friends from Omaha were planning for us to take a Santa Fe trip, but maybe Scotland will over-ride that. It's just a vague thought at this point, but I'm going to email him some places to google tonight.