Retirement, recipes, and cooking

So far, after one day, retirement is great. I slept late (well, 7:30 is late for me), went to the grocery, came home and answered emails, piddled, etc., and went to Neiman's for lunch with Jeannie and Jean. They asked what I was going to do with my afternoon, and I said I had a couple of difficult contracts to work on, and they asked, "This is retirement?" But it is. I worked on those contracts in my new comfy nightshirt with a glass of wine and then had a good nap. I still, of course, get a great deal of emails that I need to forward to one person or another, and the Sisters in Crime emails are enough to keep a person busy all day--yet I'm afraid I'll miss some nugget of valuable information if I don't read them all.
Tonight I've been editing recipes in Grace & Gumption: The Cookbok. Almost two years ago we published the original Grace & Gumption: Stories of Fort Woth Women, with fourteen contributors. Most of them were enthusiastic when I suggested a cookbook with recipes from women in the first book--we did have to recruit a couple of new writers. Katie Sherrod, who edited the first book, agreed to edit if I would edit recipes, which I have thoroughly enjoyed doing. Now I'm on the lookout for recipes we could cook for our Bookish Frogs group for a social function next summer--some are good, some are appalling, and way too many are for desserts. I'm almost through going over chapters for the first time. When I go back I'll list those we could use for an event. As you can tell, I have not at all separated myself from TCU Press, except that I no longer have the burden of decisions, running things, and keeping regular office hours, etc. It's a really good feeling, and yet I'm still doing work I enjoy.
Tomorrow all the children and grandchildren arrive, and I will be busy cooking much of the weekend. I look forward to it and to the visit. I'm liable to be really spoiled with two family weekends in a row. We will have dinner at my house Friday and Sunday, go out for Saturday supper. Tomorrow I'll get the boys to grill flank steak and I'll fix a Greek meal with hummus, Greek salad (Jordan's contribution), dolmas and pita bread. Sunday I think I'll do an enchilada casserole using polenta instead of tortillas (I may share some of those recipes in coming blogs). Saturday noon Jamie is cooking his pulled pork about which he is very enthusiastic, and Megan will fix cole slaw following the recipe from Austin's Salt Lick--it has no mayonnaise, which Megan does not like.
I'm excited about another family weekend and feeling good about retirement--my lunch calendar is full for the next two weeks. What could be better? I think my ideal day is to sleep late, linger over the paper and coffe (slim as the paper is these days), piddle, answer emails, etc., go to lunch, then come home, do some work, nap, dinner, do lots more work, and finish the day with a book. How lucky am I?