Women’s Retreat Part I

Everybody wants to know about Women’s Retreat, which is where I was over the weekend.  Today got all used up doing the laundry, running errands, shopping for groceries.
Shucks, I didn’t even read my online comics until about 4pm!

While supper was cooking, I called the automated system for Teaching Substitutes and learned my scheduled job was cancelled, but there was a request for me to work the same job I had last week.  It’s difficult to read anything into it, but I hope their family situation takes a turn for the positive soon.

This leaves this evening to do a bunch of writing while I am still decompressing.
Husband says he wants to hook up a generator or converter or something to put all my energy into light and power.  And I’m getting hoarse from talking so much to so many people.
Perhaps it is better if I sit and type awhile before I get going on more chores.

Friday morning seems so long ago.  There were 5 of us to meet in the church parking lot.  One of the husbands packed all our suitcases, bedrolls, pillows in quite neatly.  He even left a bit of space for the last one for when we joined up with a friend in an hour and a half.
She was driving through Chicago on her own, while we stopped in a mall food court for lunch.  With the help of cell phones, we found her in the parking lot of a hotel, where she had permission to leave her van over the weekend.

I remember the times of travel and meeting before cell phones.
Much relief of anxiety these days.

Then we stopped at a WallyWorld, well, just because we could.
I was riding shotgun in the van, and crocheting like lightning.
Our driver decided she also might like to do some crochet to pass the time at camp, so we soon found ourselves in a supercenter whose craft department hasn’t been downsized.  I bought a couple balls of 4-ply cotton in a color I haven’t seen in months.

We stopped for supper at a Chinese buffet, and I ordered a nice pot of hot tea.  Riding in the front passenger seat means air conditioning blowing across my knees, and I needed something warm.  Also, the weather was turning cooler as we traveled north.

Looking over the pictures in the folder, I realize I did not get a single one that first evening.

Camp is the same, most of the staff, the lake, the hill and woods.

And being with friends.
Everybody has aged a year, yet we’re all still the same.

This Retreat being connected with church, there are worship services.

I sat in the back, on a bench much more comfortable than the metal chairs.

in Retreats past, I feel moved, emotionally and physically

This year, the hymn singing was so beautiful, but I must admit I just wasn’t connecting with the speaker.
She’s about my age, a widow, who has returned to seminary to continue her education.  We were to separate into smaller groups and talk about a sorrowful situation in our life.
Now really, I do not want to go there right now.
Some others shared quite willingly, but I kept thinking I should just get up and go for a walk along the trail by the lake and admire the beauty of nature.
Nearer God’s heart in a garden, so to speak.

Pictures, crochet, buddy tales will have to wait.

the dishes and folding laundry cannot.

~~love and Huggs, Diane