The Story Of My Life

It has taken me an extra day to get back into the groove...but the weekend Women's retreat was great!!  It's funny how some things seem as if they were just written for you specifically.  I think all 140 of us felt the same way.

The theme was 'The Story Of My Life' and who your life is being written by.  We used the concept of scrapbooks and put together the different parts, those that we show off to others, but more specifically, we addressed those parts of our story that we don't typically put on display.

I am very happy I went.  Given some of the stories that were being shared, including a woman who found the courage to admit, in front of all of us, that she has been struggling with a severe eating disorder for 20 years, I thought this was appropriate for the ladies' room.

Our hearts all went out to her and I have to say that I'm quite certain we used ALL of the tissues available in all of Leesburg, VA!!!

The location of the retreat - that is a different story!  The area was BEAUTIFUL but the building was the most bizarre place I think I've ever been.  You would think if you are on the 4th floor, you're on the 4th floor, right?...oh, how very naive of me!!  The directions from the man checking us in were, "go through the doors on the left, follow the path to the other building, go around the back of the building, walk up 2 flights of steps and enter the building on the 2nd floor, take the elevator to the 4th floor, get off and follow Virginia all the way to Delaware, then get back in an elevator and take it up to the 4th floor (wait, aren't we there???), get off and go to West Virginia, then take the stairs to the 3rd floor where you will find another elevator.  Go out the back side of the elevator when you get to the 4th floor (again, what?), then wander around aimlessly (ok, I added that word, but he should have said it!) until you find a sign pointing to your room, which is (yep, no typo here), on the 5th floor (wait, am I not on the 4th floor?).  Once I found my room, got over the fact that it was smaller than my closet and smelled like a manhole, I had to find my way back out to the dining hall...that's how the whole weekend went.  I certainly got my walking in!!

In a nutshell, an adventure.

Of course, while I was there in my military-issued bed, this was where Emma was...

Something is very NOT RIGHT about this situation!!!

Now, if I could only get used to it being so dark!!!!!