annual women’s retreat

ah, the women’s retreat. my favorite church retreat of the year and the envy of all of the mennonite men. it starts on saturday morning, ends sunday by noon and it’s a time to relax (we pay camp staff to cook and clean for us and everyone leaves the kids at home) and chat and do whatever you want to do–and all of the choices of things to do are tempting! sometimes the hardest parts of women’s retreat are choosing what activity you want to do and then remembering to go to bed. i got to bed by 1:00…

this year, i took the supplies for the art project (in year’s past, we’ve had wheat weaving, sewing box making, ukranian egg decoration…) and i chose to do collage. i’d been inspired by the collage books by claudine hellmuth and so i brought those books and some other inspiring books and tons of bits and pieces for collaging (mostly gathered from the dig-n-save–have i told you about this store yet?) and those who were brave enough to try it really had fun! i sure had fun. i used oil pastels for the first time (fun!) and i made a few cute things. at this point, my stuff is sort of straight copies (or as close as i can come to copying collage) of pieces that i liked that inspired me, but i figure that once i’m familiar with the technique, then i can branch out and do my own creative stuff. this was the activity that kept me up until 1:00.

women’s retreat is also a wonderful time of reflection. i often need to be reminded to just stop and sit and think and breathe and this retreat is a wonderful place to do that.

my soul feels refreshed.