retreat….

this weekend was my church’s annual winter retreat and you may remember from year’s past that it’s one of my favorite activities all year long, but this year…. we just had to skip it.  mr. happy stuff and i had both come down with the dreaded cold that’s been crashing through the country and with all of the traveling and visiting we’ve done for the past two weeks (my parents came two weeks ago, mr. h-s had two business trips to chicago, we visited his family in indiana last weekend…), we were both just pooped!  so we had our own retreat.  at home.  we started the weekend off with a low-key trip to the movie theater to see coraline in 3-d.  very, very cool.  i remember not being super crazy about the book, so i’d been skeptical of the movie, but when i heard that most of the items in the movie were actually made (not illustrated or cg, but actually tiny knitted sweaters and tiny quilted quilts), i was intrigued.  mr. h-s had heard good things about the 3-d version, so we decided to go see it while it was still in theatres.  totally worth it.  although the ending was creepy, i was completely in love with the first half of the “other mother’s” world.  i mean, who wouldn’t love a mechanical chicken that pecks a corn cob and then poops out the popcorn?  it was visually rich and smileriffic.  plus, we all got to wear very geeky 3-d glasses.

on saturday morning, snow was falling quite heavily, but that didn’t stop us from also traipsing out into the world to see the oscar nominated short animated films.  i mean, they’re only being shown for a week or two, and only in the middle of the day, so this was really our only chance.  and we do love animated shorts.  tonight’s winner, “la maison en petits cubes” was one that at first i didn’t like. (you can see a clip here)  compared to all of the rest it was dark and scratchy looking, but the very simple storyline actually touched something deep inside of me and spoke clearly, across language and culture barriers, about how our lives are all built upon our pasts, and although we may have buried that past, it is still there, supporting our present day lives. spent the rest of the day taking care of that pile of things that nag and nag that they need to get done and felt much better for having them out of the way.

on sunday morning, i surprised myself by sleeping in until 10 a.m.  (nyquil will do that, i suppose) but then enjoyed a leisurely pancake breakfast with my dear hubby (and learned of the bliss that is “original” (read ‘not non-fat’) greek yogurt from “greek gods” brand plus homemade meyer lemon curd on blueberry pancakes.  oh.  my.) and i took the photo of the snow-covered tree with the brilliant blue sky through my window.  stayed inside all day (still sniffling and coughing terribly).  i did finally make time to do a little sewing and during the oscars, i finished up a few more projects that i hope to post soon.

it was a very renewing weekend.  and isn’t that what retreats are all about, anyway?