Fall Retreat

We returned late yesterday afternoon from the annual Nashville Friends Meeting Fall Retreat. Carmac, Zed and Z's friend Scott went with me. My friend Sylvia brought her son and his friend (who Z has known since he was 3 and who go to school with Scott) so we had a small gang of 12 year old boys and then Carmac, who's always happy tailing the big boys. We were the first people to arrive on Saturday, due to Hammy having to drop us off because he needed the car over the weekend. The schedule was low-key. On Saturday we did a "swap-meet" in which we all brought something we were ready to "let go of", shared it's significance with the group and then set it out for someone else to take. I cheated and made a CD of my favorite music specifically for the swap. When we finished that, Thais had brought her stamping stuff and I brought a ton of T-shirts and my stencilling stuff so we made cool looking shirts (Carmac got a new Godzilla shirt that looks way cool and I made a flying saucer shirt for Zed and an atom shirt for Scott).
We took a nice hike on Saturday and then Bill and a friend of his, Susan, played for us while many of us danced. Carmac was my partner for most of the dances and did wonderfully! Mary B taught me to waltz, which was great! We did the Virginia Reel and danced a polka and I spun Carmac around and up and over.

Carmac had been talking about smarshmellows for a week, so we gathered around the campfire for s'mores. I'd brought my "over the fire" old-fashioned popcorn popper (which I found at Goodwill years ago and have never used). It worked pretty well until the butter caught fire. Car had his sweets and then he and I retired to bed. He'd said he wanted the top bunk but pretty quickly he decided he wanted to be with me in the bottom one. We snuggled together but then he fell asleep and wet the bed a little. The lodge, where we were sleeping, seems to amplify noise, so anyone walking anywhere in the building disturbed my sleep. I got very little sleep Saturday night.

Sunday we had Meeting for Worship during which, for the very first time, I fell asleep. Sitting in the chair in the warm sun I tried to settle in and settled myself right into dreamland. I didn't even know I was nodding off until after I'd awakened and realised I'd been dreaming!

I must go work now, but let me close by saying again, just how grateful I am to have the community of NFM in my life. I and my children are so nurtured, loved and sustained by the community. Blessings.