My addled brain is at it again. This time it was this Women's Getaway Weekend with women from our new church. It's not a matter of not writing it on my calendar. My new trend is to put things on my calendar, directly from emails detailing specifics of an event, and to put it on the wrong date. I did it to this major event, and I did it to an all-day Institute for Excellence in Writing seminar and a kids' writing workshop. Thankfully I caught that one, since every time I looked a month ahead at my weekends on February, I would think, Hmm, I don't remember it being on Valentine's Day. Because, well, it isn't.

So I just returned today. It was great. I was so incredibly nervous and most definitely wondering what I had been thinking when I signed up for this thing. I was sharing a hotel room with three other women whose names I didn't even know, and I am a person who is a bit squeamish about sharing a space like that even with people in my own family or who are close friends. So this was stepping out for sure. My fears were unfounded. While I still don't feel like I'm the most inside track person there, I did get to know several people much better than I did before, and I think I learned some things about myself, uncovered some things in my life that are more worrisome or provoking than I had believed they were. The topic of the weekend was "change," and the group sessions, which were a smallish part of the weekend, were especially helpful for talking through areas that we'd like to change in our lives and the obstacles keeping us from doing so and what we might have to lose if we did open ourselves to changing. The bulk of our time, though, was spent doing things like shopping at the outlets, dancing to goofy group dance songs (that Cuban shuffle or whatever it's called, various line dances, and other annoying stomping things), and playing that game where everyone sits in a chair in a circle and one person stands in the middle and says something like, "I've had sex in my kitchen" and then everyone else that the statement applies to has to run and switch seats, and the person left standing is the one who has to come up with the next "I wear contacts" statement. It was loads of fun, and the statements got very goofy after a while. I spent way too much money on way too many clothes for everyone except Kerry. I had no idea there was a Hanna Andersson outlet there, which was just plain dangerous. I picked up a sweater and a pair of pants for myself, both $5, but I wiped the place out for the kids. Most of the stuff there is pretty basic, and most of what I got is rather bland--solid color polos, solid color t-shirts, both short and long sleeved, two pairs or shorts for Rutledge, those adorable striped short johns for Rutledge, khaki pants, some leggings for a dress Frances already had. I also bought some red corduroy pants, a sweater to match (not corduroy!), a couple of shirts, and socks. I realized on Saturday that I was wearing unmatching socks, and that kind of thing has to change....

I'm still reading Twilight, and I feel like there's something wrong with me. Intelligent people who are savvy and thoughtful readers abhor these books, and I can't get enough. It doesn't even bother me that they never have sex...in fact, it makes it all the more alluring and tense. I'm not a vampire person, not a fantasy person, so this is already out of my comfort zone by a long shot, so I'm not looking for one of those erotic vampire novels; in fact, I do my best to try to forget that he's a unnaturally quick moving, mind-reading vampire because...I hate vampire books. And the werewolf thing, well, that's just over the top. But here I still am, edgy and waiting for more.

Tomorrow is our co-op, where we are doing a WWII class for the first part and some Think! activities for the second part. I need to firm up what we're going to do. I am with the girls, and they are reading American Girl books about Molly, the girl on the home front. I roll my eyes at the commercialism and triteness of the whole AG enterprise, but it is awfully convenient, and the books are not poorly written. They do a much better job of covering material than those darn Magic Treehouse books, which obviously are written for a slightly younger audience, but could certainly weave in more facts and topical information than they do. What I especially like about the AG books are the photos at the end and the historical notes that flesh out some of the material mentioned in the narrative story. So tomorrow I think we're going to read the first Molly book, do a little more knitting, which is what we did last week after reading about the Lend-A-Hand Contest where the girls in the class knit squares to sew into a quilt, and we'll make a blue star flag. After that, we'll perhaps make another ration recipe and listen to some more 40s music. Can I say again how much I love XM? It's my understanding that the whole group is going to make miniature Victory Gardens.

I am off to read a bit more before crashing. I've been up until 2 or 2:30 two nights in a row, added on top of sleeping poorly in a hotel room.