LadyLee Retreats, Part II: Being There.

Ahh... the retreat...


The drive up was slow, but nice. The mountains were oh so beautiful, especially with it being autumn and the leaves changing colors and all... I didn't get a lot of good pictures due to the weather.

I know we left Atlanta around three in the afternoon and arrived around six o'clock due to CRAZY Atlanta traffic. When we actually got to Helen Georgia, it was pitch black all along those back roads... Apparently, they don't know what a street light is up in those parts of Georgia.

We stayed at Tan.gle.wood cabins. We had to travel down some dark gravel covered back roads to get to our cabins... Both me and and my riding partner were a bit unnerved by it all.



I was like...

"Ya'll got me caught up in some ole Jason,
Michael Myers, Blair Witch craziness!!"

But we finally found our lovely cabin...

Now, there were approximately 25-30 of us, and we had two 5 bedroom cabins and one 4 bedroom cabin.







The big cabin, the second one pictured above, had a hot tub, but no one used it. I wouldn't have, with it being 30-40 degrees outside. My best friend LadyTee has me jaded. She said before I left, "Ya'll fools can mess around and jump in a hot tub if ya'll want to... Ya'll will catch pneumonia!" LOL!

The cabins were nice... I loved the ambience!

Candles on the balcony...

Fireplace roaring...

There was A LOT of food. Breakfast was the best part of the day for me...

All the bacon, eggs, sausage, grits, biscuits, orange juice...





French toast, waffles, warm fruit, Ray-Ray's insane hash brown casserole... All you can eat... Goodness! Nothing like having that "itis" first thang in the morning! I don't usually eat like that in the mornings! I know my cholesterol went up a quite a few notches. Oh my!



There was MUCH wine flowing...



There were even champagne laced strawberry smoothies served with breakfast...



I don't drink, but there was a lot of drinking going on!! Let's just say when the liquor gets to flowing, watch OUT now! LOL

Friday evening was nice... Everyone hung out at their respective cabins, getting settled in. I stayed at my cabin, hung out in the living room around the fireplace with a few of the ladies, all of us clad in our pajamas, and watched a movie.

You know me though... I was perched on the sofa, watching the movie, pecking away softly on my laptop, working on the last couple of chapters of my manuscript (Didn't I tell you? I am almost DONE! GLORY!)

Now Saturday? Saturday was... interesting.

First of all, my girl, Supa STAR, who comments here from time to time, showed up at my cabin wearing one of her many eclectic t-shirts.



Now, Supa STAR finds and wears some of the most bizarre t-shirts. This one is um, self explanatory, but there have been quite a few that I have seen her wear that left me scratching my head, slowing backing up, and tip-toeing away, too afraid to ask what the t-shirt meant. She seemed comfortable. STAR hates to write, and I silently chastised her during the Saturday's journaling exercises for not participating. She would give me the evil eye and then point defiantly at her t-shirt, sliding her finger across the words on front...

Hmmm... I didn't understand that. I am a girl too, and I have a...

Okay, I'm thinking too deeply...

Moving right along...

A Yoga instructor, Mechelle of The Yoga Hive, traveled up on Saturday to teach us a bit of Yoga. She gave a very interesting talk, and we did some very interesting breathing exercises during the morning session. The best thing I learned from her is that this Oldgirl has been breathing wrong for years!

I gots to learn how to breathe correctly!

Really though...

Anyway, later on, Ms. Mechelle got into the groove and started dancing to the music.

This confused me a bit. I was like "Hey! Um, those aren't yoga moves!!"

"No they're not," she yelled, still grooving to the music. "But not all of yoga is slow, now!"

*crickets*

That was waaaay too much for me to comprehend. I think I will stick to learning how to breathe correctly.

Oh well, I guess yoga instructors get their dance on from time to time too, hunh?

Anyway, I didn't participate in the afternoon yoga session. I got caught up in one of the back bedrooms, spending some time alone reading my travel partner Dwan Abrams' book Only True Love Waits (which happens to be VERY good! Look for a review next week!).

Now while yoga was going on in the front living room...

And dinner preparations going on in the kitchen...

There was some SERIOUS bootleg "pushing of product" going on in the back bedroom:



Now see... Don't trip...

Uh, now look, see...

What had happened was...

To be continued...