Ahhhh ~ Women's Journaling Alpine Retreat Arrival

Through lots of planning, excitement and hard work, Jean Warren and I launch our fifth annual gathering. The arriving is so full of anticipation. We get to start watching the months of imagining, inventing and tender caring that we both handle this endeavor with - - coming into solid form. Pretty thrilling!!!

Jean 'n I arrive a day early to get things set up and locate sites for specific processes - and of course, to paint and play a bit too! We often re-arrange the entire living room of our largest cabin, the Ponderosa to fit in all our working tables. So, naturally, other furniture has to go. The Resort is very understanding of this annual process but sometimes they don't have time to come pick up extra furniture that we want to eliminate for the duration of time we are there. Such was this lovable rocking chair! For a couple of days

we did this dance of moving her outside onto the deck in the daytime and then, scooting back inside to protect her from the moisture at night. She became somewhat of a mascot and both Jean 'n I made sketches of her. Then they took her away (she went to hang out in the passage way in the lodge between the restaurant and bar - we went by to say 'hi' often).

But I'm still struggling with this paper in the journal - that chair's page is writing paper and I'm afraid to put much water on the image to keep it from rippling. I'm learning ... and the adjacent page is similar paper. It tentatively mounts our little promo flier for this year onto the paper, but is ripple-y and thin. Yet I get to savor the rich paste paper that happens to sit in the middle of this page and it helps out that weak painting of the chair and our flier. Here's what the entire flier, front and inside, spread open to.

So we have a lovely mountain day, everything is in place and welcoming for the coming participants tomorrow. Sleep comes easy, for tomorrow it's "Start your engines, Ladies"!! ... and the fun begins.