Church Retreat

Last weekend I attended the annual women's retreat for the church we go to here. I've been telling everyone who asks me how it went that I definitely had a southern cultural experience. It was fun and interesting!

The event took place at Pickwick Landing State Park. This lake sits on the border of TN, MS, and AL. Our hotel/inn was on the Tennessee side. It's about a 2 hour drive east of Memphis, and on the way I was excited to see some hills! Memphis is really flat, but as you travel east you start to encounter changes in elevation.

Food - all meals were served buffet style at the restaurant.

Breakfast options included grits and biscuits and gravy. The grits seemed pretty slimy and like they had no flavor. I think this was my first time trying them. I heard, though, that there are lots of ways to make grits and that I shouldn't take this batch as representative of the food in general.

Lunch was your classic "meat and three" with side dish choices like black eyed peas, green beans, and cornbread.

For dinner, they served catfish. As in, whole catfish, fried, with their tails still on! I've only had catfish once or twice before. This was definitely the tastiest!

And of course at all meal times, the sweet tea was flowing freely.

Activities:
We had a large chunk of free time during which participants could take a ride on a pontoon boat around the lake. (It's not really fall here yet, hence no changing leaves.) Despite the gray skies, it was a fairly warm day.

I also learned some country line dances like the Sidewinder Shuffle.

Other women were doing art projects like making burlap door hangers to support their favorite SEC football team.

Participants:
I'm bad at estimating numbers, but I bet there were about 200 people at this retreat. Our church really focuses on being intergenerational, and the ages ranged from 6 weeks to mid-90s. I'd say the total population skewed towards the older side (if you were to make a distribution bar graph), but there was decent representation from most all of the decades of life.

I had a hard time keeping track of everyone, though. I'd meet one person, and she'd say, "Oh, do you know so-and-so? Well, her mom is over there, and I'm her aunt!" And etc. I wish everyone would wear nametags at church now so I can remember who they are...The point here is that there were a lot of family connections amongst participants, more than I think would happen at a similar event in the northwest.

Decor:
Not sure if this is a southern thing or not, but the decorations committee went all-out! The theme was "tea party." Check our our tables for the final night.

Each person got a fancy tea cup to take home! And you'll note the burlap table runners. I think that you can't have an event in the south if you don't incorporate burlap into the decor somehow :)

Above is a photo of the tea party. The organizers had told us to bring a tea hat. I had no idea what that meant so I didn't wear one. But you can see by this picture that a lot of people did understand the memo! During this session two of the church "matriarchs" shared stories about their lives and answered questions from the audience. They are very sharp, especially for being about 90, and they were really entertaining! But it was a little hard for me to follow everything they were talking about. I kind of felt like a new person coming to a family reunion, hearing all the family lore for the first time.

Overall, it was a good weekend! And I will hopefully remember the people I met and greet them with the correct name next time I see them.