MoZart Retreat... October 2014

As previously mentioned, the girlies were escorted to school on this fine Friday by Jennifer and Lisa, two of the MoZart participants!  The girls were more than fine with having some new escorts to take them to school.  Ellie probably gave them a brief history of Drew Elementary, while Gabbi probably told them how Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkles (of My Little Pony fame) are going to save the world today.  That's my life, people, in a sentence. 

As the day went on, the ladies started showing up.  These three in the foreground here are all from St. Louis, Missouri.  And ironically, also from Missouri, Kansas City, to be exact, is Nancy, there with them at the table.  She had a good story about making it to the retreat.  I'l tell that one later.

Oh.  There she is.  She wins the PERSISTENCE award!!  When her flight was cancelled from Dallas to Monroe, she just rented herself a car and hit the interstate!!  5 hours (ONE WAY!) later, and Nancy was ready to ROCK!  I am proud of her. I came to learn later in the weekend that this was pretty out of the normal nature.  I was really, really proud that she broke free of that old way and is LIVING out LOUD!!  Way to go, Nancy!

Heeeeere's Dottie!!  Dottie and I share something... we are approaching middle age (ok, ok, I'm there), and we both have two small girls.  We had some good stories to tell!  She is going through a major life change right now, career-wise, and she has taken the summer to do some soul-searching.  This was sort of the culmination to her "break".  I have been providing some one-on-one coaching to her via phone, and I happen to know that she has some cool opportunities coming her way now.  I can't wait to see where Dottie is in a year!!

One of our first activities was to write on each others' backs what our "First Impressions" were of one another.  It was interesting to see what sort of energy we are projecting!  These little stickers were then transferred into our handmade journals, which just happened to be project numero uno!

Lisa, I am sorry if I am wrong about this, but I think this is your fourth MoZart Retreat?  Is that right?  I have watched you learn so much and become SO MUCH more confident in your skills.  Can't wait til the next one!!

Niki and Tensie sort of came as a pair.  Niki has taken a few art classes and orders some of my kits and offerings from time to time.  This was the first time I had the honor of meeting Tensie.

THere's Amber.  She is one of the therapists at my office.  I LOVED that she has been on a personal growth journey as of late, and she just decided that this retreat was something she needed to do for herself!  Way to go, girl!

That's Jamette beside her, in the black jacket.  She also works at my office as a massage therapist.  She, too, is in a period of self-discovery and growth and took the time, as well as spent the money, to invest in herself.  I am awfully glad she did!

As has been customary at most of the retreats of late, we start the event by constructing a handmade journal.  I love it because we can take notes from our discussions in them, can add oooohhhh, one of maybe a thousand Pinterest quotes I have printed off and ready for the taking, and all of our information regarding each participant's individual strengths are printed to fit in the journal.  We also write each other an encouraging note at the end of the weekend in our books.

Once journal time was over, we hit the snack table.  Thank you to Todd the Bod for always being the host with the most!  He buys the groceries, makes the dips, cuts the fruit, and even made us a big ol' pan of jambalaya so everyone could have a bit of a Louisiana experience while visiting.

Lizzie Girl is used to the complete and total chaos of her mama inviting total strangers into her home for the weekend.  Yep, by now, it's just a way of life.

And here you have them... MK, Kelsey's grandmother (if you happen to be a friend of Melanie Massey Physical Therapy on Facebook, then surely you know Kelsey!), is a great seamstress.  She made these journal covers for me exclusively for my retreat.  Inside the front cover is a pocket with a monogrammed, "MoJoy".  How perfect is that?!

There were lots to choose from, and I let each participant pick whichever one inspired them.  These were the lucky chosen!

AHA!  A rare sighting!

And then, with our first lesson on THINKING, we got busy writing in our journals.

Nancy, good ol' Nancy from Kansas City, is all smiles.  I am so glad she made the effort to keep coming and NOT go back when the going got tough!  That is fortitude!  And fortitude pays off. .. in the way of art projects, art retreats, and in LIFE!!

More to come tomorrow on our MoZart Retreat activities.  Hopefully by the end of the week, I'll have  the dates of the next one!  It'll be in January, cause we have some beginning of the year planning to attend to!!
Thanks for reading.

MO