Not Me Monday - Couples Retreat

This one is gonna be good - it has been accumulating simmering.

Two weeks ago, on our couples retreat, I did NOT forget to bring my breast pump.  I had planned this trip for months, I surely wouldn't have forgotten something as vital as that, as comfort, on a getaway weekend no less, is something of importance to me!  And I did NOT remember that I'd left said pump on the kitchen counter while just mere blocks away, and still opt to not go back for it, thinking, I'm only nursing Christopher before naps and bed anyway.  Production is slowing.  I'll be FINE.  Yeah, because if I HAD forgotten my pump, those would have been some famous last words as I did NOT wake at o'dark-thirty each morning when I could have been luxuriating in unadulterated sleep since we were sans kids.  Because none of that happened, I did NOT have rock hard boobs all weekend, I did NOT have to go painfully and manually express milk in the shower a couple of times per day, and my husband did NOT make crude jokes about going on a mission to find a calf elk to relieve me.  Whoopsies!

I did NOT forget my camera.  Or maybe just to put working batteries in my camera prior to leaving.  See above about planning the trip for months and getting all the details.  I surely wouldn't have missed such an important one as this that I had to go spend an arm and a leg in the YMCA gift shop for batteries.  Not me!

My husband, a couple of elders and I did NOT speak in Song of Solomon code and giggle like junior high kids who were talking about S-E-X at the breakfast table.  Because we're mature and this was a church retreat!  And during the same discussions, my husband did NOT say, repeatedly, that the rooms were quite quiet, you couldn't hear a thing, they were well insulated, etc. as a veiled way of saying, "I got lucky with my wife last night."  Because he has more tact than that, right?  And I certainly did NOT jerk that veil off of what he was getting at by furiously whispering, "You keep saying that and people are going to KNOW!" only to realize that a few of our friends were.  RIGHT. THERE.  Because I know how to be discreet.  And I did NOT start blushing, a deep red blush similar to the one I wore the morning of our honeymoon when I heard the baby next door crying and realized that the thin walls were how the other guests had identified us as honeymooners at breakfast, at this.  Because I believe strongly in talking openly and honestly about the beauty of sex within marriage and if people know we do it then they know we have a close relationship and there's nothing to be ashamed/embarrassed of, right?  Seth did NOT try to back pedal and say something like, "I was just saying I was glad I didn't have to hear I's bathroom visits," to which I's wife did NOT reply, "Too late, I saw how you looked at her!"  Because, again, it was a couples retreat, what did people think we were going to do?!?  No kids, focusing on your marriage, being in God's beautiful creation...hmmmm, two guesses?  LOL.


I did NOT instruct an elder to give his wife a cat-call when she bent over to tie her shoes before our hike together, having just been in a session where we'd talked about emotional needs, two of them being admiration and an attractive spouse.  She did NOT get all mock-indignant with me, and we did NOT laugh our hineys off.  Because 1.) he's smart enough to do that on his own, and 2.) Church retreat.  Prim and proper y'all!


I did NOT nearly lose control of my bladder while playing a game called Old World Outhouses.  (It is a SIMPLE but so ENTERTAINING non-commercial game that combines elements of Pictionary with that beloved Telephone/Gossip game.  To play you simply give each person - a recommended minimum of 8 players - a stack of notecard sized papers with as many pieces as there are people.  Players write a phrase/saying on the top sheet and then pass the whole stack to their right.  Players on the right read phrase, and put it on the bottom of the stack, then draw the phrase or saying as best they can.  Players pass to the right and again put the picture on the bottom of the stack, but have to guess what the picture is illustrating, so they write a phrase.  Pass to the right and simply repeat until all players have had all the stacks.  Then read and view the updated renditions that people came up with)  Because it was a church retreat we did NOT have phrases/pictures with sperm, drug paraphernalia, violence, etc.  See above statements about maturity, solemnity etc.  


Fond memories of this retreat abound - this is just a taste ;)

I can NOT wait for next year.  Because I'm impatient like that.
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