I Left My Heart (and some brand new pajama's) in St. Louis.

I would love to share with you what I did this weekend, but honestly - I'm just not sure.

The weekend seemed to go by at such a rapid fire pace that I am sure of very few things that actually happened. I just know I am exhausted, my face is breaking out and I seem to have put on eight pounds.

It's like a really bad college weekend.

Not that I would know...I went to a Bible College...which meant our curfew was at 11:00 PM and getting drunk on Kit Kats was about as reckless as we got.

Here is my best guess on the exhaustion:

A Women's Retreat.

You know how at a "women's retreat" they advertise it as a place to "get away," "rejuvenate," and "revive?" Yeah. None of that happens.

What actually happens is you work yourself up into a dirty sweat trying to:

• Pack your bags.
• Get your kids to a sitter.
• Make sure there's a frozen lasagna for your husband when he tries to feed himself and the kids.
• Hoist your bags up into the car.
• Pick up your girlfriends so you can all ride together (because who wants to be seen walking in - gasp! - alone!?!)
• Check in.
• Tote your bags up to your hotel room.
• Change clothes because you've sweated through your first outfit.
• Finally find your way down to the ballroom where your church group will be meeting.
• Find not one seat, but two, since your girlfriend was not done getting ready in the room.
• Open up your 18 lb. King James Version...
• listen to the speaker while exuding great effort not to yawn.
• Go back to your room to change into your "pajama's" (which really aren't your pajamas at all. Yours are dingy and grey with a hole in the back. These you bought at Dillard's so it wouldn't look like you wore dingy, grey pajama's in real life) then head back down stairs for a "pajama party" that will be fun, but will nonetheless keep you up past your typical 9:45 PM drop-dead-from-exhaustion bedtime.
• Ride the elevator back up to your hotel room at 12:47AM with 6 other giggly females. Your face hurts from smiling.
• Look through your dried up contacts until you see the door marked 548.
• Open the door.
• Drop dead in the bed.

Yep, that's a typical day at one "relaxing women's get-away" events.

Here is my best guess on the sudden onset of adult acne:

You know the part where you look through dirty, dried up contacts until you find room 548? Well, once you get there you seriously consider removing the 4 lbs. of gunk that is covering your face. But then you remember Heidi Klum telling Oprah once that sometimes she is so tired by the end of the day that she sleeps in her make-up. So you think, "what could this one time really hurt?"

The next morning you awake and make plans to hunt down Heidi Klum and kick her lying bottom.

Right after your morning devotional and quiet time, of course.

Oh, and here's how I explain the extra 8 lbs.:

When you arrive at said Women's Retreat and they offer to feed you baked chicken and green beans for dinner, make the decision instead to feast on the jumbo sized bag of M&M's your girlfriend picked up at Sam's. (Because buying chocolate at a bulk whole-sale club is always a good decision.)

And the next morning when they provide an all-you-can-eat buffet of eggs and muffins and fruit, make the decision instead to get your nutrition from 2 cans of Coke and a Reese's cup that you found in the bottom of your purse.

And when they serve you a lunch of Greek salad and cheese, make the decision instead to start with the chocolate cake; telling your friends, "I think I'm in PMS mode" even though you know full well you are WEEKS away from that being even remotely true.

And this my lovelies, may or may not have been how my week-end went.

I can't be really sure.

What I can be sure of is that there is a group of ladies in St. Louis who made my mom and I feel like we were with old friends. And like we were right at home. And so I'm sending a personal SHOUT-OUT and a whoop!whoop! to my South County Christian Center Friends...who, if they are anything like me, will be doing some deep-pore treatments and contacting a personal trainer, right after they take an afternoon nap.

It was a great weekend, my lovelies.