A couple of weeks ago, I went to an women’s retreat in Greensboro. It was one night. My main purpose in going was to get away from everything and just breathe for a little bit. The conference was called “Encouragement Extreme”. Seriously, who doesn’t need a little encouraging in their life?

It made me a little nervous when I got an email from the conference planners the day before the event. They wanted to make everyone aware of the forecasted bad weather but they were proceeding with the event. I wasn’t worried. Everyone knows that if they predict snowy weather in North Carolina, it really doesn’t show up. So I forged ahead. I was going to get encouraged, and nobody was going to stop me.

If this were a movie, I would cue narration here: “Little did she know…”

Yeah, we actually got snow out of that storm. A lot of snow. Eight inches of snow. The last 45 minutes of my 3 hour drive were a little intense as I drove through a snowstorm. But I finally got there just a little late. They had a good number of cancellations due to the people who actually listened to the Weather Channel. But the rest of us laughed, cried and learned about God.

When the last session ended around 3pm on Saturday afternoon, I struggled to decide if I should start home or spend another night. Finally the idea of staying put with a warm bed and a restaurant in the hotel won over the prospects of getting partway home and having to find somewhere to stay when the roads got worse after dark. 

I decided to splurge on an in-room movie, but I couldn’t figure out how to start one. Now, I am pretty savvy when it comes to figuring things out. This one proved to be beyond me. And no wonder, when I finally questioned the front desk, I found out that though the TVs had been replaced in the last month, the movie option had not been reconnected.

Great. Now I was in a hotel room a bad selection on TV, no available movies, without my laptop, and not much to do.  

What’s a girl to do?

If you were me, you would sit in your room. Lost in thought. Sometimes the biggest revelations come when you let everything else go. In fact, that night I realized that…

my favorite fingernail polish* is the exact same color as Diet Coke! Dark brown with just a hint of red. Wow.

* It is Midnight in Moscow by OPI