House full of mamas!

With our two newest participants joining us today, Halycon House is now officially FULL!!! Wow - that's fantastic! If you could see me, you'd see me doing a happy dance - tough thing to do when you're typing at the same time.

At the moment, I am keeping a waiting list open for a few more weeks for Tranquility House. If we happen to have another last-minute rush, then I can still run the second house. (I have until May 15 or so to officially cancel it.)

all about the house

It's been some time since I looked at photos of our house for the weekend. Tonight, I went on the site (http://www.ownerdirect.com/the-knoll/vacation-rentals/201022) and had some happy moments... The photos are little, but if you click on the website above, you can see view them in all their glory.

And - did I mention we're now just 28 days away? Not that I'm counting or anything.

Who's Coming for Dinner - updated

Due to some cancellations, I have decided to cancel the second house for the retreat. The downside - we lose a bit of money; the upside - we are all together. I'll go with the upside!

Here's our updated list of attendees:

Amanda
Angeline
Arnica
Chani
Chelsea
Cindy
Dar
Jen
Joyanne
Justine
Margaret
Maxine
Michelle
Sandy
Shelley
Tara
Teresa

Mama2Mama

About 8 months ago, I created a Kiva team called "Mama2Mama." Kiva is a microbanking organization that provides loans to the working poor. Typically, these are people that cannot obtain funding from regular banks. I join my money with that of other contributors. The people who receive the money repay it as they can (like, one dollar a month for two years, for example.)

Someone contributed a large amount of money to encourage people to join this microbanking effort. For a short time, you can use that person's money to make a $25 loan to a person or group in another country. If you're interested, you can follow this link: http://www.kiva.org/invitedby/teresa9205

I've been interested in microbanking for about 15 years. I believe that, when women and girls are supported, they change the lives of their families. (I'm sure it works the same for men as well; my focus is just on the mamas.)

As mamas, we all know what a little support can do.

Invoices out

Hi everyone,
The invoices are up on Eventbrite (you will have already been emailed about this.) If you have any questions, please do let me know. The $50 that you put down as a deposit is equivalent to the food amount for the weekend; therefore, the amount remaining is the room amount.

If you thought you booked a single room and were charged for a shared (or vise versa), please contact me. 

The article I wrote about last year's retreat is set to be published in this month's Focus magazine. I hope that we will get a few more people from that article; otherwise, we will look at consolidating the two houses into one again. (A few people have had to cancel.)

My email address is tmkisil at gmail dot com.

You might be a trauma-mama

Ever seen that old skit "You might be a redneck if..."

Here's my take on that (and by the way, we are now less than 50 days away!).

You might be a trauma-mama if...
* you celebrate your child maintaining eye contact for 12.2 seconds
* you get used to finding food shoved in strange places in your home
* when you're talking about alphabet soup, you don't mean Campbells; you mean RAD, FASD, PTSD, etc
* you have a whole new group of friends who speak the same language - and you haven't even moved to a foreign country
* you flinch when you hear a police siren go by and wonder if they're coming to your house
* you find yourself feeling a strange emotion one day and, with wonder, recognize that it's happiness

- and that's just this week for me!