Okay, so updates of some progress!
1) I went to Golf Galaxy last night to look at clubs. Worked with someone there who opened a bunch of their women's sets for me, including a petite for me to get a feel for things. Found that I am definitely NOT a petite. The petite made me really have to hunch and reach unnaturally, while the standard felt very natural. So that was easy at least, amazing how much difference an inch makes! Then the salesperson had me do some swings hitting a ball with the 7 iron from several sets. I wasn't a fan of being put on display doing this since I really don't know what the heck I'm doing, but I agreed to try.. why not? I did have my one 1 hour clinic in the fall and remembered the basics enough to make contact every time anyway haha. I didn't know which club was from which set when doing it, and there was an obvious one that felt better to me in general and also showed much better consistency and distance for my hits with their computer program. Turns out it was the Calloway Strata set that I've been interested in most to begin with based on all of the reviews I've read. So, I didn't buy anything yet, but I did find it interesting and think I will likely go with that set to start.
Also, omg I don't know how I made it out of that store without trying on and buying a ton of cute clothes and accessories!! lol But I was doing some other errands in the area as well so I had a time constraint and couldn't dilly dally beyond the purpose of my visit which was to touch some clubs and get advice from the staff somewhere.
2) I called up Highfields today which is the course listed on the Operation 36 site that's closest to me. Except they don't actually do Operation 36 anymore I guess!? However, they are planning to do a women's clinic starting at the end of April or beginning of May and already have 8 of 10 slots full, so I put myself on the list for now and then will decide for sure what to do when they call me in a couple of weeks with the finalized plans. It sounds like they follow most of the Operation 36 stuff still, from what I've read about that. It would be Thursday evenings for the clinic piece and then some Monday nights I guess he also offers time to go play as well. I'm a little nervous that when I asked if everyone is beginners he said that it's a group that mostly did Operation 36 last year but still needs a lot of work. Having mentioned I was a skier.. he said if I'm athletic I'll be able to catch up easily with the group. I'm not so sure I feel confident in that, but I guess we'll see if I do it.
I also discussed clubs with the pro, and he was in favor of people who want to play getting their own sets to begin with. I asked about the set I had in mind and he said that was one of two he'd highly recommend. So that's good at least.
3) I also called the golf club really close to me, Blissful Meadows, again and confirmed that they still don't have any set dates for their clinics.. I feel impatient, but everywhere else seems to have some sort of a plan starting so not sure what their holdup is.. and don't really want to wait and find out that they don't offer something etc.