omg you guys iCloud saved my life. how do I DL this stuff?

So this is not really an issue per se, but I thought someone would like to read a positive story for once. I don't really use iCloud much for backup, more for sharing my photos and other info across my devices, and also for when I'm transferring data between new devices.

Anyway, I'm not really savvy when it comes to the settings, and when I was first setting iCloud up on my new iMac, I wanted to do something you possibly can't do, in that I wanted to use aliases and be crafty about what I was backing up, but I ended up backing up my entire Desktop to iCloud: NOT WHAT I INTENDED because my desktop is huge. but I sort of couldn't untangle everything and didn't have time to deal, so I just upped my storage temporarily and moved things back to the way they were, figuring the backups would time out.

cue to: I forgot all about it. the charges weren't that bad, and I have swiss cheese brain and so much other crap to deal with.

my primary back-up solution is hard drives. I recently purchased a new iMac and didn't get a big enough disk (I wish I could expand it) and when I transferred, not everything fit! so I only transferred what was needed, and figured I'd move what was on time machine to a more accessible external drive.

except swiss cheese brain? so I never did. it was old data! it didn't come up! then cut to: me having to replace my old back up drive, and forgetting that I was relying on those old backups and that hidden data, and then getting the new drive set up and running a single backup on the new drive and thinking I was done! and I could just wipe the old back up drive! and use it for storage? and just after I wiped it and repartitioned it, going D'OH! that data! I wanted that data! that was some good stuff (okay, it was some bad poems and stories I wrote, but still: good stuff!)

and then the totally implausible thought came to me: what if it's still up there on iCloud? lol and guess what? it is! it's right there! oh, the gasp I ghasped.

So: anyone know how to DL entire directories from iCloud onto a drive? because I want it close to me. I want to hug it and pat it on the head and tell it I'm sorry for ever wiping it. It's my favorite data, promise.

thanks!