My trip went well. It was wonderful to wear shorts, a tank top, and sandals, and still feel warm. I saw some b-list celebrities, I went on a whole bunch of rides, ate free food and drank a couple of free drinks, walked for miles, swam in a pool, saw a bunch of wild animals... Pretty good for a one-night trip. At the evening reception thingy for all of the media people, I met a guy who recognized me from a first-person article I wrote (and was photographed for) in the old magazine several years ago. I've been waiting to be recognized from that article for years, and finally my dream has come true. I did chat with a few strangers, but it was actually kind of nice. They were all gregarious people who approached me (sitting/standing alone) so that probably had something to do with it. I only talked about the snow with a couple of guys from Boston.

Between that trip, doing a bunch of spring cleaning on Saturday and then dancing at the Steamtrain show, and going on a marathon trip to Ikea yesterday, I feel like now is the time to get back into exercising for reals. I have more house work to do tonight, and then I'll have to keep up the activity some other way. I finally discovered how beautiful and desolate and big the "meadows" are (I think it's the meadows... they're mostly corn fields, though, right? Near the dike? I hope a local can back me up here) when I rode my bike around there last year, and I want to explore those dirt roads more. I would enjoy it more if I had a bike seat that doesn't make my womanly parts "fall asleep". (Was that too much information?)

Ikea was great by the way. We thought we'd just be there a couple of hours but before we knew it almost 4 hours had passed. Oh so much tiredness at the end of it all. As usual, a couple of the things I really wanted were out of stock. Luckily, I found one of the out-of-stock things in the scratch-and-dent section. I still managed to spend $250 ($150 of that was one chair-with-footrest; both Vena Red, beech veneer). I have been reading Apartment Therapy a lot lately, and there are many Ikea devotees there. I saw a bunch of items I recognized from their "smallest, coolest apartment" contest. The commenters on that site would probably say I have too many colors going on in my living room, and they would be right. Perhaps I need some throw pillows that pull together the red Ikea chair, the orange office chair, the blue lamp, and the purple sofa together... Sigh.