My Night Away was great. Freaking GREAT.

My rental car was a brand new Camry, all big and quiet and not littered with daycare report cards or empty water bottles. I drove to Freeport, zoomed through LLB and the outlet quickly, and then headed on to a little town south of Portland, where I met up with one of my internet friends at her house. She let me charge my phone (the outlets in the car weren’t working, argh) and play puzzles with her son and make googly eyes at her daughter, and then when I left, she sent me off with cookies and milk! Very cool. Go, Internet!

I then moseyed on down to Kittery, where I picked up a dozen things, and only bought one — the Hanna outlet was cool but their outlet prices were still too steep for my blood, and I got some overalls at OshKosh — some tan ones, and some red and white striped ones. Left there and went on to my hotel in Norwood, experiencing Traffic! Which always makes me kind of happy, in the way that billboards do — "We don’t have this in Maine, so I’m definitely not At Home!"  Checked in, got online and scribbled down some directions and headed to IKEA.

Oh, IKEA, how I adore you. I had a budget of $100, and most of that went to Ingrid, but still! I got her the LATT table and chairs set (really wanted Kritter, even though it was more expensive, so it’s probably good it was out of stock) and the MALA easel, a bead path and a hand puppet (hand puppet for the trip to Texas next month), a SPOKA nightlight, some kitchen stuff — graters and cheap knives — and then I headed back to my hotel.

By this time, it was after nine, I’d eaten a bagel when I first left home, and thank god for the cookies and milk, which kept me going til I rustled up a turkey club from the hotel bar. I’d packed all these one-time use packets of hair treatments and body scrubs and I’d found a pore strip in the medicine cabinet and packed that, so I spent the evening doing all those things that I never do at home (and then, of course, worrying that they were *so* old that they would make my hair fall out or something.) I slept well — giant bed, all to myself — even if I was right next to the elevator, and I was paranoid about my alarm not going off. (Which was a good thing to worry about, as it turned out — the clock time was set backwards, so when I went to bed at 10pm, it just said "10" and the alarm was clearly set for 7am, but when I woke up at 7 to no alarm, the LCD for the clock time now had a PM indicator. So, basically, I couldn’t have known the difference unless I’d been there before noon.)

My conference was good, the drive home great — so much loud singing-along to Ani DiFranco! — and when I got to my house, Dave had kept Ingrid up past bedtime, made a fort in the living room with our dining room chairs and a blanket, and were hiding out, waiting for me. So great. Highly recommended.

On another topic entirely:

So, my ILs do a name draw for christmas gifts. Kids get tagged on to their same-sex parent, so Ingrid and I come as a set, and my niece (good niece) drew our names. She’s wonderful, but she’s a 21 year old college student, and I really, really don’t want her to have to spend money she likely doesn’t have on us. (To add to that, her boyfriend drew a father/son pair.) Is it poor etiquette to contact her, either directly or through her mom, to suggest babysitting would be a great gift? She sits for her cousins’ kids frequently, and she adores Ingrid, and honestly, I don’t NEED anything — but babysitting would be huge. I’m just not sure how much this smacks of "Get me THIS PRESENT" or if she’d appreciate the consideration to her finances. Hrm.

Also, has anyone used Avon facial products? I had this almay kit of cleanser, toner, moisturizer, that made my face break out, so I bagged it. And I was reading reviews on makeupalley.com, and one that surfaced was Avon, the Pore-Fection line, which seemed about right (tho, no SPF, which as we enter the Sunless Season — as in, it’s dark when you leave the house and dark when you return) and there are several eBay sellers that sell the kits for about 20 bucks.  But, because I am a huge dork who loves reviews, I thought I’d ask. I feel like I’m in some middle land for my face, I still get huge blackheads, but I should probably start to consider Products for Aging. As it is now, I use nothing, except for an Aveeno facewash that I unearthed in my search for trial size spa products to take to Mass.  Thoughts?