{"id":7517,"date":"2014-04-28T08:51:02","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T12:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennytrout.com\/?p=7517"},"modified":"2014-05-06T14:34:30","modified_gmt":"2014-05-06T18:34:30","slug":"state-of-the-trout-i-went-to-ikea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/?p=7517","title":{"rendered":"State of The Trout: I went to IKEA!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hey everybody! Just a quick update to let you know what&#8217;s happening around these parts!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Next week, The Boss series will be going on a blog tour! This is going to give you a chance to enter to win some really great prizes, including signed paperbacks and Sophie&#8217;s lipstick vibrator (some shipping restrictions apply).<\/li>\n<li>The cover for\u00a0<em>If Ever I Would Leave You<\/em>\u00a0gets revealed next week, as well! And there&#8217;s another giveaway! OMG YOU CAN WIN SO MUCH STUFF IF THAT IS YOUR THING!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I went to IKEA! I have long been wanting a specific desk from them, but the shipping was like, prohibitively expensive (it would have cost more than the desk!). So when we were on our way to Chicago North&#8217;s Spring Fling conference this weekend, my awesome friends <a href=\"http:\/\/andreadickinson.blogspot.com\/\">Andrea Dickinson<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/bronwyngreenblog.blogspot.com\/\">Bronwyn Green<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patriciakiyono.com\/\">Patricia Kiyono<\/a>\u00a0braved IKEA with me (on a Sunday, which is apparently the worst day to go? There were people lining up outside before the store even opened!) and I got my freaking desk!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7518\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7518\" style=\"width: 512px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-7518\" alt=\"photo 1\" src=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-1.jpg\" width=\"512\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-1.jpg 640w, https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-1-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7518\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bronwyn Green and I try to figure out if we&#8217;ve got all the right parts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7519\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7519\" style=\"width: 512px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-7519\" alt=\"photo 2\" src=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-2.jpg\" width=\"512\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-2.jpg 640w, https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-2-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7519\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Me, Bronwyn, and Patricia posing for a photo right after Andrea said, &#8220;I&#8217;m taking a picture of this, guys!&#8221;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7520\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7520\" style=\"width: 512px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-3.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-7520\" alt=\"photo 3\" src=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-3.jpg\" width=\"512\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-3.jpg 640w, https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/photo-3-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7520\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">And then Patricia was like, &#8220;Now let me get a picture of you guys.&#8221; In hindsight, we could have probably just asked somebody else to take a photo of all of us.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>IKEA is the scariest place on Earth. There is too much stuff and it&#8217;s all overwhelming and everybody knows exactly what they&#8217;re doing and they do not like that you&#8217;re there messing up their groove. It took us forever to find the restrooms because we kept seeing signs that said Bathroom and they meant stuff for the bathroom and not <em>the<\/em> bathrooms where you could do a potty. I had no idea how any of the IKEA process worked and it was all terrifying. But I got my desk, and hopefully I&#8217;ll have it set up soon. There is a lot of office reorganizing that needs to take place before that can happen. But I&#8217;ll take pictures when it&#8217;s done.<\/p>\n<p>As for the conference? It was awesome. I got to meet some of my tweeps that I&#8217;ve never seen in person, I made some new friends, got to have a super good chat with my editor at Entangled, Liz Pelletier, and there was a Starbucks in the lobby that was open until 5pm. There was a fancy dinner with a shitty comedian, so here is a picture of me avoiding his &#8220;Am I right, ladies?!&#8221; jokes in the bathroom:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_20140426_210844439.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-7523\" alt=\"IMG_20140426_210844439\" src=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_20140426_210844439-576x1024.jpg\" width=\"461\" height=\"819\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The first day of the conference, I found this in the lobby:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7522\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7522\" style=\"width: 461px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_20140425_103931327-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-7522\" alt=\"IMG_20140425_103931327 (1)\" src=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_20140425_103931327-1-576x1024.jpg\" width=\"461\" height=\"819\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7522\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is gonna be a good day. I can feel it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">There was a silent auction for a literacy charity, so Bronywn Green and I decided to do a basked together. The theme was &#8220;Naughty and Nice.&#8221; I bet you can&#8217;t guess which side was mine:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_20140425_092601837-2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-7521\" alt=\"IMG_20140425_092601837 (2)\" src=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_20140425_092601837-2-1024x576.jpg\" width=\"483\" height=\"271\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_20140425_092601837-2-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_20140425_092601837-2-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 483px) 100vw, 483px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I went to a bunch of workshops, including one on reviews by Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and one by Liz Pelletier on the traditional publishing process. And at the book signing I got my Kindle cover autographed by Mary Balogh, Courtney Milan, Lauren Dane, and Carrie Lofty, and in the lobby Kristan Higgins complimented my hair!\u00a0All in all, it was a good conference, and I&#8217;m glad I went.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So, what&#8217;s on the agenda for the next week in Trout Nation? You can expect Merlin Club on Friday and another\u00a0<em>After<\/em> recap between then and now. I&#8217;m also working on the next Buffy recap, but you know those are a little longer and take more time in between, just like I know that you&#8217;re patient.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Everybody have a great Monday, join us for Merlin Club tonight at 8pm EST if you can on the hashtag #MerlinClub, and I&#8217;ll see you later in the week!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hey everybody! Just a quick update to let you know what&#8217;s happening around these parts! Next week, The Boss series will be going on a&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/?p=7517\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">State of The Trout: I went to IKEA!<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[201],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7524,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7517\/revisions\/7524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}