Chocolate Festival & moving

I love festivals. They are busy, noisy, crowded, overstimulating, and fun. You have to know that before arriving, or you will have an experience that you won’t fondly remember. They pump us up, show us things, invite us to try new things without committing ourselves to big purchases which we hate when we get home. They are a way to have many experiences in a short amount of time.
I just went to the Chocolate Festival, here in Seattle. Sure enough, herds of people wanting to sample everything. Me too. Waiting my impatient turn, I met several fellow chocolate enthusiasts, all of us gushing over the choices. I sampled everything I could get my hands on, chatting up vendors and attendees alike. Me, talking to total strangers, and finding them interesting. Amazing!
As a bonus, I attended a seminar and learned how to temper chocolate. I was wowed! Now I have a soon-to-be new hobby. 
Festivals are about experiencing new ideas, new tastes, like-minded people, and learning a few things. They open the world to us, forcing us out of our comfort zones to embrace the unknown. We find that new flavors are not so awful, and festival people not so different than ourselves. It’s Alice in Wonderland, down the rabbit hole. Nothing but wonder.
I do wonder, however, how I am going to work off all this chocolate. Oh my, it was a lot of little samples. Oh wait! I can move for the rest of the day. It’s nice outside; I can walk, or run, or go for a bicycle ride. I can practice cartwheels and jumping jacks, do a few crunches, drag out my hula hoop from behind the sofa. Practice my skills of being The Queen of Queen Anne with a hula hoop. Actually, mine is weighted five pounds, so I get quite the workout. Twenty minutes of that and I’m feeling thin again. No lounging in front of the tv for me.
Because I make an effort to move a lot every day, I can attend Chocolate Festivals, sample to my heart’s content, and know that my shape stays the same. Ok, it was a LOT of chocolate. Maybe 30 minutes of hooping.
Choices are good. I hate diets. I love moving.