Heather Foeh

We had the extreme pleasure of seeing Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers in concert on Friday night in The Woodlands (that’s in the Houston area for you non-Texans). The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion is a great venue and we had excellent seats about 20 rows from the stage. They put on an awesome show - everyone in the band is an amazing musician. It was the final night of their tour they really seemed to give it their all. We stayed at the The Waterway Marriott — apparently along with everyone else who went to the concert — and it was fabulous to be able to walk back there after the show rather than fight those invariably long post-concert traffic lines. All in all, a wonderful weekend and a wonderful way to celebrate my parents’ 40th anniversary!!!

YAY! I had a great trip to San Francisco. My daughter and I did some great sight-seeing (and nearly froze to death!) and the entire RWA Conference was a blast. I’m so lucky to have so many talented writer friends. I feel better and smarter just hanging around them - you’ve gotta love that!

Now tomorrow I’m back to the real world and my brand new job at Eloqua. I’ll be spending the week in Toronto getting up to speed, meeting people, getting my computer, signing papers, etc, etc. Whew! More later…

Tomorrow morning my daughter and I leave for our week-long trek to San Francisco and we’re both very excited! We’ll spend Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday sight-seeing. Then on Wednesday I’ll start attending events at the RWA National Conference, including the Leadership Retreat that day. That night we’ll go to the Literacy Booksigning and do our part to raise money for local literacy funds. The conference fully kicks off on Thursday with a keynote address and workshops. Friday afternoon Michelle and I are teaching our workshop (“Creating a Web Presence”), then Saturday morning I have an appointment with an editor from Harlequin. Yes, at 10:30 that morning I’ll have a mere 10 minutes to pitch my manuscript — no pressure! One of the things I’m most excited about is the weather…the highs are going to be in the low to mid-60’s. That’s heavenly!

I’ve had a few folks ask me where the heck I’ve been and I want to assure you that I’m alive and well and freshly back from vacation. We had an awesome family trip June 27 through July 6 in Paris, France. Below is a slideshow of some of our pictures.

Highlights of the week:

• Our apartment was fantastic - so much better than being in a hotel for a week
• The fountains at Versailles
• The bones in the Catacombs
• A wonderful dinner at L’Auberge de Nicolas Flamel
• Beautiful weather almost the whole week

I had a wonderful week visiting Paris! I was able to do some sight-seeing on Sunday afternoon and Monday and in those two days I covered a lot of ground. I found a yarn store, I visited two beautiful churches, I walked through the grounds of the Louvre, I visited the Musée de l’Orangerie where I was able to see Les Nymphéas (which were beautifully presented), I drank chocolat chaud (twice - it was cold!), I shopped, I visited the street where our apartment is located for our June family vacation, and on and on and on.

I think the highlight of my trip was getting to hear so much French spoken around me. The class I was teaching included people from Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and the UK. We conducted all of our training in English, however each night at dinner the conversation slipped into French. I could understand 95% of what was being said and that thrilled me. I answered mostly in English with a bit of French. I probably would have been more willing to try French had the group been smaller, but being surrounded by six French speakers was a bit overwhelming.

During the month of February I traveled to Madison, WI and Cincinnati, OH for work. Now in March I have the opportunity to travel somewhere a bit more exotic: Paris, France. I’ll be teaching two days of Eloqua 101 training for a client, but before that starts I’ll have a day and a half of sightseeing! I just went to Amazon.com and bought something that’s been on my Wish List for a while: “Paris: 50 Adventures on Foot“. It’s a little card deck that features different guided walks around the city. I like the idea that I can just put a few cards in my bag and head out for hours without needing to lug along a guide book.

Now for the extra exciting news: We’re taking a family trip to Paris this summer! We just settled all of our details this week, including the complicated airline tickets for our kids (who will be visiting my parents in Kuwait and then meeting us in Paris). We’ve found a wonderful 2-bedroom apartment to rent (only a block from Notre-Dame) which will be our home for the week.

So, it’s definitely my lucky year — two trips to Paris within a few months of each other! I’ve been listening to French podcasts today to brush up on my language skills, as well as doing some vocabulary and grammar exercises in my French review book. Yes, I’m a nerd.

Watch this space for pictures beginning on March 16th…

This last week I was in Toronto for my work. It’s a lovely city, but I had to get there — and that meant stepping on to an airplane. Unfortunately, it was one of those little “regional” airplanes that have 13 rows, and yes, I was in row 13. I’m not superstitious, but my experiences on this trip could turn me that way.

First of all, a gentleman four rows away would NOT stop talking to his seatmate. He shared his entire life story, and not just with the poor schmuck next to him, but basically with all of us because he was a Loud Talker.

Then the real fun began as we descended into Toronto. Apparently, many planes had been delayed that morning because the winds were around 100 miles per hour that morning. For some reason, we were not delayed and boy do I wish we would have been. The final 20 minutes of the descent were the bumpiest I’ve ever been on. It wasn’t just the up and down bumpiness of turbulence. Think of a leaf floating down from a tree and tilting left and right, dropping down, floating back up a bit, tilting again, all the way until it reaches the ground. We were that leaf. I gave myself mental pep talks (after verifying that I did indeed have an airsick bag in the seat pocket in front of me) and consoled myself with the fact that I could visit the “washroom” (as the Canadians call it) as soon as I de-planed. But it was not to be.

We climbed down the little airplane steps and headed for a bus which would take us to the main terminal. Unfortunately, we had to wait for another plane to land and all of those people to get on our bus too — so it was about 20 minutes of standing on the bus waiting. Thank goodness I’d mentally gotten my nausea under control by then. What would I have done?! Here’s how hard the wind was blowing at this point… the ground crew had taken the gate check bags and placed them on a 3-tier trolley so people could grab them as they came off the plane. The suitcases on the top two tiers were blowing off onto the ground!

As a final little bit of icing on the cake, my taxi driver from the airport to my hotel (about 25 minutes) apparently did not believe in bathing regularly. It was extra special.

Wow - it’s been ages since I posted. Interesting - I’m not really sure why. Maybe December is just a busy time. Maybe my day job was too busy. Maybe I used up all of my creative juices in November for NaNoWriMo. Heck, who knows?

But now I’m relaxing (”chillaxin” as my kids like to say - I have no idea how to spell that!) and it’s definitely time to post again. We’re in Red River, NM for Christmas week and what a wonderful little town this is! We’re staying in a little cabin nestled right up against the mountain and there’s over a foot of snow everywhere - it’s perfect. It even snowed on Christmas Day - how perfect is that?

Today the boys are off skiing while my daughter and I are hanging out in front of the warm fire with our dog. I think we’re the smart ones. On the agenda today: reading, Sudoku, knitting, and laundry. Since we packed everything on the top of our car, we had limited space. That meant that we couldn’t bring 7 days worth of clothes for all of us. So, I’ll be parked at the laundromat for a few hours today with a good book and lots of quarters.

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.