happy new year/e-mail scam/trip to France

Nutella and jelly beans at Galleries Lafayette

rainy, chilly Paris

The big Normandy house that sleeps 25 people:)

A gaggle of girls at the Normandy house

my brother and sister-in-law's nj house --am going to do a watercolor painting of it or her.

my father reading 'night before xmas' to the kids --he wasn't wearing his glasses and had had his share of wine so it was too funny to listen to..

the boys at my parents' house on xmas eve
happy new year! What a crazy last 3 weeks --first, strep throat and 5 watercolor illustrations to produce (a good thing) and the 15K race cancellation....second, on a routine morning -tuesday before xmas -I tried to log on to my e-mail, only to find that my password was 'incorrect'. strange. I retyped it, and it still didn't work. Tried to change the password but someone updated my secret question -hum. Notified microsoft and opened a new account. Then wed, had to pack for NJ xmas, plus France --not great timing for this e-mail problem. But Windows Live did get back to me as promised and gave me a password link. So on dec 27 in France (had one hour of computer time in the library -no wireless at the house in Normandy) got in to my account, only to discover that some scammer had sent letters requesting $2,500 to everyone of my contacts, which mostly consist of runners, family, and PTA mothers. About 50 people had written me back to alert me --thanks to all, including marty and jim and the rest of the running community:) Hope no one fell in the slightest for the strange request. My kids, who are on my contact list, also got the request and found it funny. But it was a nightmare...and embarrassing too... Thank you all for your concern -not one person, I hope, sent money!
France was cold but sunny --the trip over on xmas was so exhausting. I will never do that again, especially after being sick and after the stress of travelling to Nj and getting no sleep,and eating and drinking during the day...but who said the holidays were not stressful?? After 14 hour trip on no sleep, we arrived at my mother-in-law's country house---staying there were my husband's 4 siblings and 10 assorted kids -all of whom live in London. It was so much fun to be with the kids, all running around and doing their own thing. We also watched a bunch of movies... I ran 10 easy miles a day on country roads, except for the last 2 travel days. We didn't do much but eat, drink and walk/bike/run...some chocolate shopping. I ate way too much bread and butter and drank way too much wine. On our last day, we took the train to Paris and despite the rain, sleet and snow had a wonderful time wandering around -I ran-walked 4 miles with Hank on tues night and saw the sparkling lights and tour eiffel on the river. BTW -starbucks is 4.80 euros --6 dollars for a small coffee:( --so I wandered with not many coffee breaks! we did stop for lunch and dinner at brasseries. The normandy house had been freezing and it was so nice to finally have a warm hotel room.
Bummer though --no running in Paris the a.m. of our departure. To add insult to injury, my teenager called from Colorado to announce that he had strep throat.

This a.m., went up to new Canaan to the xmas tree 3 miler --took all my power to get out in the 13 degree weather but had to go running anyway. Jim got about 25 people
and the course was a nice jog through the woods --then 4 of us ran the course again!
The winter of 2009 better bring some dry weather...Jim hopes it will be dry this sunday for the first boston build-up race ---don't hold your breath!!!