{"id":873,"date":"2018-02-17T16:12:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-17T16:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/?p=873"},"modified":"2019-01-04T21:04:28","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T21:04:28","slug":"san-miguel-de-allende","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/?p=873","title":{"rendered":"San Miguel de Allende"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-876 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/San-miguel-airplae-2018-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/San-miguel-airplae-2018-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/San-miguel-airplae-2018-768x574.jpg 768w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/San-miguel-airplae-2018-210x157.jpg 210w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/San-miguel-airplae-2018.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>For the past 7 years, I&#8217;ve attended the Writers&#8217; Conference in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. It&#8217;s been an extraordinary learning experience. Seems like I come every year with a different focus and always find what I&#8217;m looking for. This year, it&#8217;s all about finding a publisher and marketing. The manuscript for my culinary memoir, Middle-Age&#8230;But Only if I Live to 120, is ready to go out. I&#8217;ve learned some important things about getting that book out and I&#8217;m ready to go!<\/p>\n<p>San Miguel is just as magical as ever. Maybe a little more so. For the first time in 44 years of Valentine Days, Mack sent flowers and candy. His sweet partner-in-crime, Doug Wind, assisted him and the surprise goodies were in my room when I arrived.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-877\" src=\"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Valentine-flowers-and-candy-2018-224x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"224\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Valentine-flowers-and-candy-2018-224x300.jpg 224w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Valentine-flowers-and-candy-2018-157x210.jpg 157w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Valentine-flowers-and-candy-2018.jpg 717w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Now, I&#8217;m not suggesting that I am mistreated or neglected in any way. If fact, if you see my FB posts, you&#8217;ll note that Mack is supportive in a jillion ways. BUT, he&#8217;s never really participated in the whole Valentine&#8217;s Day thing (well, unless you count the snorting pig cookie jar that he brought home from the grocery store Valentines Day, 1994. I thought it was funny until I took it to school the next day and was tutored in what is and is not acceptable as a gift for\/from a sweetheart). So, it&#8217;s been a 24 year Valentine&#8217;s Day drought.<\/p>\n<p>I was so surprised to receive these goodies in fact, that my mind went right to the logical conclusion&#8230;that one of us must be dying. He still looks pretty good, so I figured it must be me. After a lengthy Viber international phone call, he convinced me that we were both ok, and he just didn&#8217;t want me to suffer the indignity of being the only girl at the conference not receiving flowers from her beau (it is possible that I spent 18 hours one Valentines Day when I was a freshman at Texas Tech, watching as every other girl in Clements Hall was called down to the reception desk to collect Valentine&#8217;s Day flowers ).<\/p>\n<p>Anyhow, this Valentine&#8217;s Day will go down in the books as my all time favorite. Even better than the pig one.<\/p>\n<p>The weather here in San Miguel is amazing. Warm and sunny. The past few years have been cold, so unfortunately I have 46 pounds of sweaters (I know this because I held my breath when American Airlines weighed my bag). Bummer. I could have saved some of that sweater weight for books that I want to buy here.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-878 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Hotel-Real-de-Mina-napping-station-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Hotel-Real-de-Mina-napping-station-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Hotel-Real-de-Mina-napping-station-768x574.jpg 768w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Hotel-Real-de-Mina-napping-station-210x157.jpg 210w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Hotel-Real-de-Mina-napping-station.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The conference sessions are great. Last night&#8217;s Keynote speaker was Wally Lamb (2 time Oprah Book club author, and most importantly&#8230;25 year public school teacher). There are lots of famous authors here, but I&#8217;m most impressed with a man I met last night who ghost wrote Nancy Drew books for 9 years! I ended up having dinner with him and his wife and found out all about it! Fascinating. I had no idea.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-879\" src=\"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/San-Miguel-Wally-Lamb-2018-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/San-Miguel-Wally-Lamb-2018-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/San-Miguel-Wally-Lamb-2018-768x574.jpg 768w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/San-Miguel-Wally-Lamb-2018-210x157.jpg 210w, https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/San-Miguel-Wally-Lamb-2018.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the past 7 years, I&#8217;ve attended the Writers&#8217; Conference in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. It&#8217;s been an extraordinary learning experience. Seems like I come every year with a different focus and always find what I&#8217;m looking for. This year, it&#8217;s all about finding a publisher and marketing. The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":958,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}