Just Got My Computer Back

For the past 3 days my computer has been out of commission and in the shop. The day before my husband left for Egypt, he decided to put a flash drive in and see what music is nephew had downloaded for him. The flash drive uploaded a horribly nasty worm into the computer. The worm disbaled my security suite I had on my computer and took over all administrative functions. It started sytematically shutting programs down. It was horrible and there was nothing I could do stop it.

I was in a panic. I have so much information on my computer especailly for the store and all. I took my computer to Geek Squad and at first when they looked at my computer, they said it was my best interest to buy a new one. I have had my computer for 6 years. I love my computer. And more importantly, I can't afford a new one.

They set the computer up and starting running a full series of scans on it. They found 59 viruses. Yup. 59. They were able to clean up 57 of them. The other 2 took two days to get out of the computer because they were difficult and stubborn to remove and had to be removed manually.

I found out that the security suite on my computer was not completely compaitable to windows and wasn't doing anything with the viruses. You see, I had att security suite that came with the dsl program. I thought I was protected because it came with the system and was part of the dsl. It didn't do anything.

Geek Squad said that it was like having no security at all.

It cost me $199 to have all the scans done and have the viruses removed. Then I paid another $100 to have security on the computer that was comaptaible to windows.

This leads me to another topic that I hope people are aware of.

There is a worm out there called the Conficker C virus also known as the April Fools Day Worm. It has been all over the news here and I hope that people are paying attention to what is being said about it.
According to the news, the Conficker C virus is already laying dormant in millions of home pc computers right now. The cirus is collecting all personal information such as credit cards etc. On April 1st, the virus is set to be activated. Once it becomes live, it will disable your security, eat through your hard drive and memory and will then send all the information it has gathered to the host of the virus.
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/Windows_Update_for_ConfickerC_Virus_032609

Microsoft has a download available to disable the virus but you must use the download before April 1st. You can find all kinds of information on this virus doing a basic search. This virus is so bad that Microsoft is offering a reward to anyone who can tell them where it came from and who the host is.

After what I went through this past week with my computer, I would advise people to protect themselves and look into finding out more about this virus.

Tuesday

We are working on getting everything ready for Magd's trip to Egypt. Turns out he will not be coming home until the 10th. Last night he recieved a phone call from his brother and one of the doctors there wanted to try and put Magd's mom on chemo and radition again. Magd called a friend of his who is a doctor in Panama City and discussed this with him. His friend told him that because the cancer attacked and took over the liver, there wasn't much left that could be done.
I hate it that he is going through this but I am happy that he is getting to go and see her.

Kids are on the count down for Spring Break. They are so excited about no school for a week. I am happy that is coming also. We can spend time together playing games and doing whatever else we can come up with.

The store has gotten some new additions added to it the past few days, I hope you will check out the blog for the store and get updated.
http://www.poppysscrollsawwoodwork.blogspot.com

Today, I have to get some cleaning done and get some things ready for Magd leaving tomorrow. Magd's cousin is coming in tonight and going with us to take Magd to the airport in the morning. ( I can get to the airport but I always get lost coming home, no sense of direction ) One doesn't know how big Atlanta is until you drive around it a couple of times. lol
The lawn guy is coming this morning, first cut of the season. Yea !!!
Have a great day everyone.

Time To Catch Up

Things have been a little rough here and I really haven't done a great job of keeping up with things.

I had to cancel my trip to Florida for Spring Break. That's okay though, I can go in June when my kids get out of school.

My husband is from Egypt and several months ago, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. She went through chemo and radition therapy and she was doing fine for awhile after that. On Thursday, my husband's family contacted him and told him that his mother was very sick. They took her to the doctor on Friday and discovered that the cancer has spread and has taken over her liver. Her family was informed that there wasn't anything they could do for her because the cancer spread too much.

My husband's mother is dying.

My husband is a good man and is very close to his mother. He is the youngest of 13. He calls her at least once a month. When she was originally diagnosed with cancer, like anyone, he took it very hard. But I guess for him it was harder because it is not like when you live in the country and can just drive to see someone who is sick. For him, it is a 16 hour flight to a whole seperate country.
He held off on going to see her when she was first diagnosed. His brother told him that she was fine and that he didn't need to come.

Now, he has to leave to see her one last time. This is something that I can't imagine to have to experience with a parent or someone you are very close to. Knowing that, that is the last time you will see them and have to come to terms with saying goodbye.

My husband is leaving March 25 and won't return until April 9th. I pray every night that we can get him to Egypt before his mother passes so that he can see her one last time and make some memories and hopefully find some closure.

Where To Lay My Weary Head ?

Where To Lay My Weary Head ?

Rainy Day

This weekend has been loaded with rain and today is no exception. I walked my son to his bus stop this morning and one of his friends came and joined us under the huge umbrella I had. My daughter and I lucked out when it was her turn to go to the bus stop because it was only sprinkling just a little bit.

This week is report card week so the kids have early release Tues- Thurs. We have a parent conference with my daughter's teacher on Thursday to get her report card. She is a really good student and generally gets all A's.

We took my son off of grounding this weekend because he got really good grades on his exams last week and he had no missing assignmants the last several weeks. So needless to say, the PS2 got a nice workout this weekend.

We are up to $128 on our Wii money. We still have a ways to go but we are closer than we were a couple of weeks ago.

My husband gets 2 days off this week on Thursday and Friday so he is excited about that. His store had a mystery shopper a couple of days ago and got a 100 which is excellent.

To Heaven's Gate ( Poem)

To Heaven's Gate ( Poem)

Tyler's Chair Mishap

My son, Tyler, has done it again and gotten himself in a pickle. He definetly keeps things interesting in our house and I will admit I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

Here's the background for Tyler's latest:

Last night we were watching one of my favorite movies " The Replacements " with Keanu Reeves. Tyler was sitting on my chair for the computer. He decided to slide his self inbetween the opening in the chair and the seat of the chair. If you haven't guessed already, he got his self stuck. I thought by threatening to get the camera, he would wiggle his self out, end of story. But apparently, he wasn't kidding. It took my husband and I ten minutes to get him out of the chair.

Saturday, Some Good News

My husband called me this morning with what we consider good news. The last several months, due to the economy, my husband has had to work 6 days a week. He is salaried, so his job enforced that with all salaried workers.
My husband drives 1 and 1/2 hours everyday to and from work. He only has Thursdays off which wasn't enough time for him to catch up on his sleep or get a break from his job. He gets up at 3:30am every morning and sometimes doesn't get home until 7pm at night. It catches up quickly. Today though he informed me that his work is going to stop the 6 days a week at the end of this month. Yippie!!!!!! He will get Thurdays and Fridays off again.

This is how I feel today. Like a little hummingbird stuck inside the feeder. I don't know why really, I slept good last night. I think it is partly because it is rough having just one vehicle and sometimes I feel trapped in the house.

I guess too I am running out of ideas to get the store seen. I guess right now it is a waiting game to see how all the things that I have been doing are working. I know that there is a lot more traffic coming to the store and to the website, I guess I am just waiting for that first sale.

I don't know, I guess it is other things too. Doesn't matter really.

Kids have 21 more days of school left before spring break. This year for spring break we are going to see my grandparents in Florida. Since my other grandfather died, it has been plaguing my mind that I should go see and them. Family is so important and we shouldn't miss out on the chances we can to see them and make more memories.

I am updating sites today for the store. I didn't get my writing done for yesterday with hubpages or helium. I guess I will do that in the next day or so.

If you get a chance, check out the stores website http://www.poppysscrollsawwoodwork.com/
I am working on coming up with some other ideas for that site. Also check out the blog for the store. I am not sure how to increase followers for that site yet but I have a couple of ideas in mind. http://www.poppysscrollsawwoodwork.blogspot.com/

Friday March 6,2009

I found this cool gif while looking for one to add to my other blog. It doesn't go with anything I have to write about but I thought it was sooo cool I added it here.

I can't believe it but we still have some snow on the ground in the shadowy places. Official snow amount for Sunday was, get this, 7 inches. Yup, I said 7. Crazy isn't it. It was a far cry from the supposed 1-2 inches we were supposed to get.
The snow was beautiful but I think the most amazing thing about it was that for the majority of the time, it was thundering while it was snowing and even more neat, it was lightening. When it would flash lightening, the sky lit up the most beautiful green I have ever seen.

Now, the weather is supposed to be warming up greatly. This weekend we are looking at the 70's. My kind of weather !!!

The store Poppy's Scroll Saw Woodwork :
is getting more traffic which is good. The Monthly Trivia question seems to be bringing more traffic to the stores website I built which is good also. So far since the kick off of the trivia game, I have had 3 people get the correct answer. One is supposed to be shopping this weekend at the store so we will see. I haven't had any sales yet but I am not giving up. To me it just means that I look for more places to advertise and more outlets to get the store name out there.
Today, I will be updating some sites that I am on for the store, especailly the store's blog. I have been searching for some cool gifs to add to it.

Anyway, I have been neglecting some of the places that I write articles, so today I think I might add some articles to hub pages and helium.

I hope everyone has a great day.

Religious Scroll Saw Woodwork

Religious Scroll Saw Woodwork

Snow and Ice

Yesterday we started with the snow around 12pm.

It didn't stop until 10pm last night.

Around 4pm we lost power for 6 hours. So we had to move the kids matresses down stairs and crank up the fireplace.

We got our power turned back on around 11pm last night thank goodness, though it was a lot of fun the whole family down stairs laughing and playing around.

We did have a crazy incident yesterday around 2 or so. My son, Tyler, who just seems to get his self in a real pickle every now and then added to his list of not so great achievements.

In our kitchen, we have a window that doesn't have a screen. We use that window to give our dog treats and all. He decided that it was a great idea to lean out of that window and try and catch snowflakes. My son is twelve years old and weighs 130 pds. He isn't fat by any means, he is really muscular. Anyway, the weight of his body in the window must have been too much. The window part that you lift up and open broke lose from the track and shattered on my son, wedging his body half out of the window. I was upstairs talking on the phone to my Grandma when I heard the glass shattering. When I came down, I found him stuck, two panes of glass shattered across the floor, and he was bleeding from a cut on his arm and several small cuts from tiny shards. It took me about 10 minutes to get him unwedged from the broken part of the window and get a good look at his arm. Luckily, it wasn't a super deep cut and though if I took him to the doctor he would have probably gotten 4 or five stitches, I fixed it with steri strips. My emergency room experience sure does come in handy and my son seems to be the one who keeps my skills up to date.

So, after getting all the glass cleaned up, I spent the next bit of time trying to cover the window that was broken in the kitchen. And then the power went out.

It was a really fun day.

Snow Snow Snow

It just started snowing here around 12:15pm.

The kids are so excited. In this picture, it had only been snowing for about 10 minutes, now at 12:40 pm the ground is covered even more.

The weather channel says that we should get anywhere from 2-4 inches.

Here it is big, fat snow flakes. It is a wet snow and it is perfect for the snowball fights my kids have already started.

Of course, the kids are even more excited about the possibility of no school tomorrow.

I will update more pictures on here as the snow continues. My husband is so excited about it that he keeps calling me from work to update me on how much snow they are getting where he is at. He works 1 and 1/2 hours from where we live.