Girls' Night Out

It's been a busy week, but a good one!

On Monday night, I got together with a group of friends, most of whom I was in a Bible study with twenty years ago. One of them had moved to Wisconsin and was back for a visit, so we had a great time getting caught up and reminiscing about the old days.

Here is a picture of us back then, taken at Standing Stone State Park around 1993:

6 of the 7 of us were there Monday, but only 5 are in this picture. These were the original members of our study.Do we look any different?? I was really surprised at how little we had all changed, in spite of marriage, children and other good and hard times life has brought our way.

I am so thankful for the people God has placed in my life through the years who have helped make me who I am. I think the old Michael W. Smith song, while maybe a bit sappy, is true: "Friends are friends forever if the Lord's the Lord of them."

It's Now or Never

Dear Representative Cooper,

I am writing to urge you to vote AGAINST the healthcare bill that is coming up in the next few days. This bill would force those of us who believe abortion is a crime against children and against God to pay for others to have them. It is bad enough that our country allows such a heinous thing as abortion to be legal, but to force our God-fearing citizens to pay for them is beyond reprehensible. This country was founded for the sake of freedom, and I believe this bill, if passed, will take away many of the freedoms that our founding fathers worked for and our soldiers died for through the years. Again, as a voter in your district, I plead with you to vote AGAINST this bill.

Sincerely,

I urge you to write a similar letter to your Representative . The vote will be coming up in the next few days and could be life-changing. You can go here to write your Representative, or here to find out information about how to call them. And please pray! We are at a crossroads in our country's history, and these next few days are vital!

At Long Last

I am having a bit of trouble adjusting to Daylight Savings Time, particularly with getting up in the morning while it is still dark, but when I finally managed to take the poor dogs out this morning, I saw something that woke me up quickly:

FINALLY, I have a daffodil! This is at least a couple of weeks later than I got them last year, but they are here now, or at least one of them is. The days are still cold and dreary for the most part, but this gives me hope -- spring is just around the corner!

The Virus

I got a harmless-looking message from a friend on Facebook with a video attached. It was late and I was tired, but I was curious about what she would be sending me, so I clicked on the link. It said I needed to download the latest version of Adobe to view the video, which made sense, because my computer had been telling me for some time that there were some Adobe updates that I needed to install. So I clicked on that too.

It didn't take me long to realize I had made a grave mistake. The video still wouldn't play, and suddenly my Facebook page was popping up on my screen, and showing me that it was forwarding this "video" (which I now realized was a virus) to all of my friends (250+). More things started popping up on my computer, keeping me from being able to control anything but making me watch in horror as it continued to send the virus to my friends.

I re-booted my computer. I tried to send word out to my friends not to click on the link, but my computer soon locked up again, and the same thing began happening. I tried several times, with the same results.

This was late Saturday night. I don't get on my computer on Sundays, so I turned it off completely. Monday I had to leave early for jury duty, and Monday night I was too tired to even think, but I did try a couple of strategies I had thought of while sitting and waiting to be called for jury duty. I changed my password on Facebook and fixed it so the password would have to be typed in every time before it could be opened. I made more efforts to alert my friends during the approximate 5-minute stretches I could work on my computer before it locked up and started acting crazy.

Friends sent me suggestions for how to get rid of it, but every website they told me about that offered help had been blocked by the virus, and I couldn't open it. I ran my antivirus scan, which found a couple of things but didn't knock it out.

Meanwhile, I was back in jury duty all day on Tuesday and Wednesday so still didn't have much time to fool with it. Finally on Wednesday night, a friend suggested I get into my computer's Safe Mode and gave me some suggestions about what to do. I tried that and, while I couldn't get it to work exactly like she said, when in Safe Mode my computer suggested I use System Restore to repair my computer. Basically what that does is to take your computer back exactly like it was on the date you specify (limited to days that it backed itself up). Of course, I would lose anything I had done since then, but I hadn't really done anything since I got the virus, so I didn't have much to lose. I had it restore things to the way they were two days before I got the virus, and as far as I can tell, it worked!

The lesson here (for me and for you) is this: Be careful what you open! Be very aware of clicking on any suspicious link, even if it came from someone you know. If in doubt, check with that person before opening it.

I think the thing that burned me up the most was that some brilliant person out there, who could be using their brains to find a cure for cancer or some other worthwhile cause, is using them to figure out ways to destroy people's computers that they don't even know. It's something I'll never understand.

Jury Duty

Today was my second day of jury duty. Besides my obvious complaint of having to miss work and the pay that goes with it, I'm realizing that this whole experience is WAY out of my comfort zone for a number of reasons:

1) Having to drive downtown in rush hour traffic and park in a parking garage.

2) Being stuck in a building all day, especially when the weather is nice outside.

3) Being away from home and my dogs for long stretches of time (my dogs were locked up for 11 hours today).

4) Being made to socialize with people I don't know and have little in common with.

But it's really not so bad. The trial itself has been kind of interesting (I'm not allowed to share any details), and I am getting more comfortable around some of the other jurors. None of them know each other either, so we're all on equal turf. Once I found my way there and knew where to park, I was less fearful about that too.

I'll probably survive. I might even become a more well-rounded person because of it all. I guess sometimes God has to get us out of our comfort zone a little bit to help us grow.

Happy Birthday Mom!

I want to wish my mom a happy 70th birthday. I thank God for the years He's given her and pray He'll give her many, many more!

I'm Back!

Hi, remember me? It's been a while. I simply haven't had time to blog because I've been consumed with this. My mom is turning 70 this week, and we (my brother and I and our spouses) decided to make a scrapbook for her, getting friends and family from throughout her life to contribute to it. It was a MAJOR project, which I couldn't blog about because it was a big surprise!

We also had a surprise party yesterday, inviting a few of her close, local friends and family. My brother and sister-in-law made the wonderful food for it, but it still kept me busy with invitations and RSVP's and getting my house cleaned up (no small task). I believe my mom was very blessed by all this, as we had hoped she would be. She hasn't been looking forward to this big birthday, but hopefully this made it all a little better.

I don't know what to do with myself now that it's all over. Actually, it's just about time to start working on my garden . . .