How To Highlight You Own Hair & Start Your Own Career

These instructions are mostly for those who were born blonde and now find that there hair has become ....that other color. If you have darker hair you may want to wait until October so you can enter your local jack-o lantern contest.

1. Pick out a box of good old fashioned pull through cap style highlighting kit. That is how you get more  unique highlights that don't look like racing stripes.
2. Go home and read directions on box.
3. Skip the part about the pre- color test, who wants to mess with that.
4. Put on the flimsy little cap that tears easy, because you are too cheap to go over to Sally and buy a nicer one.
5. Put on your glasses, check mirror, laugh and hope the house doesn't catch fire.
6. Proceed to pull hair thru holes. Make sure to pull more thru some than others so you have several  unpredictable widths, not uniform ones. This is also a good test of coordination as you learn whether you can sit in a sink holding a hand mirror with your held tilted back and peer upwards with your eyes, trying to keep your vision within the area of your glasses while desperately trying to see the holes on the back of your head and poke a stick thru them.
7. Mix bleaching stuff and begin to apply.
8. If you have colored before,  ignore directions about carefully applying only to previously un- highlighted parts. Who has time for that.
9. Put plastic bag on head, remembering to stop at hair line is entirely up to you.
10. Feel that funny cold sensation in a few areas on your head. That will be the places the cheap cap tore a little and left a bigger hole and the bleach is leaking thru. You will have some very trendy orange polka dots in these areas.
11. Set timer. Amuse yourself.
12. When timer goes off you now have two choices. First risk getting near a window or venturing outside to see what color your hair is. If it is still a goldish orange color you can stop now and do the trendy thing with spots and stripes. Or you can leave on until very pale yellow. This will result in gorgeous blonde highlights for about 2 weeks, then they will break off about a quarter inch from your head and you will have a very edgy, spiky thing going on.
13. Next rinse. Remind yourself to take off pullover sweater before coloring next time. Rinse and remove cap.
14. While letting the moisturizing shampoo soak in for a few minutes, you may contemplate your hair feeling like a birds nest that has been out in the rain.
15. When hair is dry, spend some time trying to part hair different ways to cover the spots.
16. Get in the car and go to Sally. If your spots are small or only slightly yellowish you may look for some good old fashioned Roux Fanciful temp color like your grandmother or great grandmother swore by, in white minx or champagne, and apply every 2 days for 3 months. If they are very bright you may want to get one of those ten minute permanent hair colors in an ashy shade to give you the lovely color you were trying to lose in the first place.
17. Repeat these steps every few months for years and years. Or, before Nicole hires a detective to find out who I am and track me down so she can slap me. Go TO A Trained Professional.

Disclaimer: Do not do anything I tell you to, except this part: Go To A Trained Professional

Beauty/Career Biography
This guide brought to you by Motpg. Ms. G managed to get out of high school by the time she was 17, even though she didn't pay much attention to grammar. Having devoted herself to music and trained since she was 12 with a vocal coach to be on Broadway someday, Ms. G wasn't quite ready to head there yet, so was doing some more school. She was always happy to attend her Art and Literature classes but sometimes forgot to attend the others. She began to waiver and think maybe she would be an Artist instead and also as a back up plan began writing a historical novel that unfortunately was never finished. ( Any resemblance to her middle daughter is purely a coincidence and means nothing : )
 Her mother thought maybe she should learn to do something that would provide an income other than theirs, just to be safe. Ms. G's hairstylist suggested she give beauty a try & she said...... Ok. After spending nearly a year training in cosmetology so she could feed herself if necessary and approximately 2 weeks before she had finished her on floor hours and was ready to take her state test, Ms. G had a lovely young  girl with beautiful thick, luxurious, straight, coarse black hair that fell to her waist sit in her chair. She wanted a change. It being the early 80's she thought she would try that new style that cut up high above your ears in front and was a little longer in back. Ms. G. said......Ok. Later that day Ms. G decided the last thing she ever wanted to be responsible for again was somebody Else's head. And so she became......
You got it!

An Authentic Beauty School Drop Out!

 Her parents were thrilled. Ms. G then got a job as a clerk/asst. manager of a dry cleaners where she couldn't mess much up and dithered about what she actually wanted to do and concentrated on enjoying the then legal drinking age of 18 and eventually meeting her husband. She began working for a Large/Eventful Corp. type place that some people might think would be fun to work for but it wasn't and hated every minute of it which was fine because they didn't like her much either, but she can't divulge what it is because her mother worked there for A Long Time and  some other  people with whom she is associated still work there, so yeah....anyway. She continued for awhile and then they changed the drinking age to 21 and a lot of the places she liked to go wouldn't let her get in anymore even though she was married and had been going out for 2 years, and the state said she still could, but they could drink beer at home which gets boring after awhile and they didn't have much to do so finally

God said: Here..... Do You Think You Can Finish This?

 & gave them a baby. And Ms. G said Does that mean I can quit this job?, .....I mean Ok! and then at one point she said, Oh God I hope so, and now is happy to say, Yes. I finished that....one anyway. And that is how Ms. G got where she is today which is not on Broadway or doing your hair but she helps run two businesses and doesn't make much but saves a lot of money by not having to pay for her family to get hair cuts. (she doesn't care if They cry when she's done: )  And that's Ok, cause Ms. G suspects she really doesn't want to work that hard. ( Any resemblance to her middle daughter is purely a coincidence and means nothing ; )

© 2010 All Rights Reserved

Don't Ask Questions.

What you say to your daughter at 5:30 AM when she walks out of her room to find you wandering down the hall towards the laundry room wearing a fleece jacket and your underwear and carrying your shoes in your hand.



© 2010 All Rights Reserved

Level:3 The Punk

Part 2 The Beginning and The End and The Yin and The Yang (Sort of)
An outline with emphasis on the dating decisions that helped shape my daughters choices.

The first day of ninth grade Biggest was in the courtyard of her new high school when she saw a sight that changed her life forever. Striding along with confidence, his tall Mohawk evilly glinting with deadly sharp tips. She gazed at his dog collar in shock and viewed his black combat boots in awe, as he proudly displayed his total rebellion against society within the circle of his Anarchy tattoo, her little preppy heart began to beat with terror.....or no ...it was

Love.

A shy, quiet girl she was in the throes of being tortured by a group of people she had thought were her friends.  Here, there was a way out. Here, she would be safe. Here, they wouldn't bother her, and they didn't, ever again. Here, they couldn't hurt her and no, they never dared.

And that's when we began our journey into hell.

When you read or hear the words  "Sudden change in appearance, new friends, different music, falling grades" they aren't kidding. They lined up like dominoes and proceeded to all fall down. It started with a new girl friend. At first I was glad. She had been hurt and lonely.  Not for long. I call this friend the Evil One. I don't feel bad for that, I met her mother, she was trying.  Next she was all in black and trying to look as scary as possible.
But this is about the boy. The Punk. He was part of the training crew that led this merry pack of little troublemakers  along the way to the counseling center affiliated with the school. It was there that this clique practiced their skills in manipulation and playing the system. They thought it was a joke. They compared notes, made stuff up, shared information on what would get the biggest rise out of parents and teachers alike. When they went to school that is. You see my little poem at the top of the page. Sometimes kids are just being rotten little jackasses and their parents have nothing to do with it.  Sometimes parents are losers. Like the "mother" who was letting these kids hang at her house and party during the day, providing them with beer and drugs, and trying to sleep with the boys.  Some of these kids obviously were living hellish lives. They turned to each other to create family and a sense of love and belonging. They did not believe that parents could really want the best for you. What I find puzzling to this day is that the ones whose families did care fell into this belief to fit in with this group. Some, like my daughter, at first felt pity and being ostracized by their other peers, welcomed the sense of belonging they found there. She didn't have to feel anxious or impress these friends. But to really belong, you had to know that parents and school and even counselors were the enemy. Only the tribe could really be trusted. And this boy taught her that society was crap, she didn't have to take it from anyone. And he was a drummer in a punk band. Who could ask for anything more. The one thing she did learn was to rant and rave. I think she had held in every angry thought for 14 years so she did learn to vent a little bit and express her anger.
   My child quickly learned that we have no power. All she had to do was tell us F U and walk out. All she had to do was make some threats,  break some stuff. Punch some walls, physically attack and look...There they are. Just like her friends said. The people who don't care about you. They expect you to be accountable. They don't love you for who you are. If they did they wouldn't try to control you. They would never expect you to do something you didn't want to do or try to interfere with what makes you happy. One of the most dangerous signs you can hear from your teenager is this: Their friends call themselves a family and have a hierarchy with parent figures, brothers and sisters. Another is: You expect me to be perfect and what you want me to be. You don't respect me for who I am so why should I respect you. This is a  system of behavior that is being used to manipulate teens by other teens and then used on family.
   But one story at a time. She dated The Punk for awhile. Then he apparently dumped her. Which caused her already damaged self esteem to spiral downward. She spiraled deeper with it. We took her out of the school. But it didn't stop the problems. Over the next two years things continued to deteriorate. Every time we made some headway we were bashed back. One of the things about a peer group like this is that they don't really care about you. But, if after an extended period of time you are not seen they start to come out. I call them the cockroaches. Just when we would get her on her feet the calls would start. And it would start again. And she met another boy.
  The Soul Destroyer. This one was self centered, abusive, and respected no one. This is when the drugs got more serious and really out of control behavior began.  I don't judge his mother. She was on her own and did the best she could. She felt guilty for having to raise him alone. But the fact is she held him accountable for nothing. In the years I knew them he never did anything that wasn't really Someone  Else's fault. We even tried to help him. Tried to point him in the right direction and encourage him. It wasn't what he wanted. During these years I watched my child turn in to someone I would avoid if I saw them walking towards me on the street. During this time she would sometimes be missing for days at a time, come home filthy, weighed  barely 100lbs. Had black circles under her eyes that looked like she hadn't slept in days, sometimes she hadn't.
This is around the time we made our final attempt at having her hospitalized. She was hanging around a lot of street people and drifters. Then she met a different type of wanderer and was introduced to a kinder gentler rebellion.
  Just before  she turned 16 she ran away again. Well, she said I'm going to a Rainbow Gathering in Ocala Fl. And we said no you are not and she said F U, yes I am and left. We did the usual & went down to report her missing. By that time I think they had a rubber stamp with her name and address up at the police station. While she was there, something weird happened. She had told her friends she had heard about this gathering and they decided to go.  They were going there to party. Biggest noticed more than the partying. She noticed a sense of peacefulness and community. She was, dare I say it, embarrassed by her friends behavior while they were there. She started to participate in the event. I don't really approve of everything she picked up there, but..... My daughter walked out of here a Punk, and came home a hippie. Peace and Love dude, well in less she drank too much and you really pissed her off.
   The Peacemaker. I call him that because he was the one that allowed her to have peace with her family. I am saving the full story for another post but he fit in better with her new style of dreadlocks, sarongs & going barefoot. She shed the Soul Destroyer. She couldn't safely leave the group for us. With this new relationship they backed off. They went away. Something we had never been able to accomplish.  He was older than we would have allowed in a normal world (20), but we weren't in the normal world. And he had a real job and basically normal life. She would report to us from time to time that she heard something about the Punk or the Soul Destroyer. They fell deeper into the pit. One day we learned the Soul Destroyer had been arrested for armed robbery in another state. The Punk, well he had disappeared. Been gone a long time. No one knew where he was. During those 2 years she continued to grow up and grow more rational.  Maybe too normal, shortly after she turned 18 the peacemaker ended the relationship. We all felt the loss.
  But Then. We had a time of uncertainty. Because of her past there was a real fear of Biggest falling back into the pit. The only people she had to go back to were her old friends. For a little while things were shaky. Then we noticed someone was dropping her off at the end of the road and never coming up to the house. Alarms went off! We confronted. We demanded. She said, "it's Ok. I promise." Not good enough. Who?
  The Punk.
  No Way. You have got to be kidding me. If he comes in my yard I will shoot him! Well, yes he knows that which is why he is dropping her off down the road. Then we hear a story about how he left town to work for his uncle and got straightened out and has his life together. About how they ran into each other at someones house and found out neither of them really wanted to be around these people anymore but didn't really know a lot of other people who weren't from the past. So they had been hanging around each other instead. And it was really Ok!
"I've heard that song before. You are 18. The 1st time you come in my house wasted you are out on your rear. Do not bring him anywhere near my home."
" But you don't understand. "
"Damn straight I don't."
 
  A few days later an audience is requested. No joke. I want nothing to do with it. My husband walks outside to speak to The Punk, who I notice doesn't have a Mohawk anymore. He's wearing jeans and a tee shirt and sneakers. They had a guy talk. They came to an understanding. My husband said we had to give him a chance. Yeah right! Over my dead body. He could be nice but don't expect me to.

That was almost 5 years ago.

So does anyone have a good suggestion for a blog name for my son in law because The Punk doesn't quite seem to fit?

Nowadays he is more like Decent Guy who works hard at a good trade and likes to go fishing.

When she is angry and ranting and raving about something we like to tease him and say we are glad he came back to take responsibility for what he created.

Well.....he did.



© 2010 All Rights Reserved

Thankful Thursday & An Award!

It is Thursday, right?

Susan at Susan Fobes' Family Formula very kindly gave me this award recently and I am Thankful to her for that & being such a great follower and supportive commenter as well as giving me a terrific blog to follow!  For this one you list 5 things you like to do and then pass on to 5 other bloggers. I was thinking about taking pictures to make my list seem more fascinating but I haven't reloaded the program yet and I think the camera batteries are dead anyway. So it is time to stop dithering and delaying and pass it along!

My List:

1. I like to daydream with my husband about what we will do someday when we are finally Alone!
2. I like to draw and paint & would like to have more time for it.
3. I like to sit with my girls after dinner and talk about deep philosophical issues and eye shadow.
4. I like to sing show tunes while I clean the kitchen & get my cats' reaction.
5. I like to read quirky books with offbeat characters.(any suggestions, I have nothing to read?)

This is only my second award and I would like to pass it on to:
 4 Blogs that I am Thankful to have found in the time since getting my first award...
 And One I am Thankful to for actually giving me the 1st one!


Help! Mama Remote...
Great posts to inspire your answers and Check out WTFlashback, I always enjoy those!
FarmersWife
A funny, laid back lady who gives a look at life on the other side of (well my world anyway) in Australia!
Living, Loving, Laughing....
For insightful posts and a lovely heart!
Coloring Outside The Lines
Another funny lady who really knows how to tell a story!
Generation X Mom
Very good topics relating to raising  kids are discussed at her blog!

Hormonal Blogging?

This morning it occurs to me that my previous post  may be the blogging equivalent of a hot flash!


That... and the people I have known in my life would provide enough material for Oprah to be tempted to stay on the air one more season...I would like to know the reason they all have me in common.Hmm..Maybe not..
 
© 2010 All Rights Reserved

To 57 Chevy from C.S.

This post contains the initials of strong language....and some general being pathetic.

Letters Never Sent

To 57 Chevy,
 
Today I miss you. This doesn't happen every day, just from time to time. I know it is not uncommon to grow away from childhood and high school friends. If that was the case and I was curious I could look you up, catch up and move on again.  But this was different. As I am writing this blog it has crossed my mind that though I am writing it for myself, I might also be writing it for you. Like I always did. I know if you came across it and started to read, you would recognize my voice. It has not changed much except for the subject matter. No more skating rink stories and crushes.  I saved the notes for years but finally threw them away so the kids wouldn't get in to them and know how horrible we were as teenagers. But I kept the tag team poetry. It is in the carboard box in the hall closet. We still rock, my girls love.. There once was a guy named: _______fill in the blank:  Along with the yearbook, do you remember what you wrote in mine,

We have alot of years ahead of us & I know we'll be friends forever. We've been through alot of things, good & bad, so I know we can make it through a lot more. I wish the very best for you in life and I intend to be around to watch it happen.

 Do you remember the poem I wrote in yours? The thank you for being my friend. The lines: "For all of the wise things you knew, that I never listened to" and "For every year that you've been there, I hope we have ten more to share. "

  But we didn't. And that sucks. Are you even allowed to use the internet? Is it monitored? Have you been there long enough to gain their trust? 16 years since I've seen you. I am still married , 2 kids you met though one was an infant and another you haven't seen. I know what you would say about my oldest, but you would be wrong. I know what you would say if you had never left here, and it would be right. I remember you saying that all you ever wanted was to get married and have kids, and that I didn't want kids but even though you married 1st, the babies weren't coming but mine did and now there I was "perfect mom".  Would you be surprised now, or secretly pleased. It wasn't long after that you got your wish and though it took several years I know you have 3 now because I ran into your Mom at BJ's a couple years ago and she told me you just had another, unexpectedly. How do you have an unexpected child? The possibilities kinda creep me out.  She told me what a lovely young woman M has become and that when she tried to give her some spending money that she turned around and gave it to you.  She said it proudly, but her eyes looked sad.  When I think of how badly you wanted those kids and think now of what they are being taught it p's me off, but I know it really isn't my business.  I know what it's like there because B&A are grown women now and they told me. T's husband was stationed here awhile back and we met for lunch. She was worried about her sister & her family. But at least they talk.
 She told me about your hair. Would I recognize you. Yes, you know I would. Sometimes when I drive past your Mom's house, not stalking, J's son lives in our old house, anyway... If there is a stange car I check the plates to see if they are from you state. I think about walking up to the door and surprising you. I know you are only allowed to come very rarely for short periods. I know you have to call and check in several times a day because that's what C&B had to do when they visited us, before they came to their senses and left there. Fled there. Since your parents did not follow I don't know how much access they are allowed.
  Years ago when this started I called your Mom and tried to tell her, to see if she would help. She said as long as you were happy she was happy. Pardon me but wth?!  Previous sentence probably another reason you act like I'm dead. But I shouldn't have been surprised.  Maybe if you were in another state she wouldn't have to see your messy house. I ran into L still working at the grocery store. She asked about you. Are you angry that all those years ago I told her Mom what was going on and she stopped her from coming. I don't feel guilty. She has always been unusually naive and trusting and you knew she had some mental issues. You didn't have much security to lose. Her pension is in her bank,  not WOFF's and she's getting older.  I feel guilty for ever giving you that damn tape. More bad language, I know I'm Satan but whatever. I gave it to you because I thought you would recognize that it was evil and help us with C&B. I felt sick when you called and said it was incredible, you wanted to talk to C about visiting there. It was like the twilight zone. They woke up! Why didn't you? When I wrote to you that time I received a letter in return that was not your voice. You forgot I had since elementary school to know your voice. Since 6th grade to have the daily writing, the football shaped notes dropped by a careful arm reach through the History class door and set on the bookcase, while I rose to sharpen my pencil above it. Not your voice. Not your words. A strangers.
In these years. My brother is dead. My parent's are dead. Not even a generic card. The person I knew would never have let that happen. Your church only consorts with it's own? Very Christian of you... But I'm not really here to be bitter or give you a guilt trip. I'm really not. But you always were, the thoughtful one.
  Like your Mom I hope if nothing else you are truly happy. I stated my concern once and that is all I needed because I do respect that you have your beliefs even though I don't share them. I wish you respected mine enough to still be my friend. I know they can't allow you to be exposed to any one who might question them.
And I'm supposed to be an honest blogger, so do I really respect your beliefs? If I got a hold of you would I try to de-program you? I don't know.  I know  your phone number is listed but I haven't tried so give me brownie points for that. I don't want to call because I don't want to talk to that stanger. I think I could over look it if I could just have you know about my life and know about yours like we used to without anything getting in the way. You know how I am. That except for my husband I have not bothered to put the effort into another close friendship in all these years. But my Mom is gone now too. She really was gone long before that so I pretty much stopped talking altogether. I never liked to much anyway. I always preferred to just have quiet company. You were good for that. I didn't have to say much but we could laugh uncontrollably at 2AM falling off my parents couch in tears over something stupid or nothing at all. Harmonizing Amazing Grace for your Mom in the backseat on the way home from church. Riding around in your cherry red 65 Mustang with the top down, wearing fedora's and smoking Swisher Sweets while we cruised the strip. It broke my heart when you traded that car in for something family practical, but then, you were always the mature one. All the way back to, what ?  3rd grade when my then best friend MJ was bullying me into carrying her stuff home from school you walked up and said " I would just drop it there and leave it." It had never occured to me that I could stand up to her, and I did it. You were always the strong one. Weren't you?
  And I was not always an easy friend. Cracking up during your solo. Rolling up and saying " you picking up guys again?" to tease you not realizing of course that you had just met and were talking to your future husband.  After repeated warnings about lifting the hem, still stepping on my gown going up the stairs in your wedding and saying the Sh part of the sh... word out loud before I caught myself in front of your minister, friends and family. You see, I always was better off keeping my mouth shut.  Did you really need  to join a cult to stop speaking to me? : )
  At least I was willing to take the title and the rap of the wild one when,  well.. we know the truth about that.
My anniversary is coming and every year I think about that whole day, not just my ceremony. You are a part of it. My only bridesmaid. Our wild bachelorette party having tea with my Mom and Aunts. Your nice husband understanding us spending the night at my parents house for one more silly sleepover before we all were "grownups".When we woke up at 6 and it was snowing,.... here? And driving to pick up the cake.Your awful driving and slamming on the brake and  reaching out as our shared giant copy of East of Eden slid across the dash and catching it at the corner just as the edge hit the 2cd tier and....barely knicked it. And filling the moments before it was time to start, waiting in the church nursery, playing Heart and Soul on the piano like we had 5 million times before. Which you were always willing to do because it was the only song I could play well.....except Lean On Me.
And I did.....
So nowadays.....
I spend a lot of time falling on my ass.

Love,
C. Shadow











© 2010 All Rights Reserved

All My Worries Are Over!

About Middlests' future that is.
 Here I've been spending so much time worrying about her grades and whether she will make it to college.

But now she has come upon her dream career!
She has decided to throw over all the years of planning to be a Language Arts Teacher or an Artist and become....

A Mermaid at Weeki Wachee Springs!

She is already perfectly qualified for this position.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIMI4qktOSY


© 2010 All Rights Reserved

7 Nice Things About Being Married A Long Time!

In Honor of National Marriage Week, Valentines Day & a Couple of Anniversaries!


I already celebrated 25  years of being a couple with my husband on new years but our 24th wedding Anniversary is in a couple of weeks and I'm pretty excited and proud of it. That with Valentines day coming up made me think about this post. And then I learned it was National Marriage Week  Feb. 7 thru 14! Pretty Cool, so I thought it would be a good week for it. Today is also my inlaws 47th Anniversary so I thought this would be the perfect day, in Honor of Them, what better day to celebrate being married a long time!
 It makes me think of my parents. They were married for 53 years when my Dad passed away and even though  within a few years my mother could not remember who he was, she knew sometimes that she was married and that she couldn't find her husband. Mom passed away just two days before what would have been their 60th Anniversary and I kind of feel that somewhere in her heart she knew and just didn't want to spend that day, or any day, without him another year.

 Marriage is really hard work, but you do get some perks for all your effort.

So here are seven nice things I have found about being married a long time. One for each day of this week.

1. You know that even if you have a big argument, it doesn't necessarily mean it's The End.
2. Your husband already knows when you need to stop and pee on long trips without being asked, and if they are Really Good have the trip mapped out to accomodate it.
3. The kids start to leave and you actually have time to hang out with each other again.
4. You feel all sentimental and proud when you see the gray in each others' hair.
5. When you take off your glasses you both still look really hot!
6. After awhile your annoying little habits that drive each other crazy become a source of amusement, not frustration. Except the toilet seat, that is Never amusing, especially in the dark, when you leave the light off to be courteous and not wake them up.
7. Sometimes you don't have to say anything at all. You  can just  move a certain way.....and the other one knows...exactly where to scratch.

So you tell me, if you have been married a long time what are your favorite perks?  However long you have been married  15, 10, 5 years, let me know. Or even if you're newly married remind me.... I can't really remember back that far : )


© 2010 All Rights Reserved

Are We Still Happy?

Warning! Pent Up Rant In Progress!

First it was report card weekend.
 Always a thrill ride around here. Trying to figure out how to deal with Middlests' bi-polar grades, which are usually mostly A's & F's with little variation in between. I figured out that the kids are sharing a brain. Originally Middlest was mostly into writing and Littlest liked art.  Around the time Littlest started writing Middlest started drawing & they switched main interests. However when Middlest mentioned she was taking Pottery next year,  Littlest actually froze and said "You can't do that, that's mine." They switched academics too. L soared in math last year, M has floundered. This quarter, M has a B. L has a D. They obviously can't think of the same thing at the same time but what I'm wondering is..

  Who was using the brain this week?

 It might have been Biggest. She was over Saturday. But then again she was here to use the internet to find info about how to file their taxes now that they're married. But she got so distracted updating her Facebook & looking for Gogol Bordello related video's on YouTube for 6 hours that she forgot all about it. So maybe not.
(If you don't know who Gogol Bordello is you probably  don't want to know, except the "start wearing purple song" I kinda like that one, maybe we can dance to it at our silver anniversary or something)

Anyway...
I had just started the washer with jeans when Littlest came out with another pair. "These need washing too."
"Okay" I tell her, hurry and throw them in, there's room.

She did..... along with her cell phone.

Then it was Monday.
The girls started the morning with a juvenile argument over who was going to get the front seat. They waited till we were out in front of the house at 6:45 AM to raise their voices to screaming status. (I long for the days when they were too little to sit in front of the airbags. It was so simple.)
Later, standing in the check out line at the grocery something told me," you are going to need those Hershey w/almond bars." Oh yes.

That afternoon I opened an email and used a link into what should have been a safe site and one that I have been to many times, when I was attacked. Still don't know if it came from where I was or had been hiding, waiting for the right moment. I spent the afternoon battling the Trojans and thought I had them under control. I forgot to mention it to my husband. Littlest got on my computer. When the allow access pop up started she turned to her Dad, who was highly distracted by looking for new cell phone deals on the other computer, and asked what to do.
Highly distracted and annoyed about the phone already Dad answered, I don't know..... just allow it.

So she did.
And it was all over. It got passed the McAfee. It looked like a pop up flea circus all over the computer screen. A Hackerama. My security center said it disabled my virus protection but the firewall seemed intact.  From what I read this virus was one of those rogue virus protection downloads or looking for banking info. It didn't look like they got passed the firewall but if so they still didn't have much luck. I not only don't online bank, I still write checks. So good luck to them. Maybe they could hack into my t-mobile account and get me the phone I would really like to have instead of the one my husband just got us for free by extending our contract, or ooh really dangerous, rearrange the hours set on the kid's phones......Maybe the kids did have something to do with this....Wait, when this happened I was actually in Alyssa's email that I never use for anything important,  maybe They can start getting all her Spam!
Anyway. I never do anything on the internet I wouldn't do in front of strangers.....even tell all our personal business. People around here.....know nothing about me.

It was so out of control we couldn't get in to anything and we couldn't make it stop.  I later found that McAfee has a separate fix for this that you can download for free..on the internet. Thanks so much McAfee that was very useful to someone who could not get anything to open. We aren't savvy enough to know all the tricks and I don't have the brain to figure them out. So my husband picked his favorite solution. The fastest for him. Kill the computer. If it was me I would research for months & learn how to get rid of the bugger . But no, he stripped my computer, empty, naked , cowering cold on the desk, with no soul.

But it was alright.  I did some research on tricks in case it happens again. It would take most of Tuesday but I could reinstall all my programs. And my New antivirus security program.
And most of my files were backed up on my flashdrive.
Where is my flashdrive?
Oh... do I mean my flashdrive that Middlest borrowed without asking because she didn't want to mention that she had lost hers,  AGAIN....pardon me and that she had forgot about and left plugged in to the back of my computer, where it was the whole time.
Yep, that flash drive.

And then my phone rings.
It's Biggest. She wants to ask me questions about filling out her tax returns.

Am I still happy? I have an interesting book to read, and some chocolate..... I'm good : )



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