Incoherent Scribblings

Holidailies may just end up as the bane of my blogging existence this year. It’s Day 6 and I have yet to write one decent post to justify my participation. (By the way, don’t expect this post to be the exception to that rule either.)

I thought it was a good idea to sign up for Holidailies. After all I was able to blog everyday for three weeks straight in November and figured I could carry the momentum into December. What I didn’t expect was to have all my good blogging mojo used up by then.

Or maybe my complete and utter lack of blogging creativity has something to do with the final I had tonight that I have been studying for since I returned from Arkansas…

There is one problem with hosting a blog on your own webspace: No matter how hard you try to keep everything secure, every once in a while someone breaks through your defenses and hacks you. Unfortunately, that happened to me sometime late Sunday night or early Monday morning.

Everything was OK when I went to bed on Sunday, but Monday morning when I tried to log in and approve the droves (ha!) of comments in my queue, I got a message that my website was an “attack site.”

Although I had plenty of other things to do, I spent all day Monday going through the plethora of files on my website hunting malicious code. It was not a fun way to spend my day off.

There was one benefit to the attack though: I have had my domain name for seven years and have had a website in one form or another for about twleve. While I have periodically deleted files that were no longer serving any purpose, I hadn’t done so for at least two years. Many of these files were ones that had been hacked, so by examining each file for malicious code I was also able to determine which pages were doing little more than sitting out there begging to be attacked.

Since my website is now (more or less) synonymous with my blog I removed all the static pages (some of those pages may return at a later date in a different form), removed the malicious code from the ones that were staying online, reset my passwords, and resubmitted my site to Google to verify that I had fixed the problem and get back in their good graces.

I apologize to anyone who may have tried to access my site during this time and highly encourage you to run a spyware and/or virus scan to make sure that those hackers weren’t able to install anything on your machine.

My website is clean again so please come back to visit me. I promise you that I will be doing everything I can so an attack like this doesn’t happen again.

Sorry to cheat with a holiday meme tonight, but every year I have to answer at least one.

1. Candy cane or peppermint patties? Peppermint patties. I adore the mint/chocolate combination!
2. Sugar or gingerbread cookies? Sugar. I don’t like gingerbread.
3. Tinsel or beaded strands? Beaded strands. I think tinsel looks white-trashy.
4. Multi-colored or same-colored lights? It’s kind of a toss up. Although I am a big fan of multi-colored lights, I love way all blue ones look.
5. Flashing or still lights? I don’t like flashing ones that just blink on and off. If they are going to flash, they should have some sort of rhythm.
6. Wreaths or mistletoe/holly? No preference really.
7. Rudolph or Frosty? Rudolph.
8. Sledding or snowball fights? Snowball fights. I don’t like to be outside in the snow and cold very long and snowball fights have the advantage of being over quickly (usually).
9. Snow or ice/icicles? They are both pretty as long as I am looking at them from inside my cozy living room.
10. Snow hat or earmuffs? Earmuffs. I hate the way snow hats make my hair all static and fly-away.
11. Getting or giving? Getting!! What can I say? I’m selfish.
12. Snow days or plow trucks? Snow days. Who doesn’t like to stay inside and drink hot cocoa on a cold, snowy day?
13. Stockings or presents? I haven’t had a stocking since I was a kid, so I guess presents.
14. Cookies & milk or letter to Santa? Both. First you write the letter to Santa and then on Christmas Eve you leave cookies and milk as a thank you for the presents he brings you.
15. Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Christmas Day. When I was a kid I hated Christmas Eve. The presents were just begging to be opened and you had to go to bed so Santa could come.
16. Log Burning Channel or real thing? There’s a log burning channel?
17. Cards or emails? I always have the best intention of sending cards, but since I always put it off people usually get emails instead.
18. Shoveling or cleaning off the car? Cleaning off the car. It’s much quicker.

Wah! I don’t want to post tonight. I just don’t feel like writing. But since I have been doing so well with the whole NaBloPoMo thing, I will at least attempt to entertain you with some drivel this evening.

So… I stitched most of the evening and will have a happy dance sometime this weekend. It is my super-secret project for a certain someone so I won’t be able to show it for a while, but let me assure you this project is very precious.

I have to work tomorrow, but after that I will be on vacation until December 3. And guess where I am going for Thanksgiving?

To Dawn’s to see Baby Megan Renee! (And the rest of the family too, of course!)

I have a million things to do before I leave on Tuesday, but I am still going to try to fulfill my NaBloPoMo commitment… even if I have to enable mobile blogging so I can blog from the road.

I’m too tired to write much tonight so I though I would try The One-Minute Writer Prompt of the Day. Today’s prompt is:

Listen. Write about what you hear, right now.

Right now I am listening to Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” on the new “boom box” I bought for my iPod. Since I bought my iPod in May I have been looking for something so that I can listen without headphones and I have found it. It is the Altec Lansing inMotion iM600 Portable Audio System for iPod.

Wow… a minutes sure goes by fast when you are writing, doesn’t it?

P.S. Given the nature of this exercise my writing has not been edited. Please forgive any grammatical errors you may find.