·:[ The Healthy Mom ]:·
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So, we went for a “long” run today. Although May did actually protest, believing that she would only run 3-4 miles, I convinced her to try for the bridge/overpass and back, like we did last week.

This role reversal is amusing to me.

Anyway, it went by quickly because we were discussing a possible new venture together, where she does the dB back end and I do all the web interface stuff in PHP.

Today is my day to myself. Doug takes the boys to school, and Grandpa picks them up from school. I can do a long run, have a coffee with May, and get a whole lot of work done. Which is good because I had to finish up the Tillie work today, and also do more work on the Rocky Mountain ASHRAE site.

And, I spent a good chunk of time today making appts - for a facial (Monday at 12:45 PM), an appt with the optometrist (Tuesday at 8:30 AM) and for a mammogram (2/25 at 3:00 PM). The dental office was closed today, so I have to make that appt next week.

And I even called a potential client to get an idea about the project they would like me to work on. That I would like Mike Jackson to help me out with if it turns out to be an ASP deal.

I finished off the chili that I made on Sunday for the Superbowl party. And watched “Make Me a Supermodel” as I ate lunch.

Then I worked some more on client projects. I’ve got a couple new ones starting next week, so I have to finish up the ones I am working on now ASAP.

When the boys came home, I was actually glad to see them and was able to focus on talking with them about their day. It felt really good. My other work days are shorter than this, since I have to pick up the boys from school and have lunch with them first. I need to prioritize better on those days…

After my run, I picked up the boys, so we could head to grandma & grandpa’s for lunch. When I picked them off from the office (I was late), Zevan was crying and wanting to back to the playground for more recess. I had to carry him to the car, with him protesting. That was pretty annoying.

Then I got another call from an unknown long distance number on my phone. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be Harish, who is on the XML team for DHL. With Zevan crying in the background, of course. The life of a WAHM, right?

So, we’ve been going through this nearly comical fiasco trying to get international shipping to Canada through their API. It’s been a disaster. Mostly because there’s a breakdown in communication between Spence (who I thought all this time was our DHL rep, but he’s actually a reseller) and the DHL XML team. Wow. Talk about bad customer service skills. This has been going on since early December, and both parties take 4-5 to answer my emails, if they answer them at all. So, getting a call from Harish was a shocker.

I’m not sure what lit a fire under him today, but he was all of a sudden trying to get to the bottom of things. He was surprised to find out that I actually have a live, working web page with domestic rates. I promised to send him all my account information as soon as I got back to my office. Yes, this whole conversation took place with Zevan crying and whining in his carseat behind me. Sheesh!

We got to grandma & grandpa’s and all was well again with the world.

After lunch, I headed home to work. And I had a phone meeting with Vijaya from Cartoon Books to talk about working on their site.

I’m very excited to work with them. I just love Jeff’s work, and they are really friendly, warm people. I actually did a little happy dance when we finished up. Comic book related sites are just the most fun for me!

Well, I went through the stuff in the van and library and updated my listing of stuff for sale on the West Side Moms marketplace.

And today I delivered stuff to the east side - at the parking lot of WalMart on Powers/Palmer Park.

I shopped a bit and picked up 2 new sport bras and sport tanks. I know, I know, never try anything new before a race…

But all my sport bras are old and the straps are too thin and they don’t support me well. I’ll try these new ones on my run tomorrow and make sure I have lots of body glide for the race.

Today I got a box from LeapFrog with new LeapPad books, a LeapPad game and a new Leapster cartridge. I’ll be introducing 2 new Leapster games to the boys for the flight on Saturday.

I spent nearly the entire day and late into the night, working on Legend Antiques, Rocky Mountain ASHRAE and El Paso ASHRAE. Whew! And I’ve still got stuff to do, so I’ll probably work a while longer and then hit the sack.

Took the boys back to school this morning. And, YAY! Ms. Catherine is back. We chatted briefly about new motherhood (mostly the lack of sleep). It’s so nice to have her back.

Zevan had a tough time going back to school today. He protested quite a bit, as I took off his coat, changed his shoes and signed him in. Miss Sheila took over, and in the end, I was actually able to wave good bye without him running to me and crying. Which was good.

I slipped on the ice in the driveway when I was taking the trash out and landed on my hands and bum. Ouch. Then I went for my 2 mi run.

Afterwards, I did a Gilad Total Body Workout. Not too shabby, huh? Trying to keep on my workout schedule.

When I picked the boys up, they were totally fine. We picked up lunch at McDs (and they were out of Bionicles toys - that frakkin McDs is always out of the good toys before they should be - and Zander was upset about that), and ate at my parents house.

Mondays they will be at my parents until about 4 PM - part of the new routine.

So I spent my afternoon working on the Legend Antiques site and a little bit on Rocky Mtn ASHRAE. Finally DHL got back to me about the international shipping API. Apparently we need to be certified. What a pain in the ass. UPS doesn’t make us jump through all these frakking hoops. Sheesh!

I picked them up at 4:30 PM and it was snowing again. We decided to make a Starbucks run, and then were unable to get up the hill on 19th to the house. It was so bad, it took me 15-20 minutes to turn around and go back down the hill. UGH.

We came back up Mesa Road, and down 19th, turned on to Mesa View Court, and… couldn’t make it up the street. I tried everything. No luck. Finally I had Zander go inside. Zevan was sleeping so I let him stay in the car as I shoveled, swept and salted. Still no go. I left it there until Doug got home.

I need to get snow tires tomorrow.

Doug got home and after much more shoveling, sweeping, salting, then PUSHING - I got the car in the driveway.

YAY! Zander exclaimed.

Yay, indeed.

After a nice breakfast at Grandma & Grandpa’s house, I went home and got back to work.

I called and emailed all my clients and got all my projects rolling. Some things got rescheduled. I’m waiting for A LOT of content, and I’ve got enough work to keep me busy up this whole month - with the Disney marathon/vacation in the middle of it all.

As an added bonus, I let go of one project that I haven’t been able to make a priority, and I also was able to move another project onto a much more reliable, predictable server. All of this gives me much more breathing room.

INHALE.

EXHALE.

I do actually enjoy my work.

And now I must work a little bit more this evening…

and still no sign of the adware. Whew! I wish I’d tried the System Restore first instead of losing 4 days of work. Sigh.

Okay, after it took 24 hours to back up my data to my new external hard drive and our other main PC, I was going to take the plunge and re-install Windows XP.

Then, from the research I’ve been doing, I decided to try one more thing before I did that.

I did a system restore from the day before I got hit with the adware.

I did it 2 hours ago. So far, so good.

Ouch. That was painful.

I set out today after battling the stupid adware virus on my machine for a second full day. I needed to destress.

So I started out at 8:10 AM with a goal of running for 2 hours and 30 minutes. That should put me between 13-14 miles if I run the whole thing.

Candy called early on to say she couldn’t meet me, but May was going to meet me at Goose Gossage around 8:45 AM. I was going to be late getting there, but she could run south until she caught up with me.

So the first hour or so was fine. I took it slow. May caught up with me around 50 minutes. It was nice to have her company. We were at a good pace that we could both converse as we ran. After running for 1:22 heading north, we turned around and started running back towards my car. Which was okay. Although it was tempting to want to stop at May’s car and drive over to mine. I was definitely feeling it after 1:45. By 2 hours, I was doing everything I could not to just stop and walk. We reached the bridge near the railroad tracks at the north end of Monument Valley Park and slowed to a walk. It was 2:12. I said, well, I should at least run 3 more minutes until I reach 2:15 for a round number. We ran for 3 more minutes and then walked the rest of the way to the car. In total, I was on my feet for 2:41.

We stretched a bit, got in the car and headed downtown. We dropped off our climbing shoes for repair at Mt. Chalet Then we took a quick ride to Panino’s for lunch, gritty and dehydrated.

After lunch, I dropped May off and went over to Tech for Less to pick up an external hard drive to back up my data so I can wipe my machine clean and start over.

That’s what I’m working on now. Sigh. It’s been almost 2 hours and I’m still backing up data.

Not taken care of. A few hours later, it came back. I have removed it every 4-6 hours now.

So today I bought a new external hard drive. I am in the process of backing up ALL the data on my machine for work and websites and our photos and music. This is going to take many hours. I have about 70 GB of data to back up.

Then I will reformat my C drive and reinstall Windows XP. Yuck.

So, I *just* posted about doing the CTS Powerbar workout on my blog. Seriously, like 20 minutes ago. (I dated it for the day of the workout, Nov 14).

I decided I wanted to put a link to the workouts in my post and googled ‘cts powerbar workout’

You know what came up as the second link?

My blog entry. From 20 minutes ago.

Whoa.

Well, I’ve finally rid myself of the adware.   

Now I need to go and get an external hard drive and back everything up off of my computer.

This was my only computer attack in the 14 years that I’ve been using computers so I consider myself very lucky (and somewhat savvy).

Yesterday, late afternoon I got infected with adware.  After some research I found a way to remove it with an adware/spyware sweeper.  It’s been running ALL night long and it’s still only scanned 76% of my hard drive.

I don’t want to open my email program because I don’t want it to send it to someone else.

I HATE INTERNET EXPLORER!  I use FireFox because IE is so prone to viruses, bugs, adware etc, but I had to check one of my client’s sites in IE yesterday and as soon as I opened it I got infected.  ARGH!

I uninstalled IE, and it’s still popping up somehow. OMG I am so frustrated!!!

I’m now mad because the SpyDoctor that I downloaded wants me to pay to remove it. After it took all night to scan!

I hate being forced to buy something without more research and recommendations from my sys admin friends.

So… after more research, I found this site and a solution in these forums . I’m working it right now.

OH, and I didn’t uninstall IE - I just removed the shortcuts. Apparently you CAN’T uninstall IE. Microsoft is evil, evil, evil.

The house is quiet. Everyone is in bed. I’m writing HTML, PHP, mySQL queries and mucking around in Photoshop.

It’s 10:30 PM. And the emails start coming in

Several from Tiffany, a graphic design artist. Two more from Tracy, our mutual client.

11:30 PM. More new emails. And I notice that May has just signed on to her IM - she’s a programmer.

What do we have in common? We’re all work at home moms. During the day, we make meals, change diapers, do laundry, carpool, run errands, referee sibling battles, comfort boo-boos. Night time is the only uninterrupted time we have to go through emails and really work on projects.

Oh, I hate SPAM. And I get LOTS of it.

I had to change my long time (since 1995) email address of maida AT maida.net because it got so much SPAM.

I use JunkSweep in Outlook, and that gets the bulk of it. I still have to skim through it, though - just in case. I also still have to grab it all and delete it. Hundreds of messages a day.

So, my web hosting company, WestHost finally offered a partial solution to it. Using Real-Time Blackhole List (RBL). I installed that last night!

And, I finally fixed the biggest culprit of all today. We had a contact form on our family website that used the well know MSA formmail script. And some - I think many - SPAMmers were using it to send SPAM through our website. And we would get hundreds of these emails, all day, everyday with the “WWW Form Submission” subject line.

SO… I replaced that form with Tectite’s Formmail PHP script.

Since I did that, I haven’t had an email with the dreaded “WWW Form Submission” subject line. Imagine that. Yahoo!

Your results:
You are Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)

Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 95% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 75% Wash (Ship Pilot) 75% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 70% River (Stowaway) 55% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 50% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 45% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 45% Inara Serra (Companion) 45% Alliance 30% A Reaver (Cannibal) 25%

Dependable and trustworthy. You love your significant other and you are a tough cookie when in a conflict.

Click here to take the “Which Serenity character are you?” quiz…

I would so totally use this with a newborn!

Itzbeen Timer When’s the last time your kid pooped, fed, or took medicine?  You may be too sleep-deprived to remember, but the Itzbeen does. Its a must have Dad Gadget and is perfect for Mom’s night off. There’s a button for last diaper, feeding, asleep/awake one custom timer. There’s even a switch for left/right breast for nursing! Now that’s handy! If you go to this link, you can see a 30 second commercial for it.

I have spend more time with php and mySQL in the past few weeks than I have with HTML and Javascript. While I love learning about it, it can get a bit frustrating.

I’m not a code writer. I’m more into configuration and customization of PHP/mySQL programs like WordPress, Simple Machines Forum and so forth. I am doing more and more projects that involve PHP these days. And I like it… much easier for maintenance than regular ol’ HTML files.

But recently I’ve had a rash of odd things happening with programs I have been using for a long time. Programs that I have NEVER had a problem with before, having odd install issues or configuration problems.

The latest was supposed to be a relatively painless switch/upgrade from YaBB Gold 1.1 to SMF. I ran the conversion and install one time to make sure it worked, and it did!

When I tried it again, live, no dice. I actually had to use phpMyAdmin and run SQL queries throughout the upgrade/conversion process. It was UGLY. It works fine now. But still has some oddities going on with certain functions. I don’t know if I will ever figure that out.