A Week In The Life: Thursday

I think today is a good day to talk about new experiences. I've never really be that good at embracing change or newness. It seems all these shifts combine good and bad, and of late and I'm trying diligently to focus on the joy and finding it in each one even those where it seems to be hiding.

There are the very exciting changes like Maggie starting her "cruising" phase over the last few weeks where finding that joy is easy.  Cruising brings the excitement of nearing walking and gives her a whole new range of exploration.  There is also the adorableness that is her cute little face peaking over the edge of the couch grinning with those impossibly cute dimples.  I love her own joy as she learns to make the transition from the coffee table to my legs or the couch to a table.  She may often end on her bum, but that is usually followed by clapping at her own achievement.

The downside here is that she is into EVERYTHING (this is partly cruising, but also due to crawling and just being 8 months old).  She must be watched all the time and if left alone WILL manage to get into something.  It makes cleaning very tough as she just crawls around pulling everything she can reach down or out and onto the floor.  I know I need to embrace the beauty that is her learning about her environment and her extreme curiosity.  Sometimes though I'd just kind of like somethings to stay where they belong.  I'm going to try to focus on how cool it is that she can do all these things and try to learn with her in her exploration despite the challenges it brings as I know this phase is short lived.

I had another new experience today.  My google email was hacked.  If you received a wacky email from me. Do not click on anything.  Please trash it and run your virus checking software.  After some consultation with my tech folks at GW it does not actually appear that my computers are infected with anything and they have now each been scanned many different ways with many different tools.  It appears that the mining or use of my email was within my Google contacts. It was quite a crazy, stressful and sad morning as I discovered that someone had sent these crazy malicious emails to everyone I've ever written to from Gmail.  So, where is the silver lining here?

There are two or three things that came to mind.  First, I am now even more conscious of password security and am spreading the message to everyone I know.  My new passwords are much stronger.  It also encouraged me to assess everywhere I keep information online and monitor its security.  Further, I am sure I'll be more diligent than ever in running scans and keeping everything updated. Hopefully, my having had this experience will encourage others to upgrade their passwords so you don't have a wild morning like I had.

In exciting news, my sister arrived safely (right into some of the above chaos).  I am so excited to have a couple days off work to hang out with her although it looks like at least one work project will interfere with that and not remotely the one I was worried about yesterday (of course). I'm going to relax and enjoy this time and focus on other things because after the last couple days. I definitely need just a little more change it seems.