Bella's B-day Tilt

I was up Sunday morning just before 8am. Another cloudy start with chilly temps – only 43 degrees. Enjoyed coffee and internet for a while, and I wasn’t in any hurry to get out the door for my Sunday morning run. In fact, it was close to 945am by the time I was ready to run. By then Mindy was up and already beginning to prep the house for guests later that afternoon to help celebrate Bella turning 12.

Like most Sunday’s, I ran three miles. It was chilly enough that I opted to wear a jacket again, too. No warmer than about 45 degrees. By my return, Mindy had both kids fully engaged in getting the house guest ready. Jacob was responsible for vacuuming. Bella, once she was home from her overnight at Makayla’s, was responsible for cleaning her room.

I spent a little time in the basement drilling the rest of the holes for the PEX plumbing lines. All totaled, no more than about an hour. Otherwise, I hadn’t spent much time on the basement project in week. I plan to get some drywall bids this coming week.

Mindy left to run some errands, including making a stop at Cane’s chicken to pick-up a few trays of their tenders (Bella’s request). She was stopping at Kroger too. She asked that I take care of a couple small tasks in her brief absence. One in particular was to fill the large steel pail with ice, water and juice bags. In addition to that, I dead headed some of the inside flowers and spot cleaned the kitchen floor. Earlier (before the basement), I cleaned a few spots from the carpet – some on the stairs and then the hallway just outside Bella’s bedroom. Big shock! I shined up the stainless steel appliances too. They smudge easily but also clean-up fairly easily with hot steamy water. On the other hand, our older stainless fridge doesn’t clean-up that easily at all.

Mindy was back around 2-230pm. And not a minute after Mindy got back home, Gloria was over. More often than not, she’s the first to arrive. Lots of food offerings. In addition to the Cane’s chicken tenders, Mindy laid out a host of hand to mouth snacks. She would be ordering pizzas from Minelli’s too.

Jimaken’s parents were coming over, first visit since Jacob’s b-day party. His mother was recently diagnosed and recently treated for breast cancer. To date, Jimaken hadn’t told the kids. Mindy was worried that the kids might flip out of she showed up in a wig or scarf from the chemo treatments. She told the kids beforehand so they’d be prepared. I heard her tell Bella. Mindy delivered the message well and in turn, Bella handled it well.

Guests piled in between 3-330pm. We had soon had a houseful though quite a few folks didn’t show. Most of the no shows were from my side of the family. I said more than once, it’s about who does show, not who doesn’t. We had fun, and more importantly, Bella had fun. She’s grown and matured so much in the last 6 months. Scary even!

The company and food was good. Mindy made sure to recognize nephew Josh’s birthday too. We sang happy birthday to him just before Bella. Just before our guests arrived, I was searching for cabinets and flooring on the internet. And on those Sunday coupon bags they hang from your mailbox was a full page ad for cabinets from Bargain Outlet encouraging a visit to their website for specific details. I typed it in verbatim and before I could stop it, their url downloaded adware (spyware) onto my PC. Dammit! My antivirus blocked the Trojan that attempted to ride in too, but not the adware. As a result, several of my regular websites were plagued with out of control pop-ups and my PC’s subsequent performance in the dumper. I was pissed!

I monkeyed with trying to remove it all the while our guests were over celebrating Bella’s birthday. The first thing I did was run my task manager to see what was popping up. But no matter what tasks or applications I stopped or deleted they would simply restart. Duh! I ran two security scans and even tried reloading my PC from an earlier date, but the adware remained. It wasn’t until I found the name of the program – Advance Elite – that I was able to go into programs install/de-install and removed it once and for all. I then searched on any and all items that installed that same day and deleted those too. Problem solved! Second time something similar had happened this year. One must always remain vigilant!

Bella got lots of cool stuff. Most of her gifts were either money or stuff for her bedroom redo. Going with a mint and black zebra stripes. Her room, not mine.  Most of our guests were gone by 630pm. Admittedly, Mindy did most of the clean-up. She let me know it too. By the way, it wouldn’t be right to not acknowledge the Browns who pulled off one of the most unlikely victories, coming back from a 27-3 deficit. Very unlike the Browns.

Spent the evening hours writing in my blog and then watching SNF on NBC. Off to bed somewhat early.