This picture doesn’t really have anything to do with the post I am about to write (but I needed a picture and saw this beautiful hydrangea just starting to bloom today.) On Saturday night, after Bracken and I fell asleep exhausted from a long market day, Jeff’s computer got hacked. He told me about it when I woke up on Sunday morning. It was a nasty virus that has been going around the internet for awhile. It made it so his computer completely stopped working. The screen that came up said that he would have to pay four hundred dollars or they would release all his information. He talked to a technician on the phone and apparently with that particular computer virus, they steal all your passwords (banks, credit cards etc.) and sell them on the black market. We thought we were protected by our Norton Antivirus, but I guess not. We were figuring out what we would need to get his computer working again, but by the time we would buy a new hard drive and malware program for his old computer, we might as well buy him a new one. To get it fixed by someone else, which would basically mean a wiped hard drive, would have cost more than a new computer. We had lots of plans for our Sunday to get things done around here, but instead we headed back to Eugene to buy a computer. Jeff always buys refurbished computers, so buying a new one was really something different for him. He got a new computer he liked without spending a ton, and it came with a new malware program. The guy who helped him at Best Buy had gotten the same computer virus and knew exactly what Jeff was talking about. His new computer should be protected now. Jeff has been painstakingly changing all of his passwords. Luckily he was able to retrieve everything from his old computer (pictures and writings, the most important things to him.) We will be getting something to protect my computer better as well, so we hopefully won’t have to deal with something like this again in the future. 

Too many days in a row of busyness is always a little hard for Bracken. He starts acting out of sorts. He’s usually fine in the midst of it until we come home and he lets it all out. I’m ready for some good home days to balance things out. We were able to get a lot done today that was on our list for Sunday. And just in time too, Jeff brought in the last of our garden harvest today right before the rains returned. Some garden time was just what we all needed, it’s amazing the positive impact it has on all of us. 

I’ll show you some things around the garden tomorrow.