june potpourri

Cell Phone Woes

Good Morning, my name is Angela, and I was hacked. Are you ready for this crazy story?

Evidently, lucky for me and crucial to the story, I signed up for online email notifications for any changes to my Sprint.com account. So last week, I was first tipped off that something wasn't right when I got two email notices, the first saying "a new user has been added to your account" and second, "services were added to your account." Um, weird? I thought, and I looked into it online - immediately. I guess I'm lucky I wasn't doing anything.

A couple things stood out: my "device" had been changed. Sprint.com shows my phone, a Samsung Moment, as being my phone attached to my phone number. But, all of a sudden it wasn't the Moment but was some other Samsung flip phone. Then, I found a link to view "access to my account" and saw there were two users, myself and someone else with a username of "lilgjhwyxz" or something. You get the idea. Bogus. And then, the icing on the cake: International calling for $4 a month had been added to my plan.

Within the hour, my phone didn't work. I couldn't make calls. For some reason, my Internet stream was still working and I was getting emails and such. But my phone number was technically gone, I guess.

Basically, someone either had my phone number or account number and guessed my PIN was "123456" (it was) and was granted access to my account. They deleted my device, added their device, added international calling, and then the calling possibilities were endless. They hijacked my very phone number!

I did an online chat with Sprint customer service and we got it all taken care of. The Sprint person had to get the serial number off the back of my phone to reattach my physical phone device back to my account. I deleted the other user, they took International calling off, and things were back to normal.

I was encouraged to call the Fraud Department and report the incident, and I did. The guy there told me that what happens is when these hackers add a new device to your account, the computer is tricked and downloads "programming information" related to your account to the new fake phone. THEN, they quickly reinstall your device, so you don't really know what hit you. Then, they take that "programming information" and put it on multiple phones. So, all of a sudden, there are 10 phones out there all with my phone number, all making international calls. Sprint doesn't even know it's happened until the bill cycle ends and it all registers. Yikes! Luckily for me, I caught it in time. They actually didn't make any international calls.

It's pretty scary that the hackers didn't need my Sprint.com username and password (which are pretty secure), but instead just needed my phone number or account number (they could have just randomly put digits together to see what happened), and a generic PIN of 123456. (My own stupid fault I hadn't changed my PIN to something better!!) With just that, they gained access to my account. Needless to say my username, password, PIN, Security question, and voicemail passcode are all changed.

Insanity! I haven't heard of this happening to anyone else I know. Have you guys?? CRAZY!

Vacation

If any of you are wondering why I haven't been commenting on your blog (especially those of you with private blogs), it's because I'm way behind. As always. But I am going on vacation next week -- yeah! -- and one of my goals is to read everyone's blogs. Get all caught up. I actually wrote that down. Some more things I'm looking forward to doing:

• Read The Red Thread by Ann Hood (recommended by a friend)
• Organize my recipes (is it weird I'm traveling 500 miles and taking a huge binder of unorganized recipes??)
• "Archive" some recent Young Women activities for posterity (and in general get all sorts of Young Women responsibilities out of the way!)
• Finish the July ward newsletter (gosh I do a lot for Church huh?)
• Read the last 3 months' worth of Ensigns (I guess blogs aren't all I'm behind on, eh?)
• Organize my digital photos for printing
• Do some family history

We're going to a cabin near Idaho Falls to hang with Shane's family. Hopefully there will be fun and sun and water and happiness and relaxation. I can't wait.

Wesley Videos

For the Grandmas... some cute recent Wesley action.



Hahahahahaha!!!



One of his first words.... he knows he loves cookies!

forgetting frenzy

I consider myself a sharp person. I remember birthdays. I'm good with names and faces. I can name all the states and capitals, and don't get me started on celebrity trivia. But lately... something is happening to me. In the month of June alone, I've forgotten three big things. Like, WOW, how did I forget that? Is my "mommy-brain" catching up with me?

The first was a playgroup with our Church friends. I had been super excited about going to the zoo for playgroup this year (they always do it once a year!), since we have a membership! Yay! I knew the zoo playgroup date was coming up the week after Wesley's birthday. They are always Thursday at 10 am. And I totally forgot. You know what I did that morning? Vacuumed. I vacuumed the house instead of taking Wesley with his buddies to look at lions and tigers and bears. How lame.

The second, even worse (since I guess I can always go to the zoo), a friend came to town and wanted to have lunch with a bunch of us. This gal was just stopping through on her way to France and would only be here for a few days. She used to babysit Wesley. I love her! I completely forgot the lunch. I took Wesley to a speech therapy appointment, then we came home and had boring ham and cheese sandwiches and then I dealt with a cell phone crisis (which I may or may not ever post about). Gabby the cat also had her teeth cleaned. It was a weird day. But I usually don't forget lunch dates, no matter how weird the day!

Then, this morning was a funeral, which I wasn't planning on attending, and a birthday party, which I was planning on attending. I had said Saturday I'd make funeral potatoes for the luncheon for the family. I completely forgot until 20 minutes before I was going to leave the house for the birthday party. I whipped up the dish really quick (forgetting an ingredient even and pulling it out of the oven to add the ingredient and then fixing it back up nice and getting it back in the oven), dropped it off at Church, picked up a present for the birthday boy, and strolled into the party an hour late.

This is insanity. I'm not used to completely forgetting things. The sinking feeling in my heart when it hits me, "I forgot that!" is so heavy. Seriously like a ton of bricks, as the saying goes.

Am I losing my marbles? Does this come with old age? Am I really that old? Or do I need to be better about writing stuff on the wall calendar or gasp, putting an alarm in my phone? I'm not used to this happening to me. It's kinda freaky to be powerless to forgetfulness.

fruity bouquet

Thanks to Andrea and a site she references, I had an awesome idea when I was asked to bring fruit to a going-away party for a friend on Saturday. You may know you can buy fruit bouquets, but they are awfully expensive. I looked into it for a friend of mine who was in the hospital but is now out of the hospital and ridiculously bored and stuck at home. But instead of paying $25 for the teeniest bouquet, why not do some myself??

So, the tools:


The fruit spread:


I melon-balled the watermelon. I crinkle-cut the honeydew (thanks Pampered Chef!). I sliced -- then cookie cut -- the pineapple.


I created skewers using ideas from Andrea's page, the baby shower page, the Edible Arrangements page. I thought I should "design" my bouquet all at once, so I layed the finished skewers out until I was ready.


Inside the vase was some colorful tissue paper and at the top was a thick thick wad of homemade playdough. I already had a ball of it that was thick, and then I made some more but didn't do as good of a job. If I do this again I may just get floral foam or I'll have to work really hard to perfect a playdough recipe. And, in fact, I actually had a skinny glass vase that I put inside the vase upside down and rested the playdough on top of, so it stuck in the neck of the vase solidly. Pretty clever huh? Shane told me I was clever.

The finished product??


You can see the playdough, right? I put romaine lettuce on top to cover it some. The Web sites suggest parsley. In a perfect world my playdough woulda been farther inside the vase and the parsley could kinda peek up out of the vase, but whatever. Looked good to me. Then I tied a ribbon around the vase to cover the white...


One friend at the party said she thought it was totally bought at a store!! And another friend is getting married in July and has already requested I make one for her wedding!! I'm being requested!

It was fun to make. By far the hardest part was transporting it from my house to the party location. Imagine, I drove myself -- stick shift -- to this party. So I held the vase in the passenger seat with my right hand and shifted with my left, all the way there. Talk about "distracted driving." I drove slow, too. Maybe in the future I'll take all the skewers on a cookie sheet and "arrange" when I get there. Or make Shane drive me.

If you're doing to do it, some of Andrea's suggestions were to:

• make the skewers shorter (I did)
• chill the playdough (I halfway did)
• make the pineapple slices thick (I did)
  

I'd add to the list to:

• arrange when you get there (so it doesn't all fall in the car)
• or make thick thick playdough so the weight of the skewers doesn't sink the arrangement
  
• take note that the pineapple slices get brown the next day (I made a teeny one for my aforementioned gimpy friend and her pineapple sunshine cutout looked kind of sad, just the next day! And to add insult to injury I forgot to take a picture!)

Yay for doing it yourself! I'm feeling adventurous and fruity. That's a good thing, right?

barnyard bonanza

Sorry for the delay. I've been busy recovering and getting used to having a 2 year old. Did you know that despite their ever-increasing autonomous nature, they still need as much attention? And perhaps more? Yeah.

I have many many many posts in the queue, but this one is by far the most fun. The Birthday Party. I decided to throw Wesley a farm party and it was a lot of work and a lot of fun. I went all out: decorations, activities, party favors, a crazy cake, food, and more. It was great. The only thing I didn't do that could have added more time was handmake the invites! Instead I used evite, which worked OK but I probably should have followed up with the people who didn't RSVP because you never can trust technology, right?

Anyway, we had a ball. I did lots of shopping at Party City and on eBay and Etsy and Oriental Trading for our barnyard bash.

Just so you know, another reason I really wanted to do this party is that Wesley has been so totally into Old McDonald. One week at Toddler Storytime at the library a couple months ago the guy did a rousing version of Old McDonald, and after that Wesley started singing "E-I-E-I" at home. It was a few weeks later we got him to add on the "O." But he did! And we sing it all the time. Plus we already have ton of farm/barnyard toys and stuff. It just made it all the more exciting to have his be his party theme.

The Cake

I was ambitious. The cake idea/recipe was here; and I decided to go for it. I started planning weeks ahead of time. I bought marshmallows and Starbursts and decorator gels and Life cereal and more.

I started baking on Tuesday maybe? I baked the two round cakes for the yard. The next night I did all the cupcakes -- I think I ended up with 30 or so? I only needed 27, but I made some extras in case I had casualties. Thursday night I set the yard up on the aluminum-foil-cardboard and frosted it. I colored rainbow chip frosting green, since it gave the "grass" some texture.

Friday night was assembly and ultimate decoration. I didn't take too many pictures.


The barn is a store-bought poundcake and the silo three stacked funfetti cupcakes, both covered in homemade red frosting, a roof of Life cereal, and windows with pretzel rods. The recipe actually calls for white frosting with Twizzlers as the siding, but I didn't want to bother... although in hindsight it probably would have been easier than making barn-red frosting. I got some tips from my pro friend Michelle that cheap-o McCormick's red food coloring just won't do. I've tried it before myself and can only get a deep pink at best. So, the truth is, you need something better. I got Wilton's red gel from a party store. Michelle recommended to make the frosting a nice deep orange (which I did with cheapo food coloring), then add the gel to make red. Voila. This stuff is potent though -- a couple bites and your mouth is seriously red for hours.



I worked on this primarily during our decoration time. It took awhile. I piped on the frosting, and I started running into trouble when the frosting just got too heavy. Plus, the barn and silo were kinda at an angles, so I had to be careful. Actually, for reinforcement overnight, I wrapped canned corn in wax paper and put them next to the barn structures. I didn't want them toppling before the 10 a.m. party. In the morning when I took the cans away, everything stood fine for the whole party. The silo toppled at like 6 pm that night or something... haha.


Anyway, Shane's mom Eileen had come to town for Wesley's party and she went wild on the animals. She did awesome! All the animals are funfetti cupcakes with vanilla frosting. Some trivia about the animals: the pig ears are pink Starbursts, the chicken fur is yellow coconut, the sheep are all marshmallows, and the spots on the cows are melted chocolate!! Also, the recipe on FamilyFun doesn't call for sheep cupcakes, but someone else who made the cake and posted their story said they did sheep and I thought that was a cute idea.







The finished product??


The Decorations

We had a banner...


And balloons... check these perfect balloons out; I got them off eBay. The weights were actually toys Wesley already had, little Fisher Price barnyard animals. We had 6 blocks and 12 balloons, it worked out perfect.



And, we had other little touches... did you notice the blanket under the cake? It's barnyard fabric. It's a pattern I've loved since Wesley was a newborn that we found at JoAnns when Shane's mom Eileen said she'd make me some burp rags. Since then, she found the pattern in fleece and made that blanket for us, AND Wesley's aunt Leslie got Wesley a little I-Spy bag from Etsy in the same pattern. We love it.

The Party

Essentially, the party was a huge playgroup at my house. We just ate and played and talked and laughed. With a final attendance of 10 adults, 8 kids, 1 baby, 2 cats, and 1 dog, it was great!




We had food... little quiches, BBQ meatballs in the crockpot, fruit tray, veggie tray, breakfast pastry bites, and of course, cake.



We served chilled water bottles with individual Crystal Light packets. I put them in the very appropriate cow mug that has gone in and out of the donation pile for years. I can't seem to part with it. And it came in handy for the party!!

I planned a picture-frame-decorating activity. It was fun! I got the kit for barnyard picture frames from Oriental Trading Company. Basically they are just foam frames and foam sticky shapes... I let the kids go at it.


My goal was to take a photo of Wesley with each of his guests, then I'll get that photo developed and give it to them to put in their frame. Of course they can use whatever picture they want, but it's a cute idea, right? One of Wesley's other little friends did something similar at her birthday last year, so I honored the idea by borrowing it. Unfortunately, as you can see below, Wesley wasn't too photogenic that day. Everyone playing with his toys kind of made him a little crazy. It's the age. Natalie is quite lovely though, isn't she?


We also had games! First, I had barnyard stickers and I put 12 under 12 random paper plates. Anyone who had a sticker got to take home a balloon! That was an easy game.

We had pin the tail on the donkey (more like the very-safe stick the tail-sticker on the donkey) and I a bean-bag throwing game. One of Wesley's presents he got to open ON his birthday (three days before this party) was a huge box of barnyard Beanie Babies from eBay. I decorated a couple Cool Whip containers with stickers and points and I thought kids could throw them and keep track of their points. The game didn't really take off, which was fine, since one of the kids kinda commandeered all the barnyard Beanies and I only had one door prize anyway. The winner of pin the tail on the donkey was Lincoln, and I had a cute pencil with a cow topper for him. He was disappointed though and wanted a balloon. I let him have a balloon anyway! Then he felt better. Ahhh kids.


The End

I made goodie bags I was quite excited about. They included a barnyard finger puppet from Oriental Trading (actually they were Easter finger puppets that lucky for me were on clearance and were barnyard animals!!), personalized pencils from OT (don't get me started though... I was SUPPOSED to have personalized FARM pencils but they went out of stock in the time it took me to put them in my e-Cart and then try to order, so we had confetti pencils instead), M&Ms, farm stickers, and the highlight: green-apple flavored tractor soaps from Etsy. So. Cool.



In the end, the event was successful. The goal was to celebrate little Wesley. I think he had a great time... He got to shear a sheep....



And enjoy some gifts...


And have fun with his friends.



It was an awesome day. And I slept very well that night.

Happy Birthday, Wesley!