Can't Get There From Here

The phrase, 'can't get there from here,' is a running joke in our family.  But over the course of the last few days it has become reality.  I live in central PA where we had a flash flood on Wednesday bringing nearly six inches of rain to our locale in a few hours time followed by another four inches over night into Thursday.

Wednesday got ugly really quick and our school tried to send the students home early.  Teachers were asked to stay in case the buses had to return before delivering their students.  Lots of buses did return and by the time I helped check all those frightened kids in, the roads had flooded enough that I couldn't get home either.  After about three hours, the flash flood eased off enough for some roads to clear and I made it home to a flooded basement.  Then the real flood started and overflowed the creeks and again inundated the roads again.  For more than a day, we couldn't go anywhere.  We really couldn't get 'there' from here.

Now two days after the flood, many roads are still closed, schools are closed  and some areas are going to get worse as the flood moves unto the Susquehanna River.  But my basement is nearly dry.  I've washed the floor with bleach again and cleaned the baseboards with mildew cleaner.  It even smells nice.  Some roads are open again so we can go to the store if need be.  We can get 'there' again.

So after cleaning the basement floor, I propped my feet up and opened my laptop to visit some more Insecure Writer Blogs, and low and behold, MY LAPTOP HAS BEEN ATTACKED BY A VIRUS! AGAIN!!!  This one is my work computer so I can't download any programs such as a security feature.  It relies on what they've installed on it.  So for the second time in as many months, I can't get to the internet on my laptop.  Can't get there from here. 

So I'm back on my trusty old desktop, a little slow, but protected by Norton.  It's too slow to visit all the blogs I wanted to today so I'm sorry I won't get to meet all those Insecure Writers just yet. 

What do you think is the best security program to protect your computer with? I have to get something different on my personal laptop this time. Did you ever pickup a virus and know exactly where it came from? Are there particular sites you avoid because you think they might infect you?

Floods, Weeds and Lawns

I don't usually have to search for reasons to procrastinate and this week Mother Nature provided all the opportunities to avoid the writing chair.

Central PA is on pace as one of the wettest years ever.  After receiving six inches of rain in a matter of hours a few days ago, our basement flooded for the second time this year.  It's rain every day since so the weeds and lawn are growing like a rabbit running before a greyhound. We can't keep up.  Tomorrow I'm going to use bleach to wash the basement floor again. I've almost chased out the odor.

I don't like complaining about the rain because so many people are having dry years.  But the clean up chores have been draining the energy I usually put into my writing including my blogging. I've been remiss in visiting and posting.  I'm behind in my edits.

I know real life interferes with all writers but June, July and now August seem to be ganging up on me. In a few weeks, days actually, I'll be back at the day job of teaching and my time will be even more limited.  I always set big goals for the summer months and consistently fall short. 

How have your recent goals been coming along? What recent events contributed to any procrastination issues you've been having?  And is it raining there?