Hacked: the first draft

It was a night like any other dark and stormy night. The house was quiet. Eerily quiet. So quiet you could hear a mouse (OR SIX). In this house, there lived me an eccentric old woman, who suffered from depression, anxiety, OCD insomnia. Her only cure was to sit on the couch with her laptop blogging while watching shows like The Bachelorette and Make It or Break it write.

After a long week of battling six an army of mice and crossing battle lines, the mice launched their surprise attack. A hacker. They sent spies across enemy lines to destroy years of writing and memories. They must have had a mole on the inside. Kris perhaps? Maybe it wasn't intentional on his part. Perhaps he was just taken in by their cute little eyes and petite figures. Perhaps one night while I sat blogging, he felt lonely and just needed someone to confide in. And perhaps the deranged rodent mastermind, who has apparently been stalking Kris for weeks, decided to take matters into her own hands.

So she hired a hit man of sorts. A hacker. Someone who could destroy my entire life, my identity. Someone who could take from me what matters most. My blog! husband. This past week has been an absolute nightmare.

Did anyone out there notice that I have been rather quiet for a week? Like uncharacteristically quiet? Want to know why?

Someone hacked my Gmail account. And then sent out a link to some of my contacts. It got flagged and Google shut my ENTIRE account down, with no warning and no explanation. My email. My blog. My calendar. My Google Reader. My life essentially. The first few days were filled with anger, bitterness, frustration and utter despair (only slightly exaggerated). For days, I had nowhere to go. No way of knowing what had happened or why. I felt lost in a world of bloggers, flaunting their un-hacked accounts, writing away. OK...now I'm REALLY exaggerating, because in reality after a day without my blog I just started a new one. I couldn't just sit idly by and wait and HOPE that Google would figure it all out for me. I took matters into my own hands. And I'm pleased with the outcome.

So where does this leave us dear readers? Here is where I am going to make my plea. Little Bishop Chronicles has officially been re-established HERE. Please take just a moment to follow me there, as this will be my last blog post here. PLEASE! PRETTY PLEASE!! I'm obviously not afraid to beg. Because I love all of you stalkers! I truly do! I was devastated when I thought I had lost all of my posts (MY MEMORIES), not to mention this great group of followers that has been looking to me and me alone 50 other bloggers to bring joy and laughter to your otherwise boring days. Man I'm arrogant aren't I?

So if you are still reading this now, check out the new layout and give me a chance over there. I'd love you forever! I'm SO thankful that Google was able to give me everything back, but I am going to be moving my blog officially, so if you loved me here, please consider loving me there! See how easy I have made it for you?!? There are only 13 a couple of new posts there. Recipes included in some of those new posts-doesn't that entice some of you?

Now, with that out of the way, who wants to tell me how to import this blog into my new one?

And one more thing. I had almost 800 UNREAD items in my Google Reader, so please forgive me if I missed some of your posts. I just had to mark them all as read and will start afresh with your new posts! It was just too overwhelming but I sure am glad to have my reader back!!

Feeling grateful, so here are some recipes!

I'll admit.  I was pretty discouraged last week, losing my blog, calendar, email, analytics, Google checkout, etc...

I'll also admit that I am still pretty freaked out to be in my house and upset that I can't share my mouse posts from my other blog (they were quite entertaining) with those of you who weren't following the saga.  Last night when we got home from our 4th of July party, we found #6 in a trap.  I'm still pessimistic about getting rid of them without involving a professional, but my pessimism isn't anything new.  We'll just have to wait...

But what has me feeling grateful is that in just a few short days I am already building my reader base back up. I have some old friends and some new.  It's still frustrating whenever I think about it, but I am trying to be patient and just remind myself that I don't write my blog just so people will read it anyway.  I LIKE that people read it.  I'm not going to lie!  In fact, it delights me that people read and comment on my blog and seem to like what they read.  But it isn't why I write and so I need to quit worrying about getting all 171 followers back anyway.  OK...that matter has now been settled in my mind!  So, I guess I am just incredibly thankful just to have a little place to call home again in this blog-sphere (is that what you "professionals" call it?).

We had some friends over today and I got to cook for them.  That's one of my favorite things to do!  I chose recipes I haven't made in quite some time (that's why I chose them!) and was pleased with the outcome.  I thought maybe I would share them with you.  I can't find the charger for my 'real' camera and the lighting isn't the best in my house, so bear with my less-than-great quality pictures.  And I forgot to take a picture of the roast after it was done so sadly I can't show you the results.  It looked great though!

Fruit Pecan Pork Roast

1 rolled, boneless pork loin roast (3 1/2 lbs)

1/2 cup chopped green onions

4 Tbsp butter, divided

1/4 cup orange juice

1 bay leaf

1 can (16 oz) whole berry cranberry sauce

1/2 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 Tbsp cider/red wine vinegar

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/8 tsp sugar

1/4 cup apricot preserves

Bake roast uncovered at 350 degrees for 1 hour.  In skillet, sauté onions and 1 Tbsp butter for 1 minute.  Add orange juice and bay leaf.  Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened.  Add cranberry sauce, broth, pecans and vinegar.  Cook and stir until slightly thickened (about 5 minutes).  Reduce heat; stir in salt, pepper, sugar, and remaining butter until butter is melted.  

Discard bay leaf.  Remove 1/4 cup sauce and mix in apricot preserves to it; pour over roast.  Bake 45 minutes or until it is 160-170 degrees.  Set aside remaining sauce to serve with the roast.

Now, let's talk about dessert!  Who doesn't love dessert?  Oh that's right...freaks...!

Tonight I dipped into a delicious Pampered Chef favorite, Strawberry Amaretto Pasteries.  These things are to die for!  Almost literally!!  Of course, I didn't get a picture of these either, so I took a picture on the cover of the Season's Best cookbook I got the recipe from so you could see what it looks like.  Tonight for the first time I actually used the orange zest and it was SO worth it!  I can't even describe how incredibly awesome these taste.  You'll just have to make them and see for yourself!  I found the recipe on someone else's blog and it has the little copyright symbol so I am going to direct you to that blog because I am not sure what the copyright laws are for recipes.  You can find this amazing recipe here.