
I think what I like about this piece is how simple it started out and how complex it has become. It has been a sort of unconscious going to stay balanced.
This email scamming is nothing new. But it is for me. I have been lucky for all the years I have been on the internet, never ever to have this kind of problem. This new scam poses as Google Documents and is very wide spread. It's aim is to steal your email password and then your mailing list, hoping that you and everyone else you know will have other more valuable accounts with the same password. Never do that by the way... have the same password for email and other stuff. That is really internet 101.
In general, it is good to change your email password as a precaution if you have clicked any links in recent emails that asked you for you password. From me or anyone else. Because it is going around.
So. With the help of the Man, I have secured my email account and have recovered part of my contacts. Still working on it. But I know that by now, a lot of
my mail has made its way into spam folders, so I will probably have trouble
contacting a lot of you because of that. In addition, I have been locked out of sending mail from my spiritcloth account, for now, so I need to wait a bit with all that. Please know that there is no risk opening any of my mail unless it is that one spam mail that asks you to enter your personal information to view documents. And even then it is only giving up that information that puts you at risk. Not the opening of the mail itself. My account is clean.
It is not a Gmail issue really. I am still comfortable there. For now, I have opened a new separate account to keep in touch for classes. All communication will be under the name of clothwhisperer instead of spiritcloth. Emails in response to class purchases will contain a thank you and a link to class and a user name and password to get in. You will never be asked for any personal passwords in an email from me. Ever. Any other links, documents, pdfs, etc are always presented within the class environment.
I am taking some time to connect my new email address to all the appropriate accounts. And iron out any kinks. The shop is temporarily closed to decrease the incoming mail and give me time to settle out. I will still receive your mail at the old address if you send it there, and it is safe to do so. And I will keep you posted on changes.
There will be at least a 2 week delay in the beginning of What if Diaries. But again, let's see how it goes. I will try to resume posting over at Spirit Cloth Diaries in a few days and complete that series this month as planned.
I am getting a cold. It has not been a great week. That's OK. I have lots of new what ifs and I will get to them sooner or later. Looking forward to it.
Thank you all for your patience and community spirit.