What the Junk?!

So, I'm going to post to the blog now just in case the power goes out here. So far, we've only had a bit of rain and some wind. Nothing crazy yet.  I have heard thumps a few times from things falling off trees and hitting the house, but nothing major. I have my stuff all charged and my little charging thing is ready if I need it. I have candles and all that good stuff, too. I probably won't need any of it, but it's better to have it and not need it than not have it and need it!

I just peeked out and it's not currently raining. The street is wet so it has been but it's not now. We'll see how it goes. I have my little Sterno stoves and some Sterno. I also have a French press so if I lose power, I can still have coffee in the morning, so that is good. Hell, I probably could run the little coffee maker I have in my room on the little charge station I have! It's all good. Luckily, it's cooler now so I won't be suffering without air conditioning. In fact, it's cool enough at the moment that I am not even running it.

My friend and I did not thrift today. I did go to Starbucks for national coffee day. :) Hurricane Ian is heading this way and we are supposed to get some rain and winds from it tomorrow. Probably nothing too bad, but I charged the M1 just in case we lose power. It was close to needing a change, so I did it a bit early just in case.

It was the first of the month, so I went to Starbucks. I got my favorite, a peppermint white mocha. I didn't do anything else while out because I've been feeling bad all day. I had a sore in my mouth from a popcorn kernel. Me trying to get it out, caused a sore and it's been bothering me. I took some Excedrin and that helped a lot. Then coffee didn't hurt either. :p

I've been writing an intense couple of scenes in one of my works. It's been so crazy, but so good! I just edited a bit of what I wrote today and added a few words. I think I'm happy with it for now. I'm going to get off this computer, figure out dinner, and then listen to the shortwave.  I just need to figure out what I want to eat. Ack!

I was pondering things last night after I posted here and decided to go with the third book about my skaters. They were calling me to pick up their story so I obliged.  I got my first day's worth of words down. Only 1722 but it's a good start.  It was a bit awkward getting back into in a few days I'll be in my stride. I have a lot planned for these characters in this book.  I'm glad to have gotten started.  I went to Starbucks since it was the first and brought my Peppermint white mocha and Cake Pop (I was naughty!) home and enjoyed them while writing.  Camp is a go!

We had some weather today. It wasn't as bad as they were saying it was going to be.  At first, it was supposed to be up to afoot. We only got maybe a couple of inches, but it's snow and ice so it's more dangerous on the roads.  My street was a mess all day. People went by a few times, but nothing like usual. The city did come this evening and plowed the street, so that is good. :)  I took a few snow pictures to share.

Not very exciting as I didn't get outside to take more, but there you go. It was a great day to stay in and drink coffee. :p

I did a small photo shoot today. I had to go out to mail holiday cards to local people.  I checked my post office box while there and then went to Starbucks.  I also swung by Lowe's to pick up something.  After getting Starbucks, I went to the park and took a few pictures.  I also took a few at home. Here are a few I picked to share.

One of the outside with the charm and one open with the first insert showing.  The little plastic pockets are an Eric Condren insert I got on Amazon that fits perfectly!  It has three slots on the front, two larger ones on the back of that side (as shown) and the back of the insert is one big clear envelope. :)

I went to Starbucks today as it was double star day and I have been wanting to try their new sugar cookie almond milk latte.  It's supposed to come with almond milk, but they were out of that today. I got it with regular 2%. It's very sweet but not overly so as I was afraid of.   It's rather good. I'd like to try it with the almond milk to see which I like better. I always preferred my beloved Cascara lattes with almond milk.  I"m just hoping against hope that the smoked butterscotch latte comes back this year. They didn't have it last year and I really, really, really, wanted it!

As for NaNoWriMo. I got my writing done while sipping my latte!  I am not a bit over 16,000 words!  It's been going okay. I still need a major thing to happen, but I need to figure out what that is! lol  I will, I'm sure, for now, it's slow and steady.  I am glad to get the writing done every day. I haven't written on my other story in a few days and I need to get back into that, but I don't want to mess up my groove for NaNo! We'll see how that goes.

This is my area before I started writing earlier:

As you can see, I went to Starbucks! :P I got a venti flat white and a chocolate chip cookie for inspiration.  I have written my first 1750 words and it feel great! A good start to this year's NaNoWriMo! Yes, it's all backed up in Evernote!

I got the box of pods for my 'new' Dolce Gusto on Friday. I decided to try it on Saturday.  It heated up and made noise, but no water would go through the machine. I did some troubleshooting online. It took an hour, but I was able to get it working. I got it working!  Yay! It brewed just fine, too! It was a struggle, but I'm glad I didn't give up.  The pods I got aren't the best tasting ever, but they aren't bad. I'll definitely try some other types. I'm sure I'll find the perfect ones for me. I meant to post this on Saturday and then again yesterday.  I really mean to post more often. I'm going to try to do better. Tomorrow is Tuesday, so my friend may want to go thrift. If so, I'll post about that. 

One thing did happen today. My power went out.  I woke up around 9:20 and realized it was out.  It didn't come back until a little before noon.  Then, it went out again briefly in the afternoon.  Luckily, it didn't get too hot either time.  

We went to Reidsville today and went to Salvation Army and Goodwill. I got a Coca-Cola Christmas ornament (still in the box) at Salvation Army. I collect Coca-Cola stuff. At Goodwill, they have had a Dolce Gusto coffee maker.  I look at it every time I go in. They had $8.00 on it but today, it had a new sticker. $4. I bought it!  It powers up so I'm sure it will work. I ordered some pods to try it out.  I can't wait to try it. I couldn't find a manual online for it, but I watched a few YouTube videos from when it was new and learned how to use it so that won't be an issue. It's going to be fun to try!  The retail on this when new was $129.99 and I paid $4.00. Score! :D I love great thrift finds! I'm also glad I waited to buy it. :p

Here you go, here is the picture of all my goodies. I'll do a list under it, too.  It was a successful trip with lots of goodies. The only thing in the picture that I didn't buy is the Saucony shoes, my friend got those for me since they were my size and in such great shape.

I'm on the balcony with the MacBook Pro and I am typing up this blog post to share with you.  I took a few more pictures to share with you at the end of this post.  We are in the room for the night.  Well, I am going to hit the beach with my feet, but we are in.  No going out in the car.  We ordered pizza for dinner from Hungry Howie's and it was excellent as always!  I tried their stuffed crust pizza and it was delicious! Yummy yum yum! lol

Tomorrow we'll get some groceries for the room. For now we have leftover pizza.  We got a few drinks each from the drink machines and we ordered a 2 liter each for us.  We will be okay for the time being.  The coffee maker is in my half of the room and ready to brew in the morning. :p I brought coffee with me because I remembered that this particular hotel gives you a coffee pot, but no coffee!  Crazy.  I almost brought my little Keurig knock off but I didn't want to bring more things. I had enough to carry as it is!  

I will post again tomorrow morning. It's 9:08 now so there will be no more posts tonight.  I have done my daily French lesson, but I haven't written today.  I am extremely tired, so I am going to write, but I may just write a small portion.  I'm really tired and want to do my writing justice so I'll just write a few lines tonight to say that I did write!  Here are a few pictures from this evening.

I am at home, I haven't left for the beach yet.  I woke up a bit ago and I got up to use the bathroom and grabbed a few last-minute things. I thought I would make my coffee and have it ready to drink when I planned to get up (7:20) because it will still be hot in my tumbler for several hours.  Then, I realized a few things I didn't pack.  After that, I knew it was useless to try to sleep anymore so I grabbed my 13" MBP, and here I am! I thought I could start the day with a quick blog post.  See you later on from Myrtle Beach. If I thought my friend was up and ready, I'd dress and go! :p

I totally forgot to post last night. I thought of it after the fact.  Oh well, yesterday was all out of whack for me anyway! I usually get up with my Fitbit alarm at 10:30 every day. Yesterday, I woke up and looked at the clock to see how much time I had left to sleep and it was afternoon. I said, oh, I have time and then it hit me, NOON.  I was so tired because I had been having a stressful dream right before I woke up.  I was all out of sorts and my day was totally off after that.  I usually relax from 10:30 - 12 and get myself together and ready for the day. That didn't happen yesterday. The day just seemed so off-kilter.  Luckily, today, I woke up at the right time!

I didn't leave the house today. It was raining off and on all day.  We had a small thunderstorm here, too.  It wasn't bad, though.  No power outages or anything.  The power didn't even blink.  I sat in my window and watched the rain.  It was coming down fast and hard at one point.  I stayed inside and stayed dry! :p

I tried something new today.  I few grocery visits ago, I bought two of the Coca-Cola with coffee cans.  One was dark and one was caramel. I tried the caramel today and it was surprisingly good. I was all set to hate it, but it was pretty tasty. It had the bite of Coca-Cola, the taste of coffee, and there was the subtle hint of caramel.  Pretty good.  I would buy it again.  This is what the can looks like:

I will try the dark one later. I found out that there is a vanilla one too. I'd like to try it, also.  I just looked at my can for the caffeine content. It's only 69 mg. That is less than a 16.9 oz Moutain Dew!  I just looked at an old empty Coke can in my room and a regular 12ox Coke only has 36 mg.  So this is lmost twice as much as a normal Coke.  

What a thrifting trip that was! We started in Reidsville and went to the Salvation Army store and Goodwill. I found an Apple-branded cover for my iPad mini in there. It's light blue and I love it.  At Salvation Army, I got some cards, a snowman pin, a wallet, a CD, a cheese grater, and two packs of those cute little animal cable protectors.  We went from there to Wentworth NC and ate at a place called Mom's Kitchen.  We were looking forward to it. It was not great.  It was just.... I don't want to be mean, but it wasn't good. We won't be going back there.  We went from there to the Mayodan Goodwill that we recently discovered and I found a few things there.  A small Keurig k-cup holder (It fits under the little brewer in my room! LOL), a case (that will fit an external HD), a set of Tetris magnets, and a cute little Halloween ceramic thingee with a ghost, a tree, and little jack o lanterns.  We went on to a 'new' Goodwill in Walkertown NC.  I found a Sak bag exactly like the one I wanted at Myrtle that I bought on eBay. This one is the same bag but instead of being black, it's teal. I absolutely LOVE it.  I got that, a bit metal jack o lantern, a S'well bottle with donut design, a purple zipper pouch, a box of Ticonderoga pencils, and a Homer Simpson shirt! I can't wear it, it's way too small, but I had to have it! Lol

We left there and were heading to the Goodwill in Eden but we ended up going right past the one in Mayodan. They are constantly putting stuff out there so we stopped back in. I found some stampers and a cute crab plush.  I love crabs! He is red is so cute!  We then went to the Goodwill in Eden and I found a DS game! They had quite a few, but there was one that I was pretty sure I'd love. It was Crafting Mama!  I always adored the Cooking Mama games so I got this. It was still in the original case, too. That was $4. I was so happy to finally see some DS games and one I actually wanted! I'll try it later as I haven't been home long and I've been working on my writing.  I'm too tired to do it justice tonight so I've just been editing.

After Eden, we headed to our last stop, Martinsville, VA, and to the Goodwill there.  We ate again in Eden at a drive-up place.  That was much better than our lunch!  At the Martinsville Goodwill, I didn't find anything!  That was okay because I had already spent plenty.  I love all my finds. I'm so happy that I found that purse! I adore the black one so much and this is the same purse only in a cooler color. This once still has the Sak dangle thingee on it, too!

The CD I found in the Salvation Army in Reidsville is from the Vince Guaraldi Trio. It's all the music from the 1965 A Charlie Brown Christmas special  I just happened to see it while I was in line and snatched it up!  I've already ripped it to my MacBook Pro so I can enjoy it on here and on my iPod. I love the music from it.  

I just looked up the cover I got for the iPad Mini. It sells new on the Apple store for $39.99! @[email protected]; I got it for $4.99. SCORE!!!! lol  I am pretty sure this will also fit any iPad Mini so if I get a newer one, I should be able to use it with those too. :) It was a good thrifting trip. I'll try to remember to take pictures tomorrow.  I need to move everything off my bed so I can actually sleep in it tonight. Plus, I want to try Crafting Mama!