What the Junk?!

I did my usual Sunday stuff today. I also mowed the front lawn. That was a pain. I had to go get gas in the can first, though. That was the easy part even though I didn't want to go out to do it.  I knew I was low on fuel and the can was empty, so if I didn't go before, I'd run out in the middle and that would be worse! I'd have to go get the gas when I was hot and sweaty and irritated. I am glad I did it the way I did. It's done now and I won't have to worry about it for at least a week. 

I also wrote for Camp, got a great idea for a future story or storyline, and wrote notes for it in Evernote for later. All in all a good, but tiring day. I wanted to carry those branches to the street, but I was so wiped out after mowing, that I decided I better come in and cool off. I'll get those to the street next weekend. They pick up on Mondays, so I don't want them out there all week. Now, since I've gotten the linens back on the bed, I'm going to try to relax until bedtime. I need a nap! lol

Yeah, it's been one of those weeks. lol, I didn't leave the house today. It wasn't as nice today as it was yesterday.  It almost got up to 60˚ yesterday. A heatwave! Today's high was 41˚ so yeah. Oh well, that's winter for you! I didn't do much today. I did write and I am starting a digital cookbook on my iPad Mini! :)  I bought a notebook from DPCDigitals and I am going to make it into a cookbook. She actually has cookbooks, but I wanted a bit of a different design, so I bought one of her notebooks and I'm creating my own. It only has two recipes as of now. I have many more that I want to add that I have saved in Evernote.  The recipe page looks so neat, I love it. I like that I can design it however I want.  

I copied the picture of the dish from the website that had the recipe. I then copied the text and pasted it into GoodNotes. It looks great. I love creating digitally because it saves paper and I can fix mistakes so easily.  Here is an example of one of the pages:

I zoomed in and cut out the actual notebook around the page.  I think this looks great and I can have a consistent look throughout.  The font is KG Seven Sixteen if you are interested. I got it at one of the free font sites. I think it's a cute font. The recipe is from the Taste of Home website. The tiny text at the bottom says Recipe from Taste of Home website. I hope to do that on recipes to show where I found them.

Whee!  I did that today.  I had an event in my story. It is going to lead to a secondary event that I'll start tomorrow!  It went well, but I think I need to go back and add more details when I edit later.  It's going to be interesting with the next part, I think.  My people are in a compound after the Z Event. This is what the zombie apocalypse is called in my series.  Their compound was attacked by hostile survivors who wanted to invade. The invaders were attacked by zoms (what they are called in the books) and now the compound is surrounded by zoms. This means until they wander off, there is no leaving for supplies.  I have to get them through this and see what is next for them!  I'm not even sure.

One of the characters I introduced this time was going to be an older misogynist dude and it turned out it was a kid trying to act like an adult because he was alone and scared. I didn't see that coming and I"m writing this! lol, I need to work up a full character profile of him and the other new character I added.  I have their names and ages and a bit of background for the second one, but I need to flesh them out.  I have a character template that I got via Evernote that I use in Scrivener for my characters. It's easy to have a backup of them in my Scrivener binder and my Evernote. As I learned last November, ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR WORK. Thanks again Evernote! If it were for them, I'd have lost my first few days of writing last year and not been able to carry on until I could get my computer back to life!

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!

Here is the tracker for NaNoWriMo I created in Evernote.  This will be pinned at the top of the blog throughout November. The tracker can always be located on the right in my links!

NaNoWriMo Word Count Tracker in Evernote!

Yes, I totally forgot to post yesterday.  It's bad especially since I said I would try to post more.  So, what did I get?  A few good things. In the Salvation Army, I found a steal!  I have been wanting one of those receipt scanners for a while now. They are so expensive! I saw one in Salvation Army and opened the box to look. The scanner was still in the plastic!  I bought it and it was complete. The software, cord, and literature were there and it was brand new.  I was able to get the latest software online and install it. I plugged it and it was a go! It works. I'm very pleased with it. It's an older model but it works great and it's very small and portable. Here it is:

I love it! We went to Goodwill and I found a box of assorted pencils and crayons in a nice reusable box. I also picked up two mugs.  A Starbucks one and a Bee one. 

The angle is odd on this. The Starbucks cup looks tiny but it's not. It was a short trip, only two stores, but I am glad we went. That little scanner is so cute! I can save receipts (or anything for that matter) as a .png file or a .pdf file on my computer.  I'm going to add a notebook in Evernote for receipts. Another great use for Evernote. ^_^

I didn't take a single picture today. Sorry about that. I did wash a ridiculous amount of dishes, washed my hair, washed my bed linen, and put away the laundry I washed yesterday. The only thing left to do is to put the bed linen back on the bed and I'm done for today. The box of printer rolls came today. There are two rolls that have sticker paper that prints in blue ink, one roll of sticker paper with black ink, and three rolls with colorful borders. A purple one, an orange one, and a green one. I tested different rolls and I'm happy with them.  With the roll that came with it and these, I'll have plenty for a long time.  

What else did I do today?  Well, I watched YouTube videos, I wrote a little over 2000 words and re-installed Catalina on the 13" MBP.  I had it on there yesterday and then was going to clone the drive from the external to it but it went screwy.  I figured I would just do a clean install of Catalina on it and stick with that.  That way, I have a working Mac, and all my files are on my main one. I can use the other one if needed. It will be nice to have a  working, fast backup in case anything happens to this one.  I'll have backups made of this one and put them on my other external drive for safekeeping. This way, if I'm on the 13" MBP and I need a file, I can just plug the external HD in and grab it. Easy peasy!  I don't have the desktop and documents folder on this one synced to the cloud because I have so much stuff. I'm going to do the 13" one though so that anything I do on there, I can grab from iCloud on here. I have Evernote on both, so I'm set! :)

I realized once I got in bed last night that I didn't post to my blog.  I swear I need more sleep!  It's been lacking lately and it's catching up to me!  I did all my regular Sunday chores yesterday and wrote, too.  Today, I went to the grocery store. I've needed to go for a while and just haven't been. I'm glad I did because we just had that ice over the weekend and the forecast is for more this week!  Any threat of weather and the store is a madhouse. I was lucky and hit an in-between time today.  I didn't get a ton of groceries, but I got a few essentials, Soda, coffee, cheese. LOL!

I am glad to have that done. Now I don't have to go out again anytime soon if I don't want to.  If I weren't almost out of soda, I wouldn't have gone today.  I'm set for a while now. It was drizzling and yucky again today.  I wish the rain would stop.  It's driving me nuts.  Drip, drip, drip inside. Boo! I have been looking to back up my Evernote in OneNote just as a precaution.  I looked to find out how.  Well, there is an importer on the Microsoft site.  I tried to download it on my MBP running Big Sur and it said NOPE!  So, I open the old Macbook, it was running a version that was too old to use, so I turned on the 13" MBP that has Catalina on it. It worked!  I just wanted to have an extra copy of my files. It's taking forever, but hopefully, everything will be there and backed up! I got through a long process and it was doing the things it needed to do and then it crashed. D'oh!  I'm re-running it now, hopefully, that will work! WIsh me luck! :)

Well, the snow didn't last long.  We got rain and some sleet too.  It was pretty much a bust.  Oh well.  Maybe we will get one nice snow this year.  I didn't go out today just in case the roads were icy.  I got all my usual Sunday stuff done.  I got a good deal of writing done too! :)  I was happy with that and I can't wait to re-read it.  I am sure I'll add a few things to it and edit it some tomorrow.  I love writing in Scrivener and being able to edit as I need. It's so much easier than writing in a basic word program!  I also want to give props to Evernote for always being there to back up my work!

So Saturday, I was using my computer just fine.  I had to restart it and then that was when the problems started.  It did the exact same thing it did in November. It was showing no bootable volumes.  I thought, at least I have my Time Machine backup.  Guess what didn't work?  YUP.  The backup did not work at all and it erased the drive to do the backup so I was left with a clean drive and no backup. AHHHHHHHH!  I tried everything I could think of and worked on it all day Saturday.  I borrowed a drive from a friend and tried a few more things and nothing. I had to just stop and give it up for the night. I was tired and frustrated and nothing was being accomplished.  I didn't sleep well as you might imagine.

I woke up around 7 and decided to re-install my OS.  I knew I would have to install the long-ago version and then start updating until I could get back to Catalina.  I got that on and then tried to clone the drive and put it on the empty internal drive.  That worked fine! So, I have no idea why it died in the first place but I had Cataline. I installed a few things I needed and did the patch to get Big Sur back because by now, I was used to it by now.  That took all day on Sunday.  So, today, I got the old drive and the backup drive to get files off. The backup drive is now just null.  It lights up when I plug it into the computer but it isn't recognized.  I contacted support as it is under warranty. I'm hoping they know of some trick to make it work. I need the information that was on there. I'm still very upset that I did my backups weekly for no reason. :(

Today, I was able to get some things from my old drive, but a lot of stuff is on the 2TB drive I got in November that I can't access.  It's driving me nuts that it's just 'dead'. If my stuff can't be recovered (please let me recover it!!!) I hope they will replace the drive.  I spend the day running recovery on that old drive. It took over 5 hours and I didn't get everything I needed, but I got a lot.  The newer stuff was in the Time machine backups. It's driving me crazy to have this happen again so soon after the last incident. So, now I wait for tech support on my drive and hope I can get things going again.  This time, I think I'm going to clone the drive weekly on an external drive.  That way I know it will be backed up.  At least I truly hope so! This whole situation has been so frustraing!

I did get to write a little tonight and that was great. I haven't written in several days because of this mess.  It was nice to get those words down! 2178 words is not bad after not writing in a few days! :) I am again grateful to Evernote for being my daily writing backup site. I didn't lose any writing because of it. Thank you, Evernote!

So, I cannot upgrade to Big Sur on any of my Macbooks.  I'm sort of sad because I know in a few years, some apps won't work. I'm hoping that the ones I use the most will still be able to run on Catalina.  If I can continue to use Evernote, Scrivener, and Chrome, I'll be okay.  I would love to try out Big Sur though. I have heard that some people HAVE put it on a mid-2012 MBP so I know it can be done, but Apple is not giving me the option through the App store.  Oh well!

It's been a pretty boring day. I didn't even leave the house.  I did get my daily journal set up for 2021.  I used to buy a dated planner each year.  I got a couple of undated ones free a few years back.  I dated and have used one this year. I thought about buying a dated one for 2021 and saving the other un-dated one for 2022. I looked at planners and I couldn't find one I absolutely loved.  I found several I liked in some ways and didn't like in others.  I just said phooey on it and dated this one today!  It's ready to go.  I haven't even started setting up my bullet journal for 2021.  I really need to do that.  I have the new Leuchtturm for that already, I just need to start setting it up.

Totally meant to post last night.  I've been trying out different recovery software and I FINALLY found one that will let me get up to 1 GB of data. I was able to get my Scrivener files. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am now hoping to find a discount link so that I can purchase the license for the program so I can get everything back. It's less than the other software options I've tried and I've been able to get my Scrivener stuff so I'm happy to use it.  I just need to save up for it.  

I participated in a virtual write-in again tonight and I just realized that I never ate dinner. D'oh!  I was busy working with the program trying to recover files right up until I went into the session. I got my writing done with everyone and was happy to know it's all back again! (all my old works)  So so, relieved to have that. I have now done backups to Dropbox and I plan to do weekly ones. I'll still do daily ones to Evernote!  Evernote saved my butt last week for sure! Now I have to get something to eat and I am going to relax.  So happy to have my old Scrivener files!

It has been a hectic 24 hours for me.  Last night I did a write-in for NaNoWriMo and that was fun!  My computer was slowing down terribly so I went to restart it.  I was smart enough to back up the day's writing in Evernote.  Good thing I did because my hard drive failed quite spectacularly!  I went to Target and bought an external hard drive and I was able to re-install Lion (SO OLD) and then I was able to upgrade to... I think it was El Capitan and from that, I was able to install Catalina.   I currently have Scrivener, Chrome, and Evernote on here.  I am going to try to save my files from the bad hard drive, but for now I'm satisfied.  I have my first two days of NaNo writing and I can keep on.  I haven't written today because I was trying to get my MacBook Pro back to a working laptop.  It is and I hope tomorrow to get the files from the dead drive. It's there, but I'm going to have to do so work to get my files back. I'm just happy to have a working laptop for now.  The other stuff will come later.  I'm going to get my daily word count for NaNo and I'll feel so much better.  Wish me luck in getting all my files back!  

Here it is again for any of your NaNoWriMo participants.  Hope you enjoy! I'll have it pinned throughout the month of November for easy access.

EVERNOTE NANOWRIMO WORD TRACKER

Also, if you have never used Evernote and would like to give it a go, please sign up through my link, it will give you premium for a month! :) 

MY EVERNOTE LINK  

Enjoy the tracker and happy NaNoWriMo!

I am still not sure if I'm doing my zombie fic or the skating fic, but I am working on full character profiles for my skating characters.  I'm probably going with that to do for NaNo. If not that, a whole new one.  I do want to write more on my zombie fic, but I'm not sure I want to do that for this year's NaNo.  I might re-read the first four and see.  I have a lot of ideas for the skating story, so ...  Yes, I still have no clue which to do. :P

I had all the stuff in one notebook stack in Evernote.  I fixed that by making two stacks in Evernote.  One for the zombie books and one for the skating books.  It makes it easier to keep up with everything.  I love Evernote so much!  It's so dang handy!  I still use an Evernote template for my characters.  I write up the info in the template in Evernote. I keep a copy of it in there and I copy the templates into Scrivener.  That way I can reference it either way.  It helps to have those in Evernote for on the go since I always have my phone with me.