What the Junk?!

We thought about going today and decided against it. We probably would have been okay as it's almost 7 and so far we've only gotten rain. Oh well. I was nice to not have to go out today.  I am going to play around with some new releases I bought from DPC Digitals on my Mini and I have more writing to do. I was in the zone writing earlier and was interrupted so I'm going to have to get back into it to write more. I should be able to, if not, I did get a bit over one thousand words. I have been writing a lot more than that daily, but that will be okay if I can't get back in the groove. 

I decided instead of sitting at my desk until bed, I just moved everything to my bed. LOL, I have my laptop here and my Mini and everything I need so that is good. See.

After I post this, I'm going to try to get back in my writing groove. I want to do that and I also hope to see some snow tonight! :)

So, today, when I woke up, I picked up the iPad and refreshed my tracking app as I have been doing for days. It actually updated. Whaaat?"  It says it Arrived at the USPS Regional facility! WOO HOO I said and then looked at where it was.  Jacksonville, Florida. What, what? LOL! It was in Wisconsin, went to Illinois, was stuck in limbo for a week to end up in Florida? Keep in mind, I live in Virginia!  Crazy, crazy! So, at a bit, after 11 am, it updated again and it's left Florida.  I hope the next stop is Roanoke VA. All mail and packages usually got through there first and then get here.  It was so good to see an actual update for it as I was about to give up hope of ever seeing it!  Now, I just have to wait longer.  It's agonizing. Ah! So, hopefully, I'll get it this week!  

I did my usual Sunday chores today and I'm now finished. My bed linen is already back on the bed too! All I have to do after I get off the computer for the night is just pop in my bed with the fresh, clean, bed linen. bliss!  I wrote a good portion today, too. I am going to watch a few Peanuts things on Apple TV and then crash.  I watched the new Peanuts special on there last night and it was cute, but they didn't include Rerun! I thought that was odd.  I guess they were basing it on earlier Peanuts strips before Rerun was born.  At least Spike and Snoopy's other siblings were in it. :)

Well, not too much, but yeah. I washed dishes today. It's one of my most hated chores, but I did it!  I also got my laundry washed and dried. I will put the laundry and dishes away tomorrow!  I wrote for today's NaNo and I also played around with fonts on my iPad. I want to pick the perfect font for my use in my digital planner in GoodNotes.  I found several very cute handwriting fonts and I'm trying to decide which I like best.  Loading fonts on the iPad is not as easy as on the MacBook Pro! On there, I just drag the file into FontBook. On the iPad, I have to install each font individually. Frustrating, but it gets them on there! 

Yes, I realized that I haven't posted once since getting home from the beach.  Sorry about that.  It's just so depressing being home after being there.  All that balcony time has been sorely missed!  I haven't done a lot since we got back.  My friend and I did go thrifting on Friday.  We went the usual round. Reidsville, Walkertown, and Mayodan.  I didn't get a lot of stuff, but I did get a few things.  I still have to do a post with some of the pictures of things I bought at the beach. I'll do that soon, I hope! I'm proud of myself for getting this written!  I went to the grocery store today so I've had too much pe9ple interaction for this week! lol

The only other 'new' thing is I downloaded and installed iOS 15 on the mini today. I like it so far. I wish I could make the screen look like iOS 14 but I'll get used to it. 

I'm sitting on the floor on the balcony with my laptop, mini, and phone. It's nice out here and finally shady enough for me to be out here! lol On the balcony, the ocean is very sunny and nice. I'm enjoying the breezes. I took a couple of pictures with the Mini to share. Enjoy until my next post. :)

Sorry about not posting yesterday. Time got a away from me.  I got a LOT done yesterday, believe me! :P We have been here for over two hours. We have checked in, unpacked, and settled in.  We have had pizza, too! :p We ordered pizza from Hungry Howie's. I had a pepperoni pizza with stuffed crust. Delicious!  I'll share a picture I took on my iPad mini. More posts and more pictures to come! We are here until next Tuesday! Whee! 9 nights of bliss.

I've been loving the new iPad mini and the Apple pencil.  I've been going through the apps I have on it that you can digital bullet journal on and I am pretty sure I've settled on GoodNotes.  I have imported a ton of stuff in there and found that you can import stickers and pictures in. It's so cool! I may switch over to bullet journaling digitally. I'm enjoying playing with all the freebies I've found in the past few days.  It's fun!

I also have ZoomNotes, but it's complicated. I'd like to learn more about it and learn to use it as it has things that GoodNotes doesn't. GoodNotes is pretty nifty, though. I also have it on my Mac and I can sync everything from the iPad to the Mac and vice versa via iCloud. I am thinking of setting up my own digital journal for 2022.  I am working on one now with freebies I've found. I may stick with that for now. If I like it a lot, I may just buy a pre-made one later on down the line. AND I just bought one. Someone had a planner for $1 on Etsy so I thought I'd get it. It's from May of 2021 - April of 2022. I should know by January if this is something I'd stick to. I can't wait to play with my download. ^_^

It's pretty and I like it.  I was playing with it and realized that I didn't finish this post. Oops! :p  I got distracted with that and then I was watching a YouTube video with tips for Apple Pencil. I found some things I didn't know so that is cool. :) I'm pretty much obsessed with my Apple pencil. :p

I got on a writing roll today and wrote 3550 words!  I was type, type, typing! :p I did my usual Sunday stuff, washed my hair, my bed linen, took out the trash, and put away the laundry I washed yesterday.  So, a bit of aftermath from the beach. On the way home on Wednesday, we stopped in Reidsville on our way back to go to the Goodwill.  I had not found a single Fossil handbag on the entire beach trip. Guess what I found at the Goodwill in Reidsville? Yes, a Fossil bag! lol, I love it. It's fabric and I am using it at the moment.  It's more of a summer bag. the yellow Sak bag will be back again later this year, for now, I'm using this.  I will take some pictures soon. I want to do a post-beach picture post.

Friday of this week, we went on our little thrift trip. I didn't get a lot, but I did find Fossil-branded canvas jewelry/pen roll-up.  You know I love Fossil stuff. I am not sure what I'll use it for yet. We also went on a thrift trip last week after the beach trip and I found a very cool item. It's a Brother P-touch label maker that works!  I bought some batteries to test it out and it works. I can get replacement tapes pretty cheaply so I'm very happy. I paid a whole $4.00! YAY! I love bargains like that. OH! At the same Goodwill this weekend that I found the Fossil roll up thing, I found a brand new Anker USB C to USB C cable for $1.00! It works well and it's the braided fabric kind. It's 6ft long and I love it.  I love finding bargains.

Now, for the other thing.  Yesterday I heard from my sister, nothing bad, just every time she calls I get so nervous it's bad news about the house i live in. My stomach is in knots when I hear from her. I certainly miss the days of being glad to hear from her! Anyway, I have been dying to get a newer iPad Mini as my iPad Mini 3 only has iOS 12.  It's getting slower too.  I have tried everything I could think of to get credit to get one.  Well, after talking with her, i thought of something and tried it thinking it wouldn't work. It did! I  was able to get one on the spot. BUT I knew I would have to wait for it to come. It had, 'set up your account online now' thing. So I did and got the card number and info.  I go look at the local Target and of course they have none in stock.  The Best Buy in Lynchburg VA has the one I want.  I go on there and put it in my cart thinking the car won't go through, I'll need to wait until I get the physical card. Nope, it worked and I had purchased it! @[email protected]  I was ecstatic but also a bit concerned as I'll have to pay it each month.  

I had to drive to Lynchburg to get it. I got dressed and jumped in Goontz and left.  I got up there and it was ready so I went to the curbside pickup, got it and then pulled to the side to look to make sure it was the right one. It was and I was very happy but a bit angry at myself for buying it when I couldn't afford it.  I had seen a McDonald's and a Bojangles right outside of the city on the way up so I headed back there and got Bojangles and ate it before heading home.  I got home and backed up the old one and put all the things from it on the new one. I love it and i know I'm going to enjoy using it for years. I'm still sick on my stomach for spending so much, but I made a promise to myself to pay more than the minimum each month and not put anything else on it.

I did put one more thing on there though. After I got back to town, I went to Target's site to see if they had any First-gen Apple Pencils. I have wanted one forever.  They had one so I took the plunge and got it. I LOVE it. It's better than any of the ones I've bought in the past. Works fast and very responsive. I'm in total love.  Now, I plan to try and pay all this back as quickly as possible. I also plan to look into shipping costs and try to sell some of the Fossil bags that I've bought that I won't carry. I bought several because they were Fossil, not because I particularly liked them. I hope to sell some and make some money to put towards this bill!

Speaking of Fossil bags, I found a small yellow leather one in the Salvation Army store Friday. It's so soft and one I actually would use!  I have so many that I am hoping I can sell some and make enough each month to just pay the bill on this and have it paid off soon.  I know I can do it if I put my mind to it! 

Best Buy offered six months of Apple News for free and six months of Apple Music for free for buying it. Apple has a promotion for a year of Apple TV+! Cool beans. That made me feel a bit better about spending so much.  I already signed up for Apple TV+ and watched an episode of the Peanuts show on there! :) I hope to enjoy my free Apple TV for the year.  I will probably use the other two trials too.  I love freebies with purchases. Too bad I couldn't get two years of Apple TV. One for the iPad and one for the pencil! :p Oh well, I'm not greedy. I'm happy with what they gave me.

Wow, I think I made up for not posting in a while!  I hope to do some picture posts soon.  I'd like to share the Fossil bag and some more beach photos. OH! Some time back I picked up a case for my old iPad Mini and it didn't fit, it is for the one I just got. So, I even have a case for it without having to order one. Yay!

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!

So, my friend texted me today and asked if I'd like to go to Reidsville and eat at Carmela's or Pete's. I said, YES!  He came over and we went and we ate at Carmela's. They are an Italian place that is great.  I got fettuccine alfredo. I have been wanting some good alfredo for quite a while now, so I was so happy to get this.  It was delicious.  Just look at it:

Makes me hungry all over again! :p. After we ate, we went to the Salvation Army store and the Goodwill over there.  We didn't go to Eden and on to Martinsville, this was a Reidsville only trip.  I found a 16 oz Starbucks holiday mug from 2013 in the SA store. I also got a case for my iPad Mini for $1 and I got a little scrapbook 'kit'.  It's the scrapbook and inside it has stickers and papers to use in it.  I looked it up online and found the same thing at Amazon for $24. I paid $2 so I think that is a great score! I think I'll save it and use it after the next beach trip.

At Goodwill, I found a Kate Spade wallet! It's in perfect condition. It's only missing the clip-on wrist strap which I wouldn't use in any case.  It's nice and I was happy to find it.  I only have one Kate Spade thing and this just made my day.  I also got two mugs. One with a penguin and one that is a jack o lantern! :) Both are adorable and for display, not drinking.  The Starbucks mug I found at SA is for drinking. It's in excellent condition. It was a small thrift run and a small thrift haul, but it was a good one.  I enjoyed getting out for a bit and I love the things I found. I tried my phone in the Kate Spade wallet and it fits fine! I love that I can just toss my debit card, license, and phone in it and go.  Good for when I don't want to carry a purse.  

By the way, Big Sur is no longer laggy. In fact, it's pretty damn fast! I love it.  Everything is so neat. I have read some sites and watched a few videos on it to get tips and tricks.  I want to do more of that tomorrow.  While we were in Reidsville, I was capturing a lot of virtual Munzees as we came to them.  That was fun! I was able to get some unique stuff that isn't around here so that was even better.  There are a LOT of virtual over there.  A zillion times more than are here in Danville.  

I'm so tired. I could not sleep last night.  It was after 5am when I finally got to sleep and I woke up before 10 am.  I have been yawning and useless all day! lol. I haven't written for NaNo yet but I will write at least a few lines.  I have my word count and I'm almost done with the story, but there is more to go.  I'm just too tired to write much.  If I write tonight it's no telling what may come out! :p

My 'new' MacBook Pro is all set up now. I moved everything over and I got my music on here today.  I also went ahead and made backups of my iPods and my iPad Mini.  I opened all my Scrivener works and made sure to save them to the backup folder.  I don't want to lose those again!  I don't remember if I mentioned it last night, but while I was waiting for Catalina to install on the MBP, I put my yule tree up.  I got it up and put the lights on but left the ornaments for today.  I put those on today and they looked nice.  Sadly though, I am missing a small box of ornaments.  It's a little box with four glass ornaments that I got from Family Dollar several years back.  They were only a dollar, but I love those four ornaments.  I can't find them!  I am not sure where they are, I looked tonight but didn't find them.  I'm not giving up though. I know there are here somewhere!  I'll try to remember to show a picture of the tree tomorrow.  I DID remember to take a picture of the laptop in the daylight.  Here you go:

This is my desk where I sit to write.  It's a nice spot to work on my writing or whatever I'm doing.  It's nice being able to see better with this bigger laptop too.  When it arrived, the seller had put a hard case on it similar to the one I have on the 13" one.  I popped it off out of curiosity to see what condition the actual laptop was in.  My 13" was scratched and banged up pretty badly when I got it.  This guy is FLAWLESS.  The only minute scratches I see are on the bottom.  The top is mint.  It looks like it just came from Apple and it's 8 years old!  I'm glad whoever had it before me took good care of it.  My nice laptop bag is too small to fit it.  BUT!  Some time back, I saw one of those laptop sleeves at Goodwill. It was brand new and it was pretty big.  I bought it knowing it was too big for my 13" MBP but I figured I could use it for something. It fits my 15" MBP perfectly!  My messenger bag that I used to carry to Starbucks to write pen pal letters is big enough to hold it, too! I will probably get a laptop bag in the future, but this will work well for now. The sleeve is well padded and the messenger bag is sturdy and it will still have room for other stuff and the laptop.

Yes, I think my poor hard drive finally kicked the bucket. I cannot get it to mount to get any more files off of it :(  I am sad, but I did get my information from my old Macbook on here today.  The only thing that I might be missing is the pictures I have put on the MBP since I got it.  Since those are all on SD cards from my current and former phones, I think I have 98% of my stuff back.  I even was able to get the pictures off my camera because I don't delete them when I get them off. (Just for that reason!)  

I ordered a new hard drive to put in the MBP and it is coming on Friday. I hope to be able to install that, clone the external to it and be able to run my computer from the internal.  Then I'll start a weekly backup in Time machine on the external!  I am not going through all of this again. It took most of the day to get all my stuff transferred.  I got my iPod touch and my iPad mini backed up too.  I had backups on the old drive.  I was able to rip all the songs from my old classic iPod so I have all my music, too.  I'm happy to have everything almost back to normal. I even got 2000 words for NaNo!

I am going to give the internal drive another go after I take it out.  I'm not getting rid of it in any case!  I might be able to attach it as a 'flash drive' and get my files.  That would be awesome!  I'm happy with what I was able to accomplish so far.  I feel everything is back to normal!  One thing though, I was trying to send photos to the MBP via Bluetooth and it wasn't working. I could send files FROM the MBP to the Pixel phone but not the other way! I was able to use my wireless keyboard, my Bluetooth speaker, etc.  I found out that I hadn't given permission in the settings. D'oh!  They are given and I was back in business! Yay!

I opened the puzzle I got yesterday while thrifting and worked it today. The whole thing!  It was only 300 pieces and it had huge pieces.  I couldn't get the pieces on the board all at the same time because of the puzzle's size and the pieces. I worked in sections until I got the last of the pieces on the board.  At that point, I kept going along and finished it! It's very pretty.  I wish it was 'plain' like the other Thomas Kincade puzzles I worked.  This one has a verse on it. It isn't too noticeable, but I'd rather just have the picture. There were brighter colors on this one than the other ones I'd worked so it wasn't as hard to do.  I enjoyed working it and the big pieces were fun although they were shaped weird and fit weird, but that makes it more challenging.

I was playing with Evernote and Journey today.  I was wondering if there were a way to link the two.  I think I can, but I need to upgrade my plan with Journey and I might do that as it's not too much annually.  I love the app and I use it on all my different devices.  I have it on my Android, my iPad Mini, my MacBookPro, and my Linux computers! Just like Evernote. I have it everywhere too! :)

So, I woke up way early and heard dripping so I check my containers.  I poured out some and then went back to bed.  Later after I got up, I went to empty another container.  (I have leaks in a few places) So this one I emptied successfully but it's on a shelf.  I didn't put it back far enough and it started getting water in it and it crashed down scaring the crap out of me.  LOL!  I cleaned up the water, put it back and put a heavy rock towards the back to keep it from tipping if it got that full again.  So far it's not much in there so hopefully I won't have a repeat of that!

I started a crazy puzzle today and I didn't get a lot done.  I'll post a picture of my progress with a picture of the box so you can see why! :P   Also, I got a notification from my library today that a book I had put in a request for at the library was automatically loaned to me.  They didn't have the book so I put in a recommendation for it and they got it.  I went to put it on my Kindle since I finished my latest read last night and was excited to read it.  Queue all day of me trying to get it where I could read it.  They didn't have a Kindle version and I was trying to send it to my Kindle anyway and that wasn't working.  I could read it with Overdrive on my phone but the screen is so small.  I downloaded Overdrive on my iPad Mini and I have it there.  In the process of me trying to get it where I could read it easily, I picked out a book so I'll read it as soon as I'm done with the current one.  

It's hard to believe that NaNo is almost here!  I went looking for more pictures for inspiration for this year's NaNo.  I made a Pinterest board just for that.  I'll also add the pictures in Scrivener and Evernote.  I think I like the ones I got tonight better than the ones I got on an earlier search. I also want to re-read the first three books or at least skim them to take more notes for using in this book.

I had to saved this post as a draft and re-open it on my iPad Mini.  The MBP was being terribly slow.  It’s been a long time since I restarted it, so I’m doing that now. Lol  There is only one problem.  The mini has a small screen and it’s hard to see what I am typing here. The sacrifices I make to blog. :p

I still mulling over how to start my book.  I know the story and what is going to happen (for the most part), but I’m not sure how to start it and if I want my villain to be eaten by zoms right away or get killed some other way.  I haven’t decided if she is going to make it back to the compound or get instant karma.  We’ll see!

Okay, let me close this.  I’m re-starting the MBP so hopefully it will be running faster.  I have NOT upgraded to the newest OS and I don’t plan to until they work out all the bugs.  My poor old MBP is in the models listed that are okay to upgrade, but I’m taking no chances this close to NaNo!