What the Junk?!

I meant to mention this last night, but I was fighting time to get a good post out so I made a note to myself to mention it tonight.  Last night, when I got home, my computer was being extremely slow. When this happens, I give it a reboot.   I did and it did the startup bong sound but the display was black.  I was freaking out. I listened and I could hear the drive working.  I kept waiting for the display to show up or the keyboard to light up but nothing.  I rebooted a few times and the same thing so I went looking for help on my phone.  Someone said they had this problem and they shone a flashlight through the apple on the back of their mac and they could see the screen loading and when it got to the password screen, they put in their password and the display came up.  Well, I tried this.  I could see the computer was booting. All I could see was the Apple logo that shows on the screen.  I watched and hoped. Before I could get to the login, something must have kicked in and my screen came back.  That was the weirdest thing. I've used Macs since 2003 and I've never seen anything like this. I am truly happy that one guy had a similar thing happen. I would have never thought to sign a light through the Apple! I guess it's a good thing this is an older Mac. The newer ones from 2015 on (I think) don't have the light-up Apple.  My computer is working fine today and has worked well all day. I won't be rebooting again until I have an issue, so I don't know if this will happen again.  If it does, I know just to wait.  Phew. That was so scary! The weird stuff that happens to me! :p

Yes, I just hit 50,000 words for CampNaNo!  Yes, I plan to go on.   I actually wrote like crazy today and got over 4000 words!  I was on a roll.  I wrote earlier today. I wasn't going to leave the house today, so I had plenty of time to write. I could write more, but I'm going to give myself a break until tomorrow.  I didn't do a lot more than writing today.  It's been a slow day. I've been at my desk on the MBP since I ate breakfast.  I need to run out and turn off the water. I turned it on to wash off Goontz yesterday and forgot to turn it off. We are under a freeze warning tonight! I don't want my hose to break.

I took another picture of my 'new' Fossil bag. It's not a great shot, but it's much better than he one I took last night! Here it is:

I have plastic bags in it to give it shape while it's not being used. It's so supple and nice. I'll probably save it for fall/winter time.   I just checked the weather on my MBP and it's currently 48˚!   It is pretty chilly inside, too. I am going to have to put on a sweater or a hoodie in a bit. I already put away my heater for the year and I'm not getting it back out.  I could just be lazy and get on my pajamas and snuggle under the covers in my bed.  That sounds pretty nice, actually! I think I'm going to organize my Starbucks cards and then crash on my bed and relax.  I have the cards that aren't the regular size ones in two disk boxes.   I would like to have them sorted by year like I do the other ones.  Here are the two file boxes and the cards:

These work great! The little one is for the smaller ones that are on a single card, the bigger box is for the weird-sized ones. It works out well! They stay organized and dust-free, too! I just finished organizing them. They look better and they are all in order.   

All the thrift trips lately have made my bedroom look like a thrift shop!  I got to work today and got the room all cleaned and cleared.  I have everything put away neatly and I'm so happy. It looks so much better in here!  I put the little cabinet that I got yesterday next to my nightstand.  It fits in the spot well and I can organize a lot of things in it and on it! I love it.  I have all my thrift finds to put away except for that box of jewelry-making stuff. I did organize the beads and things in the containers. I just have to figure out where I'm going to store all of these things and I want to add the stuff I already had with it.  I just need to figure out where all that is going to go!  

I didn't do a lot else today.  That wore me out! lol I did write a bit portion for Camp today. I am now about 2000 words from 40,000 so I just revised my goal to 50,000.  I know I'll hit it easily. :). I was on a roll and I had to make myself stop writing as I was starting to get tired and my writing wasn't as good there at the end.  I stopped so I could pick up tomorrow when I'm fresh and write much better.  I'm actually typing this post up on the 13" MacBook Pro.  I have a place for it in the new little cabinet, so I can use it when I'm not at my desk. Very convenient. I am going to try to crash a little early tonight as I'm really tired.  I didn't sleep well last night and then I did all that cleaning. I'm hoping to sleep like a log tonight. :p

So, I thought my friend and I were not going to thrift today. He had the day off and didn't mention it so I was settled in at my desk ready to spend the day on my Mac and write and just enjoy my day.  He had texted me earlier this morning and didn't mention going, so I thought that was that. He texted around 2 this afternoon and mentioned going. I really wanted to just stay at home, but I agreed to go.  I dressed and went out and washed off Goontz.  It's pollen season and my Goontz had a layer of yellow/green pollen all over.  I got that done and then waited for my friend.  He came and we went to Reidsville. He ate at Bojangles and then went to the Salvation Army store.  I found a Sony clock radio for $2, a pack of Post-it note page flags, (Well two packs), and a package of pretty napkins. Don't judge me! lol  We went to the Goodwill and I only found one item. It's a Jack o lantern metal candle holder that originally came from Bath and Body Works. It was very cute and caught my eye so I got it.

We then went to the Goodwill in Walkertown NC. I found a little purple jack o lantern candle holder in there.  I also found a very nice little cabinet/stand. Here is a picture.  It still has the letter stickers from where it was assembled and the price sticker.  It was only $8 and I am not sure where I'm going to put it, but it's in excellent condition. The drawer works well and the shelf is adjustable.

It will be a nice addition to my house.  I just have to figure out where I'm going to use it!  We went to Mayodan after that and I only found two things.  A disk holder and a sleep mask.  The disk holder is a Fellows brand and it was for computer disks back in the day. It will be perfect to hold my specialty Starbucks cards.  I was going to search for one of these for that purpose and this one was there so I got it. It's in great shape, too! Speaking of Starbucks cards, several I ordered on eBay arrived today!  I was happy to get them. I only have one thing that I'm waiting on now and that is a Starbucks tumbler.  I saw it in-store when I went to the 'new' Starbucks in Greensboro and I knew I wanted it.  I decided to look on eBay. I knew I'd have to pay more for it, but I found one that was only a few dollars more with free shipping so that saves me trying to find it at the local Starbucks. :)

I forgot to mention that I found a Fossil purse at the Walkertown store but I had to pass it up as it was priced pretty high.  I was short on funds. My friend got the little cabinet for me. He would have gotten the purse too and let me pay him back for both, but I'm still doing monthly payments on the Docs! We went back to Reidsville before heading home and ate at Carmela's. 

So I was sitting at home on the laptop and my friend texted and asked if we were going to Reidsville today. I said sure if he wanted.  I got dressed and then went over to his house. He pulled up right after I did, so that was great timing.  We got on the road after he went in for a few and went to the Salvation Army store first.  I found a few things in there.  I found a removable purse organizer (can also be used for bullet journal organization), a clear zipper pouch for a binder, a puzzle,  a little Post-it note dispenser, and I think that was it.  My friend found a nice car phone holder and bought it for me.  We left there and went to Pete's to eat.  After Pete's, we went to the Goodwill. Wait, he ran by a music store first, and then we went to Goodwill.  At Goodwill, I found a Fossil bag, It's one of the Key.Per bags.  It still had its key and little 'charm' thingee, too! I also found a little wooden 'basket' with jack o lanterns on both ends, I got a mini lunchbox with snowmen on it, and a nice Kitchen Aid kettle. I've been meaning to buy a kettle and I saw this one and it's in great shape and the inside is very clean.  We left there and went back to Pete's and got ice cream before heading back to Danville.  We went to the two Goodwill stores here.  We went to the regular one and I only found one thing. It was a cute ceramic Jack o lantern.  We went to the other one.  Now, for this store, we went once several years ago and they were rude and really pissed me off and I haven't been back since. I decided to give them one more chance and we went tonight.  Luckily it was different people working and much nicer ones, too!  I got TWO Fossil bags!  I also found a CD, a little package of Jack O lantern bags/envelopes, and a little thing of notes that are shaped like A's, and the little container that holds them has A's on it too.  Very cute  It was a good thrift trip! I wasn't really expecting it. I thought he would want to skip it but he didn't.  I am glad he didn't. Three 'new' Fossil bags! :)  It seems like I am forgetting something but I can't remember what it is! I did write today. I actually got in a little over 2000 words! I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to do CampNaNoWriMo this year and if I do, what I'm going to do for it.  I don't have a lot of time left to figure it out!

I just remembered the other thing I got tonight. The GW I gave another chance to had clothes hangers 10 for $1 so I got one pack. I seem to always be out of hangers! So, that is it, the accounting of my day.  I am home and I'm going to get off this laptop as soon as I post this. I am going to relax a bit before bed and re-read what I wrote today.  I have two packages that I hope are coming tomorrow. One package has two DS games that I found on eBay and the other package is a set of styluses for it. The first order never came and the seller refunded me so I ordered another set on Amazon.  I know Ill get those!  The next thing I want to get for it is a replacement bottom screen and then a clear case for the outside but those can both wait.

So, my friend wanted to walk today. I did not! lol, I went anyway.  We went to the Riverwalk trail.  We didn't walk as far as we did last time, but we did get in a nice walk.  I only took one picture to share!

I like the colors in this.  No filters, that is just the way it looked.  I would have taken a few more pictures, but I wasn't feeling great as we were heading back.  I just did make it to my car! Sheesh.  After I dropped him off, I went and got food. I think that was the problem. I usually eat before we walk, but I didn't because I thought he was coming right from work and of course he didn't. ~_~; Oh well, I got something yummy and got a little extra goodie to heat up and eat later.  I went to Burger King and got a combo and saw that their cheesy tots are back. I LOVE those things so I got some and I have them for later. Well, minus one, I had to have one.  So delicious! Just as good as I remember them, too!

I did my French and wrote some before I went. I plan on writing more.  It's great that I got the 13" MBP going.  I was doing updates to the 15" last night and I knew it might take awhile, so I wrote on the 13" in a new Scrivener file and was able to copy it to my regular Scrivener file.  I did some editing on it earlier and then added it to it.  I have more to write tonight so I'm going to do that.  At least that is the plan!

I want to wish my favorite anime character of all time a very Happy Birthday today! I'll do a separate post for that after this one, but Happy Birthday Nuriko! ^_^.

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! :)

Guess who forgot to take pictures today? Me!  It totally slipped my mind. Sorry about that. My friend had a package coming today and he had it sent to my house in case it came on a workday. Of course, it was delivered today when he would have been home. It had to sign for tool ~_~; I was not amused on that part. I prefer to get my packages after they have been dropped off! 

My drive cable came today and I installed I and I now have the 13" MacBook Pro back working with the internal drive. Yay!  That was great.  It wasn't too difficult to get it done.  I'll work on it more tomorrow (Getting all the files on it, and stuff) I'll be using the 15" for most everything, but it will be great to have that backup in case anything happens.  Removing and installing the new cable wasn't too bad.  I have everything disassembled and ready to go when it got here.  I had watched a YouTube video with step-by-step instructions and played it while was doing it so I didn't forget anything. It's nice to know I know have both MBPs working with internal drives!

I didn't sleep well at all last night, so I'm hoping to crash hard tonight.  I did get a good deal of writing done and I'm happy about that. I also got notification from the library that my hold for the new Stephen King book was ready to download. YAY!  I had the Kindle book sent to my Kindle and I plan to start on that tonight. I may wait until tomorrow because I know with his books, I sometimes can't put them down! 

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! @_@; 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!

I actually know it's Thursday this week!  I got the hard drive returned today with my data.  They said they would put it on a drive the size of my data recovered.  I figured they would send a 1 GB drive as the stuff on it was a little less than that.  They send me a 4 GB drive with my files!  That was more than generous and I was extremely happy!  I finally cloned the drive my friend lent me and erased it to return it to him tomorrow.

As for tomorrow, we are doing a thrifting trip.  He sometimes gets off at noon on Friday and we are hoping he will tomorrow so we can do a few different places.  I'd love to make it to the Salvation Army since they were closed yesterday.  I'm also hoping to find some DS games and other goodies!  I wrote tonight and it was an emotional scene, so I only wrote a little over 1000 words. I'll probably edit it tomorrow and then write more. It was pretty good! 

I remembered that today I had an offer from Starbucks that if you did order ahead, you would get a free drink loaded onto your card for a future purchase. It was for a Grande or Venti.  Guess what my dumb ass bought? Tall. ~_~; I realized my mistake when I got home.  Oh well.  I tried another new drink.  This was the Oatmilk honey latte.  I don't think I like it.  It wasn't horrible by any means, it just isn't something I would enjoy.  It's weird though, the more I drank it, the better it got? It was weird.  I don't know. I am desperately trying to find something to fill the void left by my cascara syrup being discontinued!

I hope to do a post tomorrow night about thrifting, but I might be too tired if we go to a bunch of places. I'll try to check in any way even if I have to do a write up of all the goodies I get on Saturday.  I am planning on staying home the entire weekend, so I can get writing, chores, and other things done!

I went to print something tonight and my printer wasn't working.  I went in to try and fix it and now it won't connect to my network. ~_~;;;;;  I have done troubleshooting and nothing. I CAN print if I have the printer connected via USB but that defeats the purpose of a wireless printer. I will mess with it again tomorrow. I've spent far too much time on it tonight when I had other things I wanted to be doing!  Let's hope I can clear it up.  It is so frustrating when stuff like this happens.

I didn't do a lot today since I'm still under the weather.  I did go to the car wash and then to the gas station to fill up Goontz!  I went by Starbucks while I was out ad had a Blonde honey almond milk flat white! lol That is fun to order, let me tell you! :P I'm going to write for a bit and then relax.  I wrote earlier, so I just want to add more words. I'm going to try one more thing that was suggested and that was to re-start my router. I wanted to post this before I did that!  Wish me luck!

SPOILER: IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :P

It was in the sixties today and it was nice.  My friend and I went to the trail to take a walk.  I didn't really want to go as I'm a bit under the weather, but I went.  It was nice down there.  We got to see the two bridges they have finally repaired and put back.  We walked a total of 3 miles. This, back in the day, would be nothing, but since neither of us has walked in a while, it was rough.  It didn't help that I'm sick.  The scenery was pretty as always and I got to love on a cute little puppy! <3 

I am going to try to crash a little early tonight and hopefully knock out whatever this is that I have.  I've been so careful.  I haven't been sick in over a year so this really sucks.  My DS charger is supposed to come tomorrow so I can play with it a little more. I haven't done anything with it since I got it since the battery was low.  I hope to be able to get some games for it. I'll keep my eyes out when we thrift shop.  We see them sometimes but I've never really looked into them since I didn't have a DS.  

As for now, I think I'm going to share a few pictures I took along the trail and then close the MBP for the evening and relax.  Hopefully, I can go to bed early.  I could use the extra sleep!

You won't believe this but guess what we did tonight?  We went back to Reidsville! No, seriously!  We went and ate at Carmela's. I got the fettuccine alfredo and it was sooooo good.  They had a special on pizzas so he bought us both one to go!  Why? Well, we are under a bad winter storm warning.  Lots of ice is expected. The last storm over the weekend caused many people to be without power here in the city.  Luckily, we both got through that with no outages, but we are probably going to have them this time.  I have put supplies in my room and I'm ready!  I have everything I need except a can opener. LOL! I forgot to add that to my stash. I figured it would be warmer to just stay in here and put a towel under the door and try to keep warm in here.  (If there is no power)  I brought supplies and stuff and I'm about to charge up my jump box so it will be fully charged to charge my phone and my MacBook Pro!  I have candles set aside, snacks, Sterno, and everything I need.  I remembered something after I posted last night.  I don't need a lot of ice cubes, I have a bunch of those ice 'bricks' I  can put them in a cooler and keep things cool is need be!  I wish I had been able to go out and hunt down one of my hard-sided coolers, but I never got around to it.  I think I'm prepared.

As for thrifting, we did! We got a late start, so no Salvation Army store, but we did hit Goodwill and I got some great stuff! I found a Starbucks tumbler (cold cup 16oz) and it still has the straw!  I found two Cricut items, one is a package of cutting pads/mats.  I can use those in regular crafting.  They also had a Cricut accessories kit.  It had a lot of items AND a paper cutter.  My old paper cutter's blade needs replacing and the blade for it coats more than this entire set!  This Cricut accessory set retails for $50! I got it for $2.99. SCORE!  I mainly wanted it for the cutter, but I would like to get a Cricut one day, so the rest will be kept safe in case I do!  I also found a wallet I liked and a laptop bag that is big enough for my MacBook Pro 15".  It's a Victorinox brand and it's sturdy! I was going to pass on it but it was only $1.99 and I couldn't beat that deal. It had the padded section for the laptop and it has an organizer section, too.  It's pretty nice.  It has been well used, but it's in great shape.  I love all the compartments.  Now I have a choice between it and my backpack laptop bag!  I just looked at it again and I keep finding compartments I didn't know it had! :p 

Oh! I forgot one more thing.  I found some Corelle dinner plates. I love these things as they are very difficult to break and I had wanted to buy a set of them or just some plates to add my set.  I am missing a few.  The individual plates are pretty expensive.  They had eight plates cellophaned together for $3.99! The pattern is very cute, too and I love them.  I love Corelle because they are sturdy, almost unbreakable, and they last FOREVER. It was a great thrifting trip! I will have an entire set of these and the other set of mine.  They had the matching saucers, too but I didn't get them.  If they still have the when we get back, I'll get those too.  I was not leaving without those plates!  I love thrifting!

After we left Goodwill, we ran by Pete's so my friend could get ice cream.  I had noticed last night that the menu said coffee, hot chocolate, and cappuccino.  Well, I got a cappuccino and it was delicious! :p After that, we headed back here.  I finished getting my supplies together and now I'm writing this.  I need to do my French lesson and I want to write a little more.  I may not as it's so late. I wrote a little over 1300 words, so that isn't too bad!  Even if I don't have power tomorrow, hopefully, I'll still have data on my phone so I'll try to post.  That year that the hurricane came through and I was out of power for over 24 hours, my data went screwy too! Boo on that! 

Here are the pictures of the cup, bag, and plates. 

I'm glad we went, we might not get to go again for awhile!

My friend texted me today and said he wanted to go to Pete's in Reidsville, so we did.  I found some vintage Hallmark boxed cards at the Salvation Army store.  We made it in time to go this time! :)  At Goodwill, I got a sleep mask, a small Starbucks tumbler, and a cute pink desk lamp.  The lamp is very cute and it's very bright!  I  love it.  It's a nice size too.  It takes up less space on my desk than my old desk lamp.  Look at how cute it is:

It has a USB port on the side, too!  I like all of my finds.  The sun actually came out today. After days of rain and ice and just general yuck, that was nice! Of course, we are supposed to have more winter weather this week.  I am going to put together a kit tomorrow in case I lose power.  I have some Sterno on the way, I have my Sterno 'stoves' out and ready.  I am going to put together that with candles, various foods that don't need to be cooked, extra blankets, etc.  I also have the jump box that has ports on it to charge things.  This way I can at least have my phone and laptop charged if need be. I also am making some ice cubes to fill a cooler. I probably won't have enough to fill a cooler by the time I need it, but I'll have some ice, so I'll be good. I would go to the store tomorrow and get a few more things but I heard that the stores here insane today from two different people.  I have enough! lol

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! :)