What the Junk?!

Yes, my story is coming along well. I wrote a little over 3000 words today. Yay! I am enjoying this story. The hard drive on the other hand is a fail. I was not able to erase it. I might try again later, but for now, I'm really going to leave it alone. One good thing did come out of it though.  I was in recovery mode on the Mac trying to see if I could erase/fix there. My Time Machine backup drive works, but it would not show the backup file. D'oh! I tried it on both my 13" MBP and my older Macbook. It didn't show up on either. Weird. So, tomorrow, I think I'll reformat that old drive and do Time Machine over. After that, I'll try it again and see if Time Machine actually shows up when I get to that prompt. Wish me luck! Actually, I show actually start it tonight and let it run all night. It's probably going to take that long to do a backup. Wish me luck! lol

My friend got off work early today so we started in Reidsville and then went to Greensboro. I found SO. MUCH. STUFF. I'm extremely tired from all the crowds and the long hours, so I am not going to do a picture post tonight. I hope to get a bunch of pictures tomorrow.  As for the things, I found TEN Starbucks items.  Mostly tumblers, but there were a few mugs.  I found a rolling drawer cart (something I've been hoping to find on a thrift trip) and a MacBook from 2007! LOL, It boots, but the screen is cracked BUMMER! :(  I couldn't see that when I bought it. It was also missing the charger and battery, but I was able to test its booting up with my charger.  I am sad it's broken, but it was only $15.00. I have never seen a MacBook of any kind when thrifting so I had to have it. It's in a good home, now. There are a bunch of other miscellaneous things, A Corgi mug, a random mug,  a couple of jack o lanterns, and more. I'll do a legit full post tomorrow and post a list. It was a fruitful trip and now I hope to not go thrifting again for years. 

I'm seriously tired af! I haven't written yet and i promised myself that I would not miss a day of writing even if I just write a few lines, so as soon as I post this, I'm going to try to write a few paragraphs and call it good. I'm too tired to get into a lot of serious writing tonight. :)

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! :)

Yes, I was about to leave the computer and not post today.  Well, what happened? So, as I said I wrote up a big post two days ago and then didn't post it or save it to draft. D'oh!  It was about a comedy of errors when I was getting my old iPhoto files from the old Macbook to the MacBook Pro.  It took FOUR tries.  I networked the Macs to move the file over. The first attempt, my dumb ass restarted the Macbook.  On the second attempt the internet went out.  The third attempt, it was almost done (as it was the first time) and I noticed the MacBook wasn't charging.  What did I do? I pulled the cord out to re-seat it.  Guess what? No percentage on the battery.  I had to start over for the fourth time.  Sigh. I finally got the file moved over and got it all set up.  I had everything back to the way I wanted it. I was happy. I was still working with the 'dead' drive to try and get it to connect  Well, I foolishly restarted and tried to reset the PRAM.  Guess what?  I got the same exact error from the weekend.  I put the drive that I had the Catalina backup. I got hooked up.  I was able to access the files on the corrupt drive but couldn't get it to boot. I moved the files to the external drive (the one my friend lent me) and then I erased the internal disk and did a clone of the drive.  I then unhooked the external and booted it.  It worked. Phew. Now I just needed to get Big Sur back. That took WAY longer than it should have but I finally got it back.  So I spent a lot of time yesterday getting things back up to speed.  I finally finished up today and got everything as it should be.  If I could get that first external drive to work, that would be great. I STILL haven't heard from support! :(  I went to clone the drive with Big Sur on it to the drive I bought for the 13" MacBook Pro (I haven't used it yet because I still need a hard drive cable.) I figured I'd clone the drive on that and see if it was okay. I put it on the 13" MBP and nothing  I get that circle with a slash.  I am not going to worry about that for now. I have this one working and now I know exactly what caused both 'crashes'  I will NEVER try to reset the PRAM. AHHH!

So, as of now, I have a working computer with all my stuff.  I just need to download a few programs that I just remembered I don't have on here.  I had to do that iPhoto transfer again today. This time it only took ONE try! Whee! lol So, here is your update.  I hope you enjoyed it. I'm going to take a nice break from my computer.  My pretty snap-on case came for it today.  I'll try to remember to take a picture tomorrow.  I ordered it from China on the 3rd and it got here today. Not bad at all!  I

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!

So, I didn't walk today either.  I woke up with a horrible headache.  The idea of going out in the cold and wet was not very appealing.  I decided to lay back down after eating breakfast and taking some Advil.  I actually napped on and off for several hours.  Luckily, when I got up, my headache was gone.  So glad for that!  I only ran out once this afternoon to hit a Pokestop so I wouldn't lose my streak.  I did that and came right back home. 

I spend the day not doing much. I watched some true crime shows on Prime and I watched Sunday's episode of The Simpsons.  I didn't even think about it yesterday!  I decided that updating my Mac would be a great idea tonight and started it and then I was stuck.  I had nothing to review for writing on NaNo tonight.  I just opened the old MacBook and opened Bean and wrote.  I got some of my writing done and then the update was done on the MacBook Pro.  I connected them over the network and transferred over what I had written.  I put it in Scrivener and finished my writing for the day.  After I type this out, I'm going to relax and read before bed.  I plan to walk tomorrow.  It's supposed to be overcast, but I don't think it's supposed to rain.  It's also double star day at Starbucks, so I might just go over there and do NaNo tomorrow night and write some pen pals letters.  We'll see how that goes!

Yes, I hit the half way mark with tonight's writing.  I was not looking forward to writing either.  I belong to a regional group at NaNo.  My area doesn't have any write ins within driving distance, so I was able to join NaNo Virginia elsewhere.  Last Monday there was a Facebook live event.  I was late to it because the reminders on my phone didn't alert me fast enough. I still participated.  Then, there was one tonight.  I got in on that one from the start and got writing.  We did three sprints.  One five minute, one fifteen minutes, and one thirty minutes.  I ended up with a few less than what I wrote today. I had to add a few more words as I was in the middle of a sentence when the sprint ended. :P . All in all, it brought my count to 25,000! Yay! Go me!

I had planned to walk todaqy but the weather had other ideas!  It was only 32˚ when I got up.  I noticed it was overcast.  Not bad I thought, that doesn't mean it's going to rain.  It rained.  LOL It rained a lot.  I decided to skip my walk since it was going to be both cold and wet out there.  I should have gotten on the treadmill, but I ended up being a lazy butt! :P

I wouldn't have left the house at all today, but I had to pick up my prescriptions.  They couldn't wait until tomorrow.  It was cold, and nasty out when I went to pick them up.  I do not like to drive in the rain at night.  It's hard for me to see at night in good weather, rainy weather makes it worse.  Bleah!  Oh well, I got my scripts and came home.  

I spent the day trying to get the iPod touch to load to the MBP.  It's done it plenty of times before. It's my old, old iPod touch and I use it for loading audiobooks to listen to on my walk.  It would not load.  I tried it with my old Macbook and it recognized it right away.  Weird. I was able to load something on it so I'll have that, but I need to get the MBP to recognize the iPod.  It worked fine just a few days ago.  Weird.   I reset the touch to factory and it still wouldn't work.  Luckily, I had backed it up in July on the Macbook so I was able to put sync it back to the way it was then.  The only thing is, I have Cell and it was on the old touch.  It didn't sync back to it and I can't find it.  I'll have to go and see if I can re-download it from Audible. I got it during a trial on Audible.  I just found it and was able to re-download it. Yay!

It's been a really long day.  I planned to get a lot more done than I have today.  Hopefully I can get things done tomorrow.  I did walk and do my workouts.  I just haven't wanted to do much else.  I've been so tired.  Hopefully I'll sleep well tonight and get a lot done tomorrow.

 I started typing some pen pal letters tonight, but I have a lot more to do.  I'm just going to finish all of those tomorrow.  I so wish I could go to Starbucks, get a latte, and write my letters!

I transfered a folder from the Macbook over to the MBP today.  It was over 70 GB!  When it first started moving over it said it would take 6 days. LOL!  Luckily it didn't take but a few hours.  I wanted to make sure that got done before starting on my letters.  That is one reason I didn't get much done.  That folder will be good to have so I am not having to open the Macbook.  I had to go on it last night for a file and I remembered why I was so happy with my MBP.  It is so slow. Poor old Macbook!  

I got another snap on case today so I would have some variety.  It's blue like the other but it's a different color blue and it's a made a little differently.  Here it is on the MBP.  It was sitting on my yoga mat after I did today's workouts.

So it's my second day with my 'new' MBP.  I'm still loving it.  It's so much faster than my Macbook.  Programs that ran way too slow work fine on this! I'm so happy with it.  I realized that it only had Photos and not iPhoto.  I really prefer iPhoto even though it's older and not supported anymore.  Luckily, when I upgraded my Macbook to a newer version of Mac recently, I was able to get the latest version of iPhoto.  Since it was in my 'purchased' apps in the Appstore, I was able to get it. Yay!

Another thing that happened last night.  You remember I mentioned that I was installing Photoshop Elements when I was posting.  Well, I kept getting error messages.  It said it wasn't compatible with my version of Mac and blah blah blah.  I Googled it and found people saying I'd have to get the newest version of PSE. I didn't want to spend money since I had the Power PC  version of PSE and I bought PSE 9 when I got my first intel Mac.  I decided to contact Adobe and see what could be done.  They were able to get it installed and running fine!  Great support from Adobe!  I am comfortable with PSE 9 and I didn't want to change.  I also didn't have $79 to upgrade to the latest version!

Today, I got up and went for my walk.  I came home and cooled down and then did my workouts and my French.  I had lunch and then I've pretty much been on the MBP since. LOL . It's so cool and fast.  I'm so happy with it.  Now, if I could just get the brakes on my car fixed, I could go to Starbucks with it or just go to Starbucks and bring some goodies home!  I always felt 'different' when I went to Starbucks with my white Macbook. Now I'll have a MBP like everyone else. LOL!  Yeah, I'm a weirdo!  Of course my Macbook did have a lot of cool decals and stickers on it.  

Yes, it finally came and I love it to pieces.  I filmed myself opening the box just in case there was any issues or problmes.  There were none!  I got it turned on and it was already 'setup' with a admin user.  I wanted my own stuff, so I looked at how to do that.  Just go into the command line in the startup.  Since I've used Linux, command line is not a problem!  I got it set up for me and and it's so cool!  I have all the programs on it that I wanted to move over.  The only thing left is PhotoShop Elements and it's installing now.  I'm very happy with this MBP!  It's super fast and all the things that were so slow on my Macbook are not on here.  It's so nice!

So, I did walk today.  The laptop hadn't gotten here before I left, so I decided I should go ahead and walk.  I knew if I didn't walk and it didn't come during the time I could have walked, I would have been so upset!  I walked and was cooling down with a snack on my bed and listening for the FedEx man! lol I didn't hear him, but I got a notification on my phone from an app called Slice that said it had been delivered! I jumped up from the bed and ran to the porch. lol . It was sitting there waiting for me.  I finished my snack and then unboxed it.  Hearing that Mac startup sound was music to my ears.  It's so nice.  I'm in love.

My friend knew it was coming today, but he wanted to go eat.  He said if I could pull myself away from it long enough to eat we'd go. LOL . I told him I could and I did!  I also got him to run me by Food Lion.  Today was the last day of the sale, and I wanted to get some more of my favorite frozen dinners.  They had them for $2.50 and if you buy 5, they take $1 off each.  So I got 10 for fifteen dollars. SCORE!!!!!!  They are so good, they remind me of a restaurant quality pasta dish. 

So, he dropped me home and I came right back to the MBP and started installing PSE.  I am going to write letters tonight or tomorrow.  I finally got some stamps today. YAY!  I have so many letters.  I never meant to get this far behind.  Shame on me!

Sorry about that short post yesterday.  I wasn't near the Mac and I posted with my phone.  I really didn't want to post a lot that way but I wanted to get my post in.  So, today I went for my usual walk and came back and cooled off.  I then went back out to walk to the post office!  I had a stack of pen pal letters.  My friend picked me up at the post office and I rode with him on an errand and then he dropped me home.  When I got home, my packages were here.  No, not the MBP. :(  I did get the pretty Fossil wallet, my 12 Fitbit bands, and my washi.  Everything is so pretty!  The Fossil wallet is perfect for my needs.  It holds everything I need and it takes up less space!

The bands are all so pretty.  I have tried on the lime green, the blue, and now I'm wear the hot pink one. LOL  I was able to store them in some roll up pencil cases I got on Amazon some time ago.  They are all nice quality.  The washi is gorgeous!  It's even prettier in person than it was on the site.  A bonus item?  Yes! One of the regular rolls had a slim roll with it. Yay!  I love this particular brand of washi. It's great quality and it's always pretty!  It was a good mail day.  Tomorrow, my MBP should be here.  I am so ready for it!  I'll do a whole post about it tomorrow, I'm sure!

I went on Amazon and looked at different bands for the Fitbit Charge 2.  I wanted some different colors, especially a blue color.  Well, I found a cool set of them that has 12 bands.  It has black, purple, pink, blue, lime, and more.  There are several different blue colors, two pinks, a red, a grey, a white.  They look pretty cool. They were less than $20 for the entire set.  I wanted to do the $25 order with free shipping, so I went to my wish list and tossed in some washi that was on my wish list.  It's the Molshine brand and they make great washi.  I will get all this for $15, because I have a ten dollar gift card. Yay!

My MBP is now in Kentucky.  It still says estimated delivery on Tuesday.  I hope it gets here before, but at this point, I'm just happy to know it's really on the way!  I also ordered a Fossil wallet on ebay last week.  It's used, but it still looks nice and it was really cheap.  I got it for less than 12 shipped!  The outside is rosy pink and the inside is colorful.  It's pretty.  I'll probably post it when I get it. :p  

I walked today and it was so much cooler than it has been and it was amazing.  It was overcast for part of my walk, but sunny for the rest.  It was so nice to walk when I wasn't dying. lol  I didn't even sweat too much.  I wish it could be like this everyday I walk.  Oh well, I'm sure it will get back to normal soon!  I came home and relaxed a bit before doing my workouts.  I did those and my French and then rested a while before having lunch.  I was hoping to get to the post office today.  My friend had said he'd come and try to fix my brakes today, but he didn't.  My other friend 'was busy' so she couldn't carry me to the post office.

Speaking of the post office, I'm SO behind on writing letters. I'm going to have to sit down tomorrow and write letters until my hand falls off. LOL  I'm so behind.   I wanted to go to the post office and get every letter there and then get all my letters caugh up at the same time.  Maybe I'll get there tomorrow.

Here is the picture of the bands:

So, I decided enough was enough and contacted ebay today.  They said they'd let the seller know and if I didn't hear anything from them in four business days they would get this settled.  Guess what got picked up by FedEx this afternoon?  Yes, a week after they created the label and saying they had shipped it, they turned it over to FedEx!  Expedited shipping. UGH!  So, it is finally in FedEx hands.  It says it should be here Tuesday.  I wish they could get it here faster, but I guess I should be happy I'm getting it at all at this point!

I got in my walk today and it was so damn hot.  After my walk, it clouded up a lot and then it rained for a bit.  That cooled things down considerably and it's supposed to be a lot cooler tomorrow than it was today.  I say, GOOD!  I will enjoy that.  I just hope it doesn't rain. :p  

The past three days I've been so sleepy all day to lack of sleep.  As soon as I lie down to sleep, BOOM, wide awake. UGH!  Hopefully tonight I'll be able to go to bed at a good time. This not being able to sleep until 4am is getting old!  

So, still no word on my MBP even being on the way. ~_~;  I am so frustrated!  I did get the correct cover for it today, though.  It actually came with two of the keyboard covers.  They fit my Macbook, so since they sent two, I am using one on my Macbook.  The keyboard must have the exact same layout.  Cool! I like the blue, it looks nice with my white Macbook.  It will also help protect the keyboard.

The snap on case is quite pretty and it's nice and sturdy.  I just wish my MBP would get here so I can put it on it.  According to the listing on the MBP, today was the day it was estimated to be delivered.  I don't think I'm ever going to get it at this point.  I contacted the seller today, but I haven't heard anything yet.  I'd even pay for overnight shipping if I knew I could get it tomorrow!  I'm so upset.  Don't put 'expedited shipping' on your item and then not follow through!

I didn't hear anything again today.  I guess it's going to be next week before I get the shipping notification. I'm not very happy about that.  I have been wanting a 'new' Mac for a while and the extra wait is annoying the hell out of me.  I was so annoyed yesterday when I posted, that I forgot to post the item I got at Goodwill yesterday.  There was a little plastic basket in the office supplies section. It had a ton of stuff in it by the feel and it was marked at $3.  I got it and it was full of stuff.  Well worth more than $3!  There were rulers, single hole punches,crayons, pencils, markers, notepads, index card, and so much more.  Here is the picture of it before I opened it and everything laid out on my bed.  All in all a good haul for $3~

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One pair of the scissors is a crafting pair.  It's got the cool cutting edges.  Everything is neat.  The little wooden box had a little glass 'window' in it and I was able to take the paper out and customize it.  It's now a Starbucks box. :p