(Late) Spring Cleaning

Today, I shredded two hard drives.  The car dealer where I bought my (new to me) car in October was having a "shredding event" this morning so I hauled my things over.

One hard drive was from the laptop I'd used through grad school--the one my mom had bought for me, which was a total "I believe in you!" gesture for which I always will be grateful.  (I know, why had I been keeping it since 2011? I did not know how to dispose of it without someone trying to pick data off the drive!)

The other hard drive was actually a little older.  It was inside the iMac.  Yeah, that has been sitting on my desk and not turned on since I'd moved into the apartment.  Part writer's block, part lingering fear of what happened last time I'd turned on the iMac (fizzle, dead).  I hadn't covered it so it was full of dust, anyway.  Dust kills the moving parts in computers, I've been told.  

I knew they were going to have to break it open, but...

Good thing he has muscles.  And a hammer.

It truly was a two-person job.

I used it exclusively for writing.  All my writing was saved on there, but I have a fairly recent hard copy of the first novel I've been writing since I was about 16 years old (ugh, I know).  It appears I never printed the partial sequel I wrote; however, I have all the notes for that.

Why do I care?

Because I'm getting back into my writing.  Not dating anyone (currently), my job appears to be about to change in the near future (makerspaces! Who needs to be able to read and pass tests? You will do this if you want to keep your job! But your school wasn't picked as part of the pilot program! WTH!?), the teachers' contract negotiations aren't really progressing at this point, and this school year was ROUGH.  Like, every-class-has-at-least-one-student-with-a-clipboard-for-a-behavior-chart, ROUGH.  

The irony is, my current laptop's battery is failing, so I'm figuring it's time to start looking into a replacement for the entire laptop (because why bother buying just a battery when that's a half to a third of the cost for a new laptop?).  So, I'm looking around, not committing to anything just yet.  There are too many different kinds out there.  I have mixed feelings about Windows 10.  I use a Chromebook (among other tech) at school, but other than the battery life there's not much to recommend it.  The touchscreen feature is something that's O.K. to have, but I can do without it.

I'm also looking into writing software/apps.  I know, why bother when there's word processing software, but it's just something I'm curious about. If I do go with one, I think it might be Novelize.  I like that it has a progress tracker.  I'm starting to feel I need some accountability, probably in more areas in my life than just this.

And speaking of writing, the dating profile is coming along.  Mom and LibraryElf said a lot of nice things (awww! Still waiting on Younger Sister to finish her birthday week and respond to my request) so hopefully I can draw a more accurate picture of myself and what I'm looking for in a significant other.  Hopefully.

In the meantime, I've got laundry, grading, medical paperwork and medical testing results to deal with.  That ought to keep me out of trouble for a while.