Un-beautiful Update 2: Goodbye to an Old Friend

I just wanted to take a minute to update everyone on my sad situation.  My beloved laptop is still dead, and I'm taking it to the Apple store to get the final confirmation that it's not coming back.  I'm already researching local data recovery providers, but that's not an instant fix.

What does that mean for the blog? I can write text posts from my iPad mini, but I have no way to edit photos.  Even worse, I had already done swatches for a month's worth of posts- that are all sitting on the dead laptop's hard drive.  So, I'm going to have to re-swatch everything.

I'm going to be working backwards for awhile- I'm going to write the text for many of these posts, to be married with photos once I have a computer again. My tenative plan is to buy a stripped down laptop in the next 2 weeks, and save for the machine that I want.  My MacBook Pro was 4.5 years old and I was already using an external keyboard since the down arrow and space bar quit working last month. It's time to wish a friend goodbye.  That external keyboard has actually been my savior with this iPad, as it turns out.

I have NOTD posts queued through 8 June, I believe (Ialthough the Blogger iPad app is woefully inadequate to check things like this).  I'll poke around and see if any of my draft postings happen to have photos already uploaded, but that would be the extent of my content for a bit.  The good news is that when I return, there are going to be some well-researched posts.  The bad news is that my pristine item photos can't be replicated.

Due to the financial shock of having to buy a new computer, this may not be a daily blog when it returns.  All of that money I spend on beauty products is going to my new laptop fund (again, it may be shocking to some, but I'm fiscally conservative and won't buy one unless I have the money in my bank account.  I truly believe credit cards are for emergencies. Likewise, I won't tap into my home emergency funds for this since a new laptop is a desperate want, but being able to replace my ancient hot water tank the day it finally dies is a need. My beauty purchases are something that I consider an entertainment/hobby expense.  At times like this, I'll be in replenishment of staples only for a bit.  

If anyone has a favorite ultra-basic, ultra-cheap (but not a Chromebook) laptop that they love, please leave it in the comment area. I'm looking for suggestions ($300 and under, the cheaper the better).  Likewise, any MacBook Pro users who have gone to a MacBook Air, I'd love to know how that's gong for you.  That's my current decision.