Mandy's Note: Another FML Post

So guess who's having another FML episode? This girl! I mean, if I'm being completely honest, my life is a series of FML episodes that have culminated in a 28 year FML biopic, but I can usually roll with the smaller stuff that goes on. That's just the ebb and flow of life, I would assume. Roll with the punches for the smaller stuff, save your energy for the big stuff. What happens in my life though is usually a series of big stuff, in just about all areas of my life. I'm saying all of this to lead into the really irritating point that my laptop is having issues. Again. Almost a year to the day that I had to put the blogs on hiatus last fall, it's happening all over again. Summer before last, my hard drive on my main laptop cracked up and I stopped being able to use it. It still turned on just fine, but I couldn't open anything except for the Control Panel. I was given the replacement laptop and it held up until last September, when the motherboard crapped out. I put the blogs on hiatus around the 4th or so and wasn't able to come back until February. I had to take out a small loan to get everything fixed because my budget was way too tight to accommodate the repairs on my own, then I came back at the end of February. Everything was fine--or so I thought--but for the past month or so, I noticed that I've been having little issues here and there with the laptop, but nothing major that I felt was cause for concern. Until the other day, when I went to use my laptop and was greeted by a message from Windows that my hard drive (the one I bought less than a year ago) is getting ready to fail. Again. For the moment I can still access everything on the laptop and I've downloaded some diagnostics tools to make sure that I don't just have the HDD fail virus, which would erroneously cause both Windows and the Toshiba Health Monitor to tell me that my hard drive is failing, but really, other than basic tech support stuff I have no idea how to fix it if that was the issue. The issue becomes a financial one again, and my budget is still just as small as it was the last 2 times that this happened, so I end up stuck again. This is just one of the many problems going on in my life, but as is the case with 99% of those issues, the root of it all is money. I really hate that.
So why am I telling you all of this? Mainly because I want to warn you in case I go ghost on here again, but also because I guess I just needed to talk. I'll still be active on Twitter and Instagram, but the blog itself may be quiet for a little while. I'm going to try to get as much done now while I can still use my laptop so I'll have a few entries set to autopost like I did with SUTS, but if it suddenly just falls off then I wasn't able to finish everything and my hard drive has gone off to tech hell; that's when I'll be on Twitter and the 'Gram for anything that I can condense into a few smaller posts. There wasn't too much going on this month on ATV anyway; after the busyness that was SUTS for August I figured you (and I) could use a break and have a light month, especially since I'm planning to go all out again for October. The goal is to get the laptop fixed this month and be back in time for October, but let's keep it real--wasn't that my goal last year when this happened? LOL I've been trying to get my life as a whole back on track for a while now, and it seems that every time I start to hit my stride, something happens. Our vehicle breaks down again, the family has drama, my agoraphobia flares up or one of my many recurrent health issues returns, my laptop goes down again, unforeseen issues hit my wallet and I'm left short for the month, there's always something with me. Just when one issue has settled down or I've made peace that there's another problem to contend with, something else happens and the situation gets even worse. Pardon my rambling, I'm just frustrated. Anyway, I'm going to get to work now on this month's Files posts and a couple of late Instagram posts that'll be up throughout the month, but I just wanted to let you know that if I go ghost yet again, it's because my laptop conked out. eBay's post should be up tonight or tomorrow with any luck so keep an eyeball out for that. I hope you're having an awesome week though and I'll see you soon!