September 2nd

Hi it’s Christina –

Good morning! We’re home, and I am SO DONE with hotels for the moment. Fourteen of our last nineteen days have been spent at hotels. I just want to be home, cook my own food, and sleep in my own bed, for a good long while.

I gave myself a minor heart attack yesterday. When I finished writing my blog and went to download the photos from our camera so I could add them to the blog, I got an error message saying the folder could not be created. I tried several times unsuccessfully, then I decided to try and create the folder first and then drop the photos into it. I go into Libraries/Pictures and I get the error message: “"Picture.library-ms” is no longer working.” WHAT???

So then I go and try to access my Documents folder. I get the same type of message. I start to freak out. ALL of my books are in a folder within the Documents file. But wait a minute, it just let me save my blog post. Where did it save it to? And I saved generic photos and was able to retrieve them from my BLOG folder, which is a subfolder in the Documents folder.

I run a virus scan which turned up five threats – one of which was that iStart123 that I have been trying to delete for a month now. It doesn’t even show up on my uninstall screen anymore, yet it still pops up when I first open any internet portal. Yes, I have my specifications stating Google should come up as my search engine, not iStart123, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I can’t get rid of the dang thing.

Anyway, I click for the program to eliminate all the threats, but I ran out of time. It couldn’t fix the stuff before we had to shut down the computer. I had my hubby deal with it when we got home. He did some work, and the computer is running better, but Libraries was still not available, so then I started to play around this morning, and I think I figured it out.

During the last reboot, my system upgraded itself to Windows 8.1. My thought was Libraries is no longer a feature in 8.1, so I searched for specific folders in the C: drive. When I located them, I had it show me the path, and then I added the folders as favorites, thereby creating my own “Libraries”. So, long story not so short, I now again have access to my documents and to my photos, so now all I have to do is figure out how to download my photos from my camera, because the upgrade apparently did not take into consideration that the automated pathway would no longer work.

It may be a few days before I can figure it out, because I don’t have any more time to play with it today. I have to go and get ready for work. RV has an early appointment this morning.

I hope you have an awesome day, and happy writing!

Your Next Challenge is:

Use the following in a story: An Old Photo, A Secret, and A Map.

You have ten minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count, and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.