My Beloved Laptop is Telling Me Good-bye

I hate replacing expensive things. It boggles my mind how expensive electronic devices are and how quickly they become obsolete. I don’t even try to keep up with the latest and greatest anymore. Unfortunately, there comes a time when I am forced to make the leap to a product that is fairly new.

As you probably know, I’m a writer, as well as a blogger. I spend two to four hours on my computer every week night after work and much more time than that on the weekends. My overworked computer is nine years old, and seems to be telling me good-bye. I’d hoped to keep it a couple more years, but I guess I finally wore it out.

I lost my cursor in the middle of editing a story Tuesday night. I couldn’t see it and was unable to use Task Manager. I performed a hard boot, but the problem persisted. My touch pad has been completely unresponsive ever since.

I normally use the touch pad instead of a mouse in order to be able to use all three USB ports at once. I save work on several different flash drives. It’s my way of backing things up. Anyway, the problem didn’t go away even though I rebooted my computer three times. It appears my touch pad is just finished. It’s not playing anymore.

I hooked up the mouse that I use at writers’ retreats or places where I know I’m going be sitting in one spot for a long time, and my cursor behaved. I was immensely relieved to be able to continue my edits, but I’m afraid that my husband may be right that it’s time to buy a new computer.

I fear this is a sign of problems to come. It’s been freezing up occasionally and generally being cantankerous. As I mentioned before, my laptop is nine years old. That’s ancient in computer years. This is the only computer I’ve ever owned. My husband and both kids had computers way before I got my own. Prior to receiving mine for Christmas from Jim, I borrowed my step-daughter’s computer. No one ever said it was ideal, but it worked.

Jim has been telling me that I need a new computer for a couple of years. He calls my laptop a dinosaur. Maybe that’s why I like it. I’m a bit of a dinosaur, myself. I finally had to admit that he may be right, though. The cold hard truth is tough to accept sometimes.

I’d really rather just keep my old computer and not even look at the new ones, but the time comes when even the most treasured of tools needs to be replaced. So, I enlisted the assistance of a younger coworker to help me gather an idea of price today. He was able to find a few decent deals online.

I plan to discuss my options with Jim when I see him on Saturday. He did well when he bought this laptop for me. Perhaps he can help me a select a replacement that I love as much as my poor, tired dinosaur. It hasn’t left me yet, but it’s waving good-bye. Thank you for reading Ozarks Maven! If you’ve enjoyed my little seeds of wisdom and joy, please subscribe to Ozarks Maven, Like Ozarks Maven on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter or Instagram @OzarksMaven.

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