Guess who... Ok I'll stop now.
Tada, it was the HD. Josh changed it, brought back all our files and junk from the backup, and it's sparkly and fast again.
I love my intelligent husband. I was ready to cry and say we have to take it in to be fixed somewhere, and he donned his Cape of Awesome and said, "It's the hard drive Carol! I'll just fly over to Best Buy, buy a replacement, and fix it for you!"
So he did.

Except he drove, but.. you know.
So, I'm back to bl.. Sorry, corny song lyrics keep coming to mind.
I'm back! And working on that commission again, tyvm ~
NewShine!
Cheeeeers!
-Carol
PS,
HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY *devils-horizon AND `Mithgariel!!!
Hah, at least I got it half-right with the hardware issue - only the wrong hardware, heh.
Viruses can be nasty, but they're usually cheaper to fix (unless it's one of the evil ones that corrupts your BIOS, but I don't think those exist for Mac). At least hardware failure is straightforward enough