Tech Review: Targus Versavu Keyboard Case

So I finally landed a keyboard case & thought I’d do a review of it for you in case you’re looking for one as well. Click here or here to see the case I have {I found mine on sale at a store nearby. After researching it I’ve found that it’s discontinued, but they have other cases that are almost identical to it and those can be found here}.

Pros

• I personally love the bone white color. At first I was unsure about it, I was worried that it’d get dirty, but so far so good.
• It has 360 degree rotation. I have only ever owned one case that was not a 360 case. I love the ability to rotate my iPad on a stand in a vertical or horizontal position and having that on a keyboard case is just perfect for me.
• It has raised felted edges around the keyboard preventing the keyboard from touching the iPad itself. This was a plus as I was concerned about the keyboard scratching my iPad (even though I have a screen protector on it, it’s a pain to have it get scratched).

Cons

• It’s not a slim case by any means. I didn’t measure it, but I’d guess that it’s 1 inch – 1 1/2 inches thick.
• It’s not  exactly light weight. At 14.56 ounces it’s just short of a pound. When you add in the weight of the iPad (mine is an iPad 2 Wifi) your now carrying around 2.24 pounds. While 2.24 pounds isn’t much, combined with the thickness of the case it definitely takes away from that sleek modern feel of just the iPad on it’s own.
• The keys are not quiet. You know how those silicone keyboards don’t really make any noise when you type on them? Yeah, these keys aren’t quiet. They aren’t as noisy as some of the regular keyboards I’ve used, but in a room that’s dead quiet you can definitely hear the typing.

Really for me the case is perfect. I don’t have a lot of bad things to say about it and it definitely serves it’s purpose.

I’ve only had it a couple of weeks now, but I do love it.

Circuit Assembly Notebook

Hey all,

Today I have for you the Circuit Assembly Notebook. Some of you may already have had your assembly this late in the year, but I was using it as a test for what I would like to do for the district convention notebooks. Let me know what you think.

This notebook can be printed and bound for those that like to use pen/pencil or using the Adobe Reader app on your tablet you can actually type in the fields & it will save your information.

Click here for the notebook.

Enjoy!

DIY: Hand Drawn Chalkboard Art

So a couple weeks ago the husband bought me a beautiful chalkboard. I swooned over it. Of course right away I went to buy some chalk, but our small town Walmart was sold out. For two weeks they’ve been sold out. Until the day before yesterday actually. You see when pretty much the only store you have is Walmart you go frequently & when they don’t have what you are looking for you keep checking back for it. Anyway I finally was able to get some chalk to start on some drawing.

I scoured the interwebs & Pinterest for ideas and how to tips. The most common idea was to create a grid. I found this tutorial and figured I’d give it a shot. It was handy that the image was there with the grid already on it & I didn’t have to print it out {since A.) I don’t have any ink in my printer right now and B.) I saved the image to my phone and just referenced it instead of a piece of paper. Yay! Saving trees!}

Here’s after my first session:

And here’s the finished project:

I’ll admit I’m not 100% thrilled with it. The chalk took a lot of getting used to. I think I’ll also be looking for chalk markers soon. But for now it was fun & I enjoyed it.

**Update: The day after I finished, before I had a chance to hang up the chalkboard, it got accidentally wiped against and part of the lettering on the lower half got smeared. I’ve already wiped it down again & will be starting my next design.**

2013: A Year in Review

So this is kind of late, but better late than never right? I realized this was still sitting in drafts tonight & decided that even though there are blanks I’m going to post it anyway.

What did we do this past year?

January –

February –

March – We celebrated our first anniversary, quietly at home.

April – I started a new job, a lot closer to home.

May –

June – We watched another class of students graduate high school. I converted the husband & in-laws to Apple fans with the purchase of their iPhones.

July – We went to a couple of conventions & spent some time with my parents.

August – My parents celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary.

September – I started this blog & we got the keys to the new house.

October – We moved in the new house.

November – We snagged some awesome Black Friday Deals My grandparents celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary & my in-laws celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary. A good friend left to live in New York for a year. My 4 year old niece told us we should have kids so she could play with them.

December – Our water heater got replaced, we had the drama of Michael Tyson coming to my parent’s house & we enjoyed some good family time finishing up some projects around the house.

Let’s Face It

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and I’ve come to a conclusion. I blog for me. I write for me. For me to remember. For me to enjoy. For me to think back on things and contemplate them. So if everything I do here is for me, why should I say I’m not going to talk about this or that when it’s something that’s a part of me? Although it’s wonderful to have readers, honestly I don’t have very many at the moment & although I would love to have more readers I’ve decided not to worry about that any more. I’m going to be me and that’s it.

Most of my life I’ve always written a journal, sometimes every day, sometimes once a month, but I always was writing. I stopped writing around the time I got married & I’ve honestly missed it. I’ve missed that stress release. I’ve missed talking things out with just me to figure them out. So I’ve decided to get back to more of that and I’m going to use this space to help out.

The first thing that has been on my mind has to do with this past weekend. Although awhile ago I told you why I don’t talk about religion and politics, I’m going to talk about it today. I’m going to tell you that we are Jehovah’s Witnesses. Before you judge me, stop. I’m asking you not to judge me. If you want to know more about my religion and what we believe you can visit jw.org. But, if you don’t want too that’s ok too.

I’m letting you know now, you’re going to see post about going to meetings, assemblies and conventions, & our family worship night. If you’re not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses it doesn’t mean you can’t read these post, or even use something from the post (i.e. Printables, notebooks, etc.). All I’m doing is asking for you to please be polite, grown ups about this & if you don’t have some nice to say don’t say anything at all.

If you are one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, it’s nice to meet you brother/sister. I hope you find what you are looking for here & if you don’t I hope you let me know so I can help out. Soon the blogging will be going under construction & when it’s all said and done we will return with some handy links for you.

With all that being said, this past weekend we went to the circuit assembly in English. Since I’m a “crossover” and still don’t 100% understand Spanish we try to catch all of the important events in English & will even include English meetings on a semi-regular basis in addition to all of our Spanish meetings, assemblies & conventions.

Anywho, I’m rambling again. The circuit assembly was so encouraging. We had already had our Spanish assembly back in October. It was also a special assemblies for us because one of the congregations in our small town {we only have 3, 2 English & 1 Spanish} was the host congregation for the district overseer and he gave an awesome talk on Tuesday. That talk on Tuesday was really the final push we needed to make sure we were at this assembly. We had a substitute district overseer from California, who was so funny & he would find these ways to say things very straightforward, but not in a way to offend anyone. Needless to say we will miss him.

It’s just about impossible to get a picture of the husband, so this one below is only one of two pictures that I got the whole weekend, the other picture being identical to this one, but with my mom.

Friday Fours

So I’m hoping this will be the start of something new around here. Friday Fours will be a recap of four things that happened this week, even if there’s not a post about each event I feel like if I recap it here at least I’ll have some memory of it later. I’m going to stop blabbering now.

Friday Fours:

1. My chair at work has been causing me serious back pain. For the past few months I’ve been suffering in silence (at least at work). On Wednesday I let my boss know the situation & that it needed to be fixed. I was happy to be told to pick my chair & if needed they will purchase it just for me.

2. We got treated to dinner out twice this week. Not really a big deal, but since we are cutting back on going out to eat to once a week it was nice to not have to cook or do dishes.

3. While my parents were in Oklahoma this week they texted me asking what kind of meat Lamb Fries were made of. If you really want to know you can click here, but don’t say I didn’t warn you that it’s gross.

4. This weekend we will be taking a trip to the city to look for our clothes for the assembly in March. We typically like to match & this time the husband wants to go all out. So that should be fun.

Well, there’s four. Have a great weekend y’all!

All Used Up

So I told you I’d be back after the new year, but I haven’t been. And it’s not because I had this awesome reason like we went on vacation or we’ve been relaxing & enjoying time off or I’ve just been so busy with projects that I’ll have a whole butt load of post for you in a few days. It’s because I have nothing to say. I feel like all my words are all used up. It’s not that I haven’t thought about writing or posting or taking those pics & finishing that DIY project, because I have. I even started a new project for my office/room that I hope to share soon. It’s just that nothing’s ready yet. Nothing is complete. And while I could just talk about life there isn’t anything exciting or new to tell you. Nothing more than the normal day to day stuff and that’s it. So I’m promising to write when I have something to say, a project to share or feeling to express, but in the meantime I’m not making stuff up just for the sake of making it up. So go check out some of my fav blogs & enjoy.

Happy Friday

We’ll return next week back to our regular scheduled programming.

It’s Friday!!

Top Three Favorites from this morning’s blog roll:

1. This awesome personality test from Two Martinis. Here’s what it had to say about me:
Independent Thinkers are analytical and witty persons. They are normally self-confident and do not let themselves get worked up by conflicts and criticism. They are very much aware of their own strengths and have no doubts about their abilities.
Have a little fun with us and see what this test has to say about you {click here}

2. This customizable calendar from Young House Love. You can download it from their site & it’s formatted in 8.5″x11″ so no special printing needed. Then just attach your 4×4″ photos to the grey box or grab the photoshop format & print it all at once.

3. Book Club – starting January 2014. I may only join in for a couple of the months, but the list is out for the year from Life of Bon. I’m going to start grabbing the books I’ll be reading now, so that there’s no excuse when it’s time to read it.

Want your blog to be on my blog roll? Simply leave a comment & share the link to your blog.

It is time to spill the beans

Our family has grown.

Growing up my family has always had dogs. Not just one or two, at least three & sometimes 5 {or more when my parents were breeding the dogs}. So when my dad asked if we wanted to take in Blue, the Italian Greyhound, it caught me by surprise. The husband & I have wanted a dog for a little while now, but we were being picky & it wasn’t that all the dogs we saw were mean, but we wanted a certain breed & personality. To hear that my parents, who only once in my life had given a dog away {we had dogs from when they were puppies until they passed away}, were needing a new home for one of the dogs shocked me. At first I didn’t think he was serious. It wasn’t until this past weekend when we spent some time with them that I realized they were.

The four of us talked about it & it became obvious that my parents needed a break. They have dogs for 33 years with at least 20+ years of multiple dogs. They are ready for a break.

So, in two weeks we will be taking in Blue. He’s a sweetheart. He came to our family a few years ago. We had just put my dad’s dog, Wishbone, down a few weeks prior. My mom was at the store, my brother was out doing his normal weekend things & my dad left quickly & came back with Blue. Everyone went about their business as usual, and Blue spent three hours just sitting with me watching TV.

He loves to play fetch & cuddle under the covers with you. A phrase often used to describe greyhounds just fits him perfectly, “Forty mile an hour couch potatoes.”

In time, we may end up taking in the two remaining dogs {Ginger, a short hair Chihuahua, & Brusier, a long hair Chihuahua}, but for now it’ll just be Blue.

We’re so excited. It’ll be fun introducing him to our more country lifestyle. I hope that you all will love him as much as we do.

**Update 1: While my parents are on vacation we also have their two chihuahuas. So for a little while our family has made the jump from 2 to 3 to 5. We are also considering having the dogs go back & forth between the two houses, kind of like joint custody, but on a monthly or every other month kind of thing.**