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.