It’s been a long time since I had a tablet, and I really felt like I needed one again because using the Apple Trackpad 2 was starting to hurt my fingers. After a bit of research I decided to go with the XP-PEN Deco Pro Small. It comes in a small or medium size, but as you can see from the above photo, it is really not that small! In fact, it’s larger in width than my new M1 MacBook Pro. I’ve only had it for a couple of days, so this review is just my initial thoughts.
It comes well-packaged, everything is individually sealed so I was very confident my product was brand new. Upon opening the box, you’ll find the tablet and a pen holder that contains both the pen itself and 8 replaceable pen nibs. The lid of the pen holder can be used as a pen stand. As well as the tablet being sealed, there is another layer of protective film over the surface.
How come we skipped from March to June? Simple: because I’ve been a lazy git.
Okay, that’s not necessarily true. March – May was kind of a blur. Not enough was happening and then too much was happening and it was all a little wild. I tacked on some April notes onto my March spread, despite April being my birthday it was the quietest month for me socially because we were knee-deep in house hunting and I was finishing up my green card application. I already had a few spreads that I was referring to for my green card app and house-hunting did not require me to use a bullet journal, so that was that.
I did actually do a spread for May, but it was such a busy period that I didn’t take a photo of the spread. I really liked the style of it though, so I have mimicked the style in the above June spread :) I realised that I only really use this journal as a to-do list, and I don’t even finish all of those in a full week period, so instead of having a new page per week, I’ve just put the w/c on the left-hand side column whenever a new week begins.
I’ve moved the calendar to the left hand side, because I realised it was unnecessary to write out the ‘MTWTFSS’ twice on the same page. It’s much easier to just have my tasks list under the calendar, where the days of the week are already written at the top.
The only difference between this spread and May’s is that I’ve done a more decorative ‘June’. May’s title was just written at the top right-hand corner, and I had some key calendar dates highlighted with notes next to them. It looked a bit busy but it was helpful for me. I don’t really have any monthly deadlines this month so I’ve forgone that for clean space.
Sometimes, that empty space should just be filled with peace instead of scribbles.
Yay! Today was the day! Well, technically it should have been ready for us yesterday I think? But we ended up not having a chance to swing by yesterday. So we went this evening after Jacky was done with work. We dropped by to change the lock and unpack a few bits and pieces. We’ll be slowly moving in over the next month and a half, so we’ll just be taking a few boxes at a time, and eventually hiring some movers to help with the furniture. This will also give us an opportunity to do a mini-purge of our possessions as we move.
We’re so very excited to be in our new place. There’s nothing there yet so we just mostly took photos in front of the kitchen island. Even with all the blinds all shut there is still so much natural light coming through; it’s amazing.
I’ve had many second thoughts and doubts about this place after we committed to purchasing it but every time I go back through the front door it just feels right and I feel at home and I’m excited all over again. God has blessed us greatly with this new house and I’m so very thankful. Soli Deo Gloria!
Also, happy 1st of June! Goodness me, is 2021 almost half over already? I can’t quite believe it.
Phew. On Sunday Jacky and I got our final Moderna shots for our COVID-19 vaccination. Within 2 weeks we should reach 95% immunity, yay! We will remain cautious regardless but it feels great to know we’ve completed our jabs.
But… ohhh boy that second jab was rough. For me, at least. It was really, really rough. I was basically cycling through every single side effect: pain and swelling at the injection site (arm), feeling unwell, tired, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, chills, fever, nausea and swollen lymph nodes. Yep, every. single. one.
I felt fine after the first injection, just mild pain and some numbness on my arm while Jacky had it rough, but when I was explaining my symptoms to him after this injection he said that’s exactly how he felt the first time round. Poor guy! He had to take a day off work that time and I was able to take care of him, bring him food and water and medicine etc.
This time though, he was pretty much fine. He took some acetaminophen shortly after we got home, but I didn’t and ended up developing a mild fever the evening, so I took NyQuil and slept early. I already had the next day off but Jacky informed me the following morning that he’d also taken the day off work to take care of me. Best husband ever.
We did our morning Bible reading together then I was basically bed-ridden lol. I’d slept really well but my entire body still felt weak and numb and everything hurt. I was trying to go back to sleep all morning but my body wasn’t having it, despite feeling absolutely exhausted. So after lunch I took DayQuil and… ended up falling asleep for 3hrs hahaha. I felt so much better after I woke up though. Oh, I also drank a ton of water.
Jacky started feeling a bit rough in the evening so I got him some NyQuil as well and then he fell fast asleep. I didn’t sleep as well as I had the night before, but Jacky said he slept really well. So, after all that rambling what have we learned?
Get vaccinated!!
Take some over-the-counter medicine as recommended by your doctor sooner rather than later…?
NyQuil contains some magical substance to help with sleep :o
Yep. That’s it. I’m excited for things to start going back to ‘normal’ because I’m beginning to feel very drained from quarantine, but I also want to make sure I’m protecting myself and those around me by being as careful as I can.
Oh man. Remember how I wrote that my employer decided to buy me a new device for work? Well, it’s here! I’m typing on it right now. It’s much lighter than my previous MBP and it is much faster, as one would expect. It took a couple of hours to set up but actually, now that I think of it, setting up and transferring thousands of files in a couple of hours really isn’t too bad.
Opening applications or starting it up hasn’t been as lightning fast as I was expecting given what I saw of it online, but its speed did shock me when I put my laptop into clamshell mode and my external monitors did not even blink. I thought it meant the laptop didn’t work properly in clamshell mode, but actually it had already switched modes!
I should have expected the silver version when it arrived – duh, that’s what I ordered. But the colour still surprised me a little because this is the first silver MBP I’ve seen of Apple’s new lineup. All of the device reviews or model devices I’ve seen have been grey. Now that I’ve got the silver version, I do quite like it but I think the grey actually looks more sophisticated.
I thought I’d hate the touch bar because I just didn’t see the point in it. However, within 10mins of using it I fell in love. It’s so much faster to use than moving the mouse around to click the right buttons, and being someone who uses hotkeys like nobody’s business it’s exactly what I didn’t know I needed haha. The only downside is that I sometimes end up clicking buttons on it by mistake when I’m going for the delete key.
