I am the cheap one in our family. For years I have refused to let The Daddy spend money on a USB hub, preferring instead to give up my mouse every time I needed to plug any extra USB device into my laptop.

Then he found one for $10 on Amazon, at which point I had to give up and gratefully accept his generous gift.

I didn’t check it out before he bought it. What you can’t see in the photo is that the central LED also changes color about twice a second.

I am just a little bit worried there may be a strip joint hiding in there somewhere.

A sad fact of my multi-faceted life is that I have to prioritize in a major way, and many things fall by the wayside. Like answering emails (sorry people But I do love receiving them!) and getting to know some of my favorite bloggers better.

Here’s someone I would definitely try and catch up with if I was in California : Andrea, of Sweet Life.

I am guest posting about home schooling over there today.

Yay!

At last!

Crawfish season rolls around again!

We love crawfish!

No crawfish were harmed in the making of this …

Oooooops.

Not some new band totally rocking the underground music scene (because I would know all about that! Hah!).

This was the photo I took of my children this afternoon after everybody else remembered St Patrick’s Day for us.

Notice that unlike 99.9% of children at Baby Sister’s preschool this morning, none of them are wearing green. However, her  teacher was kind enough to color her hair, right before she banned her from the class St Patrick’s Day party for talking too much at naptime (grrr, but that’s a topic for another post). The Post Office had stocked up on green lollipops too, nice big ones which resulted in satisfyingly green tongues.

For my part, however, yet again I FAIL! Another example: this afternoon we made a cake, and right after I put the red food coloring into the icing, I realized “Oh! Whoops! Wrong color!”.

Ironic, when you consider the fact that had the kids’ great, great, great (not sure how many greats) grandfather not found it necessary to change his identity to avoid the forces of the law, their surname would have been Finucan.

In related news, this morning The Daddy woke me up at some totally unreasonable hour as he was leaving for work, to inform me that one of the drawers in the master bathroom was full of water. As it turned out to be a closed drawer situated nowhere near any pipes this can only be the work of the Little People.

The Leprechauns. I have been dismissive of them. They are surely showing their displeasure.

(Update: It wasn’t Finucan. We are not quite sure what it was but I got the wrong side of the family. The saintly side. My apologies to all concerned…)

Just in case anybody has been losing sleep over it, I found my lost scanner cable. But now I have mislaid the battery charger for my camera.

So I as unable to take photos today of The Wictor wearing candy pink nail polish on his fingers and toes. I am devastated.

What? He insisted and really, he is 2 and will likely not be leaving the house tomorrrow.

I did rethink, though, when I came across this link.

Yesterday I was in Lowes, minding my own business, when I happened to pass this toilet seat. And I had to have it, in the way most of you probably just have to have a pair of shoes (whereas for me, shoes, nah….they mostly make my feet look silly.)

So, not only have I stooped to blogging about a toilet seat, I am also forced to admit it was an impulse buy.

You might understand better when I tell you about our guest bathroom (for overseas readers, the guest bathroom is the main bathroom downstairs, the one all your guests are sure to use even if they only stop over for a quick cup of coffee. As opposed to the other 3 bathrooms, which are for family).

We haven’t really done too much to this house since we bought it, almost 2 years ago. And when we bought it, it had (and still has) this interesting quirk: the previous owners had poured money into decorating the master bedroom, including expensive blinds, swathes of drapes and the only wood floors in the house. The rest of the house was simply and sympathetically decorated, if not quite our taste. The guest bathroom, however, the one room everybody is sure to see, is a mess. The wall texture looks like it has been fingerpainted on by a hyperactive toddler. The 1980s fake marble countertop has a huge stain on it and the fake gold is peeling off the faucets. But the absolutely worst thing? The toilet seat. Scratched and beat up and bubbling. Urgh.

When I mentioned this to The Daddy he pointed out that the previous owners looked the type to have no friends and spend most of their time in the master bedroom.

(Ahem. Watching TV. They had their TV in there. What did you think he meant?).

And here I will hold my hand up. Yes, sir, guilty as charged, it has taken me this long to take action too. I was waiting to upgrade the whole bathroom. Somehow it didn’t register that I could buy a new toilet seat for $25 and the room would instantly look 100% better.

We are all enthralled with our new throne. The moment The Daddy arrived home yesterday T-Bot ran to him to regale him with the details of its technical features. Because in the end I spent $48 for an upgrade. And believe me,  the extra money is worth it when you have three children using the potty all day long:

This is a toilet seat which doesn’t bang.

Can you imagine that? Leave it half up and it glides down gently… And silence reigns Inzaburbs.

Well, almost… Last time I looked I still had three children.

I have managed to overstretch myself a little. This week I have at least one “extra” thing scheduled four days out of five on top of my normal schedule. I think the only way to get it all done is to go on autopilot. Much as I would like to blog I don’t have the time. I must write something, though, or else my Mom will worry (hello Mum!). So here is a picture of my cat:

Fiji. The Daddy calls him my Familiar because he follows me everywhere like a very quiet slinky little dog.

Oh, OK then, like a cat.

At night he sleeps on my pillow and purrs in my face. Strangely for a cat, his breath doesn’t smell.

In other news, we haven’t abandoned the T-Bot’s beloved science experiments. Here’s a fun one we did last week with yeast, sugar and water in a glass bottle. It blew the balloon up almost immediately.

I have been avoiding the project the T-Bot really wants to work on. Before you judge me, listen to why. He wants to build a rocket to fly into outer space. And I am scared of heights.