I would just like to wish all of you a happy Mother’s Day!

The Best Mom in the World! (Mom and me, 1968).

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!!

If you are like are us, you have too many mobile electronics (PDA’s, phones, MP3 players, etc.,) and charging stations all of over your house–especially if you have teenagers!  Earlier this week, Norm ordered a few AC/USB wall outlets for our house.  The first one, was from a company called Newer Technology.  We really liked this one because the USB ports have “Safety Shutters” which automatically shuts off the power to the USB ports when a connecting cable is removed.  We’re all for energy efficiency! 

It is suppose to install into a “standard wall outlet box”, according to the package.  Norm is a licensed electrician, so no problem here.  But hold on…

Check out the size of the Newer Technology outlet (the white one on the left), compared to a standard GFCI outlet on the right.  Hmmm…that’s going to be a stretch to get that into our existing standard outlet box, but we gave it a shot.

We placed it in the outlet box before we wired it just to see if it would fit.  It would, but just barely.  So, Norm proceeded to wire it in.

Once it was all wired up, it would not fit at all.  I was so disappointed, because I love this idea!  It would probably work if you had a double outlet box. (And, this particular box had two cables running to it, so that played a factor, as well).  But for where we wanted to put this, it would not work. 

Which brings me to the next product Norm ordered:  It is a surge protector from APC which has four outlets and two USB charging ports.  

It plugs directly into a standard 3-prong receptacle–so no hard wiring needed!  How easy is that?  I like this, but wish it had the energy-saving mode that the Newer Technology outlet did.

It was easy enough to install and provides us with more outlets, which you can never have too many of, right?

In case you are wondering, both items were ordered from Amazon.com.  We were not paid for our review.  I just thought I would share another episode of our weekend in home improvement!

There are two more shopping days until Christmas, and it looks like we got one present a little early—lucky us.

Yesterday, I noticed this bad smell coming from the basement.  The first culprit was the cat box.   Anxious to have my house smelling more like the holidays, I cleaned the box out completely (or “digging for treasures,” as I call it), and figured the smell would soon dissipate.  With Christmas coming and company on the way, do you suppose it did?  Of course not—it got worse!  So, we examined every square inch of the basement, cautiously sniffing everything that was suspect.  We narrowed it down to a particular area, which happens to be a hallway with nothing in it.  We were about to give up when my son said the dreaded words, “It smells like something has died”.  Bingo.  That’s exactly what it smelled like, and it is horrendous.

I have tried everything to mask the scent, but there is no soy candle in my arsenal of scented candles that can compete with this.  This is one gift that keeps on giving, and giving.

Where are those cats when you need ‘em?

This blog has sunk to a new low.  I cannot believe I posted this…