The Little Things

This is arguably our most boring post so far, but I have several reasons for writing.

First, it's been awhile and I know how much some of you like to hear what we're up to even if it's nothing exciting.  And I'm sure good portion of you won't find any of this exciting.

Second, I have made a wonderful and amazing discovery, at least it's wonderful and amazing to me.  But first I should first give you a bit of background.  As some of you know, I am working from home.  My work station consists of my laptop and a bunch of accessories: my printer/scanner (which incidentally is a huge thorn in my side), my internet stick, a wireless mouse, and a large supplemental keyboard (the mouse and keyboard are critical because they're so much more comfortable to use when working on a computer for 8-10 hours straight).  However, each of these accessories requires a USB port and my laptop only has room for two.  So I have to pick and choose what I want to use.  Countless times during the day I'm pulling one thing out to use another.  If I need the internet (and I usually do), I'll pull out the keyboard.  And then the mouse goes out if I need to start printing.  Maybe this seems trivial, but I find myself constantly switching plugs all day long, and the printer plug always manages to find its way to the floor behind the desk, requiring me to crouch under the desk and blindly fiddle around just to get a hold of it.  It's a huge pain.  Trust me.  

Well, today Matt and I move again to a third apartment, but this time it's going to be our last temporary apartment.  I'm sure of this.  We managed to find a permanent place and we should be signing the lease for that today.  It's not available until the 20th though (and our friend Megan returns home from Brisbane this weekend), so that's why we're moving yet again.  I promise there is an end in sight.  

Anyway, this morning I took some procrastination time to pack up a few of my office supplies and stopped to dust off my supplemental keyboard.  I just so happened to flip it over and what did I see? It was a USB port hiding underneath one side of the keypad.  You can imagine the sheer joy it brought me to think that I could use not two but three devices at a time.  The time and hassle this would save me! Well, guess what?  There was a second one on the other side of the keypad.  Life couldn't be better.  

Now maybe you're thinking that I'm just a little bit of an airhead to have missed the extra USB ports to begin with, but in my defense I must tell you that they're extremely well hidden.  I'm just glad I discovered this now instead of six months down the road.  I'm so thrilled that despite the fact I have piles of work that are long overdue I couldn't stop myself from blogging about it.

The other reason I thought I'd write is because I wanted to tell you about two little everyday conveniences we have here in Australia that make me very happy.  The first thing is the switches on the electrical outlets.  I put a picture up so you can see what I'm talking about.  You can actually turn on and off power to the outlet.  So instead of having to pull plugs out of the outlets when you don't need them you just flip the switch.  A great energy saver in my opinion.  

The second thing I like - and pardon the subject matter - are the toilets.  There are two buttons, one big button for a big flush and a little button for a small flush. Obviously you know which button is for what.  This makes so much sense to only use the amount of water you really need.  Seems a waste that all flushes in the US are automatically big ones.  I'm not sure why the toilet industry in the US hasn't caught on. 

Anyway, I think that's it for now.  I should get back to work!