Life is a mashup of toys and gadgets, hobbies and recipes, kids and odd socks, all held together with love and duct tape.

By the time I saw this post at Wired, the Boba Fett hoodie was already sold-out (boo-hoo). But the rest of the Marc Ecko limited edition Star Wars collection is still worth mentioning!

The products are expensive ($24-38 for a tee), but if you’re a humongous Star Wars fan with extra cash lying around, you might want to check them out anyway. I’m not sure I’d wear this Princess Leia tee much, but it’s still pretty awesome.

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We’ve been passing a nasty virus around our family, and our three year-old daughter is the most recent to suffer from the terrible sore throat and high fever.

I had it first, and after a double-dose antibiotic shot to the glutes (which almost made me pass out because I’m not good with needles), plus a course of oral antibiotics (complete with side effects), I’ve finally got my tonsils feeling normal again (after the whole 2-week ordeal).

It turns out it probably wasn’t strep throat after all, which means all those antibiotics didn’t do me any good. grrrr. I’m totally switching doctors.

So back to my daughter. Normally, she’s happy, cooperative, lively and delightful. (She calls Sleeping Beauty “Princess Booty.” How adorable is that?) Seriously, I’m not just saying this because she’s mine. Okay, maybe I am. But I have also had people with no umbilical connection remark on how happy she is. The word “sparkling” has been used to describe her personality.

Well, last night, after a week of her own fevered misery, my sparkling fairy princess turned into a screeching, sleepless, orc-child. I know it was only because she felt terrible, but she was mean!

Sick kids always feel the worst between two and four in the morning. So, I was trying to keep her from waking the entire south side of Indianapolis. Holding her, walking around with her, offering drinks, turning on cartoons… battling sleep exhaustion from my own recent illness, and several nights of being up in the wee hours with her. She didn’t want anything I offered.

Finally, I gave up the dance of appeasement and plopped down on the couch with her on my lap. I draped a blanket over her back, which she fussed over and made me re-position. I put my arms around her, and she yelled at me for putting them on the wrong part of her back. She pushed one off and pulled the other around more firmly.

Once she was settled, I leaned back to rest my head against the couch. I closed my eyes and hoped we could both doze off.

No luck! My orc princess gave me a loud, stern, “NO, MOM!” and reached up to pull my head back up. “Head up! Keep your eyes OPEN!”

Are you kidding? FINE. I just wanted her to go to sleep and stop yelling. For the next five minutes, we stared at each other. Her red-rimmed, purple-shadowed eyes were barely open, but she kept them on me, the little sleep Nazi.

She finally fell asleep, and I wiggled out from under her and crashed on the other end of the sofa. Ahhh, motherhood…

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I have been a compulsive hand-washer and outspoken microbe-phobe for most of my life. For example, back in my sorority days, I would make regular rounds of the chapter house with a can of Lysol disinfectant spray.

I hit just about every common surface, including the phone switchboard, bathroom light switches, door handles… My nickname was “Psycho.” You get the idea.

My hubby, knowing about my neuroses (and loving me in spite of them), sent me this link from Gizmodo today. The article, “10 Gadgets that Help you Survive in Cheap Hotel Rooms,” set my geeky and germy-phobic heart strings a-quiver in harmony.

I wish I’d had some of these gadgets in my arsenal back in college. Cheers!

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