One Clean Earwig

I love blogging because even the most mundane of tasks takes on a special allure ....

I was mopping my ever more disgusting, dried peaches and cheerios, tons of dirt from the backyard, fallout from breakfast, high-traffic light tile kitchen floor. I was only able to do a speed sweep before the baby tried sampling used food items from my debris pile. I scooped up the pile and the baby putting one in the trash and the other in his Johnny Jump Up sling shot hanging in the nearby door way, respectively.

Since I never seem to have the side of the sink clean that I need for mop water, I fill a metal tub with soap and water from the spray nozzle (my pre-teen's favorite method of getting a drink lately). As I mop, the baby cries. He folds himself in half ignoring the tray that surrounds him for safety purposes and bangs his head into the door jamb. I console him while kneeling and scraping dried food. He seems to calm for a minute as I do a choreographed dance routine with a kitchen towel drying the wet spots so as to not have any more head injuries when my toddler comes down. I mop, he cries. I would stop but the floor is so bad that even the ants think it unsanitary.

An unfortunate earwig should have been as discerning. He ended up under my mop strands on a whirlwind visit of tile and grout that left him clean but deceased. At least he didn't start crying too.

Do you know why God made babies so cute? It is for days like these when they haven't left your side since midnight, wake you up at 5:00 A.M. and then they cry. My little man is the sweetest most beautiful baby in existence (since my other four are no longer babies), and I will enjoy staring at his precious mug as we curl up for a survival nap later today.

At least the floor is cleaner and I don't have to worry about that earwig sneaking up on me.

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120112193758/clubpenguin/images/a/a8/Mop2.png

Small Potatoes

I sit around at work and at home in good old Idaho and realize that I am small potatoes. I work in retail and make money for corporate America, but precious little for my hard work. I sit on my talents and I squander my dreams. I have great aspirations and great ideas. I fear failure and hope for success. So what is the solution? It lies within the problem. If I am small potatoes, then maybe I should just start small. Do minute things towards lofty goals. Inventions are formed on ideas, successes on baby steps and achievements on attempts.The more that I share my aspirations, the more likely that I will be to pursue them.

"Pomme de terre," that is French for apple of the earth. A vegetable that matures beneath the dirt, soaking in the sun's rays and absorbing its leaves' nutrients, to come forth at a given time in its adult state to help enrich the world. I've always liked potatoes. Now, I know why. I am one. Deep man, deep.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3797/9690672438_2a393cb356_h.jpg

Unpolished Proposal

I have had multiple conversations with my son Shawn about husbands and wives. He thought that boys were wives and girls were husbands, so I have been working with him to get that sorted out. He had one of those conversations with his Grammy where he said to her, "You are a Wife." True enough. Then he says, "I am a husband." So his Grandma says to him, "If you are a husband, where is your wife?" That question took a moment of contemplation. Then he looked at his Grammy and told her, "You'll do!"

I sincerely hope that he gains finesse and presentation skills before he proposes for real, because that technique is not likely to work.

"I don't wanna be at church."

In June of 2010, we traveled 10 hours to Northern California to go to a baby blessing. I never finished this post, and it is a good one, so I am publishing it now.

My sister is 28 years old. She and her husband have been married for five years and they just barely gave me a nephew to spoil. So, of course, I had to make the journey and pay homage to the amazing genetic cuteness that emerged after over forty five hours of childbirth. About a week before our trip, my fifteen year old porcelain crown fell out of my mouth! Almost $600 later, we decided that it would be best to take our more economical car and not our gas guzzling, needs extensive maintenance van. So, my husband stayed with Ben and was a domestic house God during my absence. I would love for him to be a stay-at-home Dad, he makes it all look so easy. I will summarize the torturous trip. We bought a DVD player in Winnemucca for sanity and child preservation purposes. My son Shawn can escape almost any restraint in cars and grocery carts. After the ten hours to our borrowed beds and another hour to my sister's church building, I heard the baby blessing from the foyer while my son J.B. loudly decreed, "I don't want to be at church!" He said it at least three times as we were leaving the chapel. Then we got razzed out on the grass trying to take photos. "I don't want to take pictures, I don't want to take pictures..." Really people! Jokes aren't as funny when they are about you! Okay, it was very funny, the next day. We went back to my sister's house where people kept saying "I don't want watermelon" or I don't want chicken," etc., etc. Just to make fun. What a crazy life I lead.

Broken Toe

Oops! I broke my toe. At least I didn't break it doing something sissy.

I was transporting a dead car battery for my Mom to go get a replacement. I put it behind the passenger seat in the van, close to the side door. It shifted while I was driving my son to preschool. I made a mental note to be careful when I opened the door, just in case. My mental notepad is not a very reliable document! When I arrived at preschool we were late, so I yanked the door open and a large heavy object flew out. The corner of it made direct contact with my index toe and then crashed to the sidewalk. If it wasn't a dead battery before the catapult from a caravan, it was afterwards. It urinated out a little acid from it's trauma. I fell to the grass without any leakage of my own personal fluids, but there was an influx of colorful vocabulary into my cerebral cortex, or wherever.

My four year old opened his door and says "What are you doing Mommy?" Here I was luxuriating on soft green grass on a beautiful sunny day and even though I told him I was hurt, I looked okay to him. So, he trotted on in to school. That's toddler concern for ya! I hobbled his backpack to the door where I received a little concern from the two Moms busy preparing for eight rowdy kids and then I hobbled back to my van.

The good news is that the battery was replaced for free. I didn't mention the plunge to the concrete. Sometimes less information is more. It was two years into a three year warranty, so there wasn't an issue.

To summarize my day, it was pretty awful. My kids weren't helpful, My Mom was over for a while canning peaches, but still hobbles from a knee injury and was having serious issues with it. My Husband was at school from 4:00 p.m. to almost 10:00 p.m. My 13 year old was a walking attitude primarily concerned for himself and terrorizing his siblings before being sent to bed by 8:45p.m. without a backwards glance. He helped about 10% as much as he normally does.

My Little Pony Binder House

I go in crafty phases. I obsess about one craft or another for a while. I get all of the supplies, start a hundred variations and eventually peter out and don't do it again for months. My current obsession is making Barbie Binder Houses. I have started 10-15 and I have completely finished only a handful, because each one is a labor of love. I entered my Lego, Tinkerbell #1 and Asian binders in the count fair and got two 2nd place ribbons and like $3 bucks prize money. Eat your heart out! I spent it all in one place. The little girl that I gave the Tinkerbell binder to won't let her little sister play with her binder unsupervised because it is "award winning." Yes, I do have a binder for the little sister in the works! So, these are some pictures of the My Little Pony binder that I made for a family friend's four year old daughter for her plastic horsies to call home.

This is the finished inside of the binder with a little bed for the ponies. I cut out of one of the flowers from the curtain fabric and sewed it onto a little mauve watermarked pillow to help everything coordinate. It's all in the details. The feet on the bed are little floral porcelain knobs.

This is the inside of the binder without the bed blocking the view. I think the pillows totally match the wall art. I am not sure where I found the pony art, but I will add a link to their work if I can find it again.
I claim "fan art" protection rights.

This is the outside walls of the binder. The original idea for these ingenious binder buildings is from southerncomfort.com. I just jazz them up with couture curtains and fab furniture.

Trapper Keeper

So I don't use my children's real names because the internet is a scary place sometimes, but I still have to share a few brags with the world. I took some awesome (modestly speaking) photos of Trapper at the historic building that I mentioned in my last post. I have to share them because we make really cute people at our house, but they are so wiggly that it is hard to catch them on film. Ah hah! This time I have proof!

Witch Way to Speech Therapy?

I love the stage when kids are really into costumes. I have taken Darth Vader to the grocery store, Disney Princesses to the post office and Superman to the supermarket. This year I have taken a witch (technically a wizard or warlock) to speech therapy three times. We go to this historic building downtown that was built in 1916. I took my camera with me to snap some pictures of the baby and used it on big brother too. People get a kick out of the hat. I think it's super cute. The only time it bothers me is when he is sitting on my lap in front of the computer. It's like staring into a black hole.

Baby Lottery

Time passes so quickly. I wanted to share the fact that I was given an amazing baby boy just one year and one week after my Autistic son Ben moved into a care facility. We knew that it was a miracle to get Ben into one of those homes, but we didn't know that it was also part of God's plan to bring another child into our family. Our son "Trapper" is so wonderfully neuro-typical. He looks and acts like our oldest son. He is observant and interactive and just can't wait to be big. He is in the middle of every wrestling match, crawling over the mound of boys just to be part of the action. He likes to be lifted up to touch the ceiling, turn on and off light switches, speed crawl up the fourteen-step staircase, climb the outdoor slide, and anything else that seems like fun. He's a baby maniac. He says a handful of words and has 5 teeth. He loves hot dogs (chopped up), strawberries, pizza and ice cream. It is so fascinating to watch the development of a person. He is becoming such an individual and enjoying every minute of it. I feel like a lottery winner, having been given a healthy and happy child to complete our family. He is our last one. We made sure this time. I remember how hard it is to keep an active toddler out of trouble. Here we go again. We are lucky people!

Minnie Mouse Barbie Binder House

I am a huge fan of, not so much Barbie, but her house. I always wanted a Barbie house as a kid and never got one. There were four girls, and it would have been a well-used item. So being that I have only one daughter, she has a Barbie house extraordinaire made from an old armoire. I did some research via Pinterest to find inspiration as to how to send a doll house through the mail for a gift and I found this link for Binder Houses: http://southerndisposition.blogspot.com/2011/12/diy-three-ring-binder-barbie-dollhouse.html

I made multiple houses and loved them so much that I am keeping them to enter into the fair. I am posting pictures of the Minnie Mouse version that I made for my daughter's sister from another mister, her best friend from across the street.

I used the white binders with plastic pockets on the front and back so I could have four walls. I made a bedroom, a bathroom and a Gallery wall that can be any room at all.

To find the images on the internet, just go to the "images" tab and look up "white toilet" or "pink fridge," etc. Find images that face forward. If they are turned to the left or right, they look strange. It is sometimes hard to find images facing forward because they look better at an angle to photographers.

I made a bed with reversible blanket, so it can be changed and give two looks. I like to make the pillows two-sided sometimes too. I made a Minnie Mouse rug, but the edges all curled up and it looks silly. Oh well, I tried.

In the original Southern Dispositon blog, she made plain white curtains for her daughter's four binders. I studied Fashion Design in college, seriously considered doing Interior Design and I am a Custom Picture Framer, so I like to really jazz things up.

The curtain is the very best part, in my opinion! It really sets the theme for the whole project.

This is the other side of the blanket. I used upholstery foam cut to 9" by 12" with a thin piece of wood on the bottom and stapled cloth over it. I covered the bottom with felt to hide my staples. When I made the blanket, I cut a square out of the corners the same depth of the bed (about 2") and made tailored corners. I sewed the pillows and my 9 year old daughter stuffed them. We now have decided that 7" by 12" is probably a better size because it still fits two Barbies but doesn't take up so much room.

This is the front and back of the binder. These binders are currently $1.79 at Target. I love being able to do the four walls! The recipient's name could go down the spine to really personalize it.

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So here is my confession, I can't use Modge Podge. That stuff hates me! I tried using it for these binders and everything got wrinkly and ghetto looking.

For this binder, I took 12" x 12" plastic scrap booking sleeves and taped them around the card stock to protect the paper and then I attached to whole page to the binder with double stick scrap booking tape (Recollections brand $2.99 at Michael's). The pages could also be laminated which would cost about $3.00 a page at an office supply store.

I have made other binders in all different themes and will post them as time allows. I wand to figure out how to use this idea for boys since I have five of them. I will have to ponder that.

Last Halloween

I has been almost a year since my son Ben moved into a care home. We were so blessed to find a facility at all. There are about 8-10 kids for each opening. I happened to call a few days before his house was going to choose another boy. I quickly faxed all of the paperwork that they needed and then we waited.


These homes are so expensive that the government isn't really opening anymore. Richard, who is the social worker for the care home company said that is is about $9,000 per child for care and housing. So Ben's house with the six occupants costs about $54,000 per month to run. That is psycho!


Ignoring the bureaucracy, if it wasn't our son, it would be someone else's child, and we were at our wit's end. I was sure that my husband would have a heart attack from all of the stress. He was working full-time, in school full-time and had five kids at home. Me? I have a lot of gray hair.

Well, obviously, he was accepted into the care home. He went in on Halloween morning last year. We still are not sure what to do with ourselves. We are working hard to get organized. He is doing really well. He walks a lot to keep out of trouble. He has lost 30 lbs. and looks great. We were afraid that he would get type 2 diabetes the way he was growing. Having small children in the house and often only one exhausted parent on duty, we couldn't meet his needs.

When he comes home for visits, it is pretty shocking. He is a lot of work. We have forgotten. We feel that he is innocent before God because of his Autism. He is so childlike in his understanding, but he sure knows how to make a little hell for everyone else when he is bored or feeling OCD.

He is twelve years old now and has turned into a handsome young man. I can't wait for the day that Christ makes him whole again. I cry every time that I think about it.It is a long journey and I am so glad to have the help that our family needed and I am so glad that Ben is happy.

Baby Dream

I am very pregnant with my sixth child and fifth boy. My first son CeDricK was a surprise. This little fellow was a shocker, but we are very excited for him to come.

My husband likes to do a baby check each night. He rubs my bulging belly, gets the baby all riled up and then turns on his side and goes to sleep. Since I am about 34 weeks into this endeavor, the baby is pretty good sized. You can feel little limbs and hard places that must be a torso or other bony area.

The other night, once the baby was "activated," my husband says "Wow, that must be a leg. I don't remember the other kids kicking in rhythm like this."

Later, as I was sleeping and dreaming one of my weird pregnancy induced dreams, I felt that leg again inside my belly a couple of times. THEN, the leg was on the outside of my belly! I gave birth to the baby through my belly button! The baby was all clean, which was nice. He was very blonde and beautiful. I don't really make blondes, but it was a dream. We didn't have any diapers for the baby because he was so early, but I found one in a sample pack, unwrapped it from it's packaging and put it on the baby. He was so tiny that the diaper swamped him, so he proceeded to swamp our bed by peeing out of the leg hole of the diaper. Then I gave him a bottle (odd, since I have nursed all of my kids) and was so distracted, that I didn't burp him and he threw up all over the place. I woke up after that.

I am guessing that I am not feeling prepared for a baby yet and that all of my insecurities were surfacing. When I told my husband about the dream, he thought it was pretty strange to dream about giving birth through my belly button. He reacted like most good fathers would and brought home a package of size 1 diapers.

Photo credit:http://www.pregnancystagesweekbyweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/baby-in-belly.jpg

Speech Therapy Again

We have come full circle. I attempted speech therapy with Ben (notice the word "attempted"). Putting an active and aggressive kid in a room for 45 minutes is pure torture, for everyone. I will spare some of the detail, because it isn't pretty, but really people, is there another way? I have this theory that Autistic kids specifically would be a lot more receptive to speech therapy in their own environment instead of in a torture chamber.

But I digress. My youngest son Shawn is delayed in his speech and comprehension. Our pediatrician is an amazing lady and she wants him in speech therapy and to get a psych eval to determine that he doesn't have a disability of some kind. Having lived in the trenches for almost twelve years, I can tell you this...what we are dealing with this time is dramatically different. I think that he is just developing at his own speed and not that of the "normal" kid. He says at least three new words a day and today was saying "I am AWESOME." Yes, you are!

Could he have Oddism (that is my word for Asperger's, because they are not at all similar)? If he has high-functioning Autism, I will eat my hat! We are talking: eye contact, social skills, initiating play, verbalizing, following simple commands, etc. I know the signs. I watch for them with all of my children now.

I am a hard-core, combat trained Mom of all trades. As we face a familiar situation, I say "Bring it on." I have handled worse.


Update: The first speech therapist had us come two times and then determined that Shawn didn't need her. We went to another office that our pediatrician referred us to and we love it! He is doing so well. He is communicating his needs. He has mastered. "Yes" and "No." If he doesn't like what he is being told, he will tell you "Be Quiet." He is even yelling at his older brother. Ah! Be careful what you wish for.

This little brown eyed boy is an angel and I am loving this experience with him and watching him grow by leaps and bounds!

"Be Nice" Head Banger

I think that God grants us the blessing of forgetfulness. Otherwise, we battle weary mothers would go A.W.O.L. during the toddler years. Yeah, they are very cute, but they are a full-body work out. If my child is head butting me when I get him out of the settings menu of my computer or taking away the box of fruit snacks, he is taking off his diaper and peeing on carpets, counter tops and floor rugs. When I get up the courage to take him out in public, I almost always regret it. So much opinion should not be allowed in a 38 lb. thrashing body of attitude. Thrashing, kicking and using your large cranium as weapons should require a permit, a very hard to qualify for permit.

Don't these young children understand how much their mommies do for them on a daily basis. Do we get any appreciation? No, I tell you. NO! I don't even need verbal reassurance that I am a good Mom, I would be happy with a mandatory break each day as my child actually naps, so that I can collect my faculties. I'm not even sure that I have faculties.

I know that on some level that what I say ad nosium each day must be sinking in a little. Now as my son is hitting me with his hard head he says "Be nice, be nice." I assume that he is referring to his desired behavior and not that he made a "nice" shot, but who knows.

I wish that I could talk to "the powers that be" to have some tighter legislation placed on the behavior of children under the age of five, but who am I kidding? Who is going to take me seriously with peanut butter on my shirt, a frizzy ponytail and blood shot eyes?

KARMArt

When Ben was about five or six, we had a Developmental Therapist that worked with him in our home. Her name escapes me, so I will call her Inga so that she sounds more exotic. "Inga" had been recently divorced from her second husband and moved from the East Coast to live with her daughters. She had stepped back into being "Mom" and did most of her daughter's work for them. She was on five different medications to help her survive her divorce, etc. She worked with Ben. Anyone of those things could cause stress in someone's life.



She confided many things to me as most in-home therapists do as they integrate into your family. She said that she practiced retail therapy by going to Wal-Mart and walking around the store, filling a cart with all of the things that she wanted but couldn't afford. When she was done with her fictitious shopping spree, she would ditch the cart and go home.

I have worked in retail and know that those who leave destruction in their wake, are not just frowned upon, but cursed and hated by the employees. I could see the therapeutic side to Inga's self-help program, but I had sympathy for the employees in the blue vests.

Inga didn't last very long working with Ben, which was a consistent pattern for therapists back then and now. I hadn't thought of her for a long time, and then I saw her again when I was out and about one day. (You know it's coming...)She was working at Wal-Mart. How's that for karma? I think that she probably initiated a new therapy plan after that, the old one wasn't working anymore.






Photo:http://poorrichard.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/evil-walmart-greeter.jpg?w=221&h=300

Hornet and Blenders

My poor little "Baby Bear" got attacked by a hungry hornet tonight. He was over by our Rotatiller and was targeted by a beast of war. I was in the garage with my husband and CDK who is almost fourteen was on duty inside (reading a book). Our backyard is very kid friendly, but hornets have their own code of ethics. My son heard our little one screaming and ran out there. S.J. was sitting in his little Fisher Price plastic car freaking out because a pollinator was in his shirt with him. It bit him on the shoulder blade and possibly the arm. S.J. doesn't talk much yet at age 2 1/2, but he screamed like he was having a tooth extracted with out Novacaine. He was brought in the house and hugged by his big brother and both parents, in turn. I put him in the bath partially to wash off the bites and partially to get the ice cream out of his hair. After a few minutes of water play and wet floor, he seems fine.

Meanwhile, Dad and CDK went out to spray the nest in the tiller. S.J. had killed the original hornet by himself. As they were protecting their domain, Ben was inside making a cottage cheese, yogurt, water and milk smoothie because the fridge was left unlocked. Just goes to show that pests come in all shapes, colors and food preferences.

Fair is Fair

It's not that I am a big shot! I mean, heck, I wipe butts for a living. Being a Domestic Goddess may sound glamorous, unless you change it to "stay-at-home Mom", then the glamour is gone. But I have had my fifteen minutes, okay,15 seconds of fame. I won three ribbons in the California State Fair which is almost a big deal. I entered 33 bow ties framed in the shape of a bow tie that were my Grandpa's and I won a Second Place ribbon in the Handcrafts category. I received a matching ribbon for my Ewok costume that all of my children were then required to wear. My oldest son won a 1st place ribbon for an ocean scene drawing and a ribbon for a patriotic drawing. A different year, I won a fourth place ribbon for my Superman Christmas stocking complete with a cape. Two people offered to buy that one, which is cool. It was my brother's, but I get pretty attached to things that I make. They become precious as I invest my precious time into them.

My winning streak at that fair was five or six years ago. We moved to Idaho, and even though I went to the fair in Boise, I had never been to our local one in our county.

This year, I decided to dust off my skills and compete against the "old" me. The result? I may have aged, but I am not dead yet! Keeping in mind that there were fewer entrants per category because the population is dramatically smaller than the golden state. But these are fierce competitors, because there are amazing seamstresses and people raised with old fashioned ideals and functional families where talents were nurtured. Getting to the point finally, I won a ribbon on the four things that I entered and CDK won a blue ribbon for his art that he entered. Not bad for an old gal, and her son. Did I mention the $4.00 in prize money. Oh yeah! Celebrities, eat your hearts out! I received a hefty prize money payout of a job well done, and some pocket money.


(The top picture is my daughter and the bottom one is my Mama)

No, Honey They Are DIRections!

We have an ongoing project in the backyard. My husband is building a wooden play structure for the kids. We bought it for three hundred dollars below cost and it's brand new. It is also very involved and the instruction booklet has been essential. Frequently my husband has said "Where are my directions?" and we all search the house until we find the big 8 1/2" by 11" novella so he can continue his assembly. Once we only found the Spanish version, but he can speak and read Espanol, so that worked out okay.

It said that it would take 5-10 hours to build the play set, which I felt was a bad omen. If the instructions say that it will take twice as long as you expect, that's not a good sign. My husband had to alter a few things to get it to fit in the right location and added a few extra goodies, like a balance beam off to the side.

Now, for the good stuff. Our five year old knew the routine of helping find the DIRections for the play set, so that when he saw them laying on the counter, he got really excited. "Daddy, Daddy, I found your erections!" Oh, what a difference a few letters make!

Organic Ras"pppp"berries

My darling child used to use spitting as an attention getting device. Not "ptooey" but the raspberries of monumental proportions. He sometimes would fuel the spew with a swig of water to maximize the moisture impact. He was under five years old when this behavior was in practice and the most memorable distribution of a spit shower was in a Trader Joe's store in California. Enlightened people shop at stores like that. People who seek for freedom from dyes, pesticides and tyrannical grocery chains. They buy organic couscous and Tamari roasted almonds (love them!), soy cheese and tofu, sorbet and dark chocolate.

One unsuspecting customer got a free organic raspberry. Ben fueled it with a fresh chugging of water and aimed directly in her face as she approached us on the whole grains aisle. As the projectile precipitation hit her masterfully in the face she recoiled from the shock with closed eyes, flailing arms and a gasp of shock. I apologized profusely and high-tailed my children from the store with determined speed. It was mortifying. That poor lady probably had OPSD (organic produce spitting disorder) for months. I wouldn't be surprised if her therapist had to go shopping with her to help alleviate her trauma. Although I did avoid that store for a few months until I felt safe to return again, I have since decided that this was a hilarious moment in the life of parenting an Autistic child with a sense of humor all of his own.

Now that this behavior is being revisited, I am delving a little deeper to find the humor. Humor is like a seed, it needs to be nourished and cultivated so that it can grow and giggle. It wouldn't hurt to add a little water either, but only a little, and not on the whole grains aisle.




http://www.flickr.com/photos/paxsarah/2659996304/

Assault and "Buttery"

I know that there are all these warnings about the "terrible twos." I have four other children, so you would think that I would be a seasoned veteran by now. But, NO! This current terrorizing toddler is absolute hellfire! Just ask my neighbor who was helping clean up at my house after a church meeting.

We had a chef come and talk to our ladies group about using herbs and spices and he brought a variety of whipped herb butters for us to try. So my little guy decided to climb up and dip both of his hands in some whipped butter. When my sweet neighbor tried to get him out of it, he used his head like a battering ram and split her bottom lip clear open. She bled like a son of a gun and eventually cried. Later she said that it had made her feel nauseated and dizzy. I was a wee bit embarrassed that I hadn't thought to warn her about my son being a deadly weapon, but who knew that he was going to commit assault and "buttery" on her that night. She knew he threw temper tantrums, but not cranial attacks. Three days later, her lip still looked very painful.

He is using his head quite a bit lately for demolition and tantrums, which wouldn't be such a big deal if he didn't have the family blessing/curse of having a huge dome.

Oh the joys of child rearing! Never a dull moment.

All this talk of butter makes me want some toast. Strange how the brain works, isn't it?