Life goes on.

Huh. Guess everything Scott Westerfeld writes isn't meant for young adults, huh? Who knew? Here I was expecting a nice story about angst ridden teens in space, and what I got was rough and rowdy butt sex. That is, I didn't actually have butt sex myself, I mean, the characters in the book did. It was a good story anyway. Not that I have anything against butt sex. Especially if I'm not having it. To each their own.

ANYWAY.

The baby is busy climbing up things she can't get down from. Actually, I lie, that part only takes a minute. The baby is busy crying because she can't get down from what she has crawled up on. I am busy getting her down so she can do it again in another spot. I have tried moving her little legs in some kind of attempt to teach her that crawling works up AND down, but she's too busy crying to pay attention.

Boy is busy talking on the phone. Everyday after dinner the phone rings. Neither Simon nor I so much as look at the phone. It will not be for us. We don't giggle nonstop. We don't wonder whether she likes us, has asked so and so out, is going to be asked out by so and so, can be connived into saying "Yes" when asked, etc. We don't have a prank to play on someone over the phone, such as pretending the connection isn't working. Above all, even if we did, we couldn't make conversations about all this last for several hours every single night. Which is why we're not teenagers, I guess. I'm not complaining. About being a teen, that is; I am complaining about this addiction to the phone.

The Bean is busy being terribly cute. She is especially fond of stories just now, and if we're not reading one to her, she is reading one to the baby, or the dog, or the world at large. I don't know how to impress upon you how cute this is, because I don't have words for it and fonts don't come with a cute button. Imagine a "Hello Kitty" font, then imagine me using it to type "She's soooo cute!". That cute.

I have an idea!... wait a sec... there!

See? Told you she was cute.

The Simon is busy working. Six days a week, every week. But when he's done, six days a week, he pulls onto our street and I tell the girls he's home**. The dog starts barking, and I let her out to start the parade. Then the Bean says "Oh! Poppy!" and goes to day hi. Once he's in the door and the baby realizes what's going on, she crawls over at her fastest speed- thumpthumpthump -and says "HAI!". It's an event. Maybe it makes up for the working, at least a little bit.

I am busy being housewiferly. I made jam. I had never canned anything before, and we had these grapes we didn't know what to do with, and now we have deep purple delight in many, many little jars. I like it. I just may do it again. Boy is awed by the notion that Simon is making our bread and I am making the jam that goes on it; in short, he's amazed that food can be made by hand.

I also made chili sauce with a box of Gorgeous chilies that my NSES* sent. Yummy. And I roasted some, and am drying some. And I cut up and froze a mess of peppers and some leeks. And dried the leek leaves to use like chives. And made soup for lunch with radishes, leeks and miso, which gave me the wind so bad I like to died, which is probly TMI. And then I went to library, the bank, the store where I pick up milk and veggies, the grocery store and the farm where I get meat, all whilst toting the girls.

This morning I am so tired I poured granola into my coffee instead of milk. Oh, how I wish I were joking about that.

Going to pour herself a less chewy cup***,
ephelba

*Not So Evil Stepmom.
**His truck needs some muffler work.
*** Of course I drank it! I couldn't waste a whole cup, now, could I.

Reading

Lately I've been indulging myself in children's lit. Simon thought it was bad that I'd been reading YA, but I've regressed even further. I'm a sucker for STORY, man, give me some STORY, STORY is where it's at. Adult fiction writers generally go light on the story and heavy on the, ummm, introspection? Contemplation? Navel gazing? and when I finish the book I can't recognise whether I got the point or not. I do understand that one is meant to have a certain ambiguity there. It's meant to be art, something that you look at that fires the neurons and acts as fuel for thinking, and yet, sometimes I just want them to tell me what the hell it is they're trying to say.

I abandonded the family last night and went wandering in the stacks. It's a new library to me. Soon I'll be able to tell what row I'm in by the colors of the covers, but just now it's like a cross between a shopping spree and a reunion. Hi Orson Scott Card, see you're still using that tacky cover art. Howdy do, Mr Foer, the movie turned out well, didn't it. And who are you, my little pretty, with your Japanese name and a clockwork elephant on the cover... The truth is, when you're browsing the aisles all you have to go on is the title, name and cover art.

This time I found myself skipping entire shelves because I felt like I'd read one too many male names there. Nothing deep, I'm just in a mood. I want to read something by a woman that isn't, ummm, romantic? Soap Opery? Anything Renee Zelwiger would want to act in? I want an interesting story written by a woman, and it can't have dragons, corsets, political intrigue or hot breathy moments in it. It can't be about women falling for men who are cunning sleuths and fierce street fighters and grand master chess players and award winning chefs and geologists and lovers (I particularly loathe that kind of book...) I want a good story, lots of plot, heavy on the wit and clever, and a big dash of surprise. With a spoon. Gosh, if I could find some books like that I might need a bib.

So anyway, I started out in the adult fiction, grabbed some Pratchett in spite of myself, wandered through some nonfiction which brought me around the corner and back to YA, what the hell, so I grabbed some graphic novels. At least I didn't end up in the children's section.

Hey, I know several of you guys have youngsters of your own. If you're looking for a creepy Halloween read, might I suggest Coraline, Rosemary's Witch (Please ignore the atrocious cover art on the Amazon site, it's a good book in spite of that:) , and/or Well Witched . All of these are seriously spooky, so I think they should be read alouds for the 7-10 set, especially if they are of a sensitive nature. I'm especially fond of Rosemary's Witch. It's super creepy, yet there is a possibility of redemption in the story which you don't often see. Well Witched has that going for it too.

If you've got olders, say, 10/11 and up, I can recommend Baltimore. Very gruesome and scary. Boy loved it. The only complaint I have is that the three narrators are supposed to be very different people, but their voice is the same. The sailor who had no real education sounds the same as the dude who grew up posh. Ah well, no book is perfect.

I checked out The Graveyard Book, I'll fill you in on it the next time I write.

And with that, I'm off to wash dishes. If you've got some book recs for me, feel free to share. Not that I need to spend more time reading, but if I'm going to neglect the housework anyway, it's probably time I was doing it in the name of reading grownup books.

Heigh ho, heigh ho,
ephelba

HAHAHHAHAAHAHA!

SO he says, I'm out of dishes to wash, HA!, like that EVER happens, and I'm all what about the ones on the table, and he's saying there aren't any on the table, and I'm saying what about the salad spinner and the pan , I mean, if you wouldn't eat off it it needs to be washed! GAH!, and he's saying but they blend in, and I'm saying, you mean, with the other dishes that need washing? on the table? the table that you said you couldn't find anything to wash on? and he says, Isn't there anything to wash that isn't a pan?

And he starts to complain about how many dishes he's having to wash, and how low I've stooped to have him wash them all, and I ask him if he really has any idea how much he scared us last night. To which he says, no, but all of them? And I say, You know what? and he says no, nevermind, I take it back, forget I said anything.

Damn straight,
ephelba

Baby steps.

Why do I persist on forgetting that the key to accomplishing any large task, especially when you have small children, is to work on them a little at a time? Hell, I'd go so far as to say it's the key to accomplishing small tasks too, because the little boogers always need rescuing from sisters who are attempting to inflate them with bicycle pumps, or someone to get them another glass of juice-not-milk-no-no-no-NOT-MILK-fine-if-it's-all-I'm-going-to-get-milk, or someone to go get their bike from the police station because they forgot the combination and the guy at the Y shooed off the little fuckers who were trying to steal it before snipping the lock and sending it away with the cops. And yet, every damn day I forget this and wake up in a tizzy wondering how in the heck I'm going to finish putting-stuff-away-caulk-the-windows-put-up-the-drapes-make-pants-for-the-Bean-that-don't-fall-off-get-the-"cooking once a week"-thing-going-etc-etc-etc-etc.

Maybe it's because I like to start a thing and finish a thing. I enjoy finishing a task. When I'm interrupted, by the very children I may have been performing the task for, I get Very Annoyed. It's silly and it's stoopid and I wonder how long it is going to take me to learn to take baby steps. I have to believe you can teach an old dog new tricks. Probly, the truth is I've got PMS and I just need to get over myself.

On another note, imagine that you fastidiously keep your real world name off the internet because you've gotten some gruesome hate mail before, and it's shaken your faith in your fellow man. Then imagine that on the one video you have on You Tube, a video of your littlest baby, you receive the comment "I know where you live, (Real Name Here)" You look at the user name and you don't recognize it. The choice of favorited videos makes you think it's a teen aged boy, but the age given is 33. You double check all the profiles you can think of, but your given name isn't on any of them. You send a polite email asking the person if you know them, but inside you're dying to think that some creep would post this on a video of your baby. Your baby!

Then your son gets home and, thinking it might be one of his friends, you ask him if he recognizes the user name.

"Oh yeah, that's mine."

So you explain in graphic detail how scared he made you feel, and explain why it was STOOPID, and why it isn't funny, and why you don't use someone's real name online, and why he can go wash all the dishes without a single tiny thought of a complaint whilst you rest on your laurels and contemplate why a boy as smart as he is does dumb shit like this.

Firmly believing he'll learn to use his powers for good, and wishing her daughter wouldn't try to drink milk with a spoon,
ephelba

Why do babies catch colds?

So that, once they're better, you'll be giddy with glee they woke up at four in the morning.*

Ha. Ha.
ephelba

*That is, as opposed to 10:00, 12:00, 12:30, 12:33, 12:36**, 1:30, 2:00, 3:30, 4:30, 6:30 and 7:00.
**Three minutes being the time it takes to soothe a baby, assume she's gone back to sleep and get back in bed yourself.

Newspaper Bag Project

One of the blogs I like to read is written by Z, the very same Z who leaves comments here now and again. If you've got a moment, click through to see how to make shopping bags out of newspaper, like her son does in his greengrocer's shop.* Of course, I know all you guys already use reusable bags**, because you're cool like that, but it's good fun, especially if you've got kids. If you do make a bag and post a picture, tell 'em Z sent you, K?



TTFN,
ephelba

*I love reading the Z's blog because her world is so different from mine, and because she writes about it so well, and because I just do. Go on, go have a look at it.
**With the exception of the ones you keep in your pocket when you go for your evening walkies with the dog, because I also know you guys aren't the type to leave big steaming stinkers on the sidewalk either. I love you guys.

The Hadron Collider is On.

Did you notice the end of the world? Seems to be the same shit, different day over here. Apparently, now they're saying it will all go kerflooey in October. Can't say I'm worried. Seems like a good excuse to party though.

I'm slightly more worried about whether or not we'll be seeing house centipedes in these new digs. Every other house we've lived in has had them, and with all the spiders (their idea of a tasty lunch) here and the lovely wet basement (preferred digs) I can't imagine them skipping this shangri la. Don't know what a house centipede is? Aren't you lucky! Here is one for your screeching pleasure.
Now, imagine that two inches (just the body, not the legs and feelers and whatnot) long tearing across your floor and up your wall and under your bed. They are wicked fast. When they zoom along, they go with an amazing wave motion to their feathery legs, and when you smoosh one end the unsmooshed bits keep going. Bug websites say things like "Oh, they hunt bad bugs in your house! They nosh spiders! Isn't that great! You should love them! In Japan they keep them as pets!". All I have to say to that is that the people writing these articles have either never witnessed the terror, or they're bent.

The only thing that makes me hesitate when throwing shoes at them is the knowledge that they can live for years. If I swat a fly I don't feel bad because I couldn't have shortened its life span by more than a few weeks, but the thought that this might have lived for five years or more before I screamed at it does give me pause.

They always show up in the fall when their 30 tootsies get nippy outside. So I'll know soon. In the meantime I'll be happy watching the squirrels. There's a walnut tree right outside our window, and the dog and the babies just discovered the squirrel who likes to hang there.

Do you have a squirrel near your house? Does it quack? This one absolutely does. Sounds just like Donald Duck. It puts on quite the show for Lucy. Lucy stares with rigid determination. I am confident that she's trying to use telekinesis to bring the squirrel inside. This is much preferable to barking like a mad fool all day, which is what I'd thought she'd do when she noticed it.

We've also discovered a Big Bertha. A Big Bertha is the highly technical term for one of those barn spiders (Araneus cavaticus), the same kind of spider as the ever so famous Charlotte. Everywhere we've lived we've had one make her web (they're always a girl, doncha know) on or around our house. In every case, we've become sort of fond of her, and kept track of how she was doing. Every winter she goes away, but since we see one again the next late summer/fall, we tend to pretend it's the same one.

And on a note that has nothing whatsoever to do with creepy crawlies or atom smashers, Loon is still on track to take home a gorgeous baby girl tomorrow. It is, ummm, harrowing (?) to be in the no man's land between the birth of the baby and actual legal adoption of the baby. She's busy holding the baby today, and tomorrow she'll be busy bringing her home, but when she gets the time to post I'll to it.

Going to see if Betha's writing notes,
ephelba

For me, it's like this,

I'm going through stuff and bemoaning the fact that I've already given away the premie sizes, and where have the receiving blankets got to (?!??) and this isn't too grotty, is it, and can I afford to send this overnight and why don't we have a health food store in this town, honestly and shit if this doesn't go through and they're heart broken (again) and then this box turns up on the door step that will really, really, suck, like "Hello, painful reminder here." (sing to the tune of "Speedy Delivery) but then again, it's all stuff they'll need for the baby that they are going to mother when she does arrive, because it is going to happen and of course, there's no reason to think that this isn't the time it's going to happen. This is it. This baby is so going home with them and they're going to be up all night and if the Bean didn't have strep and I had gas money I would so be driving there because who is going to bake casseroles for them, dammit.

Imagine what it must be like for them.

Crossing my fingers till it hurts,
ephelba

Huh.

You're probably saying to yourself "She really isn't herself these days". I'm so not myself that I've turned into my son, and typed up a mess of silliness in the new post window. Then, I came to myself and hit publish, because I knew that I would embarrass myself a little if I did, and because I'm proud of how well I write.

If you can follow that, you're good.

What happened was, I was starting to write a post, then I had to get up, so Boy started typing in my absence, and I thought it was funny and hit PUBLISH POST, because I knew he'd be slightly mortified and slightly pleased.

I'll finish that other post later,
Have to wash some windows just now,
ephelba

Waiting.

Ahhh, the joys of a new house. New houses are a joy, in a joyful way. Many debate the exact extent to which a new house is joyful, but even these debates are joyful, in their own way. Alas, they are not new houses. To see a discussion board on the difference between new houses and debates, click here. In short, new houses are joyful, and I have big saggy boobs.

Yes, I'm still here.

Not quite my usual self though. Until I return, I thought I'd post a list, just to remind myself I have a blog.

Things I'm grooving on right now:

*Loon getting a freshly minted baby. I am in ecstatics and am tripping over myself trying to decide what to make for the coming munchkin. Cross your fingers that things don't go all wonky.

* Starbucks Mocha Dark chocolate (they say it's ethical and sustainable:) eaten with red Swedish Fish. Nuff said.

*The girls when they're giggling together. Cockaboody in the making.

*The Bean making sentences with the words she has. "Eat nana peese. Uh huh." "In bag" "No baby! No!"

*Having a drier. Simon and his friend put in a gas line and now we've joined the modern age. Of course, it's been sunny most days since it's gone in, because the universe is ironic like that.

*Simon had three days off in a row last week, and he gets Labor Day off. I loves me some Simon.

*Making things. I've got a list of projects I'm working on and am slowly dinking away at them. So far I've dyed some playsilks with koolaid and have been getting a skirt ready for dying. Hopefully, by the time xmas gets here I will have a set of gnomes made for the girls, maybe even some clothes made for them with my own hands? My own hands and what time, I wonder.
Today I hope to help Boy make some t-shirts for to wear to school. Indie clothing:)

*The girls going to sleep easily and sleeping (mostly) all night. This, my friends, is a biggie.

*Terry Pratchett.

Things that I am not grooving on:

*That the babies in most board books are white. White and blond haired. Boo hiss.

*That my baby cries like the Nazgul. It does not make me feel motherly.

*That, whilst I am having a shoving match with depression I really should avoid the beer. Oh beer, I miss you much, your flowery hops, your bibbledy bubbles, your golden hue.

*That none of my bestest friends live in the same state as me.

*That my mother is coming to visit. Hilarity is sure to ensue.

*The Bug, at 10 months old, discovering the joys of toilet bathing, dagnabit. The Bean is 2 and a half and still hasn't indulged.

*Squirrels in the attic. (Literally, not figuratively.)

* The Bean's periodic assessment. She is who she is regardless of how she scores, and I understand the tests are somewhat, ummm, problematical in how they work, but no one likes to read that their kiddo is seven months behind in anything, or that she's in the 18th percentile. I don't like to read that because she's 110 percent perfect to me. She's perfect and wonderful and precious. Also, I don't like to read that because I begin to wonder if she's going to catch up. For my wonderful, precious daughter, I want the kind of life you have if you catch up. Ah, worry. It's the perfect companion for guilt. The matched set of free gifts that come in the parenting fun kit.

Going to take the kids outside before it rains,
ephelba

Sad

MyFarmer has up and moved away to Pennsylvania. I have been helping her pack up and whatnot while somehow managing to pretend she isn't moving. Now that she's gone, I have to face facts. Which means that yesterday I was a mean old bitch. I feel like I'm all alone in New York. This is silly, because I do still have friends here. Good friends too. I'm just really missing her.

Sigh.

Last night we had one humdinger of a thunder storm. Usually storms rumble through. A few weeks ago I thought we had a doozy because the wind was whipping and the thunder went Bam! and made the usual storms sound like they're mumbling in their beards. Last night it wasn't thunder that woke me up- it was a new thing altogether. The lightning itself was super bright, and it went POW! Sometimes it went CRACKPOW! It took a while for it start to rumble, and even then the rumblings were so loud they shook the house, not just the windows. It was eerie to hear the rain and the hail and the thunder without the sound of cars or, as is usual whenever it rains here, the sound of sirens. Once the storm petered down to a massive rumbling I began to hear church bells. They rang for a half hour. I can not tell you why. Once the storm really had begun to blow by all the emergency crews broke out and raced all over the place. What I did not hear were two little girls sitting up and crying. Honestly, it sounded like bombs going off, and neither one woke up.

Wishing I could sleep like that,
ephelba

The Summer of Bugs

Here's the ginormous beetle, with Boy's finger for scale. It is a really big beetle, no?


Here's a happy beetle we saw on vacation. Notice the feathery antennae. I have little idea what it is, although I would guess it's some kind of sand loving scarab. And no, I did not make that up.

Here is a moth that we grew from a catterpillar. I don't know what went wrong, but that butt just ain't right. However, seeing as how it's a gypsy moth, I think I won't feel guilty.



Update: That butt doesn't look natural, but apparently it is. The female gypsy moths got back. And How.

Re-Double-Update- I just discovered you can click on the pictures and see them in much larger glory. So large, you can see the dirt in Boy's nails and the lobes on the ginormous beetle's antennae. Dude!

Close Call

So I was returning a movie to the video store, and there in the parking lot was a gorgeous, ginormous brown and polka dotted beetle. I had to share, of course, but what could I bring him home in? In the trash outside the store there was a candy box, so I scootched him in and brought him into the van. The Boy held the box closed till we got home, then taped the end down while we began the nightly rituals. Before Simon went to bed I wanted him to behold the glory, so I got the box out and realized the window on the side of the box didn't have plastic in it. The entire time we were holding the end of the box down, the glorious, ginormous beetle could have traipsed right out the side. As much as I enjoy bugs, I'm glad he didn't.

Will post a picture tomorrow when it's light enough to take one,
ephelba

Just when you're ready to quit.

The Boy is 13. Sometimes, now that I've been telling him the same thing for all of those years, I get discouraged and begin to think nothing is getting through. And then the Boy tells me that when he was on vacation and was invited to kayak, he used every tool I taught him. He took a deep breath, and he gave it another try, and so on and so on- he said the most useful tool was the one where you just do a thing. And when it was all over, he had such a good time he wants to do it again.

I guess I am having an effect after all.

Just keep swimming,
ephelba

The Vacation

Well hello there!

Hi! How are you? We're doing pretty good. Enjoying the new house. Missing Boy, who is off visiting friends. This morning he called, and the Bean got on the phone with him and was just so pleased to recognize the voice on the phone. I don't think that had happened before. She lit up and said "aHA! Bubba! Hello!", which was altogether too precious.

The little one is crawling. As in, eventually making forward progress on her hands and knees, not as in, zipping across the floor getting into everything that is dangerous or gross. I figure I've got a week or two before that happens.

The house is full of flies. I was sitting in the yard with the girls thinking "Wow. Would you look at all those flies!" The flies were flying into my house thinking "Wow, Would you look at that wide open door." There are so many I'm going to have to open it again and let them out.

On that note, why is it that whatever window I am near has three flies in it. Are they the same three, following me, or is it some strange kind of fly equilibrium?

I've been trying and trying to find funny things for us to watch of an evening. It's surprisingly hard, but I found another winner. The first was Extras. The latest is The Office. As we're watching the manager behave like a complete and total twat, Simon looks at me and says "This you can watch?" The difference is I sorta like the characters in the Extras, so it hurts to watch them blunder, whereas I have no love for the Manager at all. Nope. None. It's refreshing.

The inlaws are bringing Boy back to us from MI, then we're all going to go stay at a "Cabin" on the lake. That's "Cabin" as in "Nicer house than we live in", I expect. My kind of vacation. I find no joy in leaving the life I lead to go sleep in uncomfortable quarters and make do without creature comforts like, oh, running water or electricity or a stove. "Whee! Pooping in the woods!" How is that fun? No, going to stay in a space with more amenities than I usually have is where it's at. "Whee! Dishwasher!" See? That works.

Last night the girls or I were up every hour. Yeah. So this morning I was good for nothing. Of course, come noon we all slept for three hours straight. So. I suppose it's time to be getting on with things.

Look for me in a week or two,
ephelba

Funny things

Extras.
I can't figure out how to link to it in Netflix. You're smart people, you can find it. Loon turned me on to it, and I laughed myself silly. That is, when I could stay in the room, because the kind of humor where people are doing things they shouldn't do frequently makes me squink, and I have to leave and then bug Simon from the kitchen- "What is he doing now? He didn't say yes did he? Did he? Is it over? What is he doing?". I can watch spouting blood, scary monsters, things that go bump and boo, but a person lying for comedic effect is just too much. You should have seen me try to watch Borat.

Dried Apricots.
Mimi has pointed out they look like little monkey scrotums. I completely agree. And now I shall say that to myself when I eat them. "Nom nom the mon key balls." And when next you see them, you will think this too. Ha! Your brain has been polluted.

Elmo, Zoe and Telly Monsters
At least, the Bean think so, because when they were trying to figure out how to line up with Elmo Between, she was ROFL. She can't talk, but she can laugh at Sesame Street. I think it's a good sign.

Someecards.com












Well, they make me laugh, at any rate.

snicker snicker,
ephelba

If you gave a witch some money...

If you gave me more money, I'd go buy children's books on Amazon. If I bought all the books I wanted on Amazon, they'd bust the shelves and fall through the floor. If there was a hole in the floor, the land lord would get mad. If the land lord got mad, he'd kick my book buying butt out onto the street.

So it's a good thing I can't afford to buy books like these:

On the usefullness of attics.

Most of our stuff is up in our attic. I'm guessing half of it will end up going away. Right now, the downstairs is almost pulled together and it has all the stuff we need in it. It is very freeing to be able to put everything away in a home just for it.

Ahhh.

In truth, I am alternating between the joy of creating an uncluttered house, and the crushing weight of the sheer volume of work required to get there.

I think listing some achievements will help.

1) I've organized the girls' toys into bins and will only have one bin down at a time, thus preventing clutter and toy-overload. I am pleased, because in doing so I realized they don't have too many toys. I hope I can keep it that way. My plan is to get/make open ended toys, like blocks, play scarves and boxes. They'll have to use their imaginations. Plastic fantastic stuff will have no home here. Now, if I can just get the grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends and relations on board:)

2) You can get to the pantry now. The pantry is organized. Thank you, ancient architect, who designed it to perfectly hold a Clementine's box. Thanks you, crazy self, for having two hundred Clementine's boxes to put in there.
This is, of course, a mixed blessing, because now when I want to throw something away my crazy self will say "But maybe you'll come up with a use for this, like you did with those Clementine's boxes".
I would like to achieve Farm Status with my stuff. That is, there are no useless animals on a farm, there should be no useless stuff in my house. I am a long way away from this, but getting closer.

3) The living room is good. The furniture is arranged, the toys are set, the floor is clear. Lovely.

4) Boy's room is arranged. It has issues, but they are the issues born of a room too small for the furniture in it. It's as good as it can be till we build a loft or some such.

5) The end is in sight in the dining room and foyer.

6) Boy met a kid across the street who is his age, going into the same grade, and isn't a hoodlum. Super!

I will take a deep breath and do one thing at a time. Eventually, it will all be sorted, put away or gotten rid of.

Feeling better,
ephelba