Saturday, September 27, 2008

A lot of fun but some worries

Tonight my mind is racing and wish Bill Gates would invent a machine to translate my thoughts onto my blog!

One of the Chinese adoption yahoo groups has asked for positive thoughts and white light be sent to a region of China where a group of US docs and Chinese docs will be performing neuro and gastro surgery on severe cases for children in the orphanages in China. This was accomplished through a group of women who have established a foundation and raised funds for these surgeries.

It's humbling(?) to think of what can be accomplished.

It is challenging too.

I work at a hospital.

I surely have access to some docs.

Is there more I can do?

There are so many children who need so much.

I look at my two girls and see so much potential, so much happiness, so much love to share. I wish every child could have the opportunity to just have a family. They don't need all the material things, but they do need the love, stability, and opportunity to grow.

My other musing for this evening is based on a meeting at work today.

We had a speaker who does statistics of consumer behavior.

He was specifically addressing the consumer driven behavior of minorities. He had expanded his research to include people from Asia. So much of what he reported sounded very familiar, the importance of maintaining two languages, the importance of higher education, cash payments, rather than credit.

I think about two birth mothers in China and wonder if I am doing the job that they hoped would happen when they left their babies for someone else to find. Am I maintaining the heritage of their birth?

OK, now that I have written it down, maybe I can reflect on all the fun in the last 2 days.

My good friend and former co-worker Danny was here on Thursday. We met while I was working at UNT. Danny was a student and came for his internship to work with me. He was so good that I hired him and began to expand the services we could provide. Along the way we had a great time and tons of laughs.

OK, this isn't an old friends blog, so onto the girls.

Grace continues to make huge strides in her piano playing. She has improved enough to move to familiar songs that are also more challenging. She just amazes me.

As soon as piano was over we hurried home to meet Danny for dinner.

He was anxious to meet Annabel.

She didn't disappoint him.

Her personality came through in a hurry when she announced with her arms folded across her chest, "I NO ENGLISH! You (hands flapping) blah blah blah." It does make it difficult and I feel for her. I remember the frustration Grace felt when she realized everyone was speaking a different language from her. Sometimes it is long and tedious to get an understanding between us.

But an offer of ice cream after dinner brought a "Woo! Hoo!" and back to good spirits.

The girls did not have school today due to staff development. I am so thankful to have Mom and Dad next door so I can go to work and know the girls have a good place to be.

My niece, Marcie was also off today also, but her school was out for Fair Day.

For anyone out of the area, the State Fair of Texas opened today. We always have a good time, but the weather for the fair typically is only one of two ways, HOT or raining. Today was no exception and it was plenty HOT.

But I am getting ahead.

Marcie was able to get free tickets for all of us. "Woo! Hoo!"

She guided us to one of her favorite exhibits that I had never seen. A variety of animals, most with babies, that you can feed. I think we could have stayed there the whole time. I'll have to get Marcie to show me how to include her pics on my blog. Annabel was in awe of every animal. It was like the next pen was even better than the last. Grace is much more subdued and loved being that close to all these "pets".

We had just a short time to visit but we saw a lot.

Too bad our fair is known for the fried foods. UGH! And I tried at least a couple. We didn't try the chicken friend bacon, but did have a corny dog and funnel cake. Dad gave each of us $5 to spend. Things are so expensive there, but the girls got to buy a bottle of milk and ride the log ride with theirs. (I used mine to buy the feed for all the animals!)

Annabel was so impressed with the giant Big Tex. I tried to show her some real cowboys but not even sure if there is a Chinese word for cowboy. There aren't a lot of cows in China!

Grace was more worried as to why Big Tex's color seems darker. I tried to explain that he had gotten a tan. "Really?"

We had a great time and glad to visit the fair. Annabel will appreciate the significance later. Grace was still trying to distinguish the fair from Six Flags!

One word of advice - Never go to the fair with my sister Lisa.

She has to see every exhibit, take their literature, sample all the fried treats, and stay until they close. I liked Marcie's way where we got to see a sampling of a lot of exhibits.

When we were younger, the school would give you a ticket AND a bus pass. My brave mother took all 4 of us more than once to the fair on the bus! I don't know how she did it. I don't know how they afforded for all of us to go. One year a kid threw up on the bus on the ride home. Within two weeks, we started, one at a time, developing mumps. Poor Dad was the last one to catch it. My poor mother, first the fair, and then all of us spreading mumps, one to the other!

Tomorrow is the first Saturday I can remember in ages with NOTHING scheduled. Annabel kept asking what we were doing tomorrow and I just said nothing!!

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