MWNews 75

I am back for another post. With only a day between. Must be because I am not feeling well. The weather changed to cold from very hot and I seem to have a headache and a cold. But I will trooper on. I am forgetting what it was I was going to write about, but maybe it will come back to me as I type.

The last two pictures are from the Hunter Valley Gardens. We went to their Christmas lights show and went early to see the gardens. We have been to the area many times but we have never actually gone into the gardens. That costs money and there are enough things to do outside the gardens to keep us busy for a while. Actually, there are only a bunch of shops and a playground and some picnic areas, but the shops are interesting and the kids like to play, so we never actually make it into the garden. Plus, we usually go there when we do not have money to spend and want to go for a drive, so this is a good spot most of the time.

Inside the gardens, then have a lot of themed areas. The area where the pictures are from are the storybook gardens. Lots of nursery rhyme displays and things like that. I took a lot of pictures. Not very many of the gardens, but a lot of the kids and the displays. I tried to take pictures of the lights, but most of them did not come out very well. I do have some movies taken with my camera of the kids dancing. I put them up on You Tube. The first time I have put anything on YouTube. I am not sure it is a good idea but they are there if anyone wants to see the kids doing some silly dancing. The quality is not great but it is ok. I would paste the link here but I do not remember what it was. Just look for things posted by Catf1sh39. I have not used You Tube a lot, so I cannot tell you how to search for thing, but maybe, if anyone is really iterested, you can try to find them. I think I posted three. As soon as Juanita sends the link to some of her family and they are able to watch them, I might start posting some more videos to You Tube. But maybe not.

Lets try to remember some of the other things I was going to write about. William has started saying he is the baby. Most of the time, it is just after he did something wrong or he has gotten into trouble. He will say 'but I am the baby' to try use that as an excuse for whatever he did wrong. I think he gets it from things Juanita has said. She tells Maeghan that it is not right for her to do something and she says William was doing it to, so Juanita says he is the baby and he does not know any better. So William has started using that as an excuse. When he has done something wrong, like throwing his cars at someone or running off in the shops, when you yell at him for it, he will say, 'but I am the baby', and give his sad eyes routine.

That is another thing he has gotten really good at. The sad eyes, dropping the lip and if that doesn't work, he walks over to a corner or goes and hides in his bed to show that he is upset about getting yelled at. If all that fails, he will start to cry and try to make you feel guilty. We usually just laugh at him. He is really good at the sad eyes and droopy mouth. Is is just so cute to watch, you have to laugh at him. That normally makes it worse but sometimes he will start to laugh to. He has been putting himself to bed for a while now, when he gets into trouble. I think it is because that was the main punishment for a while so now he just walks off and goes to bed without being told. I might have mentioned that in an earlier blog, but you never know, or I never know. So it is much more fun to repeat myself.

Maeghan has started doing some more grown up things. She has developed this look that she gives me that seems to indicate that I am the stupidest person in the world. Usually when I am doing something silly, she will give me this look until I stop. I don't think I am doing anything differently than I have always done, but now she seems to think I am being silly or stupid or something. I don't know where she gets that idea. Maybe some of the kids at school have said something to her. They seem to think me playing hopscotch and running around the school is not something a grown up should be doing. Or when I am walking away from the entire school during morning assembly and I am waving and hopping and skipping in from of the whole class, behind the teachers backs who are trying to get the kids settled in. I don't see a lot of the other parents doing that, but I always assume they do it on the days when I am not there. Maybe that is why she has started giving me that look. It just seems strange to me that now she thinks I am silly when before I was just being funny.

For those who do not know who Michael is or that he has a new girlfriend for the last three months or that he now lives back here in Sydney, then the fact that his girlfriend has just had a baby will mean nothing to you. Just so I don't have to do a lot of explaining, she has a boy, Michael is not working, and I think they are going to move in with me. But enough said about that.

A little bit of news about this computer. I have downloaded a lot of things that are helpers with me dealing with this new operating system. So, it makes a it a little easier to do some of the things I have been having trouble doing. Some of them are really neat and some of them are just things that seem interesting but I will probably never use. But, the gist of it is, I can use the computer a little better than I was. Not that I am starting to like it, I still think it was a mistake to get it, but I might over time not hate it as much. I will never get used to the keyboard and may decide to get a new one, but Juanita has started downloading stuff and that is how her old computer got so cluttered that it barely ran, so I may have to just turn this one over to her and wait until I get a real computer to work on. I still do not know how to delete things that I have installed. I can make them disappear but I am never really sure they have been deleted from the computer. There are a lot of little things that I am still not sure how to do or if there might be a better way of doing it but I am slowing getting it to the point where I can accomplish most of what I want to do.

My internet situation is still not any better although the speed of this wireless connection suddenly got really really fast for no apparent reason. I am not sure how long it will last, but for now, the speed is fine and I have no need to dial into work anymore. I think the cause might be that I went over my limit last month and my speed was slowed. Since this is a new month, the speed has gone back up and I will be slowed again when I go over sometime in the middle of the month. I can find no evidence this is why is was so slow for so long, but that seems to be the most likely cause.

Tuesday is Juanita's birthday. Right now, I have no plans for it since we had the last party for William this week. We might go out to dinner but with the kids, that is normally not a pleasant experience. I thought about taking them to the club and playing puttputt or something, we have never played before and the club has a brand new course, but that doesn't seem like a thing to do for Juanita's birthday. We went bowling one year and might go again this year, but that was a combined party for several people including Juanita and it was a good place for a group of people to go. Juanita wants to go into town and go to the big casino there, we did that last year, but I have not made any arrangements for the kids to stay with anyone and that is more money than I want to spend, especially on a weeknight where I have to go to work the next day. It is a two hour trip if we take the train and it is about $50 to park if we take the car, so going into town for any reason is not something we do often. I work in town but not in the city itself. I work in one of the outskirts of the town, about 20 minutes from the city, so when I say I work in the city, it is not really what you would normally call the city. I suppose none of that makes since, but for anyone who knows Sydney, they might know what I mean.

William just came in and interupted what I was going to write, so I am now confused and disoriented but maybe if I sit here for a while, it will come back to me.

This weekend, we have done nothing. Say on the couch and played video games all weekend, except when work called and I had to fix some things. As a quick side note, it has always puzzled me when people say they have trouble with IPL'ing the wrong system. I know that will mean nothing to most people, but it is apparently a common problem faced by an operations staff. Well, I got called today about a system that would not shut down. I signed on and had a look at it and decided there was not really a problem and shut the system down myself. It turns out, I was looking at the wrong system and the one I shut down was not the system they were having problems with. So, forever more, I will have first hand knowledge of how they can have problems IPL'ing the wrong system. Now we can go back to the regular channel.

Maeghan, and the rest of us but Maeghan was the only one who was invited, went to a Christmas party last week. It was in Newcastle, about an hour from here. She was invited because of her association with the spina-bifida clinic although we all know she does not have spina-bifida. (I thought about spelling that several different ways in the hopes that one of them would be right but I decided I didn't really care if it was spelled right.) We had no idea what this party was all about but the invitation mentioned that only one child was provided for and if we brought anyone else, including ourselves, we would need to bring a picnic lunch or something. We decided that was just silly and we went with William and both of us.

The party was held in an arean or showground type building. It had a big empty floor with seats all around it. The seats were blocked off and the floor was mostly a big empty space. We noticed that most of the people there were carrying chairs and baskets of food. We started to think we should have heeded the invitation and brought something. It turns out that there was a stage at one end of the arena and the whole open floor was were all the people would sit and listen to the music and other things on the stage. A chair would have been nice to have.

Along the walls were different tables with food and drinks. All of it was donated by various food places and outlets. When we came in, we had no idea what we were suppossed to do, so we just followed the lines. They had sausage sandwiches at the first table, and then sack lunches at the second. Teh sack lunch consisted of a single sandwich with ham, cheese and butter on it. I think it was more to hand out the bags with the adverstiments on them than the actual sandwich. At the next table, they had donuts. Australian donuts, which are good if you have never had them before and are great if you can get them hot and fresh. These were not hot, not fresh but were free and they had lots, so it was not that bad.

On the other wall, they had ice cream bars, little cans of drinks and some fruit juices and milk. We had a little bit of each. And I have to say, the sausage sandwiches were about the worts piece of sausage I have ever had in my life. They were just horrible and were over priced at free. They should have been giving us money to take them off their hands. I cannot describe the mushy, tastless, undercooked mess that they sausages were. It was just horrible. It made the donuts taste great.

It turns out the whole point of this evening was the presents they were handing out to the kids. We are talkng about big bags of expensive presents that were handed out to all the kids who had invites. Yes, the bands were nice and there was a funny magician at one point, but for the most part, people were waiting for thier number to be called so they could line up and recieve these presents. And then leave as soon as they got them.

The numbering system they used to not overwhelm the people handing out the presents was based on some unknown criteria we never figured out. Maeghan was in group five. About an hour into the program, they called for group one. That group appeared to be about half of the people there. The line for it went all the way around the room, and it was a big room. It took about an hour and a half for that group to go through line. And the presents tbere were getting were hugh. I am not sure what all was given out, but there were little learning computers like what Maeghan has and those cost at least $70 each. There were big doll houses and lots and lots of other things. I did not see it all and I did not realise what most of it was until we were leaving and we saw some of the things the kids had received.

Group two apparently had only about ten people in it. It went through in less than 5 minutes at which point, they called group three and four at about the same time. That took about 20 minutes to go through and then they called group five. It appeared to be the rest of the room, which was about half empty by this time. We were near the entrance to the line when they called for group five but there was a whole group of people who had lined up in anticipation of being called that had formed just before the entry. That did not really matter to Juanita as she took Maeghan and walked into the line without stopping for all those other people. It only took about 5 minutes for her to get to the place where the bags of presents were being given out. Apparently, if I had had William in the line, we had stepped to one side when they called for Maeghan, he might have been able to recieve a bag of presents also. He did get a large stuffed animal for just being there, but he missed out on the other presents.

Maeghan recieved a remote controlled Barbie car and a portable dollhouse. It was a big box that had all sorts of things in it and you put it together and then folded it up so you could carry it all with you. The car was a real remote controlled car for a Barbie doll. The doll that came with it was not Barbie, but the car says Barbie on the side of it, so the doll must be some friend of Barbie's, or so I assume. It even came with batteries. She loved it, although I have not seen her play with the dollhouse yet, but she played with the car until the batteries ran out. I think she is in the other room playing with it now.

My question is, where did the money come from to give all these kids these expensive toys. I am sure some of the kids deserve the toys and it might be the best thing they get all year. But there were a few thousand kids there and these were expensive toys. I am sure they were all donated but it they had to go out and spend money buying any of these toys, I am sure there are better ways that money could have been spent. But, I am sure the kids loved it and there were a lot of kids there, including Maeghan and William, who just wanted to dance and sing with the bands. They did not know anything about the toys that were coming later, but even if they did, I am sure they would have been happy just dancing up front. Juanita had to take them to the front as the speakers were very loud up there and I could not stay in that area for very long.

All in all, it was a good night, even if the food was bad. The kids liked it and they are happy with the gifts they received. If we go again, I know to bring chairs and probably something decent to eat. It lasted for four hours and that was a long time to stand up with nothing to do except listen to loud music and watch kids run around all over the place.

It is getting time to cook dinner and I am still not feeling well. Plus this keyboard is starting to annoy me again. It seems the space key is not big enough for me to type with any speed as I keep missing it and having to go back and add spaces. If you see words that have not been separated, that is the reason why. And, as I do not plan on going back and spell checking this, you will just have to live with them. For now, it is time to go cook spagetti and meatballs, and take some more medicine, so I guess I will be going.

Until next time,

Talk to you later