GZ Tai-Tai

Hearing bumps in the night

I went to bed late hoping to pass out and stay out all night. Just as I was getting ready to shut off the lights there was a sudden crack of thunder and a flash of light.Expat Son came and said he was going to sleep on Dad's side of the bed, not because he was afraid he said. Another loud crack of thunder over head made us both jump! It was time to run around and shut down computers so they don't fry, which has happened so many times in our lives here in China. I run back upstairs after checking the doors one last time. Then I look outside, a real squall of wind and not just buckets, but sheets of rain were coming down.  Then as I climb into bed and set down to read a page or two the lights dim and get extra bright, we could here the electricity pause just before it got bright. A surge .... I dim the lamp and decide to read in order to relax again before I turn out the light, and I wonder if I will actually be the one that turns the light out or if natures fury will do it for me. Well it was I who turned it out tonight, but. a few hours later I was awaken, by what, I am not sure... a slight tickly throat and a snoot full of mucous, had to get up and find the kleenex, then  as I lay back down I hear it, what I don't know. A bump, a groan, noises just enough to get my imagination going. Then I think oh the power surge might have triggered the garage door to open, no I think as I lay there thinking, more noises, oh crud what can it be? I get up and turn on a light, go downstairs to investigate my theory, and I hope not to find anyone in the house that should not be here.  As I look around the semi lit room I see nothing unusual, I unlock the door to the garage and have a peek, the garage door is closed so my theory of it going up is wrong. Oh brother, I think as I climb the stairs again, I fill a glass of water at the water dispenser before I head back to my bedroom. I lay down again lights off in hopes of sleep. It doesn't come but the noises start again,bump,thud, groan. After 20 more minutes I decide to get up again...this time to turn the computer on and hope to wile away a little time on the internet. The storm has passed so it is safe to turn it all back on again. So back down stairs I head after turning on the lights. I fire up the computer and patiently wait. I hear a thud above me and I think, great there is someone in  here with me and I am screwed. What will I do.... I say a silent prayer and tell the computer to hurry up and boot so I can go upstairs and get busy on my lap top. Finally I am connected and have a signal downstairs if all goes well the laptop will work upstairs in my room, and I can forget about the noises I keep hearing. I climb the stairs once again,I get the laptop from the family room where I used it last, I see my mug and fill it with hot water as I pass the water dispenser, in hopes of drinking the hot liquid it will settle me down. As I set  the mug of water down on my bedside table I hear a few more bumps and groans. That is it I say to myself,  I close my bedroom door and lock it ! I fire up the lap top and no connection.. ugh.. I reboot and pray I won't have to open my door to get a signal to the network. I see the little lights blink and the little globe appear.. woohoo, I am in connected!
So the boogie man can keep making those noises, I will be safe in my room from those noises the rest of the night.
I really hate nights that I have an overactive imagination.  So much for getting a good nights rest.

Car in for repairs

Today our driver came and told me that our vehicle had an incident with a crazy man on a bicycle. He showed me the dent and scrape on the car and said it needed fixed. As Expat Son was more than happy to stay home today, I told the driver to go ahead and go today and have it fixed, no problem.  I asked what happened and he told me he was sitting at a red light and this crazy man on the bicycle with no brakes hit our car. Not a surprise as maintenance is not a high priority in this country ahem.. I digress.. I asked if the guy on the bike was alright and he said he was fine.  So with our car out of commission today I have some things to get done here.
My plan.... I have a few projects I need to get done, and I will have to enlist Expat Son in this, as it has to do with his toys. After that is done I have a few drawers to go through in my room. Wish me luck with the kid... he inherited, as did our daughter, the "pack rat" syndrome from their Dad.  Like pulling teeth I tell ya's!

Victories Big and Small

I woke up this morning to a weather headache. It was fairly early yet 6 AM on a Saturday so Hubby and Expat Son were still sleeping. I struggled to the cabinet for the Tylenol took a couple (small victory) and headed downstairs to make a cup of tea, and check the google reader to catch up on the blogs that I enjoy reading. I came across one the other day chaplainandrews.com and it has become a blog that I look forward to reading. Some I just like to read, others are favorites that I have to read,  this one is in category have to read for me now. As I was catching up on some older posts, that I had not read before this morning, one of them really hit home for me. It was one that had a link for sermons.

Living here in China we really do not have much in the way of church and what we do have I was not impressed with when we were living here before, I mentioned before in previous posts. I won't bore you with the details now but we do miss church here.  We do try to make a trip in to Hong Kong to go to a real church with real clergy men occassionally one of those will be coming up soon as I will be scheduling medical appointments for the family this month.

The post that struck me was called Living in Victory the post on July 3rd. In the sermon at SermonCentral it talks about victory in our lives. I thought about just this little thing, victories in our lives, because it has come up recently in my life. We all have victories and conflicts in our lives no matter how good or bad our lives seem to us. I noticed though that, the people that should be supportive in our lives, family and friends, many times are not willing to be happy or show happiness for the victories in our lives.  Instead they become jealous and try to lash out by putting you down or trying to make the victory less than it should be, then comes the conflict.  Anger,confusion,defensiveness, and even sadness.
I generally pray for those people but sometimes, it is difficult for me to understand why, someone who has so many victories in their own lives would want to try to take away the victories in someone else's life. Do they feel their lives and victories are so insignificant that they cannot be happy for someone else? 
I have victory in my life I have a loving husband, we have a beautiful daughter who someday may be a Pastor, a wonderful exciting son soon to have his 11th Birthday, we live overseas in a culture different than our own, we have friends from all over the world, all from different walks of life, we have family and friends at home who love us, we have a Saviour that loves us and watches over us always. Those are just a few of the wonderful victories that we have and I am thankful for every single one.
I am happy for others who have victories in their lives, no matter how big or small those might be and I hope they keep having victories in their lives!

Raining and Moaning

It is raining again! I hate July in Guangzhou because, of the rain and everyone has made the mass exodus by this time. Usually I insist that we take our holiday in July, because, of the rain and the boredom that sets in for Expat Son, which makes my life a misery as well.

This year however I gave in to Hubby because he seems to think the end of all power etc.will be during the Olympics. I seriously doubt this, and quite frankly, a few hours of no A/C and having a happy kid with friends to play with in August would make me happy. So the plans have been made and our holiday this year is in August, I get to bear the brunt of the boredom that Expat Son experiences. On top of that  not having a car most of the week makes this a difficult task because, when I do get the car it ends up being utilized to shop for fresh milk, veg and fruit and any other necessities we may need until I have said car again, instead of having it for more pleasurable excursions.

I felt so sorry for Expat Son the other day, when I did have the car, that I went to the grocery store I hate the most, just because it happened to be in the same mall as an ice skating rink. I took Expat Son to the rink paid his fee, and had the driver keep an eye on him, while I went to the dreaded grocery store to shop.  

Expat Son had fun skating but our driver was a little pissed off by a couple of the local Chinese kids that were being mean to our son at the rink. They decided to throw a ball of ice at him, our son being good natured thought they were playing but they weren't playing. The driver set them straight and the older Chinese person that was egging the kids on to be mean to the gweilo boy. Probably good that I had the driver there instead of me. An angry Mother having her kid being picked on, that might have been unpleasant for everyone in the rink. Perhaps though, not as unpleasant as our driver, he was still muttering Cantonese expletives in the car when he told me about the incident.

Earlier that day we had been looking for shelves and I found what I wanted, but I thought I could find the same thing at Ikea , but less expensive. Bad idea so Friday when I might... get the car again, I have an extra errand to run back to the first store we went on Monday to buy the shelving. I will also try to fit in a fun activity for our Son that day too. It makes it a bit difficult however to plan a fun activity trip to  Panyu for a day at the Water Park (weather permitting) or the safari park or the zoo when I have to also run errands as well. I suppose we could take a taxi but my luck with drivers is awful,I always get the ass hole, and I would probably end up in Timbuktu or stranded on the side of the highway someplace with out my money or phone!

We have seen all of the movies that are playing in the theater, Kung Fu Panda and the Narnia Prince Caspian film, so we will probably see repeats of those in the coming week. I am not sure what happened with the Indiana Jones film I saw it advertised for about a week in the theaters that we go to but when we tried to see it, it was gone. We ended up watching Kung Fu Panda instead.

I know, it could be worse I know, but, hey, you are not sitting here with a bored 10 year old.  At least he is not roller blading in the living room today, yet!

I need to find the two of us a project. Maybe a Pasta making project is in order today!

Update:The roller blades are on and he is blading in the living and dining room. Aargh! 

What a pain! Ouch!

Fighting a really painful ear infection and on top of it I have a weather headache! Finally we had a powerful shower, wind and thunder blow by us and I have a bit of relief on the headache. Not complete but at least I am not in tears like I was before the shower blew through.
Time for more medicine in the ear and Breakfast at Tiffany's just started on Cinemax. I am going to go cuddle up with a blanket and a cup of tea and watch it and wish Expat Daughter were here to watch with me since it is one of her favourites!

It seems so little compared to what they lost

This week has been busy, just the normal things that I usually do grocery shopping on Monday needed a lot of fresh veg and fruit. Yesterday I baked bread and did some things around the house organizing and all that mundane boring stuff.
Today was some of the same along with finalizing a pile of things to take to the school for the Earthquake victims. I had a quick trip to the supermarket near our home to pick up 100 Kilos of Rice and some dried beans, canned fish and  canned meat to add to the pile of clothes, shoes, sleeping bags, blankets, towels, quilts and assorted canned fruit, cereals, canned broth, noodles, nuts, raisins, a  bit of tea, and last but not least soaps and shampoo that I have been gathering up to donate. 

When I was in the supermarket with the cart groaning from the weight of the rice many people were looking at me, this happens a lot to me anyway, but I seemed to be getting extra help from the staff. Which was really nice because they were coming to me and asking what I was looking for, instead of the other way around. Amazing since the supermarket was extremely busy, I am so grateful for all the help I was given to find the canned meat,fish, and dried beans.
When I got home and unloaded the car with the help of the driver and aiyee I looked at the pile in the living room and thought to myself it looked so small compared to all that the earthquake victims had lost.
Expat Son came home soon after, just as I was closing the garage door, having thanked the driver and said goodbye. On Son's way in the garage I asked him how much stuff was at the school for the Earthquake victims, he said, there was quite a lot. Good, I said , the people really need the donations, he agreed and then he went in the house. He looked at the pile of things I had in the living room, and he started to laugh, he was so amazed at all the stuff that we were giving to the victims. Then he asked if I
was taking it to the school, he was afraid that he would have to take it all on the bus. I of course, said yes, he had to load it on the bus and carry it into school. Oh no.... he said, I laughed and he knew I was joking!

I am keeping all those people in my prayers and in my heart, I know it will be hard for them to recover from this tragedy as most of them have lost loved ones as well as their homes. All you and I can give them is material basic survival items, we cannot replace their mothers,fathers,brothers,sisters,daughters,sons, grandparents, or friends.

I only hope the little bit I have done will help in some way.

HA! I knew it!

Men have menopause too! If I read this right he will have his men o pause before I do!

I have been saying that men have their time of the month forever,and now I have some proof!

So after all those years of him saying is it your time! We females can all say, No, but it must be your time of the month! Bahahahahahaha!
So honey it isn't me riding the cotton pony this week it must be you! snigger....snigger...

Guys! Just remember what comes around, goes around, and being insensitive arse holes to us all those years will catch up to you someday.

Wee hee hee!

I need to have drink this is to good...... I love it when I am right!

Beautiful

Pretty quiet lately....

Things have been pretty quiet on this blog lately due to the fact that I have been hitting the books. This week is final exams so I am studying and in between playing catch up on everything. I am taking a class in Chinese this term and still deciding on whether to continue next term. I have survived 9 years with what I learned from drivers and other people I come in contact with daily but have never formally taken the language. Since I know I can survive with what I know already, I ponder why am I doing this to myself. It has been an interesting time in class learning more of the language and meeting new people, however, as much as I love to go to class, I also struggle with not seeing many of my friends and doing the things that I normally do for my family. I am a selfish person when it comes to my time and I hate not being able to do the things that I really enjoy doing for my family and friends and spending that time with the people I love. So having said that I also need to decide whether or not go again next term. I really do not know what to do! 

This is the beginning of our awful rainy season, humid, sweaty, and stinky and being that this is a Chinese University there is little air conditioning, the floors and walls are sweating and so are all the students. The place stinks of body odor to the high heavens and I just want to gag every time I step into that building. Then there is the pull to continue to see what will happen in the next class, the next chapter, and wanting to finish the book. Then actually challenging myself to read that character or those characters and the accomplishment I feel when I understand it.

Wish me luck on my exams as I study hard. I leave you with some photos from that excursion we took at the end of March.

Cultural Excursion

I like to take the family on what I call Cultural Excursions now and then. Saturday we went on another one to Yi Yun in Panyu. I went there with a group of friends about 3 years ago and I was surprised at the change. They added on some new buildings and garden to the existing old buildings. Of course my favorite was the old part and that had not changed a bit thank goodness. It was a place that you could imagine people in the old days reading or writing in the upstairs rooms or walking along the garden path outside the house.

The photo is of Expat Son enjoying a bit of Peek a boo with Dad and the camera.