It's a small world: kimchi, a power outage, and auntie Lala

Today Bayley and I were coming home from the asian market in downtown oxnard (ran out of kimchi), when i decided to go an alternate route to check things out. As we drove i looked around and saw to my left a line up of people. Hmmmm.....i thought maybe it was a really good restaurant and there was a long line. I kept driving to see the end of the line, but it kept going over a block long. I finally reached the end and saw a man holding up a sign that said "FREE FOOD" my jaw dropped as i looked at the people and the families, little babies, pregnant mamas, all waiting in what seemed a very long time for a bag of groceries. I felt upset, very upset. I wanted to go buy 50 boxes of granola bars and hand them out to these people. it was cold and some of them didn't even have warm clothes on. i remembered i had 2 bags of goodwill items and decided to go see if someone wanted them. i didn't want to offend anyone, but i knew if they were standing in line for food they probably could use almost anything. i asked a woman with a baby and could tell she only spoke spanish. her friend said "no" and gave me a dirty look. crap, i offended her. i started to walk away with my bags thinking maybe these people weren't poor and they were just handing out really good food......uh no. Then a woman with 2 kids stopped me, looked at me with desperate eyes and said "yes" i smiled and we went back to the car with no bags. it felt good, but i was still upset that i offended the one lady, oh well. i drove away and saw the little boy holding the bags twirling in circles.

we came home and i made a wonderful dinner and felt so grateful that i had the food to cook the meal. we said a blessing and bayley said "amen" after.

i have a new way of life i have been working on where i'm trying to make things simpler and more meaningful. so far so good. i find myself being more mindful, less hurrried and calmer.

Auntie Chara ( attie lala) came up on monday and tuesday to visit and we had SOOOOOO much fun. We've known each other for 17 years and are more like sisters than friends. We went thrifting to find a craft table for me. we organized my downstairs area which is now a play room for both bayley and I. we went on a day trip to ojai. we drank a little too much red wine and laughed our booties off the whole time. we stayed up til' 3 in the morning catching up and talking about the good times we've had. it was pure joy. pics soon.

today bayley fed herself and actually got the food in her mouth. i think she gets it now and i am so happy. she also had her first bite of kimchi and asked for more "chee" that was a proud moment.

i made kimchi fried rice and it was divine.

fried rice

sautee
butter
garlic
add
basmati rice cooked
add
2 eggs scrambled
add
kimchi diced
grated carrot
green onions
cooked meat diced (i used steak diced up small)

cook 5-10 min med high stiring often

yummy

and tonight whilst in my cleaning and completing my "list" the power went out. like the whole town was pitch black. my heart started pounding and i was scared, i couldn't see an inch in front of me. luckily i knew where a lighter and candle was and shakily lit two. i looked outside only to see stars and they were the brightest i'd ever seen. it was so quiet and after calming down, i realized it was kind of nice and i just sat on the couch and made kitty sit with me. they eventually came back on and i continued my to do list, but it was kind of a nice break.

so here are pictures from the last week or 2

love her love for music