Food, pillows, and more food

A new pizza place has opened not too far from our house.
Yes, you're probably just as shocked as I am.
And. Even more shocking.
It was good pizza.
They'll even deliver to your house (our friends tried this last night and it only took 2 hours for the pizza to arrive- no sarcasm unfortunately). So we're sitting there inhaling pizza and somewhere around one of our kids' fourth mention of bodily fluids/gases/etc, did I think we were nuts for taking the kids out to eat. I have a new respect for my parents for ever taking me and my sisters out to eat where we were little. They also say that we were well behaved, but I think really, it was so traumatic that they probably just repressed the memory.  And unfortunately, I remember sitting in Bonanza (are those even around anymore?), making up songs with my sisters and our cousins Kent and Luke that only had the word "crappy" in it, and thinking we were brilliant and hysterical.

We continued our insanity later on in the week when some other friends took our family out to a Turkish restaurant on the other side of our neighborhood. Yes, you just read "Turkish restaurant on the other side of our neighborhood."

I'll give you a second to pull yourself together.

When we first moved here almost 6 years ago there was only one type of food available in our city of 300,000 to a million people- East African rice or East African pasta.
The Turkish food was delicious, and delightfully authentic. The Turks are brilliant. I love the Turks. Papa C and I just went there last night on our date and it was again delicious. If you're ever in the area, I'd highly recommend checking it out.

If only a Korean restaurant would open next door... This would be tear-worthy. Talk about brilliant. You can't even imagine how good that stuff is. I remember when we lived in Korea, and every single week our whole fellowship would dine together. Some of my most favorite food I ate in Korea were consumed during Sunday lunch. And, all the deeply kind people we fellowshipped with made it even sweeter. Our time in Korea deeply impacted our lives and our paletes. What a gift.

So in other news. I've been having neck pain this past week, so I did some researching to find some relief. I found good ideas like doing neck stretching, and taking ibuprofen. So I started doing those, but it wasn't helping as much as I would have liked, so I looked for more ideas. One of those ideas was to buy a new pillow- one conducive to my preferred sleeping position. Perfect, I'll just hop into my minivan and drive the 17.6 miles to the nearest Bed, Bath, and Beyond and select a pillow ideal for someone who sleeps on their belly. Problem solved.
Or.
I'll hop on the bus. Ride down to the market, browse 10 different shops who will all only carry one type of pillow (think oversized large fluffy box) which will likely only make my neck problem. Worse.
Perfect.
Thankfully, another suggestion was to use a feather pillow (as long as you replace it yearly- for any of you using my blog for scholarly advice), which I have because my sister gave me a pillow to snuggle with when we moved here 6 years ago! So I've been sleeping with that and my neck problems have been improving. Thank you Jesus.
I've also started reading before I go to bed. This makes me feel old and awesome. My favorite quote of the week- "One thing that has helped me with particularly difficult people is the realization that hurting people do stupid things. Usually the more stupidly they act, the deeper their pain." (Authentic Relationships by Clay Jacobson). I wish I'd come to this realization before the age of 31.

Spiritual food. We've started celebrating a "Monthly Meditation" on our the day of our birth each month (the 13th for me) when we take the whole morning off to spend some extra time in the Word. It was delightful. I headed out around 7AM, went to a nice restaurant, had some breakfast and tea, and spent some time dwelling on Matthew 5, specifically verses 3 (Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven) and 10 (Blessed are you when you are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven). I spent some time initially with verse 3 because I'd been a feeling a little poor in spirit lately and then with verse 10 b/c of the additional connection with the "kingdom of heaven." After spending 2 hours at restaurant A, I walked to another restaurant and enjoyed an additional 2 hours over a cup of tea and more time with this section of scripture. Funny blessing to be in a place where it is perfectly acceptable to sit in a restaurant for 2 hours over a cup of tea and no one expects you to leave after a certain amount of time. It was such a gift to be able to spend time with this section of scripture and encourage my soul.
Overall, a great (though busy) week.