it's a beautiful day...

today was such a great day. i've been kind of tired, cranky, and overwhelmed the last few days. i think a combination of no day off for a week and a half and making a new life decisions took it's toll on me. but today was great. some highlights:

-spending the night with erich and candice last night and waking up to ellie (their two-year-old) sweetly saying "hi jason" instead of kids and workers screaming.
-eating a real omelet for breakfast
-checkers for lunch! they just opened in bethlehem and it's not quite as good as in the states, but the burgers weren't bad and the fries were great.
-finding FOX-the israeli equivalent of gap, american eagle, and abercrombie all thrown together- about five minutes from house of hope.
-finding that fox is having a 1-1 sale (buy one, get one free). so i did. i got a red sweater and a really cute pair of capri pants that are dressy. i'm excited.
-taking a nap on the roof in the sun when it was about 60* outside. it was glorious.
-not working. i love the kids and all, but man, i needed this day.

it's kinda funny how excited i was to find fox and checkers. both look very western. we could easily find places like that in jerusalem, but to have them here in bethlehem is very comforting to me. sometimes i feel like that makes me really materialistic, but jason tries to remind me that i'm not. i'm living in a weird, foreign country so familiar things are so comforting, whether it's a store, a cheeseburger, a park, the weather, whatever. it was good to see them today. i've felt overwhelmed by the sudden reality of our decision to stay here, but it seems more manageable now. it still sounds stupid to me, but i know it's not and i know also that they are not the most important things keeping me here. i won't even go to them often. but i can if i want, which is nice to know.