Pancakes and Pillows

I'm going to take inspiration as it comes and go a bit out of sequence, I have lots of catching up to do but wanted to write about today - Black Friday in the US and the kick-off of the Christmas shopping season. But here in the Higgins household, Christmas came early because our shipment finally arrived from the States after two months. Ronan was excited about his toys and couldn't wait to open every single box and bin, and he was especially keen to set up his Lego Castle next to his new Ninjago Lego sets, James was busy unpacking his art supplies and musical instruments. Speaking of which, the moving guys were very confused by the stick attached by a string to the metal bucket, aka the "washtub bass". I had to demonstrate. Anyway, what was I excited about? Pillows and pancakes. Those of you who've experienced German pillows might understand my excitement. While they are not so bad, traditional German pillows are square instead of rectangular in shape and kind of squishy. So if you don't fold them over, half the pillow is wasted, and when you do fold it, it's still kind of squishy and doesn't provide great support. Bedtime reading hasn't been quite as comfortable these last two months and the pillows just haven't been doing it for me. So am looking forward to bed as soon as I finish writing this.

Also, since I was aware that it's almost impossible to find pancake mix in German supermarkets, I included a big bag of it in our shipment, along with other comfort foods from home. So, the one thing I've been looking foward to when our shipment arrives is a pancake breakfast. So you can imagine my disappointment when, while unpacking our boxes, it didn't look like my food boxes had made it through German customs, which generally don't allow food imports. So, as I became increasingly bummed that I was not going to have pancakes breakfast tomorrow morning. And I kept thinking it was silly to be so disappointed about pancake mix, when everything else had arrived intact, like my bike, clothes, shoes, computer, books, etc. Then I opened the last box that was labeled kid stuff and, low and behold, there were my food boxes. Wow, that made my day! So I have to go to bed now so I can wake up for a fantastic pancake breakfast (yes, with maple syrup and bacon, which you can get in Germany). Sometimes, even when you love living in another country, there's just nothing like comfort food from home.