Ahhh...

This:





is what woke me up this morning, and I happen to be currenly enjoying. Can't beat that. It's a beauty, ain't it?


When I first married Matt, he "hated" coffee. He loved to tease me, "How can something that smells SOOOO good taste SOOOO bad?" He held to this delusion for a good 8 years of our marriage. Then came "the coffee shop craze" which lured me in a big way, and after one particular "conversation"... ahem... about how MUCH one coffee cost, and how often are you buying them?? There was one fat "GUILTY" stamp right on my forehead. So, I ever so gently, and sweetly, suggested that maybe he could get me an espresso machine for my.. ah.. birthday that's coming up! Well, after some pleading, batting of eyelashes, serious promises about how I WILL use it, I will use it, it WILL save us money, I will I will I will, Oh PLEASE? My darling husband bought me a beauty of an espresso machine on eBay.


If you know me, you know I can get a bit manic about things... I go through phases. MAJOR phases. There was the Stampin 'up phase ("Oh please oh please, I will save us money by buying these $100 of stamps because then I can make our own cards! Just think of how much money we'll save!" Problem: I am not so crafty, phase lasted a matter of months). Enter eBay selling phase (This lasted quite some time and was great fun, but was UNBELIEVABLY time consuming and a ton of work. On the upside, I did sell some of my Stampin' up collections for a pretty penny!!!!). And quite a number of "entrepreneurial" ideas I've come up with: A wedding music service, helping couples find musicians for both the ceremony and reception. A "Let's Dish" franchise I was going to purchase and move back to San Diego. A funky gift shop called "Dumpster Divas" I was going to open with Aunt Dawn. (OK, this was and IS a great idea, I'd still love to do this someday - maybe in the lobby of my B&B I'm going to own!)

But I digress... where were we... ah yes, a beautiful functional espresso machine was sitting on my counter and I was obsessed with learning all about how to make the perfect shot of beautiful espresso for my beautiful latte. It took a few months, but I did eventually learn to make a pretty mean latte.


So, said coffee-hating husband began a teaching job where he had to commute 1.5 hours out to a college in rural MN to begin teaching at 9:00 am. So he would leave around 7:00. Hello, we're musicians, people. We don't get up until 7 or 8:00. This was not an easy task for poor Matt.

I would make Matt a mean cup of hot cocoa. (That is an oxymoron if I've ever heard one - a mean cup of hot cocoa ). Wimpy, wimpy. So I'd say to my bleary-eyed man, "I'll make an extra shot of espresso, and just put a half-shot in your hot cocoa just to give you a little extra caffeine!" He'd taste it and grimace, and go out the door with espresso-spiked hot cocoa in hand. Well, lo and behold, one day, my coffee-hating hubby said, "Could you p-p-put a whole shot in today?" Mwuaahaha. Oh, yes, honey. I can.


And, this, my blogging friends, was the beginning of the end. It was only a matter of time before the man is THE obsessed coffee maker and drinker in this house, and I get a mean (however not so lean) latte handed to me almost every morning. And both of us, and my bud Jenna, I might add... agree that the coffee in our house is better than any of those foofy coffee joints. Coffee date? My house... come on over!