i seriously love both of these things…as much as one soul could love food.  in fact, i look forward to the first like a giddy 4 year old little girl waiting for the ice-cream truck. naturally, i have to photograph them because i photograph everything i love. everything.

what is it? irish-style steel cut oats with toasted pecans and a light drizzling of agave nectar. mmm…healthy eating makes me happy and it’s nothing short of delicious. this is better than pretty much any sugary sweet confection i can think of.

this one’s slightly more of an indulgence, but so worth it from time to time. a double-shot cortadito. one perfect shot of espresso in each glass with a teeny bit of frothed milk with agave nectar rather than sugar. i’m pretty confident that i appear slightly off my rocker for my insistence on healthy food choices… since they don’t actually offer agave nectar as a sweetener at most places, i bring my own…in a medicine syringe, tucked away in my purse. i know, it does seem slightly overboard. trust me, it’s not. just go with it. raw agave nectar is totally natural, no funky chemicals and low glycemic…and wonderful. this beauty is from the liberty market’s e61 bar. they make ‘em top notch.

…from my perspective. rainy days are so much better with a warm mug of something delicious in hand.

my rainy day cup and my rainy day chair. i’m a little warmer just looking at it.

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…please, oh, please don’t go away.
 

this was the view from my front door on saturday.  here in the desert, this is heaven on earth.  we wait all year long for one or two of these days.  when it finally comes, we barely know what to do with ourselves. instead of calling in sick on a nice warm spring day…this is the day us desert dwellers stay home for. 

like so many others, reading and coffee tops my list of rainy day activities. Harry Potter, to be exact. to me, nothing says “rainy day” better than Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

my kids, without a trace of hesitation, ran right through the doorway and out into the glorious rain.  they cheered, laughed, splashed, just soaked it all up. claudia even did a jig…as in an actual irish jig, in fact, i think this was what’s known as a slip jig.  (yes, she’s wearing shorts but their dance shorts so her long shirt, soaked with rain, covered them.)

gabe did what gabe does best…his own thing. he has fun no matter what, when or where.

they even enjoyed some rainy plasma car races. of course, natty has to get in on the action and harrison’s never too busy to cater to her every whim…as he should.

she was dubbed the “inchworm” on her own little car. 
i have a feeling that these images, will have to carry me through many dry days until we see another gloriously rainy day.

that’s exactly how this image feels to me, seussical. all wobbly and colorful. I asked the kids to empty the dishwasher, and put them away. this is how I found them!

 my daughter labeled it the leaning tower of espresso, that works too.

…since i’ve posted espresso shots (hehe, pun fully intended). it’s monday morning after a long weekend, i thought you might need a little caffeine boost. here’s a picture of what a typical morning in our home looks like: 

mine, my husband’s and the toddler monster’s.
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those of you who follow my blog regularly or know me personally, know, that without a doubt i’m positively enamoured with espresso. call it an addiction but that’s such an ugly connotation, i choose to call it love. i may love it, but until yesterday, i avoided making it myself. my husband happens to have some pretty fancy barista skills so i do get my fix daily, and by daily i do mean a couple of times per day, however, he does have to go to work. this leaves me cappuccino crippled when he’s not home…not any longer. yesterday i joined a fine group of espresso lovers like myself, at the E61 espresso bar inside liberty market, for some in-depth instruction on the in’s and out’s of espresso making.

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my birthday began this morning as a beautiful ending to a wonderful weekend. my family, along with my dearest friend, mary and the oldest of her brood, Luke, enjoyed breakfast at The Coffee Shop bright and early this morning. one last hoorah before mary and luke headed to the airport to fly home to oklahoma. to consider that someone who isn’t even a member of my immediate family loves me enough to leave behind her husband and her two littlest of boys, then fly a thousand miles across the country to wish me a happy birthday, makes my heart swell immeasurably with love. it seems undeserved. never-the-less, that’s what she did and i adore her for it.

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