Lotus in the Mudd

It all started with a good friend who loved to frequent Starbucks.  At this time I was not into coffee, but every time I went out with her we ended up with a coffee in our hands.  I started with Mochas and was deaply in love with them and then quickly discovered a thickness accumulating around different areas of my body.  Bummer!  Then as a saving grace to my pocketbook and waistline another friend of mine turned me on to just getting an Americano with a squirt of chocolate.  This satisfied my need for the mochas, although now I had aquired a pretty strong addiction to buying coffee out and didn't really have the budget to support it.  I was determined to keep this love affair going so I did some investigating on how to create this lovely drink at home.  It was a sad process.  But eventually I found a great little esspresso maker at a garage sale and away I went.  I was having a freshly made latte every day.  This has become quite the ritual for me over the years.  I still enjoy my steaming frothy latte every morning and sometimes again in the late afternoon.  Raising and homeschooling two young children, I greatly depend on this one ritual just for me.  My days are so full of doing things for everyone else that if I didn't have at least one thing that I do regularly for myself,  I think I would have long gone crazy.  Thank you so much to my dear old friend who unknowingly got me hooked on coffee!