There's Always Room for One More Espresso

My Starbucks addiction is common knowledge, and we all know that admitting there is a problem is the first step to recovery. Not that I want to recover, mind you, but my Starbucks gift card does. So with that in mind...

Welcome to the There's Always Room for One More Espresso Coffee House! Your Barista today is Denise!

Sit back and relax while I make you a Mocha latte. You want something else? Too bad, that's all I make...

(Notice the super cool espresso/coffee machine behind me. I got that at Lowe's, of all places, last spring. Also notice the Starbucks mug. That was a belated birthday gift from Ross so when I make my home made Mocha's I feel like I'm drinking Starbucks.)

Still waiting? Yes, it takes awhile. First I have to fill the water reservoir. Then I have to put the espresso grounds holder in and then when the machine has heated up then I have to run it and run hot water through it to heat it up. When that's done I'm ready to get started.

Notice the expertise used to pat the espresso coffee into its special holder. Also notice the high quality plastic spoon. Yep, still no dishwasher.

Here your expert barista is putting the ground holder into place on the machine. I'm sure there is a special name for this piece of machinery, and I'm pretty sure its named in the instruction manual, but since I only glanced at the directions I can't really tell you what it is. But honestly, do I really need to know its given name when I know that the coffee goes in it and the water flows through it? I know all I need to know.

Would you look at that rich, amber colored espresso. Yum, Yum.

(Oops, sorry. Just got done reading 5 Green and Speckled Frogs, you know -- Five green and speckled frogs, sitting on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs, yum, yum.

It occurs to me that I've really been spilling my reading material lately, Junie B. Jones, 5 Green and Speckled Frogs, maybe I need to branch out a little.)

Now your friendly barista pours the espresso into the mug. Notice how she has some spillage of espresso there. What a great action shot.

The secret ingredient to our magical Mocha? Starbucks Mocha Powder. Again with the plastic spoon! You think I could have pulled out the good stuff for photos here.

Also notice that I look a bit crazed here. I'm making mochas with a plastic spoon. Cut me some slack.

So your barista adds her magic Mocha powder and in the meantime, she has switched the machine to the steam mode. You know how Starbucks has those really cool stainless steel pitchers that they use to heat their milk?

Notice my super cool Chili's plastic drinking cup! They use a thermometer to check the temperature of the milk; I use my finger. But I'll make sure its clean when I check yours!

Ah, notice the technique as the barista pours the frothy milk into the mug! But the true test is the taste.

Well????
Sweet success!

But what kind of coffee place would we be if we didn't offer a quiet reading nook, particularly by a fireplace?

We have that too! Well, the nook with the fireplace anyway.

Not very relaxing. I guess you can't have it all.

So about 10 minutes later I have my Mocha. But you know what?

I still like my Starbucks.

Snuggle Bunny-- Cuddles

I just wanted to show you my newest item-- Snuggle Bunny- Cuddles.

Cuddles is made of 2 different types of Mink-y and chenille. Her body is half dotted Minky and the other half is a subtle star imprinted Mink-y. The front of her head is the star Mink-y and is hand embroidered. Her ear fronts are pink chenille.

The back of her head and ears are the dotted Mink-y. She has seams at her shoulders and hips to make her a little more flexible.

This is Emma's Cuddles and she went to sleep cuddling her a couple of nights ago and she NEVER cuddles anything at bed time. This bunny is so soft I even want to cuddle her!

If you win the drawing on Friday you can also pick Cuddles. I'm also working on one in blue if you have a boy! Pink Cuddles is listed on my Etsy site.

Snug as a Bug Boutique-- My Etsy Site

Its official! My Etsy site is up and running! I only have 2 items on there so far but hope to have another item added tonight. My Etsy store is Snug as a Bug Boutique.

The two items I have are what I call Snuggle Bears. They're 12 inch chenille bears. They are both from the land of Sugar and Spice.

This is the sweetest of bears-- Cupcake. She is made from a soft pink chenille. She loves to play dress up and is attired in white tutu and pink ribbons.

Her face is hand embroidered and her seams are re-enforced to hold up to lots of loving from little ones. She is completely machine washable.

Her tutu and ribbons are easily removed.
This Cupcake bear is Jenna's and she's carried her everywhere since I made it. She even took her to school today for show and tell and slept with her last night.


This little guy is Snickerdoodle. He is made from a pale blue chenille. He doesn't like to wear many clothes so is only wearing his scarf. He is made like Cupcake.

If you notice I tried to make Cupcake and Snickerdoodle have somewhat Asian eyes which Jenna just loves! But I plan to offer them with oval eyes and a perfected version of the Asian eyes.

Ryan is not into cuddly toys but actually wanted to sleep with Snickerdoodle last night! His scarf is longer here in this photo but then I shortened it for safety.

Here are my babies with their bears. Emma is NOT happy!!!! I took this last night and she was tired and cranky and ready for bed. She is holding her Snuggle Bear Cupcake in sage green chenille and a cream colored tutu. I haven't got her on the site because I didn't like how her face turned out. Emma doesn't seem to care though.

I will have bears in soft pink, soft blue, sage green and yellow. This afternoon I am working on some bunnies with multiple fabrics. Another project I am working on is soft, cuddly Asian dolls.

All the loveys will be baby and toddler safe with no buttons or parts that can be a choking hazard.

To top it all off I realized when I started this post that THIS IS MY 100th POST!!! Yeah! So to celebrate I am going to give away some of my Snuggle Bears to my readers! Leave a comment and let me know that you want a bear and I will assign each comment a number in the order it came in. On Friday we'll hold a drawing and give away 5 bears. The winners can pick what color and attire they want their bears to have and what type of eyes they want. So their bears will be custom made! I should have more clothing choices for boy bears by then, including a cute little vest.

Oh, and don't forget that if you enter Cynthia's raffle, tell her you heard about her from me and win then you get a free bear or bunny from me!

I kind of hate to advertise this here, I never intended my blog to be an "advertisement" but when I moved to Kansas City I had just started a stay at home job on the computer doing Auto CAD. The job was perfect! But unfortunately the economy has hurt the company I worked for and they had to let most of their employees go. So now I am jobless. This is my way of trying to stay home with the babies for another year or two. I know there are people on Etsy and eBay who make that their full time jobs so I'm hoping for the best-- especially with Christmas coming.

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I still haven't done anything with my dishwasher yet. My brother was busy yesterday so he was unable to help me disconnect it and take it back to Best Buy. And, of course, Best Buy hasn't called to come fix it!

Dishwasher Update #1

Wednesday after I posted about my dishwasher I spent 45 minutes, most of which was on hold, with Best Buy trying to determine the current status of my dishwasher. Finally I was told that my part was in! The soonest they could come out was Saturday. I was beyond frustrated.

"You're telling me that you have my part, didn't bother to call me and now the soonest you can come is Saturday even though today is Wednesday? And after I've waited WEEKS???"

The woman on the other end of the phone could really careless about my plight and told me that was soonest a repairman would be available. Defeated I said "Fine, just please fix my dishwasher."

So bright and early this morning I eagerly awaited a phone call because I was told they would call between 7-9 am and would show up between 12-3 pm. But 9:00 am came and went and no phone call. By about 11:45 I'm somewhat concerned. What if Mike the Repairman or his Discombobulated Sidekick Myles aren't coming at all? What if my service call is taking the same fate as my part-- lost somewhere. So I called Best Buy.

I have the number memorized and all the prompts memorized too. 1-888-237-8289, prompt 1 for English, then prompt 3 for speak to someone on the phone, remain on hold for extraordinarily long time, talk to person and tell them its about an appliance repair, go to system where I'm asked for my zip code, hold again for long time until I speak to someone who asks me if I'm calling about a TV or an appliance. Often I'm then placed on hold again because this person should be able to access my file so they send me off somewhere else where so far I have been disconnected 5 times out of 6 that I have gotten this far. And that's usually after being on hold for about 20 minutes. Fun times.

But today I got to person #2 who apparently COULD access my file today. She told me that a repairman WAS scheduled and then put me on hold to determine when he would be there. Finally she came back and she told me he would be there at noon. The time was 12:17. Whatever. I was in the system and today it only took me 30 minutes to get that information.

Ronnie, a new face, shows up around 1:10. He asks me what error code the dishwasher was showing before. I tell him that its been so long I really have no idea, I can't remember. I show him the card that Discombobulated Myles left and Ronnie says "Uh, oh, you need a part."

Say what?

Ronnie has no part. Yes, you read that right. Literally FIVE WEEKS since Discombobulated Myles came there IS STILL NO PART. However, Ronnie is the first person through out this entire farce to actually show some sympathy about my situation. He left me his personal cell phone number and told me if I hadn't heard anything by THURSDAY to call him and he will try to find out what's going on. Thursday, by the way, will be 6 weeks since my dishwasher went out. But who's counting?

So now I am in a very, VERY, VERY crabby mood. I can not emphasis the crabbiness enough. It is so palpable that when my boys came home from the movies they instantly knew that all was not well. And I hate that. I hate that Best Buy has the power to affect my mood like this.

Am I asking for the moon here? I have tried to be very nice and understanding and even tried to find the humor in it but I'm beyond humor. All I want is a working, functional dishwasher.

I'm thinking about taking my receipt up there tomorrow and asking for a full refund, a refund for the installation because why should I pay for installation of something that doesn't work, and a refund for the extend warranties I got on my washer and dryer that I purchased from them about the same time. I can assure you that it will be a cold day in Hades before I call Best Buy for service again.

What do you all think I should do? I am really trying not to let this get to me but 5 weeks, 7 phone calls for a length of at least 3 1/2 hours, and one in person visit haven't fixed the problem. I'm just tired of dealing with it.

Check Out These Sites

I have a couple of friends with websites that you might like to check out.

The first is my friend Cynthia. She and her husband Charlie are raising money to bring home their new son Nathan Jade Jin Pei. Jin Pei is 5 years old and will turn 6 in November. Cynthia is hoping she will have him by his birthday. As quickly as Special Needs adoptions are happening with China it's a possiblity!

I met Cynthia back in October of 2003 when I was adopting Jenna. We were in the same China DTC group The October DTC 2003 Smashing Pumpkins. Cynthia adopted her beautiful daughter Emily Rose a few weeks after we adopted Jenna. They then adopted the gorgeous Mary Pearl a couple of years later. In fact, Cynthia was a reassuring voice after I submitted my Letter of Intent for Ryan, assuring me that I COULD handle a child with a cleft palate.

Now Cynthia and Charlie are adding a little boy into their home that is nestled underneath an Oregon mountain. In fact, their blog site is called Under the Misty Moutain. Cynthia does photography and created the back drop on her blog. She has also created several others that can be located here using her photography skills.

I think everyone in the adoption world knows that money is a big issue. A lot of times when we adopt we're scrambling for funds at the end. Cynthia has a site for her raffles for fundraising. She is currently raffling off several pieces of Lia Sophia jewlery. The raffle tickets are $5 a piece. I have my eye on a couple of pieces and while I would love to tell you NOT to bid on them, that wouldn't exactly be fair to Cynthia! You have until September 30 when she has her drawing. Tell Cynthia that you got to her blog through my site and if you win you'll not only win a piece of jewelry but you'll also win a chenille/Minky lovey that I am starting to make to sell on Etsy. I'll even let you pick which animal you want and what color. I hope to have some pictures up here by the first of next week. So get on over there!

Speaking of Etsy, I have another friend,Tommi, who's mother is starting sell items there. Right now she has some darling fall wreathes and a Witches Hat perfect for Halloween. You can check out her items here at Anabelle's Blessings. She only has 4 items up right now but they hope to have even more items listed by this weekend.

The Dishwasher Repairman Cometh... or not

Do you remember that PBS show, where people would move into a town set in some previous time in history? The one I remember is Colonial House only because Oprah went with her BFF Gayle. They were so funny!

Well, my house is just like that-- the colonial part, not the funny part. Well, OK, sometimes the funny part.

All right, so maybe its an exaggeration to say that we are exactly like Colonial House, but we're close. I would say that living without a dishwasher for FIVE weeks makes us somewhat primitive.

What you ask? Didn't you just get a new dishwasher? Why, how astute of you, yes I did back when I had refrigerator lust, committing one of the Seven Deadly Sins. For those of you who need a fresher coarse about the Seven Deadly Sins--

1) Lusting after shiny, stainless steel refrigerators.
2)Gluttony when I have been to Starbucks 2 days in a row, OK, OK,I confess 3.
3)Greed by adopting 3 Asian babies.
4)Slothfullness by spending so much time on the computer instead of folding those 4 loads of towels upstairs.
5)Wrath that is about to be unleashed on Best Buy.
6)Envy which I suppose would go along with refrigerator lust.
7)Pride which has been worn down to make me stoop to things I never would have considered doing.

Now not only have we had a refresher course on the Deadly Seven but we realize I am a hopeless sinner.

But back to the dishwasher.

On Thursday, July 31 I discovered that my not yet 2 month old dishwasher wouldn't drain so like any logical person, I called the people who installed it: Best Buy. On Saturday, August 2, they sent a repairman. I admit that I worried about Best Buy coming out only because I was worried that Mike the Plumber, AKA Mike the Contractor might have morphed into Mike the Repairman. And we know what trouble we got into with Mike. But since the dishwasher was a floor model without a manual (do people actually look at those???) it didn't come with the ever so important "warranty card." Only too bad for me, 'cause I didn't realize it until my dishwasher broke.

{Note to self: Take a break from Junie B Jones books because you're sounding a little too much like her.}

So I took my chances and low and behold it wasn't Mike! It was some other guy who said he needed to order a part and to call back in 4-5 business days if I hadn't heard back.

Que dark moody music.

I wish it had been Mike.

A week goes by and I call. After multiple transfers and holds they ask questions like "when did the repairman come out?" "Did he say he was ordering the part?" I was not getting a good feeling about the situation but they said to call back in 4-5 business days if I hadn't heard anything.

In the meantime I'm playing Little Suzy Homemaker washing dishes 4+ times a day for 7 people, oblivious to reality thinking my dishwasher will be fixed any day.

I call back a week later and after multiple holds and transfers they ask the same questions!!! When I push for some answers they tell me there is a note on my file to call me in 2 business days. Only 2 days later they still hadn't called.

I now realized were are in a hostage situation.

Day 16: We are still without our dishwasher and have finally broken down and started eating all meals on paper plates and using plastic forks and spoons. We have no idea why we are being held hostage-- so far our captor has given us no clues. We can only hope our crisis ends soon.

I admit by the third week I was getting worn down and somewhat cranky. I called on a Tuesday and spent 20 minutes on hold after 10 minutes of transfers only to be disconnected. I called again on Thursday with a repeat of Tuesday-- disconnected again! I call back and at one transfer spot when the woman told me she was transferring me and I said no she wasn't because I would get lost again. I was on the phone for an hour and 10 minutes and didn't learn anything new. She said someone from customer service would call me back in 10 minutes. Good thing I didn't hold my breath.

I thought about trying to invoke the Geneva Convention rules but soon realized that the Geneva Convention doesn't have anything relating to broken dishwashers. It figures, the Geneva Convention was written by a bunch of men who never washed a dish in their life.

Day 21: We're getting desperate for answers. I've decided to meet the captors face to face to find out how long they plan to continue our captivity.

I happened to be by the Best Buy where I had purchased my appliances so I decided to drop in and see if I could get some answers there. One of the appliance sales people told me that he would call and get some answers. He even told me I could leave and call him or come back. I was so excited. He seemed to care that I had been 3 weeks without a dishwasher. Finally, I was getting some answers!

I went to Office Max next door and came back. The salesmen was off the phone. He told me that the part hadn't been ordered until August 14. The second phone call I made to them! Fine, whatever, when was the part coming in? He told me that parts usually took 2 weeks to get in.

I was crabby again. "So you're telling me that it will be another week before the part comes in?"

"Yes, its only been one week."

"No," I tried to explain, "Its been three weeks."

"No, it's only been one week since we ordered the part."

"But its been three weeks since the repairman came out! Why should I have to suffer because your repair people are too inept to order the part?"

He kind of shrugged his shoulders. I think this guy would be a good presidential candidate: fake sympathy, funny illogical math skills, indifference when he can't do anything to fix the situation. Yep, he's got my vote.

Day 33: Dishes are piling up around us. A small forest has sacrificed itself for our tableware. My hands are dry, shriveled up prunes. I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out. Its time to take matters into my own hands.

Its obvious that reasoning with these people hasn't done any good so I decided that it was time to take it to the next level. It occurred to me that Best Buy is full of dishwashers. I have formulated a plan:

Tomorrow I'm taking baskets full of dishes up to the showroom and I'm going to start loading them into the display models. That should get their attention.

I bet they'll fix my dishwasher ASAP, that or throw me in jail. Either way I don't have to do dishes. Its a win/win situation.

The New Family van Trapp

Julia is an aspiring actress/singer. Jenna seems to be following in her footsteps. Low and behold this morning Ryan decided to join in. Now all they need is Emma looking cute.

Maybe they'll support me yet!



BTW, Taylor Swift is Julia's favorite recording artist right now and she just got her CD this week so I hear it over, and over, and over....