Taste

At church yesterday, I had a vanilla latte with extra vanilla - we are allowed one free drink for helping out and that was mine. That's the one thing about working at the cart - it costs us about $10 'extra' each week since the boys (and sometimes J.) will have a latte before or after the services. And the donuts - something we rarely every had are now a weekend thing. Oh well. It's for a good cause.

Anyway, at the first sip of my latte I thought 'hmmm, this tastes strange'. I couldn't really figure it out - just tasted a lot different than the lattes I order all the time at Starbucks or at church. It was good. I enjoyed it.

This morning, I grabbed a Vanilla Bean Yoplait and two tangerines for breakfast on my way out the door to work. When I started to eat the yogurt at my desk about an hour later, I noticed the amazingly strong taste of vanilla. And that's when it hit me: my latte tasted different BECAUSE I ACTUALLY TASTED THE VANILLA. Which I haven't done in a long, long time.

So perhaps this long, dragged out sinus thing - which has me lavaging out my sinuses with saline solution at every opportunity to attempt to help rinse the infection out - is actually a 'good' thing. Things are clearing up. Slowly. Veeerrryyy slowly. But it's getting better. I just keep rinsing and blowing. My nose is raw and red and at night, I slather Mentholatum on it and it's better the next morning - and then I do the entire routine over. It's been 3 weeks of this. But it appears to be 'worth it' since I'm tasting things I haven't tasted in a long, long time. Vanilla is yummy!

I declared today Black Monday upon arriving at the Starbucks in our SaveMart grocery store. Donna, the manager, was already making my teas for me. And she said 'so you've heard about our situation, right'? I said 'no, what's up?'. She advised that Starbucks has not renewed the licensing agreement with SaveMart, so as soon as they're out of product, they are closing. I was stunned. Shocked. If Starbucks does that with the other 'in-store' outlets they have, we'll lose 3 Starbucks. And I'll have to drive clear across town to get my morning tea - and if I'm going to drive that far, there's a Jack in the Box right across the parking lot from the closest Starbucks - so I'll just get my large brewed tea there and save $3. It totally bums me out. That morning stop has become a great way to start the day - the people are so friendly and nice. And I love 'treating' myself to that 'treat' everyday. Makes the hard work and stress somehow 'worth it' .

Our only hope is that there are still two small shopping complexes planned for our neighborhood - though Lord only knows when they'll open - we've been here 7 years and they've been planned since we moved in. But I'm praying that one of those centers has a drive-thru Starbucks included in the plan. That would be awesome and solve the problem AND those locations would be even closer than driving to the nearest grocery store.

Still, I made it through the day and got a lot done - though the panic at what is still left to do before next Tuesday is making me frantic. I came home and planted some pansies in the pots out back (remember the pansies I got at OSH a few weeks back? Yes, those pansies, which miraculously survived being left on the patio for 3+ weeks. I did lose a few plants to the darn snails. But most survived). Now, I've got to get something called dinner cooked. And feed the birthday dog. And do some more work that I brought home to try to make progress on this evening. I will be heading to bed early - not sleeping too well 'cuz my nose is such a stuffed up mess.