Coffee.. Yes I still write about it!

Ok so when I started my blog back a year ago the purpose of it was to write all about the fabulous cafes I visited. I set myself  a mission.. to taste the top 100 Melbourne Coffees..Yes It was big crazy  challenge..but I had a game plan, a timeline, I trained like an Olympic athlete... working my way up slowly and then bang fuelled by caffeine I was on fire and heading towards the finish line. So OK I didn't get to the 100, 94 in fact ... I came close... and I trained really hard to get there!!  Somewhere along the line I discovered I liked writing about my life, my circumstances and of course about my other inspiration Darby.  But essentially my blog started as as way of reviewing my experience at each cafe I visited .. Lately life seems to have gotten in the way and I haven't been drinking any decent coffee at all therefore I havent really wanted to write about it.... What seemed like a regular activity was slowly becoming a weekend treat....

My new job is a factor, it is located on the outskirts of the city and away from the hustle and bustle of the coffee hub of the inner city.. I missed that..I had favorite coffee shops that I haven't been able to go to at all this year.. 
Yes I am the biggest coffee snob, well maybe not the biggest, but I certainly have high standards and if I order a coffee and it isn't any good.. it gets a big black cross and I dont go back! I am fair in most things in life.. but if I get a bad coffee.. I dont forgive and forget..  


I also think adding an extra work day to my week has really stretched my coffee tasting ability. Last year I had Mondays and Thursdays off to spend with Darby and often we would  organise things to do around coffee,  This list was the focal point of my year ... 

So on Saturday morning  I like to select a place to enjoy my first coffee of the weekend. It is quite  a lengthy and thought out process... I tend to go where I know I will have a rocking coffee.. 

This week  in the spirit of being an adventurer I had the urge to try somewhere new! So  I packed Darby up and set upon our little coffee adventure.. The exhilarating feeling of the unknown was back, that feeling that spurred me on all of 2011 was there again.. Like an old familiar friend welcoming me back with open arms..


I realized how much I missed that feeling.. getting in my car and letting my imagination and a big list drive me! 

Without setting myself that challenge this year, I have to use my own instincts or at least Twitter to find a new place. So today I headed to Reverence in Ascot Vale on the recommendation by the owner of Naked Espresso on Twitter.. my favourite city coffee shop! If they go there in their down time it must be good.. plus it is in my neighbourhood.. well only an 8 minute drive!
So Darb's, I mean Batman, landed in Ascot Vale and zoomed into Reverence.. Immediatley I loved the bright and open feel.. the gorgeous blue frangipanis on the table and the echoey dark wooden floors... And I really really loved the orange coffee cup my cappuccino came in.. (although I would have loved chocolate on top too.. but that's a trivial need!!) Darby as always befriended the wait staff.. and today especially in his batman mask! He looked so damn cute! One of the waiters took a shining to him as well and kept coming to talk to him..  Darby as always oozed the confidence I love so much (and wish I had) and by his own accord, went and ordered himself something!! The wait staff look over at me, I shrug my shoulders and nod my head!! Surerly he is not ordering the most extravagant meal on the menu! Within a few moments a little gingerbread man, sporting a very spunky black tie arrived at our table! Good choice Batman! My coffee arrived too, it was superb... and definately made with love! I will keep this place in the list in my head of places to go, and Im sure Ill be back for another adventure. On our way out, Darby turned to me and said " They like me mum, I think I have made some friends" and I think he was right!
If you are in the area go and check it out!

Also today make sure you pick up a copy of the Age's Coffee Army book .. I participated in this fun activity during last year and it sure does have the best coffees listed in Melbourne!! Keep it as your bible!!! Or even better if you are in Melbourne email me and I will take you to one of those places! I think out of the list there were 10 I hadnt been too! Scary!!!!

Until next time, life is too short  to drink crappy coffee... 

Eyeing off a new challenge for 2012

Goodbye 2011 .......You have been the year of great challenges... It has been by far my most rewarding year to date.. the year I rediscovered myself - and reinvented myself,  as Java Jane the coffee connoisseur!!!


Although I posed myself with a lighthearted challenge which  has been a joyful and spirited.. It hasn't however  been without its pain and hard times.... with all great challenges there are battles to be fought in the real world... sometimes I won.. and other times I lost...felt lost...was lost... These moments just reminded me it was ok to feel like this, normal even.
 What I was dealing with  in my world was a major life change, so sometimes it would have been easier to surrender, where giving up seemed like the easier option...but that's not my style, the fighter in me wanted to keep going, knowing these challenges were just minor bumps in the road! 

This year I knew I had to grapple with my situation head on...Single motherhood, I hated saying it out loud, or telling people, let alone think about how it was going to impact my life forever.... However  my way of dealing with it head on probably wasn't the conventional route! I had a brilliant idea for grappling with this lousy situation by immersing myself in something that I enjoy, love to do, my daily pleasure... my soy cappuccino.
 Somehow I thought this could help me get through the year in one piece... or at least feeling a bit more me and a lot less fragile.. and you know what, it really did work!! I did immerse myself in everything coffee.. 

2011 will forever be the year that coffee defined me and shaped my life.. It was the oxygen for me to breath.. it was the Valium to keep me relaxed and happy... it was the morphine for when I was in pain... it was my source of energy..... it was my adventure, my journey.my addiction.. it motivated me in ways nothing else has ever done.. I thrived on the discovery of the new, new people, new places, new feelings.. Deciding to document this in my blog helped to really bring out the best in me... I discovered that I loved to write.. loved to take pictures..  (I knew this already, but it became heightened in the experience!) I loved sharing my story... I didn't care if it was only my mum and close friends that read it.. the point was I got to tell my story through coffee.. and that was the best therapy I could ever ask for.. and a heck of a lot cheaper...... 

So when December 31 came around and I had reached 96 cafes (almost to my goal of 100!!) I started pondering what challenge would await me when the clock struck midnight and 2012 arrived.... Was I going to keep on going, do the 2012 coffee list... or was  I ready for a new challenge, new adventure???  I still haven't worked out the answer to this question... maybe I will just keep writing and exploring how I can make my blog my place to document bits and pieces of my life. I have enjoyed meeting like minded people and sharing loves and lives...  I still have an urge to include coffee as it has helped me heal so much! I'm just not too sure what will bring out the best in me... so for the moment I will keep on searching... I may set myself small challenges throughout the year, but for now I will just keep sharing my story....... 
If anyone has an idea.. feel free to share... I am looking for inspiration!!!  

Today I am Linking up with Jess over at  Diary of a SAHM for 

I did her quiz... and I realised I am a wannabe groupie... I have to check it out more often than I do!!!
Until next time 
Life is too short to drink crappy coffee...

Learning to bounce back has been my 2011 challenge - the unedited version!!

 

I have been doing a bit of reflecting of late...  looking back at how I have got to where I am...It sure has been a Topsy turvy journey to date... This post has been a hard one to write, normally I’m pretty bright and breezy, so it’s been hard to do a back flip and look at the serious and deeply personal side to where I was when I took on such a funny little challenge.  

I am still perplexed when I try to remember the exact moment I decided to take on the Melbourne Coffee Review 100 best coffees challenge!!??! I think maybe it was a subconscious decision; one of those off the cuff dares to myself that I actually turned into reality! I think it was my way of saying "I am going to use my everyday love of coffee and see if it can heal my pain or at least distract me for awhile. It will keep me busy and will make sure I am not at home all the time moping about what could have been)".

That's my interpretation of it anyhow... I know before I took it on in February that I was feeling lost and my passion in life had gone MIA ... I was broken... Not that I would ever admit it to anyone... I had been through the toughest and roughest 6 months of my life... a relationship breakdown  that left me feeling bewildered, resentful but most of all really sad.. Even I can say I did an amazing job at immersing myself in setting up a new unit and settling in Darby, as best I could a 3 year old in the circumstances.... 

I then went about my daily routine in an adrenalin fuelled haze.....never really showing any emotion…Eventually the adrenalin began to fade and the repressed emotions began to emerge, and visit me, always in the most random of places... Crying at the grocery checkout...on the train on my usual commute to the city...  And almost always when I entered the cafe I had been to day in day out since I moved to  Seddon 6 years before...It was here that I felt the saddest, I almost felt I had an obligation to tell Andy what had happened.. Not that I needed too, it was probably pretty obvious, but it was here that it felt all too evident that my life had changed and it wasn’t going back to what it used to be…I spent my late 20’s and early 30’s here ….Saturday hung-over brunches in the sun (old days), A Sunday morning coffee dash before the park, a rare evening out for two, birthday dinners, birthday lunches, catch ups with friends, drinks etc etc.. I could go on forever...

I realised then that I needed to do something to make me feel better, I had to be brave and face up to how I was feeling and to tackle it head on...

When I try and explain to people that the purpose behind my challenge is not necessarily about the coffee... I seem to lose my train of thought...  On the surface it is about the coffee. I love my coffee and it is the reason I get up in the morning (some times)...And I have been to some amazing places and tasted some brilliant mind blowing coffees all while I have had my little man along for the ride. That is just scratching the surface of all the other positive impacts it has had on my life and how it is helping me to bounce back to being ME! It has been a joyous experience, and has helped me heal in a very unique way, I have stepped out of my comfort zone, I love capturing images, meeting coffee makers and I have discovered that I love to blog. I have so much resilience now (even being made redundant a few months back has been easy...)

I don’t recommend it for everyone going through a breakup (I have been hyped up on coffee quite a few times), but I can say wholeheartedly that is has helped me get through mine…. with a bit of buzz, my head held high and a frothy cappuccino grin!

Until next time... Life is too short to drink crappy coffee


Linking up with Diary of a SAHM for