Mornings like this are why God made coffee

I got up at 5am today to bake scones for a potluck. It was still pitch dark outside...and actually, to be fair it was still pitch dark when I left at 7 to catch the bus.

You would think that getting up at 5 would be the most horrible, torturous thing ever...but the funny thing was, I actually kind of liked it. Even though it is ungodly early, I really enjoyed having 2 hours to shuffle around in my pj's, mess around with a delicious combination of flour, eggs, butter, cheese and fruit, and then curl up on the couch with a cup of steaming french-press coffee while the smell of baked goods permeated my apartment (see? If you try hard enough, you can even make getting up early sound as lovely as a tropical vacation).

I've decided to finally embrace my special relationship with coffee. I've tried several times to give it up entirely and switch over to tea (because I LOVE tea...)... but why fight what's meant to be? I'm not an addict by any means, but without just one cup in the morning I feel off for the rest of the day... and I really do only need one cup. It can even be a fairly small cup, it just needs to be coffee. There's just something so relaxing and calming about the whole routine...everything else in the world can change, but I still have my morning coffee. If Kevin Upton were here right now he'd probably tell me that the whole thing is a placebo effect and I'm being irrational...but he's not here. And so I will continue to bask in my enjoyable dependence on coffee.

FUN FACT: A couple few centuries ago, coffee was touted as a possible cure for the plague.

On an entirely different note, I had a fantastic dinner with my dad tonight at Bar La Grassa. I've been wanting to go there ever since I saw it written up in Bon Appetit, and it did not disappoint! The interior ambiance is great, with sort of a rustic, dark-wood-and-chandelier-with-an-update kind of feel, and the food is amazing. I got a mushroom pasta and my dad got the papardelle with veal, both were great and the beet and avacado salad we had as an appetizer was amazing. I will definitely be back - they do private parties so I'm thinking... bachelorette party kickoff? Heck yes.

Tomorrow I will sleep in until... 5:30... at which point I will try to make the 6am yoga class. We'll see how that goes... :)