New Stuff and Guilt

Yesterday was a long day. I was up most of the night before with a crying baby. Then I woke my in-laws at 3:30AM so they could get packed and ready for us to leave the house by 4:15AM to catch a flight from Santa Barbara back home at 6AM.

The day didn't get a whole lot better. I was tired and sick to my stomach with fatigue and stress. I came back from taking them to the airport and wretched. I wasn't ready to put anything in my stomach.

Why the lead-in with such graphics, well it explains why I had such a huge caffeine headache yesterday and why a good cup of coffee to start today was so vital to my ongoing future happiness.

I charged up the coffee maker and set things up as usual, taking the extra time to make sure the autostop lever was fully opened. If I fail to do this then the coffee maker refuses to dispense correctly to the decanter. I turned it on and left it to go change the baby and let the dog out. I came back to find the coffee had once again gone leaking out the top of the filter area, missing the decanter and on to my counter top.

As you may have guessed from my awareness of the autostop lever, I have had this problem for nearly 3 years now. I got this coffee maker for our wedding, and have used it regularly for some time. I had one from my Del Rosa life and a small 4 cup that I got rid of when we consolidated houses. They both had their own set of issues, pouring and making enough...but I digress. I want a good cup of coffee, worry free in the morning and I do not have the money for an amazing super charged machine, nor the desire to tend to my coffee with a french press.

So I threw the old one out and went to get a new one today. I have been preaching that we need to minimize and limit how much stuff we have in the house. But, for an item I use almost daily that seems a little foolish to just chuck the old one and not replace. I decided the old one had hit my last nerve of patience for my coffee, and it hit the trash.

Now I have this guilt, both for throwing out a wedding gift - mind you it was one that had gone awry from its intended functionality - and for going out to get something new - and maybe just a bit of guilt because it wasn't something for the baby.

However - Here's to a good, fresh brewed, pain free coffee tomorrow morning.