I miss coffee. Good coffee.

What I miss most about living and working in the city is … good coffee. I miss being able to get a delicious cup first thing in the morning before work or walking to the coffee shop by our apartment on the weekend and then strolling around the neighborhood.

When we were looking at houses in the ‘burbs, my one main criteria was to be able to walk to a coffee shop.

But then we found our affordable house and the low monthly mortgage payment trumped my desire for walkable, delicious caffeine. And then I got my great job in an office park which had really terrible coffee and I was like, “I don’t know if this is going to work out?” (But then they got Starbucks shortly after I started so we’re good.)

Anyway, this a long preface to say: I love coffee.

But on the weekends when I’m especially jonesing, I hate putting my kids in the car, driving to a coffee shop, parking, getting them out of the car, dragging them into a coffee shop, remembering my wallet, ordering it, paying for it while my children grab various sundries off the countertop, making sure I didn’t forget my wallet (again), and then not being able to enjoy it because I’m fighting with the kids to get BACK into the car to go home to … my now-cold coffee.

I don’t have enough hands, people. I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH HANDS.

At home, we have the coffee pods which, of course, I kkkknnnnnnooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwww are terrible for the environment but shhhhh. Just shhhhhhhhhhh.

They taste like shit but they are so easy. And when everything else in your life is pretty hard with two small children, you need to take the shortcuts when you can find them. (Sorry, Earth. It was as good run.)

This weekend, I really, really wanted a good cup of coffee but I also didn’t want to leave the house.

Conundrum!

So … I had to buckle down and make a good cup of coffee at home. (Hold me.)

Luckily, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law live in Portland and every year for Christmas they give us a bag of seriously-delicious artisanal beans. Which is so thoughtful of them but so hard for me because, well, I love you, Coffee. But I will not take the time to brew you.

But on Saturday, I was going to DO IT. I was going to brew good coffee if it was going to kill me. (Spoiler alert: It almost killed me.)

So I followed this “recipe” on Kitchn which is seriously involved and scary and I almost gave up before I started because it’s so many words and directions and steps. Ah!

But here is what I did:

I found the teapot (miracle) and the French Press (miracle). I put water in the kettle (not a miracle). Turned on the stove and boiled it (not a miracle). Found the thermometer (miracle) and made sure the water temp was 192 degrees (not a miracle).

I found the coffee grinder (miracle), found the beans from Christmas (miracle) and ground them so they were “like breadcrumbs” per The Kitchn (a miracle). The baby started crying because she was scared of the grinder sound so I had to comfort her (not a miracle).

Once I had the beans, I poured the 192 degree water over it (not a miracle). I told Alexa to set the timer for 4 minutes and then pressed down on the plunger (not a miracle…and kind of a satisfying action, tbh). I then poured myself a cup of coffee (somewhat of a miracle).

And it was pretty good! It felt good to have and even better to share it with my equally-good-coffee-deprived husband.

Here is a picture I took for posterity’s sake:

But was it worth the effort it takes? I honestly do not know.  Because after I enjoyed that cup of coffee, I then had to clean up all of that mess. As you can tell, there were a lot of parts, my friends (more so than just popping a pod in the Keurig and destroying the environment). And the baby is kind of like “Ffffffuuuuucccckkkk you, Mom!” if I try to do anything other than hold her and pay attention to her on the weekend (my poor, sweet day care child. Already so scarred.)

As Nat put it, “Kids don’t ever want to do what you want to do on a Saturday, like make coffee…or even toast.”

Look, if I have 10 minutes to clean something up something on a Saturday, I want to be able to clean up a mess that was left, say, on Tuesday when we didn’t have any time or were too tired by life to do any straightening. I don’t want to create more mess. There is so much mess with children. So much mess. Why create more? For what, a cup of coffee?

Anyway, I’m feeling pretty confident I can recreate this in the future. And maybe if it becomes a “thing,” it won’t become so daunting.

Or maybe I’ll stick with my pods. They really aren’t so bad if you load them with cream and some Splenda (but don’t tell that to the environment!). And at least I have my coffee memories.