How to find peace when I'm on the edge

This has been a crappy week.

1. What little hair I have is now falling out (except for the hair on my legs, which is really annoying). My scalp hurts. 
2. Our mail carrier didn't bother buzzing when I was home yesterday, so I missed my mom's care package. 
3. I've been on daycare duty more this week. Combined with my son's dawdling? Patience is done. Resulting in a mega-dose of guilt. 
4. My period started, which seems to be extending the nausea from my last treatment. 
5. My fingernails are starting to hurt, which is freaking me out because I don't want to lose my nails. Hair, fine, I'll deal. But fingernails? Really? Bloody hell.

After nearly having a breakdown on the bus this morning and sending a few panicked texts to my husband - please, someone buy that man a drink, he truly deserves it - I stopped for a little liquid sunshine.

Nectar of the gods

In an ideal world, I would cut coffee. I'm eating more vegetables, have eliminated and reduced a lot of crap (white foods, red meat, wine, dairy). I am not cutting out coffee.

Which brings me to today's saviour, Delaney's on Denman.

Grabbing a coffee is nothing new to me, it's something I do every day. In Vancouver, we take for granted the fact that there's at least one coffee shop on every block. This makes it easy to miss the whole cafe experience.

When my mom was here after my surgery, we tried a few of the local coffee shops. She liked Delaney's best. And I remembered why I loved going there so much.

Me and Delaney's have history

Through my years freelancing two days a week, to my maternity-leave days and short escape trips when I was dealing with PPD, I used to go there an awful lot. Lately, I've been going on my way home from dropping off my son at daycare since it's been pouring rain (that's no. 6 on my list!), reading the paper, and tweeting.

I like the chill atmosphere, the staff, the new sugar-free spelt muffins, the free extra shot in my latte, the seating along the window providing perfect people-watching.

It's still been a crappy week. But taking that little moment today gave me the bit of normal I needed.