I love them. Coffee shops that is. Something about them feels divine to me. The smell of coffee goodness in the air, my green tea in hand, sitting across from good company. Sigh. It’s my thing I guess. When I meet up with a girlfriend or a client, we do coffee not lunch. There’s something about a coffee shop that just invites conversation. Joe & I go to The Coffee Shop every week. It’s there that I tell him all about my dreams, ideas and random thoughts. He politely listens and even acts interested at times ;). So why am I telling you all of this? Well, I wish that I could have a coffee date with each and everyone of you, but unfortunately that’s not realistic. HOWEVER, that got me thinking outside the box which ultimately lead me to a new blog category: Coffee Talk Mondays. So what is it you ask? It’s basically a time for you to get to know me better. It will be quite random I’m sure, because that’s just how I roll! So mark your calendars because from here on out, you have a coffee date with Stacy Kokes every Monday. Don’t stand me up ;)

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Random fact: I don’t actually drink coffee, I drink tea. But I thought Coffee Talk Mondays sounded better than Tea Talk Mondays.

I think I like the idea of oatmeal more that I actually like it, yet I still make it every morning. Our house is really cold in the morning. Like really cold. Like our-heat-is-broken-and-we’re-too-cheap-to-fix-it cold. So I think to myself “mmmm oatmeal sounds soooo good right now”. I’m always so excited to eat it but after the first couple bites, I’m over it.

I finally convinced Joe to get Iphones. Joe & Apple have not been good friends. He’s always making jokes about how much Apple sucks, and how Google is better…blah blah blah. Sometimes I think that I’m married to a stubborn old man that’s afraid to try anything new. Like the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond when Frank refuses to try CDs because he likes his records better. (maybe not the best example because I think records are quite lovely and nostalgic). I had thought for sure when we got the Iphones that he would see “the light” but I’m not quite there yet. I may have won the battle, but the war is far from won ;).

Yesterday we had our last service as Praxis Church. Starting next week, we are merging with East Valley Bible to form Redemption Church. I’m super excited to see what God is going to do through this merge, but it is bittersweet for Joe & I. Our love story began at Praxis. It’s where we met. It’s where we feel in love. It’s where God grabbed ahold of our hearts like never before. So I will shed one tear as we say good-bye to where it all started and then look forward to the journey that lies ahead.

I ate entirely too much over the holidays. I think I gained 47 lbs. Slight exaggeration for effect. But now I’m back to “work” where I usually have the opposite problem, I don’t eat enough. Joe always gets on me because I don’t ever really eat meals. I usually get so immersed in editing or blogging, (or getting lost on facebook) that I don’t realize I’m hungry until I’m starving. By that time it’s too late to make a meal because I might pass out and hit my head on the stove. Slight exaggeration #2. So I just eat whatever is available which usually includes trail mix, yogurt or chips. It seems I need to work on figuring out the whole eating thing.

I’m a list maker. I make them for just about everything in my life. Right now I’m working on my 101 in 1001 list. (I’ll explain more about this when I actually post the list). I thought it would be pretty easy to come up with 101 things that I would like to accomplish. Wrong! I’ve been stuck on 60-something for the past 3 days. Apparently I’m not as ambitious as I once thought. But one thing I am is determined! And right now I am determined to come up with 40ish more goals to complete my list :).

I LOVE thrift stores. It’s a new obsession really. I never really appreciated antiques until recently, but now I’m in love. I drove out to Cave Creek yesterday to go thrifting at some stores I had never been to. O.M.G. Yes, I just became a middle school girl. I was completely giddy in this shop! I was there alone and had no one to exclaim “Wow! Omg! Amazing!” to. But don’t worry, I definitely still said those things to myself: audibly. I was slightly embarrassed when I realized I was “the weirdo who’s talking to themselves” but if you were there you would’ve done the same thing ;). This place was a shabby chic lover’s dream. I felt like I had time-warped into 1800’s fabulousness. I was having a hard time not buying out the entire store, but I was able to limit myself to one treasure: An old window with the words je t’aime which is “I love you” in French. I love to think about where this piece was before it ended up in my home. Here’s what I came up with: The window is from a little cafe in Paris. A man name Claude ate there daily and everyday he would tell the waitress Claire that he would marry her someday. Claire would brush off the man’s “silly” comments, but soon she found herself falling for him. Claude & Claire eventually married and moved to the United States. Every year for their anniversary, they would travel back to the cafe where it all began until one year, on their 30th anniversary they found the cafe had recently endured a fire. Much of the cafe was unrecognizable, but the window was left untouched. The two spoke to the storeowner about their love, and without hesitation handed them the window. “Let this always remind you of where your love began”. They gladly accepted the sweet gift and took it back to their home in the US. Before hanging it in their home, Claire painted the words “Je t’aime”. The two grew old together until they both passed, where the window was eventually sold to a little shop in Cave Creek, AZ. And now it resides in the Kokes household :). That could have happened, right?

Okay, so now you see what Coffee Talk Mondays is all about. A bunch of randomness from yours truly. Don’t forget about next week’s coffee date. Oh, and PLEASE feel free to leave your randomness in the comment box below. After all, this is supposed to be a conversation and not a monologue. Happy Monday!

I’ll leave you with some pictures of my new Iphone and my thrift store window treasure. I thought it was kinda fun to see these two images next to each other. The juxtapose of the new, clean technology and the beauty of the old, distressed window. Love.