Poconos trip & a restaurant review

I am in Pennsylvania, visiting my father and brothers,and enjoying a much-needed break from my normal everyday life. My job gave everyone three days off this week, to counteract the fact that they're paying us for New Years' Day being a Holiday (which sort of takes away the entire point of Holiday pay in my opinion, but this is not for me to debate). So, I requested to have all three of my days off in a row, and left Monday night after work to head up here (in the company of my ex-boyfriend, who is one of my best friends in the entire world). Sadly, today marks the end of my three-days-off mini-vacation, and I will have to return to work tomorrow morning, but it's been good, and relaxing, and just a slight bit confusing (but then, it would not be my life if it was no confusing).

On Tuesday night, we cooked for the family. It was me, Buzz, my dad, all three of my brothers, and my brother Joe's girlfriend, Allison. Chicken Cordon Bleu, corn, carrots, mashed potatoes, stuffing, garlic bread! It was pretty delicious and fairly inexpensive to make that much food for that many people. I mean, I spent more money on that meal than any other meal in my entire life, but considering we fed seven adults - and five of us were me and my family, who are rather big people with rather big appetites, I think we did all right.

Yesterday morning, Buzz and I ventured into Honesdale for breakfast. He happens to be an enormous fan of breakfast food. I generally would much rather wait until lunch and have a sandwich or something, but breakfast sounded good that day. My dad recommended a place on Main Street, and he could not remember what it was called - only that it had a woman's name and was near a fire station. We didn't have any trouble finding it.

I actually enjoyed Laurel's Coffee Grinder so much that I took pictures and decided to give them a little plug (not that I probably have any friends who read this who live in the area, but if you're ever passing through Honesdale, Pennsylvania and want to stop for a bite to eat, check it out). It's a fairly small place, with maybe fifteen or twenty tables, plus a few seats at the bar. You can see into the kitchen, which I sort of like about places. The food is basically diner food, with loads of breakfast choices, a ton of sandwiches, soups, all kinds of fun stuff. It seemed to me to be one of those places that you would walk in and everyone would know your name, if you were a local. There was nothing particularly fancy about the place; it was actually rather plain. I did, however, like the signs hung on the wall. They were the same kinds of signs that would be hung in the living room of an adorable little family. Things that said "live, laugh, love" and the like.

I ordered a sausage omelette, and it was ENORMOUS. It came with a huge side of hashbrowns and toast, plus I ordered a side of scrapple, because it had been months since I'd indulged in the bizarre breakfast meat. Buzz had eggs over easy, scrapple, home fries (which I snuck a taste of and was entirely impressed), and toast. For the two of us, including his coffee and my generously large orange juice, I only spent $20.41 plus a tip, but the portion sizes were well worth it!

I've included a picture of their adorable, personalized coffee mug... along with a picture of all of the food that they served us. SO MUCH FOOD! Even I, with my insane appetite, didn't finish it all; I finished maybe half of it. The only thing I did not like was that the sausage in my omelette wasn't breakfast sausage, and was sort of spicy - more like something you'd have on spaghetti or pizza. But other than that, everything was delicious, the service was great, and the place was cute. Check it out if you're ever in the area!