Dynamo Donuts Review

Today’s review is of Dynamo Donuts.  My husband and I first discovered Dynamo before our kids were born and have been going back ever since.  It is in the Mission District on 24^th near Portrero and is not located near my old job, or his current one.  And that – is a good thing.  It means that we are not regularly tempted to go here, and try to save it for special occasions.

Dynamo Donuts is the gold standard of donuts in my opinion.  It sets the bar to which all other donuts should be held accountable.   I also love the shop itself.  All the donuts are made onsite and come in a variety of flavors.  For those people who like the standards: ‘raised glazed, old-fashioned, maple bars..’ this may not at first be to your liking, but I challenge you to try and you may be converted.

They have donuts that have cardamom, and orange, and passionfruit… and rose.   But they are so so good.  The cake part is perfect, and the donuts are made so that none are overly sweet.  My favorite, and the one which I must get each and every time no matter how many times I tell myself I’ll get something different, is the maple glazed bacon apple donut.  I’m not kidding you – it is the bomb.  Surprisingly, my second favorite is their “I’m not a gluten donut” when they have the lemon buttermilk donut.  It is covered in powdered sugar and YumMEE.  (As a side note, my son’s favorite donut for his first few years of donut eating was the Chocolate Rose donut.) 

The shop has a small indoor seating area (and recently introduced a small table for little ones).  We were going there for about a year before we even realized that they have outdoor seating in back. It is a lovely courtyard that on sunny days is the place to be with your donuts and coffee.

The serve top notch coffee – Four Barrel Coffee – which I must admit actually isn’t one of my favorites.   I am a traditional coffee with cream drinker – no frills, but today I decided to splurge and get a latte, and that my friends was GREAT.   

To test out the quality of Dynamo on others who have never been before. my donut guests today were a few vikings  (You know, the red haired people who only eat meat?).  Anyway, as one would expect with a viking, their favorite was also the bacon donut, and they ended up taking 2 more bacon donuts home to Daddy who could not join us today.  We had two 2-year olds with us, one 3-week old (who will enjoy the donuts later thanks to Mommy) and us moms.   The kids were able to sit at the kids table (the baby was sleeping) and the Mamas got to visit a little. When the kids were done they then found all the donut related books available for their (and our) reading pleasure.  My favorite was called “pat the foodie” and is a parody of “Pat the Bunny”.  For those familiar with that childhood favorite, please check out the pics below.

All in all, and it should be no surprise given my intro above, my ratings are as follows (1-low; 5-high):
Donuts: 5
Coffee: 5 (as long as it’s the latte)
Ambiance: 5

Company: 5

I am on the lookout for other donut places in SF and the Bay Area to try and other friends who would like to join me for a Friday donut review.  Please let me know if you have any recommendations or interest!

 His shirt says "WHAT WOULD BACON DO?"

Socks and Carrots

Of all house chores, the one I actually like is folding clothes. This is mainly because I watch TV while folding and therefore feel like I'm being constructive (when really I am using it as an excuse to watch TV without guilt). The problem though is that all these folded clothes need to be put away and I hate that. I'm not proud of this but folded clothes have been known to reside on our couch for days at a time. 

Socks are the worst. With four people in the house it seems like everyone wears three pairs a day for the amount we fold. And we seem to have twenty single socks with no matches at any given point in time. (seriously though ...where do all those socks disappear to?!)

Recently I encouraged Jingle to help put his own clothes away so that's a good step. (Mr. Mingle knows how to put his clothes way too.) And, we recently came up wih 'sock basketball' where we open the drawers and start throwing the socks in from across the room. This has definitely made the chore more fun and Jingle will help. I also have been known to play sock basketball when I am home alone too...

Tonight J and I had a big game of it with everyone's socks. He was the shooter while I was the rebounder. While we were busy doing this, Daddy, Grandma and Savvy were playing with circus themed finger puppets in the other room. There are six animals and Savvy calls them by their proper animal names...'bird', 'elephant', 'giraffe'....but the bear she calls Carrot. Here's a picture of Carrot:

Kids can be so wonderfully clever and helpful sometimes.

Happy at Home, Noises and All

Today was a day spent less on the job hunt and more on home-related activities.   We first met with Jingle's teacher for parent-teacher conference this morning - no surprises there.  He's brilliant as expected. (I am required to state this as his mother).   Then, Mr. Mingle went off to work, and I came home to get a slow-cooking soup on.  On tonight's menu is split pea soup, which is perfect for this very rainy day.  It's almost as if I planned the menu for the weather (which I didn't, but I will pretend I did).

Afterwards I did some small job-related activity and then headed back to Jingle's school for the book fair again.  Unlike on Monday, today there were a lot of kids there wanting to buy books, erasers, and pencils during their lunch break.  I ran the cash register for two hours and quickly learned to ask the kids how much money they had before I rung them up.  They would come up with $30 worth of stuff and then I would tell them the total and they would pull like $6 out of their grubby pocket and ask "is this enough?"   oh no Sweetie...  You need to put back most of these things....  There were also some kids who came with handfuls of coins and eyes wide "What can I buy with this?"  ... usually, the answer to that was... "well... you can buy an eraser..."   Here is how the purchases broke down in general... little girls left with kitten posters and little boys left with lego-related books.

By the time I was finished Jingle's school was over and I brought him home with me.   We have spent the last hour or so doing his homework and then art projects.  His aunt bought him this really cool gift which consists of a monthly surprise delivery based upon a theme and it includes two art projects and other related items.  This month's theme was 'Money' and the art projects were a duck-tape wallet and an owl (piggy) bank which he could paint.   It also came with some rare coins from other countries (i.e. Ugandan something-or-other), stickers, and a cookie snack.   I'm not sure who is more excited to get these monthly deliveries - Jingle, or his parents!

At the moment, he's sitting behind me on the couch making a story up with some magnetic cars he's playing with.    I love it when the kids get involved in a dialogue with their toys or stuffed animals and can make up an entire conversation all by themselves.  Oh shoot, I just sighed loudly and disrupted his concentration, "Are you okay Mama?"    This kid is super attuned to any noises.  Actually both my kids are - is that the same for all children? 

Kid: "What is that?"
Mom: "A car."
Kid: "What is that?"
Mom: "Another car."
Kid: "What is that?"
Mom:  "What is what?"
Kid: "That noise"
Mom: "What noise"
Kid: "It sounded like a 'tick'"
Mom: "I'm not sure, I didn't hear any noises over your singing".  [How do they hear other noises while they are singing??]

Jingle and his Owl Bank

Lack of Concentration

I am having some trouble focusing on this job hunt of mine.   On one hand it is so nice that everything is at our fingertips with the computer and internet, but on the other hand EVERYTHING is at our finger tips.  Today I planned to spend a majority of the day in front of the computer looking for a new job, but I find myself constantly distracted.

It started this morning.  Once the kids were dropped off at their respective places I came back to the house and thought - "hmm, I better clean up the kitchen or it's going to drive me crazy" and I did that.  Then I made some coffee and sat down with the coffee and iPad in hand.   I downloaded a new app with an old familiar name to those who have been in my position before: "What Color is Your Parachute?".  I spent a good 30 minutes, just planning my day.  Oh...what? I needed to download a new task manager app? okay, done.   Then I started in on my "...Parachute" activities.   I actually think I'll find this quite useful ultimately as I always struggle with the question "what do you want to do?"

But, after about 30 minutes, the iPad needed charging.  So, another coffee in hand, I headed downstairs to the computer to do some searching.  But, every time I click on any link, there are always 10 other links waiting to be clicked too.  'oh.. what's this job?...oh, what's that job?... what is this company?.. where was that first listing again?...' and so on.  After about a half hour I thought that maybe the neighbor with the new baby would like a visit and sent a text.  Oh goody, she wanted me to come over at 11:30.

I submitted for one job and then headed over to the neighbor's house.   Got to hold a 6 week old baby for about 20 minutes - that was nice.  Back home. Lunch time.  Fixed myself lunch and turned on a TV show while I ate.   Finished lunch, but the show was still going, so I folded clothes until it ended.

Now, I'm back downstairs.  Submitted for a second job.  Oh.. what's this? Blogger is open?  Maybe I should write a new blog entry.

Okay, blog entry is done, I better go make some more coffee...

Always On My Mind

Today I volunteered to work at a Book Fair at my son's school. We were selling books to earn money for the teachers. This was the first book to catch my attention:

Psycho Donuts Review

If you have come to this blog via my FB then you likely know why I have titled it Donut Fridays. But some of you may be wondering why I call it Donut Fridays.  Oh, you're not? Let me tell you anyways.

About three years ago I started posting about Donut Fridays on FB.  It was a treat to myself and it kind of became 'my thing'.  Sometimes I felt it was to my detriment as I would see people I hadn't seen in years, except through FB, and they would say "what have you been up to? I know you like donuts."  This happened to me at my twenty year reunion last year and then a few other times as well.  But, I have decided to embrace this... If this is to be my thing, then I will own it.

And to that end, I feel like I can't call this blog 'Donut Fridays' without actually offering a Donut Friday review.  So, to honor this, today I will provide my first official Donut Friday Review.

I had plans to visit my good friend Fossie in San Jose so I did a search for the best donut shop down there and came up with 'Psycho Donuts' in downtown SJ. The original is in Campbell and that's where their donuts are made and then delivered to the downtown SJ location.

The donuts were fitting to the name, and were totally insane. There were no signs to explain the types in the case before us so we had to ask the lady to explain. Although I enjoy donuts, I'm pretty particular about the specific types that I like.  Usually, I'm not a jelly donut, nor a chocolate donut fan but when they said it was a chocolate raspberry donut then I thought that was the one for me.  After all, when done right, these are the two of the best flavors that can be mixed together.  I also got a small cinnamon and sugar one to taste the quality of a 'typical donut'.

Fossie and her dog were also with me and we left her dog tied up outside while we ordered.  The people who work there wear white outfits fitting to those who work in insane asylums and Fossie's dog cried outside as if it were being stabbed to death the entire time we were there.   It was a fitting sound effect to the Psycho theme.

The donut itself was 'okay'. The raspberry jelly filling tasted more like jello then jelly.  The chocolate cake part was pretty good - chocolaty without being overly sweet.  The cinnamon sugar donut was good but typical of any donut.  I was kind of sad the donuts didn’t taste a little fresher as the lady kept telling us how they had just been delivered from the other place right before we got there.

 
The second most important part to any donut trip is the coffee.  It was surprisingly good considering now generic it looked when I ordered it.  I was handed a cup, a half gallon of half ‘n half and was told 'go pump it yourself'.  But, despite that, coffee was hot and tasty and the perfect balance to the crazy donuts.

My friendly company was top notch, especially once psycho doggie calmed down when we joined him outside. And, we couldn't beat the weather.  I don't even know what winter is supposed to feel like this year since it has been so pleasant.
 
So, all in all, here is my rating (1-low; 5-high):
Donuts: 3
Coffee: 4
Ambiance: 3 (kinda creepy)
Company: 5

Although it was one of the more unique donut shops I've seen and had original offerings, the actual taste of the donuts that I ate weren't memorably spectacular.  And, donuts are sweet enough so in my opinion they don't need excessive frosting on top as well.  I suppose I must continue the search for the perfect donut...

 

 

Kinda Sorta Pretty Accurate

Today I visited our 'tax guy' to see about our chances of getting a refund.  His office is in his home and he is a collector of odd things.   Before I met him I never realized that there were multiple Ouija boards from places all over the world, and that one would be inclined to collect them.  However, he's got them hung up all over his walls.  I began chuckling to myself as it occurred to me that once I left, perhaps the tax guy and his assistants pull off one of those boards, place their hands on the planchette (I had to look this word up) and then chant "How much taxes do they owe?" while waiting for Ouija tax spirits to guide them to the numbers.  As far as my knowledge of tax law - this could be just as accurate as filling out those million forms.

I have never actually believed in Ouija Boards.  I recall going to slumber parties as a kid and being the one who wanted to mess with the others who wanted to play.   You know what is accurate though?  Fortune Cookies.  

Just look at the one I got today:

I mean seriously how do they know?!  

Grateful

When I was let go last week, it was a contentious ending between my boss and I, and my first concern was about what everyone would be told for the reason of my departure.  I was also worried that I would become the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong there from here on out.  It was a very tough pill to swallow because I had worked so damn hard there.  Then, on Friday, everyone was told that I resigned and that the company accepted my resignation, and it was immediate.  From what I gather, that was the extent of the conversation.   After that, my phone began to light up – texts and emails from coworkers started coming in.  And they were so NICE.  I cannot express how grateful I have been to receive these messages which show great concern for my leaving, as well as thankfulness that I was there to begin with.   It will help me to reflect positively on the experience instead of leaving with a bitter pill in my mouth.

Besides my work mates, family has been reaching out.  Calls, texts and emails  - telling me that ‘when one door closes, another opens’.  It’s one of those cheesy clichés that I would normally roll my eyes at, but this time, I must say I believe it.  Mr. Mingle has been very supportive too, and does not blame me for losing this job.  It just wasn’t the right fit for us. (Frankly, I was making him miserable nightly by bringing home my work aggravations all the time.)

Thanks to FB, I’ve been back in touch with old friends recently who I haven’t seen in years.  And, it was those old/new friends I had to reach out to when I found myself in my work predicament.   Their skills, availability and willingness to help was exactly what I needed right then.  Others have said ‘send me your resume’ even though I haven’t seen them since high school.  I can’t believe I’m saying this right now, but I’m really grateful for Facebook!  (But really I’m more thankful for the people on FB, you know that right??)

And my kids…. My kids have charmed the pants off of their caregivers so much that both of them told me that they would watch my children for FREE once they heard our predicament.  Seriously!?  How lucky am I to have such loving people looking after the kids, that they treat them as their own.   I won’t be taking too much advantage of this very kind offer, but just hearing that melted me.

Geez, I’m even thankful to the lady at Safeway today who told me that I would save $1.70/gallon of gas if I bought gas there.  (She couldn’t tell me where ‘there’ was, but she was VERY excited about it).

I’m trying to use some of this time to give back to others.  Today I dropped some baby items off at a new neighbor’s house – they just had a newborn.  I let them know I could even watch the little one if mom wanted a break  - because hey! I’m home all the time!  I also almost got a little giddy when I received an email from the school PTA asking for volunteers next week and I realized I could do that!  

And, to end on a final note of thankfulness, my computer literally just shutdown all applications and restarted itself as I typed that last sentence.  Thank goodness I didn’t lose this blog entry and have to start all over again!

What Just Happened?

One day I am a working mom of two. My job takes up more time then my kids and I'm stressed beyond belief. By the time I get home I just want to wash away the work and see the family. But I can't. The emails keep coming, everyone is upset (at work), everyone is tired (at home) and I'm exhausted. I love the kids dearly, but don't seem to appreciate them for who they are. I'm just trying to get through dinner time and bedtime. Weekends are fun, but then Sunday night arrives and the work-blues set in.

And then the next day, I am unemployed. And, it was a most spectacular exit. Dramatic and heartfelt. Although I wasn't happy, I wasn't asking to leave. But, in the end, the company made the decision for me. Here one day, gone the next. The emails stopped. I was told not to return. Okay then, now what?

There is a looming mortgage - but that doesn't scare me (yet). There is the job hunt ahead of me, for although I was stressed at my old job, I must work. There is no option to change that if we want to continue to live where we live, and do what we do. Which we do. But, the job hunt doesn't scare me, it seems almost exciting (for now). There is the challenge of saving as much money as possible. It was interesting how quickly we knew the immediate items to cut. Housecleaning? gone. Swim lessons? gone. Public parking at a train station? gone, gone. But what's next? Childcare...

After all, if I am at home, why would we pay to have the kids in care? My daughter is in full time daycare, my son is in kindergarten with after school care. We can't pull them completely out because otherwise I would never have time to actually search for a job. So - we will leave the daughter in day care half-time only - I will have the mornings to hunt. Then I will have her in the afternoons. After that we will pick up our son from Kindergarten. Then I will have them both in the afternoons. Every day. What scares me? That does.

Oh sure, perhaps I'm a horrible mom for saying such a thing - after all they are MY children. But, I have always had a VERY healthy respect for stay-at-home moms, and that is one job that I have never held before. How exactly does one keep the children entertained (without constant TV), fed and happy, AND keep the house clean to boot? This concept alludes me. But oh.. I will learn quickly. Soon, I will search for my new job (for the paycheck) in the mornings, and I will begin my interim job as stay-at-home mom in the afternoons. This will be a treat and it will be a challenge. And, honestly, I'm really quite looking forward to this adventure.