I come from a tea drinking family. My dad drank coffee at work, but it was never around at home. I first acquired a taste for it myself on a missions trip to Jamaica in high school. After a week working with kids on dusty streets and under corrugated tin roofs, the inside of my suitcase landed at home reeking of ganja (because that is was rural Jamaica smells like), but my addiction was for Blue Mountain coffee. It was then, at 16, that I began a relationship with caffeine.
Through college and our first years of marriage, I could easily get through a work day on tea, coffee or Coke just the same. Now, two kids and four years deep in staying home, I require coffee to keep digging. It is a minor vice I am prepared to live with for the rest of my life. In fact, it is a vice I am resolved to perfect over this new year. With the exception of those precious few magic coffee pot mornings, I rarely drink a full cup of coffee.
6:30 a.m. - Open eyes half way, picture a steaming cup of coffee with milk, roll over in bed. Sweet.
6:45 a.m. - Interact with my eldest daughter in a morning stupor, head downstairs to make coffee.
7:00 a.m. - In small act of attempted healthfulness, decide to drink a glass of water first.
7:03 a.m. - Pour daughter a cup of orange juice. Drink a glass of that first, instead. Sugar.
7:30 a.m. - Make coffee while daughters are strapped into booster seats eating breakfast.
7:57 a.m. - Remember to actually push "ON" button to brew the coffee when cleaning up breakfast.
8:05 a.m. - Pour first cup of coffee.
8:14 a.m. - Return to unsipped coffee on counter, lift to lips, put down to referee the children. Sigh.
8:38 a.m. - Take one long satisfying sip from coffee mug while walking into living room to play puzzles. Place mug on mantel to avoid spillage.
9:15 a.m. - Return downstairs after dressing girls. Reheat coffee in microwave. Sin.
9:30 a.m. - Leave the house, sans caffeine, to enjoy some such play date. Pray my girlfriend will brew a fresh pot so we can forget to drink it together.
1:00 p.m. - Remove cold coffee from microwave to make Ramen noodles for lunch. Open a Coke. Settle.
It should not be this hard. I need to change. I think this year I am committed. I did get this mug for Christmas after all:
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The beauty of having teens - my youngest loves coffee as much as I do and he makes the morning coffee right after he gets up for school, so it's always ready when I get up.
ReplyDeleteI will be sure to add "make coffee" to the chore chart as soon as possible.
DeleteCoffee is the best thing in the world. I hope you get to use that cup this year!
ReplyDeleteIt really is. I like champagne a lot too...
DeleteOmg, I totally do that!!! This morning I sat and drank my entire mug of coffee and it was sooo luxurious......
ReplyDeleteGood for you! I think the answer is to get up before the rest of the house. I think everyone would benefit if mommy made "me time" a priority first thing.
DeleteI was just talking to a friend yesterday about the "mom hunt" for whatever up high/out of reach place you've hidden your mug. She said she always finds hers abandoned on top of the washing machine.
ReplyDeleteI'm a bookshelf/dresser top girl.
I do use the mantel a lot. Or, I lose my drinks in the very middle of the dining room table...buried under bibs and bills and the like...
DeleteI love the new mug!
ReplyDeleteI also commit the sin of microwave-reheated coffee and I can't even blame kids for it. I just get distracted easily. The best is when I open the microwave hours later to heat something else up (sometimes more coffee) and find a cold, half-full, scummed over coffee in there from hours before. Ew.
Yeah...I really can't blame the kids. Well, maybe I can. I think my swiss cheese brain is their fault in the end
Deletelol i NEED coffee in the morning. Thank goodness I don't have kids
ReplyDeleteSome times I seriously think I would trade the kiddos for a cup. Though, in reality, they are too cute to give away.
DeleteI don't have kids, but I always feed the cats their breakfast before I have my first cup of coffee. In the coffee world, I think that makes me totally selfless! :P
ReplyDeleteMy husband did give me a Keurig for Valentine's Day last year (he knows me so well). I love it because our stupid coffee maker doesn't actually keep the coffee warm, wtf??? I love your mug and hope you get to drink a full cup of freshly brewed coffee from it this year.
Thanks! We have a nice coffee maker with a stainless carafe that does keep the coffee warm...but I would still LOVE a Keurig.
DeleteWhen I was 7 or 8 my parents taught me how to make coffee and how they took it. They made it into a kind of game, and I would bring them their steaming mugs every morning before they even got out of bed. Only looking back on it now do I realize how brilliant they were.
ReplyDeleteThat IS brilliant. I just have a few more years before my little ones can be taught such skills. Thanks for the tip!
Delete"I require coffee to keep digging." - Excellent.
ReplyDeleteTruth.
DeleteI drink one cup of coffee in the morning (and it's a half-caff blend because the full caffeine gives me the jitters). Wake before my kids to get ready for work and the first thing I do is start the coffee maker, then I pee, then I come back for my coffee (it doesn't take long for one cup to brew), then I take it with me into the bathroom while I shower. It never lasts longer than getting my contacts in and make-up on, but I'm darn sure to make sure it happens!
ReplyDeleteOn the days I don't work, that cup follows me around the house, too. It mostly sits on the top of my roll-top desk because the toddlers can't reach it there.
I have tried several times to get in a routine of waking before my family. I KNOW I would love it if I could just get in the habit. I should start now and then as the mornings get lighter it will only get easier.
DeleteThat mug is awesome. I don't like coffee or tea, but I wish I did, because everyone seems to think coffee is the elixir of life itself. But I just don't like it. I'd rather get my caffeine from chocolate.
ReplyDeleteThanks! My FIL gave it to me...does he think I am foxy? Chocolate is my third favorite food group, after coffee and champagne :)
DeleteCoffee, my first love every morning. I set it up the night before, and it is always ready and waiting for me.
ReplyDeleteI need to get in the habit of doing that, too.
DeleteOK, I want that mug. So darn cute.
ReplyDeleteYour coffee drinking days will be here before you know it. Promise.
Its a Starbucks mug, actually, so not super special in the end. BUT, I plan to make it special by drinking lots and lots of yummy things out of it!
DeleteI don't drink coffee. I, instead, get my caffeine from Diet Coke. I hate that I'm addicted to, but I never seem to want to quit. Maybe this year!
ReplyDeleteI was given a Keurig for my birthday a couple of years ago. I absolutely love it. It is a wonderful tool and I highly recommend it. Great way to make sure you get your coffee.
ReplyDeleteIt will get better! But I agree, get a Keurig or at the very least a coffee maker that you can program the night before!
ReplyDelete"It is a minor vice I am prepared to live with for the rest of my life. In fact, it is a vice I am resolved to perfect over this new year." LOVE this, as a fellow coffee-holic I completely understand this. And you gave me hope! hope that one day I would have a daughter-in-law who loves coming to my house for the coffee ;-D I am no where near the daughter-in-law stage, but hey something new to pray for, LOL! Love this post.
ReplyDeleteokay, you need to do a better job at enjoying that cup of coffee. you deserve a cup of coffee - a whole cup!!! you can do it!! i am the coffee addict on your shoulder. you know you want to. ;)
ReplyDeleteAh, coffee....wonderful, beautiful, life affirming coffee. I love that you choose a Fiestaware mug to match your mood. I do that too. No kidding. Today I was turquoise.
ReplyDelete