Coffee

Coffee has been on my mind lately. I never drank coffee until I was about 30 and my co-worker, Margaret, would start off her day in our little office with the most wonderfully, aromatic cup of coffee. The folks at the office would tease me since I was the only n0n-coffee drinker so one day I set out to prove to them that I just did NOT like coffee! Well, I lost that proof. I fell in love with it! We never really had coffee growing up at home. Dad was a tea drinker. He'd fill that green, insulated cup with black tea, saving 1/4 of an inch for his sugar and milk to fit in. It would be swimming over the rim of his tall cup and then he'd complain when we'd shake the table and make his tea spill. Mom would make coffee VERY rarely when we had a party or guests, but not often enough to have us get used to drinking it. So, I didn't grow up with coffee, but I sure love it now!

During the month of March, the coffee king restaurant, Tim Hortons, had it's Roll Up the Rim contest going - buy a medium, large or extra large hot beverage and roll up the rim to see if you won a prize of cash, bikes, barbeques, cars or free coffee and donuts. Or the most frequent "prize", as my friend Chris always says, "Tim Horton's is so nice to me. They always let me 'play again'." Yep. When I played Roll Up the Rim, we mostly won "Please Play Again" to the point that when we would drive past a Tim Hortons, Christopher would say, "Mommy, do you want to go get a "Please Play Again?" Over the course of the month and a half that Tim's had this contest going, we ended up winning three free donuts and a free coffee. The boys were thrilled to choose their own donuts and share a hot cocoa from these winnings and we felt as if we had won a lottery!

Other random coffee comments:

Stephen came home from school a few weeks ago and was so excited! He asked, "Mommy, have you ever smelled coffee beans before?!" Well, as a matter of fact, I have. Why? "They smell sooooo good! But I don't like the taste. Maybe some day I will."

During a conversation about the definition of caffine, Timothy says, "When my next tooth falls out, I want to drink a cup of coffee before bed." Why, I ask. "Because I want to stay awake and see if the tooth fairy is real, or if it really is just you."

While sipping on a lovely cup of vanilla flavored coffee recently, Stephen again commented on how good my coffee smelled. I offered him a sip, but he refused with shock on his face. "But I'm not 10!" he said. 10? What does that have to do with anything? Well, I guess someone told him that you weren't allowed to drink coffee until you were 10 and he was so shocked that I would offer it to him when he was still seven! He ended up politely telling me that he'll wait until he's 10 and until then, he'll just smell my coffee beans.

Even though I enjoy a delicious cup of coffee, I am happy to say that I am not addicted to it either. Sometimes days go by before I realize that I haven't had any, yet other days, I know that if I had a whole pot here, I'd probably drink it all non-stop. I'm the only coffee drinker in the house, so it's not uncommon for me to go without making any for long periods of time. Besides, for some reason, it's always more enjoyable to drink that hot cup of coffee when you're sitting with a friend anyway. Anyone want to come over for a cup of coffee?