Aaaaah Mondays. Not the easiest day, being the beginning of the week and all, and for those who work Monday through Friday, a slap back into reality.
The freaks are all off at school. The oldest freak spent the night at my mom’s house; thankfully I didn’t have to worry about getting her off — she’s not the easiest person to rouse in the morning. DT, the middle-schooler, is pretty good about getting himself up, even though he’s not a morning person and needs 12 hours of sleep (like his mom). He wakes at 6am. Or, I should say he sets his alarm for 6am. I set mine for 6:30am, and if I hear him up and about in the morning I can chill and possibly catch a few more minutes of sleep. But if the house is silent, it means he’s probably still sleeping and I need to go wake him up. This morning I didn’t hear him, but when I came up the stairs I saw the flicker of the television — he was up and dressed.
I went to the bathroom, grabbed a blanket, and flopped down on the couch, hoping to “rest my eyes” for a few more moments since DT had everything under control. I nestled into the couch, but had a hard time zoning my brain out. Freaking Fairly Oddparents was on TV. If you think Barney is intolerable, try getting the grating, bloody-ear producing whine of Timmy Turner out of your head. His voice could be used for interrogation and/or torture purposes.
Somehow I was able to rest a bit more (which is basically always a bad idea, because then I’m just MORE groggy and tired). DT got off to school, the twins got up OK, but Lootie wouldn’t budge until 20 minutes before get-to-bus time. Not atypical for him. When he knew that he had stayed in bed until the last possible minute, he popped out from under the covers. As I ground my coffee beans in the kitchen, I could hear him stage whispering football chants as he got dressed.
It is bitter cold out and unfortunately the “good” winter accessories (hats, mittens, gloves) are all missing and/or wet from yesterday’s double romp in the snow. The boys had to settle for mismatched mittens. Sal was first to get ready and got the best articles of winter wear, leaving the major dregs to his brothers. I offered Lootie the earflap hat. He straight up refused. Franny put on dad’s old Batman hat, complete with bat ears.
As the freaks loaded the bus, I fried up my eggs, popped some waffles in the toaster (bad habit, I need to get back to my brown bread and eggs), set out some blueberries for topping, plugged in the percolator on the coffee.
Honey. I have to tell you about the coffee. We usually buy whole beans. But then our grinder broke. For some reason it took us nearly a year to purchase another grinder and we resorted to grinding at the store. About a month ago I got this one from Amazon: Hamilton Beach One Touch Custom Coffee Grinder
(this is the “have more money” end)
Fair Trade, whole bean (now that we have a grinder again)
8 o’clock, whole bean
Canned coffee, what’s on sale?
(this is the “we just need some coffee” and we broke end)
Right now we are working on the 8 o’clock beans. In fact, the pot I have is our final pot. We are down to no remaining beans. I had just enough to make one 12-cup pot. But here’s what I was going to tell you — we’ve been adding to our pot to make a bolder, more delicious cup of coffee. It started with the cardamon. A pinch of that, thrown in the grinder with the beans. Yum. But then Frank also added, after the grind, a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. It doesn’t flavor the coffee (I’m not really into flavored coffee), but it enhances it, like a spice enhances a dish. Enhancing the cup. Good stuff. Try it.
. . .
Click any for larger view.
Cup of heaven (Picasa)
Happy to be free and not in his house while I’m at work (Picasa)
He likes my earflap hat (Picasa)
. . .
Well. I need to get some work done, shower and go to that interview I was talking about yesterday. Have a good Monday!!
Ciao.