What I'm Thinking About: September 21st

My son, Sam, playing at the local sprinkler playground this summer...








Quote of My Day...

Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures.
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz.
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,I will fear no Equal™:
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of The Starbucks.
Thou anointest my day with pep.
My mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the House of Mochas forever.
~Author Unknown

What I'm Thinking About Today...
Today I'm thinking about coffee. I have had a love/hate relationship with coffee for years. I never started drinking it until my waitressing days in college. And it has always been something I could live with or live without, depending on the status of my life at the moment. Like pregnancy and during infertility treatments. No coffee. Did I mind? No. I missed it but managed to keep my sanity. But now that I'm not pregnant I am drinking it again, perhaps because I like it and also because I need help waking up every morning. And now that I'm drinking it again, the on-sale Maxwell House or Folgers isn't cutting it. I fear I am becoming a coffee snob. I'm already a coffee-creamer snob in that I have to have half and half. Not whole milk. Not the fake flavored creamer. Not the fat-free half and half. I need the real thing or I won't have a cup of coffee. Sort of like diet Coke. I go out to eat and when the waitress asks what I'd like to drink I always ask "Do you have Pepsi or Coke?" If she says Pepsi, I order iced tea. So I am dreading the idea that my coffee drinking habits might be catching up with my diet coke and cream habits. And it certainly doesn't help that there is a Dunkin Donuts within a mile of my house. My car seems to go on autodrive towards the drive-thru there. I love Dunkin Donuts coffee. Not only do they have great coffee, when you order coffee with extra cream they give you the perfect amount of extra cream. And it is the real stuff, not whole milk. I actually don't get coffee outside of the house very often because it is very hard to balance an infant carrier on one arm, hold a cup of steamin hot Java and manage a toddler. Coming from the big city (Pittsburgh, which is big compared to where I live now) to a small town meant giving up Starbucks. That hurt. A lot. I loved Starbucks. From the way it smelled when you walked in the door to the cool couches and interesting looking people hanging out drinking coffee, reading the paper or chatting it up with friends (in person or on their cell). We have a really nice coffee house in our town, the Kind Cafe, and they have excellent organic coffee. But it is not the same as Starbucks. Perhaps that is good. This is rural Central Pennsylvania where I share the road with Amish buggies. Starbucks just doesn't seem appropriate somehow.

It's 5:30 a.m. and Henry has me up. And I am thinking about coffee. I think I'll go brew a pot...

What is Making Me Happy Today...
A friend of mine told me to view the hours in the middle of the night when you get up with your baby as "special time" between you and your baby, especially if you have other children and one-on-one time with your new baby is infrequent compared to what it was with your first child at that age. So I am up in the middle of the night. Henry's nose is stuffed up and the snot-catcher isn't catching anything. But believe it or not I'm happy about this because yesterday Sam was not feeling well and needed most of my attention. So this time, even though I'm tired and in need of sleep, is for Henry. It makes me happy that I can have this time with him, even though it involves bugger catching and failed attempts at getting a burp out of him.

The SAHM Product I Love Today
I am changing the title of this section because I realized that most of the things I want to rant or rave about are not necessarily just for babies. For example, yesterday it was velcro. The day or so before that it was carpet cleaner. Today it is my vacuum cleaner. I love it. It is my friend. I use it just about every day. It gets up all the dog and cat hair that I lead it to. It hasn't broken down since we bought it in 2001. And I know when we bought it because it was on September 11th. So September 11th may have been one of the worst days in the history of our country, but in terms of my carpets, it was a banner of a day. The Sebo is a german-engineered vacuum and that is the reason it is so terrific, at least according to my husband, lover of all things mechanical from Germany such as the Mercedes Benz. So today I love my vacuum cleaner. And today or tomorrow new vacuum cleaner bags are coming in the mail. And it will be another banner of a day...

The SAHM Product I Hate Today
I am too sleep deprived at the moment to think of something I hate...maybe later becuase there is bound to be something that gets on my nerves by the end of the day!

My iTunes Kid Picks of the Day

• "Would You Like to Swing on a Star" by Maria Muldaur
• "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out" by Cat Stevens
• "Weave Me the Sunshine" by Peter Paul and Mary
• "Dreamland" by Mary Chapin Carpenter
• "Here Comes the Sun" by Bob Khaleel
• "Sugar Magnolia" by the Grateful Dead