Day 3 - Coffee

I know what you're all thinking. "Oh, Corrie makes all sorts of crazy promises and then she doesn't follow through. I knew this wouldn't work. She'll probably end the month with only those two blog posts and then make up some silly reason why she couldn't do the others. It figures. If only she were as reliable as the rest of her family." Well what if I told you that I was physically unable to blog for the last two days because I was coughing and sneezing so much that breaths were rare and I was pretty much confined to my bed for two days straight? You'd feel pretty bad, wouldn't you. If it were true I'd be rubbing it in your faces right now. But it's not. I just haven't been near a computer for the last 48 hours and the idea of writing an entire blog post on my iPhone is exhausting. So I'm making it up to you by doing three posts today. Boom, bet you didn't see that coming!


I am grateful for coffee today. I am even more grateful for it right now than at other times because I haven't had any yet today and it's hard to handle the harsh reality of life without caffeine. I've been awake for an entire hour and a half so far with no coffee to ease my pain!


When I was a little girl I sometimes had a hard time sleeping. My parents thought I was just faking it and maybe I was. But in my little mind it was real. Sometimes I would be so excited about something that I couldn't sleep. And sometimes I was thinking so hard about problems or whatever else my 8 year old mind pondered on that I would lay awake in bed for what seemed like hours (it was probably only a matter of minutes, but it felt like a lot longer). One night, I crawled out of bed and went into the living room where my parents were sitting. I told them I couldn't sleep and they told me they had just the thing - cold black coffee. They poured me the remains of the coffee my dad had made that morning (no cream or sugar to ease my pain) and told me to drink it up; coffee always helped people get to sleep. I guess part of the joys of parenting is being able to mess with your kids a little bit. I don't know if I bought it or not; I don't know if I went straight to sleep or not, but I'll always remember that as the first time I drank coffee. Had it been only for that incident, I probably never would have tasted another cup. It was horrible.

But then in college there was this boy I liked a lot. And he loved coffee. He drank it all the time, and I thought that maybe if I were to drink coffee too we would have something to bond over, something to talk about. So I began to try to like coffee. I couldn't stand normal coffee, but I did find that I enjoyed flavored lattes. They had a bit of the coffee flavor (it's about as far away from coffee as you can get while still claiming you like coffee), but plenty of sweetness to balance out the bitter. Obviously my plan to bond over coffee failed (all for the better - he has a beautiful wife now with adorable children), but my love for lattes stuck around.

Two and a half years ago was my big turning point. It was then that I came to HGM and started Beautiful Feet Boot Camp. The schedule was ugly and I was constantly sleep deprived. Fortunately, HGM has a massive coffee maker that can give you an entire pot of coffee in less than 5 minutes. I lived off Folgers for months. I couldn't tell the difference between it and any other kind of coffee, because I put so much cream and sugar in my cup that they all tasted the same. Since then, coffee has become a staple of my diet and each day sees me drinking at least a cup if not more. I can drink it black now (some coffee, not all) and I rarely put sugar in anymore. Coffee makes me feel indulgent and luxurious, like I'm treating myself to something special. Of course it also gives me dragon-breath (I had a couple of teachers throughout school who had coffee breath. I never asked them for help on assignments. It was just too painful), but it's totally worth it. I drink it when I want to wake up, I drink it when I want to relax. I drink it before I start my day, I drink it before I go to bed. I would drink it in a house, I would drink it with a mouse. I would drink it here or there, I would drink it anywhere! Some of you might call this an addiction. To those of you, I say... yup, that's what it is. But I don't care. I have enough personal problems to fix right now. One day when I get perfect in every other way, I'll work on my caffeine addiction. I am thankful for coffee.