Coffee! Coffee!! Coffee!!!

Mmmm...I love me some coffee.  Granted, my earliest taste of coffee was the half-coffee/half-milk mixture my parents treated us kids to on occasion.  (I still take mine with cream and sugar.)  So I wanted to share a few things with you.

First, I'm super proud of the work my daughter is doing in Peru, working with fair trade coffee.  Here's her blog on the subject.  If you're interested in buying fair trade coffee, here's one source.  This is the brand that some of my friends buy and they say it's tasty stuff.  Pura Vida Coffee is the name.  I pick up the fair trade French Roast Sam's Choice at Walmart.

Secondly, I got to thinking about how Peru has this huge coffee export business, but no coffee culture, and that made me wonder about Spain's coffee culture.  And I happened upon this little article comparing Spain to Germany.  Nothing Earth-shattering, just an interesting look into another part of the world.

And finally, I found a recipe for homemade coffee creamer.  I did the math tonight and found that an off-brand creamer comes to 9 cents per ounce.  This recipe comes to about 6 cents per ounce.  Pretty good deal.  Plus, I can make the flavor that my local store no longer carries (for some weird reason).  Vanilla Cinnamon.  I simply added 1/2 tsp of cinnamon to the recipe.  I'm going to figure out how to make a mocha one - that will be good.

So those are some things to ponder and read over while you sip your cup of joe in the morning.  Hope you have a great day! Oh, and here's a video of my favorite singer, Robert Plant.  Enjoy!

Where Have You Been?

Goodness, it's been a long time since I've posted anything!  I've had a busy summer, though, thanks to 2 main things.

1.  I taught summer classes for the first time ever.  I only did the B session, meaning 4 days a week during the month of July.  I taught 2 classes and you would not believe how exhausted I was at the end of every day.  I realized about 1/2 way through the semester that I was cramming the work I would normally do in 4 months' time into 1 month.  No wonder I was so tired!!

2.  My daughter was home for the summer!  Yay!  We had so much fun and it was so nice to have her and her boyfriend around.  We just took them back to the airport last week and I already miss them.

And of course, school started this week, so it's back to lesson planning and dealing with Blackboard (an online communication hub for schools that can be a blessing and a curse at the same time).

I'll try to get back to posting regularly.  In the meantime, please enjoy this musical interlude.

An Interesting Duet

This video is for my daughter, who's coming home this weekend.  It features one of her favorite singers, David Bowie.  However, the video also features a singer of a different generation, Bing Crosby.

This song was recorded for Bing's 1977 Christmas special, which was taped only a month before he died.  It was, even then, considered to be an odd pairing, but something about the mixture of these two great, yet different, voices has really stuck with people and the song has become very popular.  (Read the full story here.)

So sit back and prepare to be wowed by the musical stylings of Bing and Bowie.

For Carrie

Twenty one years ago today, my life changed forever.  I headed down a path I could never have imagined.  

Sure, some of the things on the path were not fun for any of us, like sickness, trips to the emergency room, silly arguments over things I don't even remember anymore, the pain of losing a pet, disappointment over not going on that road trip, and the stress of middle school.  

But there were so many more things on the path that were great, and fun, and funny, and lovely.  Things that were fun for you, but we enjoyed because we never would have had them in our lives in exactly the same way if not for you.

Laughter when playing in the rain, softball games on a summer evening, Kitty and Serendipity and Tommy, Michelangelo, a captured duck, sleepovers with friends, sleepovers with "the girls", camping in the back yard with Amanda, church camp, Six Flags with "the boys", frilly little dresses, prom dresses, green beans as a present, Barbies, more Barbies, Barbie houses and clothes and cars and toys, Legos by the bucketful, painting a room teal, re-painting a room pink, being way too young to watch Nightmare on Elm Street, being stronger than the average girl, Tae Kwon Do, sticking up for friends, theater productions, choir concerts, track meets, track meets all the way across the state after staying up so late playing games that "some" adults might have been a little miffed, taking 2nd in that track meet anyway  ; ), Girl Scouts, Girl Scout cookies and yard sales and chili suppers and pork butt sales, Memphis Zoo, St. Louis Zoo, NAMM show in Nashville, Dave Mustaine, Aerosmith in Carbondale, Geoff Tate and Mike Stone, Queensryche and Alice Cooper and Heaven & Hell in St. Louis, Styx and Def Leppard in St. Louis, the Art Museum in St. Louis, portfolio review and the Arch and getting lost in St. Louis, walking in the snow, sledding with Jess, getting stuck in the pool with Jess, Pimp My Ride with Jess and Lydia, Misconduct in the Corps of Discovery with Sarah and Jared, scary movie Dad-Daughter Date nights, haunted houses, costumes made from old bridesmaid dresses, flying kites in the park, playing on every single piece of equipment in the park, photography contest, pictures of Dad downtown, senior pictures downtown, graduation, Sweden.

I could never have guessed what was on the path I started down 21 years ago today, but it has been wonderful and though a lot of what I see on the path is now seen from a distance, I still love every second of it.  I wouldn't have traded this journey for the world.  Happy birthday, baby.  I love you.

Chasing Your Dreams

"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams." - John Barrymore

It's 1986, a Saturday, and my college roommate and I had run out of funds and ideas of how to spend our afternoon. We were sitting in the dormitory lounge flipping through channels when we came across the Ironman Triathlon. We watched the race with interest and I remember thinking, "Man, I wish I was strong enough for that."

Fast forward 22 years. On the boards of my favorite trivia site someone asked, "What's on your bucket list?" I wrote out my list and there it was, staring me in the face. "Finish a triathlon." "Well, J.R.," I said to myself, "considering you're 41 years old, you might want to get started on that."

So I bought some good running shoes and started running. Okay, that's an exaggeration. I began sprinkling walks with short bouts of jogging. But it wasn't too long until I could run for a solid 15 minutes. I stretched out my times longer and longer and eventually, I was able to run 3 miles. I remember the first time I was able to do that. I was at the gym with my daughter and I ran 3 miles in a very slow 45 minutes, but I had done it. My daughter was proud of me. I was proud of me. And in April of 2009, I ran my first half marathon, a small step on the way to achieving a long-held and long-deferred dream.

So let me ask you this. What's on your bucket list? What are you doing about it?