ABC's of May: C is for......

C is for...... COFFEE!
Hot, steaming, sweet, lovely coffee!

For as long as I can remember I have had a love affair with coffee. One of my very first memories of coffee was during our annual summer car trip to Florida. My dad would always pack a thermos of coffee to drink on the road. I clearly remember the smell as he would open the thermos.... YUM! I can't remember how old I was, but I remember one time when he opened the thermos, I said "Yum, that smells so aromanous!" (I meant to say aromatic) My dad got a huge laugh out of that one, but he handed the cup back to me and let me have a sip! It did not disappoint...it tasted as good as it smelled!

I associate coffee with all the fun things we do. For instance:
* There is nothing better than a steaming cup of coffee first thing in the morning when we are camping.
* My husband and I love to sit together, while the kids are still asleep, and have a cup of coffee together in the mornings. It's a time when we can talk uninterrupted.
* It is a tradition for us to get special flavored coffee for Christmas morning. Our favorite is Hazelnut cream.

When I first started having stomach/intestinal problems. I figured out that it had something to do with food...but I wasn't sure which foods so I had to figure it out by process of elimination. For a time, I thought coffee was one of the culprits! So, horror of horrors I gave it up!! That was one of the hardest things I've had to do! Not only because I love it so much, but because of the headaches and irritability that I had for a week as my body withdrew from caffeine. I didn't drink coffee for a year. Then, I figured out that it wasn't the coffee that upset me, it was the milk in the creamer! (Yes, NON-DAIRY creamer has milk in it!!) Now, I can drink my coffee again, only using a soy based creamer. I am so glad, because although it has been difficult giving up dairy, and beef, and onions, and popcorn.....I don't really crave those things anymore. It was a different story with my coffee....I craved it every day of that year! I can see how people can get addicted to things like alcohol and tobacco and even drugs because I guess my "drug" of choice is coffee.

Cousins.

I am blessed to have too many cousins to count. I am not so blessed in that they all live very far away and I never get to see them! Thanks to the internet and social sites like Facebook, I have been able to reconnect with many of my cousins. It has been so nice to catch up and stay in touch with them. They have become more than just "my relatives". They have become "family". There is a difference.

My children are especially blessed because almost all of their cousins live within walking distance, or within a short drive of each other. It is almost more like they are siblings with each other and not cousins.

I have tried to instill in my children the importance of family. Sure friends are great, I have some of the greatest people in the world that I am fortunate enough to be able to call "friend". However, a person can only have one family. I am so thankful that my children have such a great family to be a part of! What a merciful God we have that knew we needed family!

Romans 9:14-16
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,

"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."

16 It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.