Just this morning, I was running around, getting my daughters ready for school. I have a pretty solid morning routine. My husband is out of town for work, but no matter – we are a well-oiled machine driven by routine, and things are happening. Smooth but busy, nothing hectic, but no down time either. I carry my coffee cup around the house with me, in and out of bedrooms, to the kitchen, upstairs to grab the checkbook, back to the kitchen to help the girls with their lunches and water bottles. I got the girls all out the door, kissing them at the gate as they rode off on bikes.
I stepped back in the house, and grabbed my empty cup for a refill. Hmmm. I’d let it sit too long empty and it now had dried coffee-milk-residue in it. Ugh. (Parenting is such a balancing act.) Great. Now I’ll have to rinse it, and use my fingerpads to scrub away the crud (no way I’m letting a sponge touch something I’m about to drink from again). Or, I could just live with the crud. Fill up my cup with a second cup of coffee, and overlook the tiniest bit of floaty-old-creamy-coffee that will swim around my new coffee. This is Plan B and it’s usually what I do, and honestly, I hate it. (Why didn’t I take three minutes and clean the cup?!)
OR. Is there a plan C? I take a new cup. Just open up that cupboard and pull out a fresh cup. Treat myself, because life is hard enough, right? I’m telling you – I did that. I actually justified it by pointing out (in my head; I’m not weird) that if Philippe were in town, we’d dirty two cups anyway.
When did dishwasher space become so darned precious that I need to drink floaty-old-creamy-bits in my coffee?! Or justify a second cup to myself?
No more. I’m getting a fresh coffee cup from now on. (Assuming I stop drinking coffee long enough to let it dry in the first place. Which hardly happens.)
What a tiny thing, but how it lifted my spirits. Sometimes, I just need to be reminded that even small things can bring joy, and I can do small things. What other indulgences might be out there for us?