Blog Posts

Coffee and the Beauty of Reading

2/17/2023

Do You Read?

Do you read? I know, I know - "Read!? I have children! That's why I'm desperately looking for just a few moments to quietly drink a cup of coffee!!"

Well, as soon as you grab that cup of coffee, set up your device to listen to The Ezra Klein Show podcast "This is Your Brain on Deep Reading. It's Pretty Magnificent!" with Maryanne Wolf.

It's a bit more than an hour long, but worth every moment you can give to it!!! There's also a transcript of the November 22nd podcast if you would rather read the interview.

Enjoy your coffee,
Nonna

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Coffee & Christmas Cookies

12/19/2022

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Photo by Evelin Horvath at Unsplash.

What Was I Thinking?!

It's Christmas Cookie baking time at Nonna and the Boss's home!

And it's crazy this year because I saved all the baking and preparations to the week before Christmas knowing I would need to navigate unfamiliar recipes to meet familial needs for gluten free, dairy free cookies!!

What was I thinking?!

Time for quiet, a cup of coffee & a biscotti while deciding if I should rethink this whole Christmas cookie thing - taking a step back to examine if a choice fits with my holiday values is always a good idea. I hope you create enough white space in your holidays for just this type of quiet reflection.

While my tried and true Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti needs a makeover, we did make a full-dairy, full-gluten batch just to kick off the baking extravaganza...

Nonna's Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti Recipe

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Coffee & Christmas Music

12/12/2022

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Photo by Jelena Senicic at Unsplash

Coffee, music and books - Oh, my!

A coffee shop with calm, beautiful music is one of my favorite places - only thing better would be a library with music and barista service!

Lyle Mays and Pat Metheny reign at the top of the Boss's musical preferences, but my first music preference is Christmas music. The problem with Christmas music is that it has a limited season in our home - Boss is quite unable to listen to Little Drummer Boy in December and I don't even want to think about how he may fare if I tried to play it in July! My daughters have inherited my ability to listen to Christmas music all year long, but suffer from a similar constraint in their homes.... ah, well.

As you drink your favorite warm drink and quietly contemplate the season, I hope you will also enjoy your favorite holiday music in the background.

If you need something to play while you are creating white space in your own life, Calmed by Nature has some wonderful tracks at YouTube. And if you should listen to this Cozy Christmas Coffee Shop Ambience, you've got 8 hours of white space/coffee covered. Enjoy!

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Coffee & Cultivating Wonder

12/5/2022

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Photo by Stephanie Harvey at Unsplash.

An Overstuffed Chair

Lately, I've been wondering where my sense of wonder has fled. And remembering when it was almost always at the forefront of my thoughts while raising our children. Taking time everyday to see the world through their eyes - and to direct their eyes towards wonder-filled things - was challenging in the midst of daily life. But we did it - we cultivated a sense of wonder at home.

When my daughters were young - and we were fostering enough children to double the size of our own family - time was at a premium. There was very little white space in my life. And the only way for me to keep the crazy-mind-numbing busy under control was to get up earlier than everyone in the house to sit with my first cup of coffee. It was a time to think, to pray, to read - just a bit of time dedicated to quiet alone-ness. The Boss gave me a lovely, overstuffed chair and ottoman just for this purpose!

My children are grown, we are retired and our time is not so busy. And that self-preserving habit has fallen to the wayside. But, I wonder if letting go this habit of sitting quietly with the first cup of coffee of the day inhibits or undermines living with a sense of wonder? Something I need to think about with a cup of coffee - and my big chair!

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Coffee & A Darn Good Parenting Podcast

11/30/2022

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Photo by Juja Han on Unsplash

The Right Choices in Parenting

Time for a cup of coffee to accompany Arthur Brooks' conversation with economist Emily Oster on the How to Build a Happy Life podcast.

This is about 40 minutes long and it's an intriguing look at how an economist thinks about data and parenting decisions. It is so good that it's a great excuse to put your feet up and watch the kiddos play while you listen and drink your coffee!