This month I am taking an 8am class, and I don't like it.
I am not what you would call a "morning person." I never took an 8am class in my undergrad, because I hate getting up in the morning. I was the girl in high school who always wore her hair in a ponytail, or cut it short so she wouldn't have to fix it in the morning; I only wore makeup if I had a crush on a boy (that's a whole different discussion that we can discuss later), and I would only shower at night. I did all of this so I could sleep until the very last minute, throw on a t-shirt and jeans and go to school.
Never in my life do I remember being a morning person (other than Christmas when I was a kid). This was highly inconvenient at times since I grew up on a farm. Despite my parents best efforts (which once or twice included using ice water), I am, to this day, not a morning person.
You may well wonder why I am taking an 8am class this semester. I wonder too. But at the time of enrollment it seemed like a good idea, so here I am.
This issue is compounded by the fact that J. often works late into the night. I like to wait up for him so we can have time together. But this sometimes limits my sleeping time to 3-5 hours/night. I realize a lot of people sleep 5 hours or less and function well.
I do not.
I get grumpy, sometimes down right mean when I haven't slept enough. I find it hard to control my facial expressions, which have a tendency to express sarcasm.
Do you see how this can be a problem?
So my solution to this problem has come out of desperation.
Coffee!
I know what you're thinking: "DUH!" But let's be honest. When it's already 90 degrees at 7:30 in the morning (Yay Texas!!!) do you really want a hot cup of coffee to start your day off? (My great aunt Shirley would say, 'Yes, and keep a full cup in your hand until you fall asleep at night.') Most normal people would not.
I am not going to pretend like I'm normal, but I would agree with the majority here.
A lot of people get around this by drinking iced coffee, they would purchase some designer frap each morning. But I can't afford this. $5/day on coffee five days a week is about $100/month--that's a huge chunk of change for a pair of newly-weds living on a meager income.
So, you may say make ice coffee at home. That would be cheap! And I agree. I thought about this for a long time. But do you remember how much I hate getting up? What would induce me to get up early enough to make coffee, cool it so it doesn't melt the ice and get watery, ice it and add in the things that make it palatable? (I don't like black coffee, yuck!)
Nothing is worth getting up that early and working that hard first thing in the morning.
Also, we have an old school 12 cup coffee maker, no cute little espresso machine that makes a cup at a time. For some reason, I never can get the right ratio of coffee grounds and water to make good coffee for one.
So I had to figure out a way around this.
I was perusing Pinterest in a sleepy haze a couple of weeks ago when I ran across one of those funny e-cards. It said something about freezing leftover wine in ice cube trays. The joke was that the person didn't know what leftover wine was. While I'm not the type of girl to guzzle a bottle of Merlot in one sitting, this e-card gave me inspiration.
I could freeze coffee in ice cube trays and make frozen coffee drinks quickly.
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| They even look cool! |
So one afternoon, I fired up Mr. Coffee and made a whole pot! I poured some into our 2 ice cube trays, let that freeze a couple of hours in our little freezer, then I put the cubes in a bowl in the freezer and filled the trays again. I repeated this process until I used most of the coffee. Then, when my bowl was full of cubes and I was tired of refilling the trays, I just poured the rest out. It took a while, but if you have a bigger freezer and more trays you could do it all at once.
Now in the mornings when I need a little pick me up, I take a blender cup and put the cubes in it like if I were going to pour some iced tea. Then I pour milk over them. (Calcium anyone?) I add a little sugar, and sometimes I add in a little vanilla extract. (I'm thinking about trying chocolate syrup on Monday.) Then I just blend it until the coffee cubes are broken down.
It tastes great and only takes about a minute--start to finish.
It's also cost effective. None of the ingredients are expensive at all unless you want to buy expensive coffee. Even that is exponentially less than buying a drink from a coffee shop each morning. It also takes less time than you would spend waiting in line at one of those places.
Other perks include, we never throw out expired milk anymore; I'm getting more calcium, which almost all women need; and I'm a happier person in class every morning.
I don't drink coffee every day, because I don't want to become dependent. But on those morning where I feel like any little thing may set me off, it certainly helps to have something sweet and energizing to start the morning.
I hope this helps some kindred spirit out there who also hates the morning. If you have other suggestions for me, please comment. I'm all ears! (...unless it's 8am.)
