hong kong fooey
Black Belt
congrats on giving up coffee. hope the best for you. I know I could never give up coffee.
I have committed a sin ...
- Thread starter shesulsa
- Start date
OP
- Thread Starter
- #62
ooOOOOOOoooo ... Chew at my bidding ... wooooww!!! *eyes glint with the prospects of universal domination*There is now and ever shall be only one true chew.However, since Geo and I are close, he could be instructed by her to do her bidding.
Well, peeps, the last few days have been rough. I'm still going through some withdrawal. I think part of the problem is how much I have to doctor up my coffee - LOTS of cream and sugar ... so the old man thinks I'm going through a triple withdrawal - from caffeine, from cream and from sugar. He's prolly right, cuz I feel like ****.
Still! No coffee, tho!
Congratulations Shesulsa!
aedrasteia
Purple Belt
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2006
- Messages
- 384
- Reaction score
- 133
for S. enjoy vicariously
just so you can remember .... or plan
several years ago I had the luck to visit Jamaica to live for 2 weeks, not at a resort, but at the home owned by a friend's relative, in the hills above montego bay (Ironshore area if you know it). We had several people who worked at the house and became our friends, taking us around the area, visiting in their communities, going to church with them, a blessing all around. One man had a car and we took a trip - all day - up to the Blue Mountains, to visit a guest house in the process of being built with the hopes to attract some tourists to stay awhile. On a cool, cloudy day, the bamboo stands of 75 feet and more were shrouded in mist. We traveled up and up again as the road shrank to a narrow path and the trees grew impossibly taller and more beautiful, darker green to deep blue.
At the end of the track, the car stopped in front of a partially completed 2 story house, just above a coffee tree grove. The people there were growing on land they owned, working hard to keep their co-operative alive by roasting beans as they were harvested and selling the freshly roastyed glossy mollases colored beans to people who were willing to climb high to find them. My friend had come prepared, with a satchel and bags to bring the coffee home. She bought over 100 ponds. I thinlk it is still legal to bring in that much for personal consumption. I was able to carry about 50 lbs home.
There was no sound there, it was a cloudy and mistly day, only someone's radio picking up faint reggae on the radio from Kingston. A wind washing through bamboo so tall it seemed my eyes were unable to translate the deep blue/green flowing 75 feet or more.
In side the building the ground floor held a roughly finished kitchen with a propane fueled stove. Not a pot but an enormous enameled blue kettle held the coffee, cooked every morning. At least a gallon of deep, rich dark and sweet (without sugar), the grounds settled to the bottom, the cups at hand, we used a dipper to fill them. milk, evaporated or the thick sweet condensed the growers loved, if you needed it. it was like a song, so many flavors like music. i took mine untouched, tho i usually add milk, and carried a cup i can only call perfumed, around the building to the covered shed where the roaster and barrels were placed, to watch the young men who watched the day's roast, as they bagged it for us, smiling faintly and offering us splifs of herb rolled from torn brown paper bags.
the unroasted beans, in large burlap bags, some ready to be shipped to distributors, were piled along the wall. Only a bit was roasted each day. I still dream of the smell and can't find the words to tell you how rich and sweet it was. The young men and families talked about keeping their land and trees, some planted by fathers and grandfathers. impossible to avoid the politics or the smell of the beans turing darker as they roasted it slowly. We stayed for a long time, talking and smoking and drinking the deepest, sweetest coffe i'll ever find. they laughed a little at our happiness with the coffee, talking politics of coffee growing and selling, wondering if the herb would ever be legal to sell to make some money they desperately needed. They were generous and funny and loved the coffee they offered us.
I think i paid $7 a pound and gave all the $ i had with me. once home i gave lots away, saving it for special times. when we brewed the last of the blue mountain we'd brought from there we saluted the fine people and their hillside trees. i buy it when I can but try to only bring home shade-grown, from co-ops that are owned by people who grow. it seems like the least we can do for the ones who were so generous to us.
i still love the smell, no matter whose it is, but i'm spoiled. the smell of that kettle doesn't leave me. letting go of it is fine. maybe possible now to take it as a 'great mana' a powerful gift... once a month or season or yearly. like everything, when we have it only seldom, perhaps we can see and smell it as it deserves
just so you can remember .... or plan
several years ago I had the luck to visit Jamaica to live for 2 weeks, not at a resort, but at the home owned by a friend's relative, in the hills above montego bay (Ironshore area if you know it). We had several people who worked at the house and became our friends, taking us around the area, visiting in their communities, going to church with them, a blessing all around. One man had a car and we took a trip - all day - up to the Blue Mountains, to visit a guest house in the process of being built with the hopes to attract some tourists to stay awhile. On a cool, cloudy day, the bamboo stands of 75 feet and more were shrouded in mist. We traveled up and up again as the road shrank to a narrow path and the trees grew impossibly taller and more beautiful, darker green to deep blue.
At the end of the track, the car stopped in front of a partially completed 2 story house, just above a coffee tree grove. The people there were growing on land they owned, working hard to keep their co-operative alive by roasting beans as they were harvested and selling the freshly roastyed glossy mollases colored beans to people who were willing to climb high to find them. My friend had come prepared, with a satchel and bags to bring the coffee home. She bought over 100 ponds. I thinlk it is still legal to bring in that much for personal consumption. I was able to carry about 50 lbs home.
There was no sound there, it was a cloudy and mistly day, only someone's radio picking up faint reggae on the radio from Kingston. A wind washing through bamboo so tall it seemed my eyes were unable to translate the deep blue/green flowing 75 feet or more.
In side the building the ground floor held a roughly finished kitchen with a propane fueled stove. Not a pot but an enormous enameled blue kettle held the coffee, cooked every morning. At least a gallon of deep, rich dark and sweet (without sugar), the grounds settled to the bottom, the cups at hand, we used a dipper to fill them. milk, evaporated or the thick sweet condensed the growers loved, if you needed it. it was like a song, so many flavors like music. i took mine untouched, tho i usually add milk, and carried a cup i can only call perfumed, around the building to the covered shed where the roaster and barrels were placed, to watch the young men who watched the day's roast, as they bagged it for us, smiling faintly and offering us splifs of herb rolled from torn brown paper bags.
the unroasted beans, in large burlap bags, some ready to be shipped to distributors, were piled along the wall. Only a bit was roasted each day. I still dream of the smell and can't find the words to tell you how rich and sweet it was. The young men and families talked about keeping their land and trees, some planted by fathers and grandfathers. impossible to avoid the politics or the smell of the beans turing darker as they roasted it slowly. We stayed for a long time, talking and smoking and drinking the deepest, sweetest coffe i'll ever find. they laughed a little at our happiness with the coffee, talking politics of coffee growing and selling, wondering if the herb would ever be legal to sell to make some money they desperately needed. They were generous and funny and loved the coffee they offered us.
I think i paid $7 a pound and gave all the $ i had with me. once home i gave lots away, saving it for special times. when we brewed the last of the blue mountain we'd brought from there we saluted the fine people and their hillside trees. i buy it when I can but try to only bring home shade-grown, from co-ops that are owned by people who grow. it seems like the least we can do for the ones who were so generous to us.
i still love the smell, no matter whose it is, but i'm spoiled. the smell of that kettle doesn't leave me. letting go of it is fine. maybe possible now to take it as a 'great mana' a powerful gift... once a month or season or yearly. like everything, when we have it only seldom, perhaps we can see and smell it as it deserves
I've never tasted coffee. Ever.
I've tasted coffee-flavored candies and ice cream so I have some idea what it must taste like, but I've never so much as taken a sip of the liquid stuff.
Good luck to you in kicking this addiction!
I've tasted coffee-flavored candies and ice cream so I have some idea what it must taste like, but I've never so much as taken a sip of the liquid stuff.
Good luck to you in kicking this addiction!
You ain't alone....
OP
- Thread Starter
- #67
Hah. I had coffee this morning.
Last night, I allowed myself to get really pissed off because of the mis-match of declared objectives and actual desires and the misrepresentation of intention and apathetic processes of other adults.
I'm a Girl Scout leader. My initial co-leader was sports and fitness minded, travel goal oriented and we had similar designs on our usage of the GS experience for our duaghters. Then we merged with another leader who undoubtedly knows the GS program really well, but is plain old LAZY. These girls stated they wished to travel to explore other cultures, international carreers and volunteer opportunities. Now, in GSUSA we have something we like to call "progression" where we start by doing everything for the young girls, gradually introduce them into leadership roles and decision making, the end goal being they run the entire troop and program themselves. So to travel internationally, these girls would have to start by travelling inside the states, but far away from home.
Last night, they voted on what they were going to do with their cookie money and they voted on an overnight at a gymnastics facility.
:shrug:
An overnight ... at a gymnastics facility ... 15 minutes away.
Many of these girls are from well-to-do, double-income families and their college is likely already paid for, so it matters little to them if they stretch their boundaries and demonstrate leadership qualities. They also get opportunities to travel regardless of troop activity for family vacations. This has left my daughter and a few others completely in the lurch. They will undoubtedly have fun anyway, but the point is they will not be working towards their goals.
Unfortunately, I allowed this to piss me off so much, it interfered with my slumber last night, so I arose this morning sleepy, grumpy and exhausted. I ordered coffee with my breakfast without even thinking.
I posted this lengthy rant because patterns are always behind addictions of every kind and at great risk of embarassment, exposure of failure, yadda yadda yadda, I've put it here so I have more accountability.
There are things I can do about this - I can get her into another troop, I can register her as an independent and explore those goals with her (thought this option eliminates the peer-leadership element), or we can find another program.
I think I very likely would have felt better last night if I had broken out those materials and made another plan with her right away for a wider op event.
But I think it noteworthy that I allowed this to upset me to the extent that a domino effect happened and I fell back, without thinking, into an old habit.
So. Choice had a lot to do with my wagon bump today. *wipes sleep from her eyes and climbs back on* Let's try again.
Last night, I allowed myself to get really pissed off because of the mis-match of declared objectives and actual desires and the misrepresentation of intention and apathetic processes of other adults.
I'm a Girl Scout leader. My initial co-leader was sports and fitness minded, travel goal oriented and we had similar designs on our usage of the GS experience for our duaghters. Then we merged with another leader who undoubtedly knows the GS program really well, but is plain old LAZY. These girls stated they wished to travel to explore other cultures, international carreers and volunteer opportunities. Now, in GSUSA we have something we like to call "progression" where we start by doing everything for the young girls, gradually introduce them into leadership roles and decision making, the end goal being they run the entire troop and program themselves. So to travel internationally, these girls would have to start by travelling inside the states, but far away from home.
Last night, they voted on what they were going to do with their cookie money and they voted on an overnight at a gymnastics facility.
:shrug:
An overnight ... at a gymnastics facility ... 15 minutes away.
Many of these girls are from well-to-do, double-income families and their college is likely already paid for, so it matters little to them if they stretch their boundaries and demonstrate leadership qualities. They also get opportunities to travel regardless of troop activity for family vacations. This has left my daughter and a few others completely in the lurch. They will undoubtedly have fun anyway, but the point is they will not be working towards their goals.
Unfortunately, I allowed this to piss me off so much, it interfered with my slumber last night, so I arose this morning sleepy, grumpy and exhausted. I ordered coffee with my breakfast without even thinking.
I posted this lengthy rant because patterns are always behind addictions of every kind and at great risk of embarassment, exposure of failure, yadda yadda yadda, I've put it here so I have more accountability.
There are things I can do about this - I can get her into another troop, I can register her as an independent and explore those goals with her (thought this option eliminates the peer-leadership element), or we can find another program.
I think I very likely would have felt better last night if I had broken out those materials and made another plan with her right away for a wider op event.
But I think it noteworthy that I allowed this to upset me to the extent that a domino effect happened and I fell back, without thinking, into an old habit.
So. Choice had a lot to do with my wagon bump today. *wipes sleep from her eyes and climbs back on* Let's try again.
Many a Saint had a falling from grace at least once...Try again...
CoryKS
Senior Master
How much are we talking about here? A cup or two isn't going to wipe out your progress, if you remain committed to the goal. You should be mostly through the physical effects by now. How are you feeling?
BTW, I totally agree on the scouts thing, I had the same experience with cub scouts. It's a great program and my son's school has a really involved group of parents, but a lot of it is just lost on these kids because it just ends up being one more activity to wedge in between soccer and birthday parties at Gymboree.
Hah. I had coffee this morning.
<sni>
But I think it noteworthy that I allowed this to upset me to the extent that a domino effect happened and I fell back, without thinking, into an old habit.
So. Choice had a lot to do with my wagon bump today. *wipes sleep from her eyes and climbs back on* Let's try again.
Oh dear...say it isn't so..you mean...you're human?????:uhohh:
Falling off the wagon can be just as important a lesson as the desire to climb back on it. I applaud you for doing something that I don't have the strength to accomplish myself.
Flatlander
Grandmaster
Georgia, you will be successful. Of that, I have no doubt.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #72
Thanks, folks.
Physically, I'm feeling better - the headaches and nausea have abated (before the coffee this morning), my lungs feel clearer (cream?) and my belly fat is already less than it was before.
Emotionally, I'm less angry now that I know I'm not the only leader who was upset by the decision, though I am a bit miffed that I haven't been listened to as to the progression of these girls.
I think what I'm beginning to realize is how strongly personality, emotion, even rationale all finds a funny combination when lending itself to addictive behavior and I wonder exactly where that line is drawn for me.
Physically, I'm feeling better - the headaches and nausea have abated (before the coffee this morning), my lungs feel clearer (cream?) and my belly fat is already less than it was before.
Emotionally, I'm less angry now that I know I'm not the only leader who was upset by the decision, though I am a bit miffed that I haven't been listened to as to the progression of these girls.
I think what I'm beginning to realize is how strongly personality, emotion, even rationale all finds a funny combination when lending itself to addictive behavior and I wonder exactly where that line is drawn for me.
