Survived, or, Gentlemen, Start Your Coffeepots

So it's been 39 days without coffee or ice cream. Upshot: lost 12 pounds, cleaned out my caffeine-addled liver, didn't have to pee 14 times before 10 am. Downside: even I admit I was cranky for a few days, but it didn't affect me physiologically in other ways--no shakes, which many people said I would have. I didn't crave other caffeineated items--I didn't start swigging Coke, for example. I pretty much switched to decaf hot tea in the morning and water the rest of the day and I was good.

Did I learn anything spiritually? I have to admit, no.

Do I feel like I'm a better person? Again, no.

Do I feel like I wasted my time? No. It was a good test of mettle, anyway. Labor was way, way harder.

Would I do it again? Lent is like taxes...every year you have to deal with it.

Plan for the morning? that coffee is going on at 7 am, rain or shine. Stop by and have a cup with me.

Ho Ho Cake, or, It's Not So Bad Not Eating Ice Cream

So my Lenten deal of no coffee and no ice cream is going ok. Coffee is still very hard, especially in the mornings, and decaf tea just doesn't give me the kind of kick I'm usually looking for. The girls have taken to playing "coffee" with their little wooden coffee maker and I am the first one they come looking for when they have just poured a fresh "cuppa cuppa." How sweet.

I'm not really missing ice cream, however. I have somehow turned my off-ice-cream 40 days into an exploration of other desserts that are equally nice, if not more so. Case in point: cream puffs from Presti's and this giant Ho Ho cake at Grobles'. Presti's cream puffs might as well be heaven sent, and this Ho Ho cake is so decadent, so rich.

I don't feel bad about the caloric intake of these items, because they are few and far between. I'm not going to Presti's on even a weekly basis, much to my own and the girls' chagrin. And the Ho Ho cake was a nice treat. Nice, indeed. I could have wrestled Bill for the last of it tonight, but Lent is, after all, about restraint.

D Day plus 2

I think what I miss about morning coffee is the ritual of it. Filling the basket, getting the water. It certainly isn't having to use the bathroom 20 times before 10, or know that I way loaded up on calories on stuff that doesn't give me a nice full feeling. I also miss the way the house smells like morning when coffee is on. A whistling tea kettle is nice, but that doesn't signal the beginning of a day to me. I don't think I'm cranky or at all unhappy biochemically. I don't think I need the caffeine of coffee the way others need nicotine, for example. I just miss the representation of it, the idea that about half a billion other people in the world start their mornings the same way, and that I was a part of that little community.

Oddly enough, ice cream has not been a challenge.

On the home decor front, we are rethinking the bathroom color to a warm cocoa, because we have blue edge tile and I think brown and blue is an incredibly sleek, modern combo. I am also thinking of ways to get more space in the girls' room. It may involve-gasp--a bunk bed. Stay tuned.

D-Day

The first day of no coffee hasn't been terrible. Ellie skipped nap and didn't want snack (amazingly) so by 5:15 she was super squirrely. The twins were okay, except Helen reiterated her new line, "I don't want to listen to you!" at a moment when I didn't find it particularly endearing. I ran out of steam at 8 and laid in my bed for a half an hour, sort of asleep, sort of not. I don't know if that was an effect no caffeine or if my brain just needed a quiet place.

I also stayed true to my no-ice cream rule, which is hard, because Ellie likes a few bites before quiet time.

I have heard that if you do something for 21 days it's a habit. I have 20 years of coffee to unlearn in 40...will I go back to it like an old sheepish lover? Will I be resigned to only being a social drinker? Or will this experiment lead to a total foregoing of one of the longest relationships I have ever had?