Book Review: Fresh Brewed Life
I was excited about this book because that creamy, cinnamony cup of coffee on the front cover looks so inviting. I was just sure that the words that followed would be just as warm and comforting as the front image made me feel. To an extent, that was true.
I love the coffee analogy. Author Nicole Johnson writes:
“To take pleasure in coffee and benefit from all it has to offer, it must be savored, not merely consumed,”
Her take is that life is like coffee — to be savored and not just consumed.
The book covers lots of areas — relationships, friendships, beauty — all through the lens of enriching your experiences. The portion that stood out most to me was the chapter on journaling. Johnson writes:
“Journaling gives us the opportunity to learn by paying attention. By writing what’s happening and what we are feeling and thinking and what’s happening, we can look at the pieces and study them more closely. … I don’t write in my journal just to record. I write in my journal to grow. Nothing else gives me the opportunity to process my life through my own observations like my journal. Because of my dogged commitment to be honest in it, God can work through it, and I can learn and grow from the lessons of life.”
Her recipe is to find a great notebook, a great pen, an amazing scented candle — “one that makes you want to crawl inside it” — and designate a quiet place in your house, early in the morning, for journaling. First, make your grocery list or your to-do list or whatever else is in your head that will distract your thoughts. Get it out of your system. Then start writing. When you’re writing you’re thinking and processing and working things out. Keep your journal with you at all times, or pretty nearby, for whenever you need it. Your journal is private so feel free to be completely honest. Don’t censor or cross things out or edit. You’ll learn the most from capturing your feelings just as they are. These are just some of Johnson’s many excellent journaling tips; enough to entice your to get started and maybe encourage you to pick up her book if you’d like to know more.
“When we are struggling, he will meet us on the pages. When we are sinning, he will reveal that to us. When we are weeping, we’ll hear his gentle words of comfort. And when we write in celebration, we can sense his joy coming through our own. … You may hear so much that you can’t write fast enough.”
Like a warm mug of coffee, this book is best consumed in sips. It’s not the kind to sit and read in one sitting or over a few days straight through. It took me much longer to read it than I thought, I think because I read the e-version. I think I would have read more diligently if I’d read the hard copy.
I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program.
Flint River Coffee Co.
I’ve passed the Flint River Coffee Company many times and wanted to check it out but was never passing by at a time when I could actually stop. I finally got a chance to stop in last week for a taste-test and to scope out the atmosphere and the wifi.
Their menu is all original with combinations like Crimson Tide Latte, which combines peppermint and white chocolate, and Lover’s Latte, a choice of chocolate-covered strawberry or chocolate-covered cherry. If you’re not a Tide fan there’s the War Eagle Mocha — chocolate and Amaretto — and several other unique combinations.
On that first visit, I had the Coon Dog Latte, a mix of butterscotch and caramel named by the customer who invented it. Today I had the Lover’s Latte + coconut. Next time I want to try my own concoction of butterscotch and coconut. If it’s any good, I’ll come up with a catchy name and see if I can get it officially added to the menu.
The ambiance is traditional coffee shop style but with a hint of the country life. Country music softly plays while coffee drinkers sip at rustic, wooden tables and chairs or relax on the black leather couch near the fireplace. A private reading room resembles a family living room with a comfy couch, recliner and fireplace and would be a great meeting place for a small book group.
The decor is rural coffee shop style. On the walls are framed prints of steaming cups of Joe, photos taken by a local artist, and hand-painted wooden signs with sayings like “scary before coffee.”
Above the fireplace hangs the original door to the two-story farmhouse-turned-coffee-shop, and in the grooves of the door are black & white photos of local farms, fields and gravel roads.
On the covered front porch are more tables and chairs for casual outside sipping.
The coffee was wonderful, the original flavor concoctions are fun, and the atmosphere is unmatched. If hot coffee is not your thing, the menu also includes iced coffee and smoothies, and a tasty selection of muffins, bagels and cookies.
If you’re out this way, or if you’re not and want to make a special trip, you should pay them a visit.
Flint River Coffee is located at 1443 Winchester Road, just west of Shields Road or 1 mile east of Moores Mill Road in Northeast Madison County (Alabama).
Insignificant Nutrition
With coffee as my new love and my new Keurig right here at my desk, I needed to find a way to make coffee that worked with my diet. Per my co-worker Jo’s suggestion a dieting tip is to make it a mocha using diet hot chocolate (25 calories, 3 carbs). I also bought sugar-free vanilla caramel creamer (30 calories, 2 carbs). I could even top it off with whip cream for just 1 carb.
But how many carbs was in the coffee itself?
I googled and read up on it and it’s kinda hard to find out because — get this — coffee is exempt from having to have a nutrition label because it has “insignificant amounts … of all of the nutrients and food components required to be included in the nutrition label,” according to the FDA’s Food Labeling Guide.
It’s like drinking nothing. Which if course is not totally true because it’s chocked full of caffeine. But for the purposes of calculating calories and carbs, it’s nothing.
Coffee, you are nothing to me. Except sweet, wake-me-up goodness.
Keurig Barista
For Christmas and my birthday, my mom and sister got me a single-cup Keurig coffee maker with all the fixin’s — coffee and creams and cups and a storage drawer for all the little coffee flavors, even a few bags of Starbucks caramel-flavored coffee (mmmm) and the attachment where you can brew your own coffee instead of using the prepackaged cups.
I set it up at my desk at work this week since that’s the place I’m most likely to want just one cup, and it’s been all the buzz among my co-workers. At one point four people were in my government-issued cubicle discussing flavors and storage containers and how much hot chocolate to add to coffee to make it a mocha.
The review: It’s a cute little coffee maker. It’s definitely quick and the coffee is hot! It makes a little bit of noise but for less than a minute, so hopefully I’m not being too bad of a cube mate with it. The greater concern with office etiquette is probably the smell of fresh-brewed coffee after I make a cup. Mmmm. Fresh-brewed vanilla coffee makes my office smell deliciously good and jolts me awake.
Oh, and my little Starbucks mug is pretty, don’tcha think? It makes for pretty decoration when not in use.
Here’s to another cup!
