it really IS the little things

My mother has instilled in me many life lessons over the years, and they're hard-wired into my head at this point. Clean the kitchen as you cook. Il faut souffrir pour être belle. Moisturize. Stretch. It's bad luck to put shoes on the table. If you're thirsty you're already dehydrated. And so forth. Though that second one is in jest. Mostly.

But one of her instructions that has firmly stuck with me is to never underestimate the pure magic and luxury that is having a programmable coffee pot right in your bedroom. 

And Jo, unsurprisingly, was not mistaken. If I can only give you one suggestion to make the whole of 2014 a good year, it would be to buy a coffee pot immediately. Or just move the one from your kitchen. It's astonishing how much joy I get each morning when I turn off my alarm and hear the gentle trickle of lovely caffeine from the corner. It's never too early in the day to have hot coffee in your bloodstream, and what better to entice you from your bed on an awful January morning?

If I can find a way to have my oatmeal ready when I wake up, too, then I might just become a morning person after all.

Happy waking up!