All of my friends know that I must have a cup of coffee in the morning before I can function. I like to tell people that it takes a least 1 cup of coffee and half a Poptart for me to even be human.

I make a pot of coffee in the kitchen each morning with a little 4 cup coffee pot. I used to have expensive coffee makers, but they never lasted more than a year or so. When I switched to the cheaper Mr. Coffee brand coffee maker, it has lasted for almost 4 years now. *knock on wood*

I have a favorite coffee mug at home. There is a short story behind how I got it. I was dating a guy who worked at the Clear Channel studios downtown as a radio producer. That is a fancy title for a boring, tedious job of working on a computer in a tiny soundproof room. And if anything goes wrong, it is up to the producer to fix it – fast.

Besides getting free tickets to just about every show in town, this guy had access to a whole closet full of radio station swag. There were tee shirts, nerf footballs, pens with radio station call letters and logos, bobble heads, baseball caps and……coffee mugs in all colors, shapes and sizes. There were a few coffee mugs from an older radio format that had been switched by management, so those mugs were obsolete and about to be thrown out. My boyfriend grabbed 4 of them and asked me if I wanted them – I said, yes.

As it turns out, those four mugs are my favorite coffee mugs. Not because they came from the radio station or because my boyfriend – at the time – gave them to me. I love them because they are made from ironstone, have a comfortable handle, and they are a cone shape, so that the top of the beverage cools quickly and the bottom stays warm longer. The ironstone is a good natural insulation and they are dishwasher safe. These mugs are perfect, and it would break my heart if any of the ever got broken, as there is no way they could ever be replaced.