a hot cuppa joe

In response to Elizabeth's post today, I decided to post a foto of my favorite mug. It's the one I grab every morning to start my day. It's big and clunky, a far cry from bone china. But it has a story and I'm stickin' with it.

When my mom passed away, now almost two years ago (I still cannot believe my mom died...), my sisters and I holed up every weekend to sort and part out my mother's things. It had been a rough couple of weeks. One afternoon when we were working in the kitchen, we found an unopened bottle of tequila hidden behind the pancake mix. For some reason, there were fresh limes in the fruit bowl on the counter. Limes, tequila, salt and ice. What more could one ask for, other than something from which to drink these fresh margaritas? Earlier, I had found this mug in the cupboard and had set it aside, wondering why my mother had kept this, when all her other cups and mugs were fine bone china. There had to be a story behind this ugly duckling, but none of us knew. So I grabbed it, and drank my margaritas from it for the rest of the afternoon. It came home with me that weekend and now it holds my coffee every morning. I still don't have a clue as to how it came into my mom's kitchen, or why it held a spot among the finery in that cupboard, but the weight of it in my hand is my mother's presence every morning sending me off into my day.