In my cupboard here in the kitchen, there are more of them than I would ever care to admit.
Ok, ok~
There are 60 more cups than I will ever use. EVER.
From time to time, my dear husband Mike has asked me if I would want to put at least a few of them into a garage sale. My answer has always been the same one.
"No! I need those cups. They are all special to me and I couldn't even possibly think of getting rid of them."
All summer long I have looked at them, stowed away on the very top shelf of the highest of the kitchen cupboards. Out of sight, out of mind. They sit there, patiently waiting to be used by someone. Anyone. Just one person who would need them. The dust collects each day upon them and even if someone DID use them, they'd need to be rinsed off before anyone could ever drink from them. Perhaps someone reading this blog post can identify with what I am speaking of and will understand.
I am a collector of coffee cups and mugs. Plain and simple.
It was about 3 weeks ago when I got to thinking of things that I could do with my first graders this year. I began to brainstorm ideas of how to have some type of "incentive" celebration that we could work towards. The more I thought of good things for them to strive for, the more those unused cups kept popping into my mind. Thoughts of the cold and wintry months that would lie ahead of us here in the mountains, combined with students doing some extra reading with their parents or other family members every evening and weekends too for a month's period of time, led me to the idea of how I could finally use those coffee mugs for something special. And even though it might "hurt" a bit to get them down from the deep dark abyss of the cupboard with the thoughts of giving them all away, I think it will work out just fine.
Some cold and snowy Colorado day in January upcoming, we are going to have a "hot chocolate party" and it's not going to be just plain old cocoa either. We're going to have marshmallows floating on the top and everyone is going to get to squirt a little bit of whipped topping into it as well. There will be no need for me to buy Styrofoam cups to drink it from. Those little six and seven-year olds will get to draw a number for one of their teacher's mugs, fill it with warm cocoa and when it's all over, they will get to take that mug home with them. A new owner. A new purpose. I like that idea. A lot!
Each of those mugs have a story to tell and before I let them take their new one home, I intend to tell each child the story of how I got it. Some little one will get my "October" one, a mug that I bought on my birthday one year. Another will receive the one commemorating the centennial of my hometown of Haven, Kansas. Some child will receive perhaps the one that marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Yoder, Kansas. I was a teacher there for nearly 20 years. The stories of the others are too numerous to tell here. They have all meant something to me at one time or another. Now I realize how silly it has been to keep them all these years. Their time has come to be placed into the hands of others. What better hands than those of my new class of students?
All things considered, I suppose there would have been much worse things to collect and hang on to in 58 years of life. Have a great day everyone out there, wherever you may be on this planet Earth. I'm thinking of you all this morning and remembering you in my heart. That's where I keep all of you.
My favorite mug, of all time perhaps. What a great place to have grown up in. It will always be my hometown. It's where I am from.
No comments:
Post a Comment