Our home has a lot of memories. I mean, I know most everyone’s does, but the memories in these walls go back a lot further than when my wife and I moved in. My Pop helped build this roof we are living under, and he and my Grandma raised their kids in these rooms. The yard I work so hard in has been cut countless times by my Mom and her sister on hot Virginia days. My Ma was actually telling me the other day how they had a old crappy push mower and they would each cut a strip and back then the other would take the mower and cut a strip. They would alternate back and forth like that until they were done. I think of that story every time I cut my grass now, even though I am lucky enough to be doing it on an old red riding mower, which was also a hand me down from my Grandparents.

 

I loved my Grandparents like crazy and I spent as much time with them as I could get away with. During the Summer I would stay with them until my parents would drag me home. My Pop was a truck driver, so he was often gone for a couple of days at a time and it would just be me and my Grandma. Her legal name was Nannie so you can tell it was fate that she would be the most amazing Grandma that has ever walked the earth. We never got tired of being together and she would just take me along to complete her to-do list for the day. We were a team and we each thought the other one just about hung the moon.

 

Every morning my Grandma, being the amazing Southern woman that she was, would cook eggs and toast for breakfast. She wore long knee length T-Shirts to bed (she called them her gowns) that had funny sayings or bible verses written on the front of them, and she always wore them while she piddled around in the morning. It was the only time you would see her without every hair in place and her lipstick applied perfectly. She would warm up the homemade biscuits that were left over from the night before and she would fry us an egg.

 

Before we got down to the business of breakfast, though, she would brew a pot of coffee. Since I wanted to do whatever she did, I would insist on also having a cup. She collected coffee cups, so you never knew which one you were going to drink out of that day. She knew so many people and they all brought her mugs from where ever they traveled so one morning you might have a cup from the diner a couple of towns over and then the next day your mug would be from a city overseas that seemed so exotic and impossibly far away.

 

There was a particular mug, though, that I loved the most. I loved it because it had a hunting dog on it and I felt like it was a real manly mug. I mean, with my Pop on the road I was the man of the house after all. Well, at least until my Mom made me come back home. I can see my Grandma like it was yesterday, taking the mug out of the same cabinet that we keep our coffee cups in now, and pouring the black liquid in our cups. She used sugar and milk to transform my coffee into a sweet goodness that warmed me up.

 

We would sit at the table and talk while we drink it and I thought I was so grown up. She had the ability to make anyone she focused on feel special and those mornings I felt like she wouldn’t have chosen to be anywhere else.

 

As a Stay at Home Dad of three kids (the oldest just turned 6) I need my coffee in the morning. It makes me take a moment to center myself before the eggs go in the pan and the kids begin to rule the roost. When I smell the Folgers® Coffeehouse Blend begin to fill the kitchen it not only marks the beginning of my day, it also connects me to my past. There are moments where I know my Grandma is smiling down on me because I am fueling my mornings the same way she did for so many years.

 

As Father’s day begins to creep up on us, I feel confident there is a new mug in my future. Or maybe a French Press? Maybe something letting me cold brew? Coffee will be a part of it, though, and I know no matter what gadget I get to make it, I will be using Folgers Coffeehouse Blend to fill my cup. Since it is so versatile, you don’t have to spend a million bucks to have a different type of coffee for every style you drink it!

 

Are you like me and have a million coffee mugs? Each morning I spend a few moments looking over them and deciding who I want to be that day. Am I the mug with my kids on it? One from a trip long ago? Often times I am a double mug that says “Everything is bigger in Texas” that my In-Laws brought me back from a trip they went on? I would love it if you would share your mug with me! Click here and use the hashtag #ShouldBeOnACoffeeMug and let me know! What would mine be? Here it is:

So on Father’s Day, and every other day, Folgers Coffeehouse Blend will be connecting me with the past and pushing me forward into the here and now. My Grandma would be proud.

 

 

 

 

 

“This is a sponsored post on behalf of J. M. Smucker Company. I received compensation for this post; however, all opinions stated are my own.”