A Fresh Cup of Coffee

Sunday, February 8, 2026

Scripture and a Snapshot - A Trustworthy Saying

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

~Titus 3:4-8~

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I also link up at the Sweet Tea & Friends Monthly Link-up Party hosted by Grace-Filled Moments

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Friday, February 6, 2026

Currently . . . February 6, 2026

The "Currently" link-up at the beginning of each month is now hosted at Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa. Our new hostess Amy posts a set of action verb prompts for the month and writers respond. So, without further ado, here are this month's prompts and what's happening currently . . .

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Loving - Things I'm loving right now include:

I do love the snow photos. Even though it's still really cold, and I'm wondering whether there'll be a noticeable spike in our utility bills, and even though we're at the point where there's salt and slush to navigate, I still love the brightness of the snow where it's still clean and white, and the hoarfrost we've seen on trees and fences a couple times. I love seeing the photos people are sharing of their winter walks and snowy adventures.

I love coffee, as always.

This week, I especially loved getting together with friends for dinner on Thursday. Columbus Restaurant Week was extended by many restaurants since the weather was so bad last week. We met at Bareburger to try it out, and it was really good! On Friday night we're getting together with friends for a pizza and games night. The truth is, I love having a bit of a social life! I reflected with a friend recently that we feel like we shouldn't complain about our calendars being full and busy, because not so long ago when we had both moved to new cities we felt so isolated and purposeless with nothing on our calendars and too much time on our hands.

Baking/Cooking - I've baked some bread recently, and wish I had time to bake more. I made my signature Pesto Bread, and tried adding strips of pepperoni to it as well. I feel like the trick to getting that right will be finding the sweet spot for how much pepperoni to add. It has to be enough to have really bold taste, but no so much that the oils in the pepperoni seep out during baking and make a mess. I haven't really had much time to cook or bake this week, since I was only home one evening out of five! We haven't even settled on a definite menu for SuperBowl Sunday, but I plan on keeping it pretty simple since it will be just us and our son's family.

Watching/Reading - Other than hockey, I haven't watched any TV lately. With the Olympics starting now, we plan to watch some of that coverage as we're able. I suspect we'll often be watching the collections of daily highlights.

I usually add a Coffee Break Reading List as a bonus at the end of my Currently post. but since "reading" is a prompt, I'm moving that up to this spot. I'm currently working on two books, and I'm working on getting a review posted for the book I just finished,

I'm currently reading . . .

A Certain Darkness by Anna Lee Huber

The Belle of Belgrave Square by Mimi Matthews

More reading news and recent reviews are at Just A Second.

Planning - the menu for our little family SuperBowl party, and intending to keep it simple. Also planning to visit the "phone store" this weekend because my phone has been giving me fits since shortly after Christmas - it's way too often that it can't stay connected to any kind of network except when I'm at home, making the phone largely useless. The GPS doesn't stay online so it doesn't recalculate directions properly, and some days I don't even have the ability to call or text! I mean, at the very bare minimum, a smartphone should be allowing me to make calls other than just to 911, am I right? I suspect they'll just push me to a new phone, so I'm gonna have to be prepared for that.

Savoring - good food, good coffee, and company with good people. How's that for a succinct answer?

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Here's what remains on the short version of the Coffee Break Reading List . . .

Quotable (I've enjoyed hunting up little quotes to sprinkle into my posts, and I host a regular Wednesday Quotes link party based on interesting quotes. I share one or two here as a sort of teaser for the link-up.):

Shut the door not that it lets in the cold but that it lets out the coziness. ~Mark Twain

I judge a restaurant by the bread & the coffee. ~Burt Lancaster

Consider this your invitation to stop by the current link-up and join us: WQ - Let's Eat out! The link-up is open for two weeks, and the next one will open on February 18th, with the theme: Being Responsible.

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Some fun things I've found during coffee breaks:

Sometimes my Duolingo gets me:

This line from The Princess Bride takes on new meaning in 2026:

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What's currently happening in your life? Leave a comment and let me know!

This post will be linked at this month's edition of "Currently" hosted by Amy at Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa

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This post may contain affiliate links - using affiliate links from A Fresh Cup of Coffee helps continue the coffee breaks and conversation. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Wednesday, February 4, 2026

A Super Sporting Hodgepodge

A hodgepodge is a jumble or assortment of things that might not appear to belong together. Joyce at From This Side of the Pond hosts a weekly link-up called Wednesday Hodgepodge that is a little collection of questions for bloggers to answer just for fun and to get to know each other. I always look forward to chatting with friends over coffee, so pour a cup of your favorite and let's visit for a few minutes!

mug from the Calgary Olympics

Here are this week's questions - and my answers - for this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge.

1. The Winter Olympics kick off on Friday, February 6th . . . on a scale of 1-10 how excited are you? (1 = eh and 10 = watching every event all day every day) What's your favorite Winter Olympic sporting event?

I love the Winter Olympics and do plan to watch - I'm just not entirely sure how to watch, or how to find time to watch! I'll put myself at a 7.5 on the Excitement Scale. My favorite Winter Olympic sporting event is the figure skating. I used to always watch with my daughter and we would discuss our impressions and their costumes, and how we would score each competitor. This time around we obviously can't watch together so maybe we'll have to do a few video calls to dicuss. I bet y'all thought I was going to say hockey is my favorite, didn't you? It's a very, very close second, but I decided that figure skating would get the edge (🠈 "edge" - see what I did there?) today because I watch lots of hockey throughout every winter, but don't watch much figure skating except during the Olympics. I also enjoy watching curling (I'm a fan of the Norwegian Curling Team Pants - if you know you know), some downhill skiing events, moguls and freestyle skiing, bobsled, and speed skating.

2. In other sporting news, the Superbowl (American football's championship game) will be played on Sunday, February 8th. So tell us . . . what's your superpower?

It's much harder to think of my superpower than it would be to list my toxic traits. Haha. It used to be teaching or homeschooling, but I'm not teaching any more . . . I'm mostly an optimist and find things to laugh about, and I rarely freak out so I guess that's sort of a superpower. My superpower is the ability to see the humor and hope in situations, and to mostly remain calm.

3. Are you a romantic?

Yes and no. I love a good romantic story for sure. I like novels and movies with a good romantic storyline that tugs my heartstrings. I love good romantic stories that are real life too, and am always rooting for the people I love to be in strong loving relationships. But I'm not someone who is emotionally intense, or overly focused on feelings. I'm passionate about the things I enjoy and believe in and feel strongly about, but not in a super-emotional way.

4. Blue cheese - yay or nay? How about feta? If you said yes to one or both, what's a dish you like that calls for one of these?

Blue cheese - nay! Feta - yay! But in small doses. I do like feta, but because of its saltiness I like it in moderation. One of my favorite things at the Greek festival or Greek restaurants is spanakopita (spinach and feta in phyllo pastry)

5. What's more important - doing what you love or loving what you do?

As a life skill, I think it's more important to love what you do. If you can learn to love at least some aspect of your job or things that you must do regardless of how much you like it, you will always be able to be doing something you love. Doing the things we naturally love doesn't always pay the bills, frankly, so not everyone gets to "do what they love" as their lucrative career choice. My advice to young people used to be that they should find a job they are good at and learn to love it in some way, and use it to finance their ability to do things they love. I wouldn't say my job is necessarily doing what I love, but I like it and find it pretty satisfying, and it helps me bankroll doing things that I do love, like chorus and eating out and having a few nice things.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Inspired by the Olympics question . . . forgive me if I've told this story before! We still lived in Calgary in 1988, the year Calgary hosted the Winter Olympics. We got tickets to a few hockey games, and we visited the Olympic Plaza downtown where they had some of the medal ceremonies. We had been married less than a year, and had to plan ahead and order those event tickets at least a year in advance. We were able to snag tickets to several of the hockey games, and it turned out that we had tickets to see Canada play twice! Of course, this was before the NHL players participated so it was a little different.

Also! I sang in a choir that was part of the mass choir that sang in the Opening Ceremonies and performed during the Olympic Arts Festival. Our choir also recorded the Olympic anthem and Canadian anthem in advance. For the Opening Ceremonies, the choir members were dressed in these druid-like robes in the colors of the five Olympic rings. It was just luck of the draw which color robe you received, and mine was black. I was quite disappointed. The other colors might have got more use for costumes, I thought, but I've gotten pretty good mileage out of my black robe over the years anyway. It's been a Jedi robe, and a wizard's robe, and I always thought it would work well for a Ghost of Christmas Future costume too. Also, it is very warm, and I used to wear it football games when we lived in Calgary! In the picture below, the choir is the mass of colors just below the Olympic rings. When we first entered the stadium, we had to stand in formation there to start with, but then we moved up onto the stands in the formation of the rings.

Olympic Winter Games 1988

I stood somewhere about where the arrow is pointing

Fun fact: It was COLD the day of the Opening Ceremonies! And when I say "cold" I mean something like 30 below. Brutally cold. But we were toasty inside those floor length wool druid robes. Then later in the day, one of the more dramatic chinooks I remember blew into Calgary, and we could literally stand out on the balcony of our apartment and watch the snow melt. The very next day we had tickets to a hockey game and we went in t-shirts with only light jackets. My hubby and I always said that we could have made our fortune and retired early if we'd thought to make up t-shirts to sell that said "I wore shorts at the Winter Olympics in Calgary"

Olympic Winter Games

Olympic Winter Games 1988

What are your favorite sports at the Olympics? Do you have a fun superpower? Leave a comment and let me know!

I'm sharing in this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

I host the Wednesday Quotes link-up every other Wednesday. Stop by and share a few thoughts and quotes on the current topic of Eating Out/Restaurants here: WQ - Let's Eat Out! I host the Everyday Images photo link-up every other Thursday. And find the Scripture and a Snapshot link-up here every Sunday.

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WQ - Let's Eat Out!

A good restaurant just makes me giddy. I can go all day with anticipation just knowing where I'm going to eat. ~Gayle King

I do have a thing for eating out; that's one of life's great middle-age pleasures. ~Rick Astley

I have a thing for eating out too. It's one of my favorite things. Unfortunately I don't have the budget to eat out as often as I'd like. Eating at a restaurant is like a brief vacation, and when you think about it, it is rather a luxury - someone else prepares the food, brings it to you, and cleans up afterwards. Restaurants that focus on an ethnic cuisine have that vacation feel as well. I can't travel to Greece or Italy every month, but it's only a short drive to some really good Greek and Italian restaurants. I'm a picky eater, so I know I'd struggle to find foods I'd be willing to eat if I was visiting anywhere in Asia, but good Asian restaurants offer me menus I can understand and sample.

fish n chips at a Gaelic-theme pub

shawarma platter at a Greek cafe

Korean barbecue

For me to go to a restaurant and eat something that is not only good, but totally new, is a double thrill. Double the enjoyment. ~Ferran Adria

While there are quite a few chain restaurants I like, we tend to prefer locally owned restaurants rather than franchises. We especially like barbecue, and when we travel we always look for local barbecue joints. We like "sit-down" places, counter order places, and food trucks, and everything from coffee shops to pizzarias, burger joints to buffets, and diners to fine dining.

A Kentucky Hot Brown at the Brown
Hotel in Louisville

I judge a restaurant by the bread & the coffee. ~Burt Lancaster

Food trucks give creative entrepreneurs the ability to cook with freedom and make what they love, meaning that they can create highly specialized meals without having the high overhead costs of running a restaurant. ~Homaro Cantu

food truck festival in Newark

frybread pizza

shawarma

That's what it all comes down to. Good food. And good service is important too.

I totally did not plan this but this is Restaurant Week in Columbus! Technically, it was last week, but due to the extreme cold and the snow, many of the restaurants extended their Restaurant Week offers an extra week. We've gone out with friends to try something new during Restaurant Week a couple times before, and we have plans to go to a burger place on Thursday night. Does your area have an event like this? Or a food truck festival? We've gone to the food truck festival in Newark and it was really good.

What kind of restaurant is your favorite? Leave a comment and let me know!

If I could have dinner with anyone who lived in history, it would depend on the restaurant. ~Rodney Dangerfield

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Wednesday Quotes is a bi-weekly opportunity for bloggers to share their writing, poetry, photos, or stories inspired by our theme. We've chosen the themes as a starting point for your creativity, and the only requirement is that your post include at least one related quote. Feel free to combine or "double-dip" with other writing or photo challenges as well. Of course, we'd appreciate a link back to us, if you'd be so kind. Add your link and please visit others and leave a comment! The link is open for two weeks.

Thanks to Marsha at Always Write for introducing us to the Wednesday Quotes challenge, and for passing the hosting duties along so we can continue sharing great quotes! Wednesday Quotes is co-hosted by Kym at A Fresh Cup of Coffee and Sadje at Keep It Alive.

Quoting reminds me there are other people in the world besides only me.

And other thoughts besides mine, and other ways of thinking.

~Gregory Maguire~

Wednesday Quotes 2026 Themes

January 7 - Resolutions

January 21 - Motivation

February 4 - Eating Out/Restaurants

February 18 - Being Responsible

March 4 - Libraries

March 18 - Perserverance

April 1 - Simplicity

April 15 - Conquering Fear

April 29 - Making a Difference

May 13 - Family Ties

May 27 - Courage

June 10 - Teachers/Mentors

June 24 - Connecting with Nature

July 8 - Milestones

July 22 - Sunrise

August 5 - Patience

August 19 - Taking a Break/Rest

September 2 - Learning from Mistakes

September 16 - Best Friends

September 30 - Elegance

October 14 - Reaching Goals

October 28 - Dreams/Nightmares

November 11 - Integrity

November 25 - Generosity

December 9 - Beauty in Nature

December 23 - True Love

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