The Unexpected Perks of Childless Freedom

Being married without children really wasn’t in our grand life plan initially. Even when we came to sadly accept that children weren’t going to happen naturally for us we really didn’t make any definite decisions as to what other alternatives we’d explore beyond our failed infertility expert assisted methods. But as the years have passed we’ve more than accepted our situation and have now really grown to appreciate the life that we do have as “just the 2 of us.” It doesn’t mean we still don’t get those pangs of missing the parenting experience at times, but we’ve also come to definitely see the “perks” of our childless freedom.

Monday was an example of that freedom. Due to the MLK holiday we didn’t have school, which meant we slept in…Oh JOY! Yes, we do rub this into our early rising "with children friends" when we can. Sleeping is one of our favorite perks. Sometimes that means between 8:30 & 9:00, but sometimes that means even as late as 10:30, 11:00. We love our flannel sheets and comfortable warm bed. (It’s been in the mid 50’s here and raining nonstop =  not a great weekend for skiing; our original plan for the 3 day weekend.) When we got up it actually surprised us and wasn’t raining for the first time in what felt like at least a week so we decided to take one of our usual long North end walks which takes us to a farther away Starbucks for coffee and the only way back home is up a few choices of steep hills. Our usual choice is the grueling 29^th street hill…very good workout for the glutes!

On our walk we discussed options of how to spend our non-planned day off and decided we’d go up to Seattle, have lunch somewhere we’d been wanting to try, maybe hit Pete’s wine market and/or a movie. The night we decided to try this blog thing while enjoying our dinner @ Poppy we made a 2011 goal to make a conscious effort to get up to Seattle more regularly to try the many restaurants that we read about in our numerous food magazines consistently cluttering our living space.

I went online, actually to yelp, and did a bit of research about some of our desired spots and specifically looked for a good choice for lunch. Many of the spots we’d like to still try don’t actually serve lunch so that narrowed some of our choices.

View from Matt's Window

We decided on Matt’s in the Market. We were happy with our choice. Matt’s is a small little spot on the second floor building across from the main market. It’s cozy and quaint. We made perfect timing as lunch service stops at 2:30, we arrived @ 2:00 and the crowd was finished so we didn’t have to wait to be seated.

G had a pulled stumptown coffee bbq’d pork sandwich on brioche with potato salad.

G's pulled pork sandwich

I had the beef brisket with caramelized onion and horseradish aioli sandwich on brioche with house made chips.

T's Beef Brisket

They were both delicious. But of course we both think that you could likely serve dirt on brioche bread and it’d have to be tasty. We were happy with our food, service and the overall ambiance for lunch.

We walked briefly around the market. G recently found an Italian deli in the market that actually sells a type of Giardiniera for his Italian beef sandwiches that’s as close to our favorite Chicago brand as we’ve found out here. So we had to go pick some up. The market is a must for bringing any of our out of town guests but beyond that we kind of feel like “been there done that” a million times over; it’s not worth the crowds.

So we headed up to Eastlake to Pete’s wine market to see if we could find any good everyday wine deals. Our cellar is pretty empty of our everyday variety currently. Mmmmm….wonder how that happens to us so often? We found a few bottles to add to our everyday wine dwindled collection. We came across a bottle of Trio that I recently read about on one of the blogs I follow,Wild Walla Walla Wine Woman. (follow link get a better description of wine than I can provide.)  I’d wanted to try it so now we’ll have the opportunity.

It was a good Seattle kind of day, nothing overly exciting; just an opportunity to try something new, accomplish a few errands and enjoy the day off, each other and pleasure of spontaneity.

We came home finished laundry, both worked to prep for our next day of professional development activities and enjoyed another one of our favorite casual meals being we weren't overly hungry given our late lunch: cheese, crackers, salumi mole', honey crisp apples along with a bottle of Rulo Syrah. (Salumi is another lunch spot we've been trying to go to for a long time. But literally they are NEVER open when we can go. So we've haven't made it yet.)

 It’s these type of “childless luxuries” that often make us feel like we’re possibly too comfortable & somewhat too selfish to give up this type of freedom at this point in our journey down life’s path.

But G reminds me on occasion if we change our mind; it’s not too late yet to explore adoption. Until we change our mind we make the most of this life and time we have together.