Food, Booze, & Baggage

Food, Life, Travel

Hey There Childfree, You’re Not The Only One

by 27 Comments

You're-Not-The-Only-One
Every time I read a post put forth by another childfree blogger it makes me feel lighter and reminds me how important it is to put those feelings and thoughts out there. I love to read the comments and always feel that sense of, “this is why we write”, as people relate and are reminded “hey you aren’t alone or you aren’t the only one”. That’s one of the wonderful things about blogging, it connects us to others. For those of you feeling you might be the only one not on the mommy train, here are a few blogger who have written recently on being childfree:

Bailie, The Hemborg Wife
I feel a particular affinity with Bailie’s story/life path. I feel like her and her husband are a bit similar to P and I; being adventurers at heart, and just seeing where the road of life leads. Plus they like the good beer 🙂

Miriam, The Farm Girl
As you guys have read before, I’m a total fangirl of Miriam. Her honesty and openness is so refreshing. Love you M 🙂

Jessica, Jessica L. Blog
Jessica’s path is a tougher trail, but she shows you don’t always know where life leads. It is so open of her to share her story, and I know her story will touch the hearts of all who read it.

I was inspired by their sharing and wanted to make sure their stories were not missed. It’s hard for me to think of topics on childfree to share on a regular basis myself, but I always want to be a reminder to others out there, you are not alone. Thank you Bailie, Miriam, and Jessica for reminding us!

The Airing of Grievances: Parenting Edition

by 40 Comments

Airing of Grievances Parenting Edition
I have a lot of problems with you people, and I’m looking at you parents. Alternatively this also could have been titled “How Parents are Ruining My Dining/Drinking Experience” 🙂

Just because I do not have a child does not mean I can’t or won’t judge parents. It is not necessarily due to having a child or not having child, it’s called common sense/common decency.  Sure the card of “you don’t know what you will or won’t do until you have kids of your own” is often played, but that’s an easy bow out of bad behavior. I’m sorry, but your life does not and should not continue exactly how it was prior to you having a child, those days are behind you and you need to start making adjustments. Here are a few examples of some parenting behaviors I’ve witnessed lately and said umm no….

  • Allowing my kids to run around a restaurant, any restaurant. Particularly where bodily harm is very likely while I sit barely within eyesight, enjoying my drink and conversation. It’s not Chuck E Cheese. A patio does not equal a playground. Which seems to be a confusion many parents make.
  • I would not host a table full of kids at a very crowded brewery. Second weekend this place was open, so of course it was slammed. There was a table of 3 adults and 7 kids. Yes, the place offered food, but come on. You know it is going to be busy, it’s late Saturday afternoon. Also, they were just hanging out, clearly they were finished eating by the mess on the table, but they just stayed even through a huge party of VERY drunk folks had taken over the whole area. If I had a child I would not have been comfortable in that situation.
  • Take my kid to dinner after 7:30. There is very few reason you should be dragging a child under the age of one out to dinner past 7:30. You just shouldn’t, especially at any place that has waitstaff and accepts reservations.
  • Breastfeeding at a brewery while drinking beer. This just seems wrong.
  • Allowing my kid who can barely even stand up or walk, place their own order. Sure, they have to learn to make decisions on their own, but a line out the door at a coffeeshop is not that time. Pick and choose your moments parents!
  • Exclaiming very loudly and repeatedly to my husband, how cute my child is and then looking around to see if anyone at neighboring tables will say it. I was “this” close to start repeatedly saying  to P in a loud voice, “Doesn’t my hair look great today, I mean it’s just so great!” I also would not announce to a neighboring table (of strangers) that I was going to start trying for another one in two weeks when the first one is exactly one. But hey, maybe that’s just me being a prude. It is possible this woman was this way before they had the kid, and she would be telling her husband really loudly how great her hair looked instead of how cute the kid was 🙂

Alternately you could replace kid with a really drunk friend and I would feel the same…..

  • Allowing my drunk friend to run around a restaurant.
  • Not for this one, because it’s a bar and that’s where drunks belong 🙂
  • Getting smashed and then going to a really nice fancy restaurant…and I don’t mean tipsy I mean shit-faced.
  • Allowing my drunk friend to crash a Chuck E Cheese party. (not exactly the same but a bit along the same lines, this one could also be used for the second one)
  • Allowing drunk friend who can barely stand order food.
  • Drunk person yelling during a meal about how cute anything is and/or who they may fuck later.

Well, that’s my airing of grievances for today. Anything you want to air?

Linking-up with

&

Making Melissa

Home Alone: Celebrating The Holidays For Two

by 14 Comments

Tips for Celebrating the Holidays When It Is Just The Two Of You

Sometimes you can’t make it home for the holidays, or maybe you just don’t want to. Either way there is no reason to feel down. Take a page from little Kevin McCallister and go wild, enjoy your freedom.  Start your own traditions, have something that makes it feel like the holidays for you, gets you in the spirit, or makes you forget it’s even Christmas. This may be something traditional or nontraditional. Here are a few tips to get you thinking:

Get away from the routine. Go on a trip. I think some people get sad when they can’t make it home but going on a special trip can help with homesickness. Make sure it is somewhere that will have places open on Christmas and you make plans accordingly. You just need to plan ahead. If you can’t get too far, consider going to the beach or mountains in your area. Renting a cabin or house on the beach can be a great change of scenery.

Get your couch time in. Plan a few days snuggled down with your honey (or just a friend), Netflix, and some good snacks. Make staying in an event. Plan what movies to watch so you don’t get into the whole, what do you want to watch conversation. Do a marathon (Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings), catch up on a series you might have missed, or do a movie theme (Christmas movies, Halloween, a certain director or actor). Plan plenty of snacks, and a crockpot meal or take-out.

Establish traditions that are uniquely your own or ones that reminds you of home. P and I like to cook a special meal if we are home on Christmas day. We do something involved and comforting, like short ribs, risotto, or ragu. Every year we have a special bottle of beer on Christmas Eve and watch The Christmas Story. You could have a day baking cookies or making fudge, make decorating your tree an event, or take a drive to see the lights. Do something you can both enjoy.

Do something not holiday related. Plan a picnic, indoors or out. Have a summer theme night with summer food and activities. Do something outside of your box. Go on a hike, take a class together, or anything that is not something you do on a regular basis. It can be big or small. When was the last time you did a puzzle or had a gaming challenge?

However you choose to celebrate, I wish you a…..

Happy-Holidays-from-Food,-Booze,-&-Baggage

I’ll be taking next week off, but will be back the following week with lots of plans and goals for the new year.

What are your holiday plans?

Excuses and Pleas

by 15 Comments

childfree blogging

As I’ve said in past blog posts, one of my big reasons for starting this blog was to put the childfree perspective out there and as I approach a year, I realize I’ve failed. I’ve said time and time again, I need to do more on childfree and I just haven’t. Here are my excuses for said failure:

  • I don’t want to be offensive. I don’t like to make it is an “us versus them” mentality, because that is not how I feel. I don’t think less of those with kids or judge them for their decision, the same way I hope they don’t mine. Just because I say how great it is not to have kids does not mean I am attacking your way of life or decisions. I realize I can’t control how others think and if they want to twist something into an attack then that is their problem, not mine. I have to get out of my own head and not worry about what others may or may not think about a topic. I am proud to be childfree.
  • I find it hard to think of childfree topics that are not obvious. If I present it in my voice and in my way, who cares if it is obvious, right? Look at the mommy sites, they write lots of obvious perspectives on having children, why don’t I do that as a childfree lifestyle blogger? For some reason I had this boxed-in idea of presenting my perspective at too high of a standard.
  • Part of me thinks this blog is about my life, my life is childfree, do I really need to press the topic? The thing is, that when I don’t write about it directly, it gets hidden. I want to capture the attention of those readers who are feeling left out or alone in the sea of mommy bloggers. I have to write about it directly for it to be noticed.

This is changing starting today. Expect more tongue in cheek posts like this one, but I also want to dig deeper. So, dear reader, I need your help:

What childfree topics do you want addressed or questions you want answered on the topic? Any other suggestions on how to better serve the childfree reader?

Make sure to check out the Childfree Are We page for other childfree blogs. If you would like to be included on the page, please let me know.

P.S. Here is a little button to identify yourself as a childfree blogger if you are so inclined. The button links back to the Childfree Are We page.

Childfree Bloggers