La Conner, WA

I have had the pleasure of meeting many of Liza’s relatives. If I were to sum up this brood in one word it would be creative. Her father was a beat poet, her sister a talented painter, and Liza herself is a talented writer. So when she said she wanted to drive up to La Conner to visit her uncle, I was game. Liza’s uncle is Fred Owens, author of the Frog Hospital blog (soon to be a book by the same name) and a contributor to the La Conner Weekly News. La Conner is located about an hour north of Seattle in the Skagit Valley. The Skagit Valley is most famously know for the tulip festival in the spring (it might be known for something other than the festival, but I don’t know what that would be). We met Fred at a tiny little café called Le Crema Coffee (which has the best Chai in the world…no really…the best). It had been 10 years since the last time Liza had seen her uncle so they had a lot of catching up to do. So we sat back, drank our coffee, and they did just that. We then went on a walking tour of the village of La Conner with Fred pointing out the sights, giving us a brief history lesson, and telling us funny stories. We stopped for lunch at a little deli over looking the Swinomish Channel. Fred then took us on a driving tour of some of the local farms located along the Skagit river. We saw cows, sheep, daffodils, and cabbage. The cabbage farms up there produce seeds, not large heads of cabbage. Fred had just written an article about the farming of cabbage seeds. We learned so much about the process of farming cabbage seeds that I am confident that Liza and I now had enough knowledge that we could start our own farm. La Conner has a lot of cute little shops and boutiques, so after we said our goodbyes to Fred we did a little window shopping and then stopped at the La Conner Brewing Company for a beer. We had a really fun day and I really enjoyed meeting Fred. He was quite the character, which I had come to expect from a member of Liza’s family. It is good to know that if I am ever up that way that I have someone to have a cup of coffee with.

a day out

My oldest friend Liza has come to visit. Yesterday was her birthday so we went down town to do touristy things. I snapped a few photos while we were out.

Pluses and Minuses

You know that saying “There is never a perfect time to have a baby”? That is what ran through my head as I stood in the bathroom staring at that stick waiting for a plus or a minus to appear. I could not think of a worse time for me to find out I was pregnant...you know with Husband deploying and all. This was the first pregnancy test I have taken in 10 years where I was like please, Please, PLEASE don’t be positive. Babies. It is no secret how badly I would like to have a child. Yet no babies for me. It is not for lack of trying…believe me I have tried. I tried for years with that other guy I was married to. A woman has roughly 36 hours a month in which to get pregnant. The timing has to be pretty spot on. I was married to a guy who traveled for business and averaged only 64 days a year at home…none of which happen to be while I was ovulating. But I persisted until after two years of trying he told me he did not want kids. He told me this over the phone at 2 am while I was away on business. There is a reason I am not married to this guy anymore. Jerk. It was during that time that I became the friend that my girlfriends did not want to tell that they were pregnant. They would allude to it and give subtle clues until I would flat out ask if they were pregnant. They would then gush that yes they were, how happy they were, and that they weren’t trying to keep it from me they just didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Blah…whatever. I am genuinely happy when I find out a girlfriend is pregnant, really I am. I might be saying ‘stupid fertile bitches’ but what I really mean is ‘I am soooooo happy for you’. I am going to be 35 this year, and while Husband thinks we have all the time in the world, let’s face it I am not getting any younger. He does want to have kids though. He wants to be there for every part of the pregnancy, birth, and those first few months. If it turned out I was pregnant now he would miss all that. But like all those other tests taken in the past, this one came back negative. I walked out of the bathroom, gave Husband the thumbs down with a wink and a smile, and went on about my business. Even though I was relieved that the test came back negative, there is still a tiny part of me that wanted to see a plus sign.