Our first green smoothies!!

Yay!!! We finally bit the bullet and sprang for a Vitamix 5200. BEST. INVESTMENT. EVER. Here's a pic of our very first green smoothies

We used a bunch of kale, 2 pears, some green cabbage and some cauliflower, half of an avocado and water & ice. I have never felt soooooo good, so instantly from eating something. And that feeling lasted for a couple of hours :) I am so happy about this. I went to Mom's yesterday (yesterday morning was our first smoothies) and stocked up like never before on fruits and veggies. We tried a different one for dinner, this one wasn't as tasty but it still worked. We had that and some veggie sushi rolls for dinner- very satisfying.
Later on I finally unpacked the rest of the materials that came with the Vitamix. I put together the (AWESOME) recipe book- you should have seen my face as I read myself to sleep with it. One incredibly easy and awesome and magnificent recipe after another. The possibilities are endless. LIFE IS GOOD!! Woot!!

And here comes another.

Here it comes again. Another christian holiday full of factory farmed meats and dairy.

At least I'll be announcing our plans for Thanksgiving when we see them for Easter. We're going to the Farm Sanctuary in Maryland, and they are welcomed to join us. And so are you! :)

Unintended absence

Not much to report. Blogging for the heck of it at the moment. Not motivated at work- another year without a raise, or a bonus. I won't go into the reasons at the moment, suffice it to say I work for UnitedHealth Care and they care as much about their employees as they care about all the people they drop for pre-existing conditions. Record profits don't trickle down to the people that helped the company succeed.

I had worked from home for about 2 weeks during our bathroom renovation, and I loved it. I was much more motivated to work, despite the huge morale hit from the annual review. There's no flipping reason for me to be in the office 4 out of ever 6 weeks, however I won't be holding my breath for the answer that my boss is (supposedly) seeking from his boss about me working from home on any kind of regular basis.

But yay our bathroom is all new and wonderful! I really do love it. The transformation is fairly STELLAR.

I just got back into running, with the goal of running Cakes for a Cause's 5K in April. We'll see. Immediately back I'm running faster and with higher gait (as in I'm lifting my legs up more, not sure how to properly phrase that...) than I ever did before. Losing 20+ pounds really helps! Gee, whodda thunkit, LOL

Speaking of losing poundage, I've pretty much ended my relationship with Weight Watchers. I got sick and tired of cheese this and meat that. Plus the leader sucked butt however there were no other early morning options available except Sat- which I tried but there were about 10,000 members at that one and ya know who wants to commit to getting up that flipping early on a Saturday?? If Gayle ever moves back to town and does meetings there again I'm going back no matter what tho. She is the BEST.

It's been a rough winter, we're all lacking vitamin D and craving going coatless. If I must be forced to work from the office then I look forward to walking to work again. I miss all the wildlife and the peace.

Saw Ani DiFranco in concert this week thanks to a friend. MAN, I do not know how I managed to not see her in concert the past 18 years. Sometimes I am slow on the uptake haha!

Also, got my tix for 2 DMB shows this summer, one is for the VIP package, and although that's no guarantee that we'll get to meet the band, there is always hope. I know of no other way to even have a chance so I decided to lay out the dough and cross my fingers.

Saw Thievery Corporation too, thanks to the same friend who took me to Ani. I have promised myself to never miss them when they come around again. Easily one of my all time favorite bands now.

Some friends of mine have had their marriages fall apart. It's sad to see. Although ya know, it beats watching them stay with assholes and bitches, or watching them cheat because they're too spineless to shit or get off the pot. Divorce is a part of marriage like death is a part of life it seems sometimes. I don't mind the idea of dying- but the idea of my marriage ending? Fuck. That. I would lose my friggin marbles.

Some other friends of mine have been sharing how their futures are secure thanks to known inheritances. And I don't mean one or 2 friends, I mean a big handful, and you have to admit it's kinda weird to have so many friends who not only know they're coming into lots of money, but that all decide to tell you at the same general time, isn't it? I've had plenty of friends from college who are in the same position. At times it makes me feel.... like 'damn', ya know? My college was not paid for, nor my down payment on my first house, nor any of my cars, etc. I have no inheritance coming, in fact the one I was supposed to get got snatched up but I will reframe from the details here. We will be relying on ourselves for our retirement, and ourselves only. Having decided to not breed, we won't be relying on any offspring to help us out either (which is what my one aunt recommended and I just thought that was the most selfish thing I'd ever heard at that point). Anyway, I try not to think about it, because all it does is make me doubt, make me feel a little worthless, and I even get to thinking things like all of these people who have their futures financially secured already will not want to hang out with us x amount of years from now because we just won't rank. How pathetic is that to think?? SO yeah. I am much more blissful when not confronted with these thoughts. I just hope that another 15 years will pass before any more friends decide to tell us how they have shitloads of money coming to them and that they actually do not have to worry about their retirement.

Thank goodness it is Friday. Got one hell of a busy weekend ahead of me. Dinner, poker (thank goodnes! I'm going into withdrawal), 2 tattoos, a birthday celebration, a tattoo consultation (for my own ink), a brunch gig to go to that Mike's playing. Busy busy busy. But it beats working for Satan.

As far as eating and dealing? Nothing really very new to report. I love eating dairy free. I love not touching meat that has been to a slaughterhouse. And I have recently started to understand and accept the inherant superiority of those of us who know better. I think it's weak of people to say they 'don't want to know'- they don't want to know that they're eating shit (literally), they're contributing more to environmental destruction than they could possibly realize, they're causing untold amounts of cruelty, they're supporting an industry that abuses its workers, they're buying into the dairy is good for you lie when the complete opposite is true thus harming their own health, and on and on. Now when I read or hear about or see a vegan or an eater such as myself that does not have a label acting superior or self righteous, I don't cringe. I understand. Hey, at least I've given up on telling you all (as in, the world- in person) what you do not want to hear.

365 Days of Resolutions Blog

Today I started a new blog, inspired by my cousin Tianna. It's http://pandoras365daysofresolutions.blogspot.com Stop by and help me out- I only have about 259 listed! Holy cats 365 is a lot! LOL

What the Bleep Do We Know ..and animal suffering

"What the Bleep Do We Know" is a facinating movie that everyone should see. It talks about how thoughts directly affect reality, using quantum physics.

This film, both times I've watched it, made me think of the unneccessary and very real, very common abuse and torture of factory farmed animals and how the mental and physical anguish they suffer affects their body physically, on the cellular level on up.

My main issue has always been the fact that 90% of the animals we (again, and for the last time, not ME, but we as a society) eat have been literally butchered alive- they suffer being skinned alive, hung by hooks alive, scalding alive, literally dissasembled alive. 90% is not an exaggeration. OK so there's that, right? Then there's the fact that the lives they live are horrendous- 6 chickens to a cage, no room to move or stretch, pigs in holding cells their entire lives, cows packed into holding areas in fields, knee deep in their own shit. All of these animals are breathing toxic air from their own extrement, none of these animals can move anywhere near like they should be able to, none can properly nurse their offspring, and all but the cows are stuck never seeing the light of day. And most of these animals live among the dead and rotting corpses of their brothers and sisters. It is well documented (well, all of this is well documented) but pigs especially show overt signs of mental disorders due to these conditions. All this said and it's just the tip of the iceburg of the everyday horrors that we demand everytime we hit the dollar menu, etc.

My point is this- if you can take a bottle of water and write on it something simple like "I love you" or "Thank you" Or "you make me sick I want to kill you" and have drastically different outcomes of how that water- all from the same source- forms completely different crystals (or none at all in the negative cases), then what do you think happens on the cellular level of these suffering animals? And what makes us think it's healthy to eat all of that pain, suffering and cruelty?

More vegan than vegetarian. Labels suck.

I've been having some very good (and some not so very good but at least not bad) discussions lately that are encouraging me to spell out to the world just where I stand.

Do I feel that an animal should die because humans want to consume it? Yes. Do I feel that any animal should be fed an unnatural diet, live in it's own piss and shit, with barely enough room for it's body, no room to turn around or stretch for it's entire life, never seeing the light of day, treated worse than any human prisoner, and finally literally tortured to death because humans want to consume it (and because the USDA is the greediest organization ever?). NO.

This is why I am NOT a vegetarian.

I don't qualify as vegan either. Though the veal industry is the worse offender in my eyes of animal cruelty which is why you won't see me eating dairy. (plus the unexpected health benefits of quitting dairy are pretty damn stellar, but that's just a plus).

I read labels to avoid any dairy, and any conventional egg ingredients. I eat meat that people I know have hunted, and I eat bison from NorthStar Bison since they are raised to live normal bison lives on huge swaths of land and then killed quick and mercifully.

I can't look at leather or wool the same way ever again.

I am admittedly hypocritical in a few ways - I will eat eggs from a particular local farm. Sure the hens have great lives and are not forced in anyway to overproduce and tax their bodies to death. They get lots of room and outside time. The hypocritical part is that I know that to get an egg laying hen, baby male chicks end up dieing and not in a humane way. Macular degeneration runs in my family and I'm bound to get it, and there's a TON of lutein in eggs, plus they're super healthy otherwise and I fraking love them. With that said, I've gone from eating one a day to one a week, and I take lutein supplements (wish I remembered to do that more often!).

Also, I'll eat fried potatoes that are fried in the same oil as meat. While I think it's a stretch to call it hypocritical, it still is in a way. But, if I were to get that anal retentive I'd go crazy.

I'll eat fish. Not factory farmed due to the waste, nastiness that you end up eating in the meat and pollution factors. Fish that's caught in the wild has it's own issues- there's a TON of by product from catching various seafoods- but it's the lesser of 2 evils as at least the byproduct (read: gobs of sea animals caught and killed that were not being fished for) gets tossed back into the ocean to feed other fish and bottom dwellers. This may change for me one day, but not today. Like eggs, I don't eat as much fish as I used too either.

Also, I'll drink Guinness. This comes back to fish since they use ingless (is that right?) aka fish bladders to filter out the yeast after fermentation. Nothing in the world comes close to Guinness for me. Sure this may change too someday. I could give up Ranch dressing (which I used to eat almost daily) but I just don't have the want, urge or guilt enough to give up Guinness.

I'll eat honey. Tho I've never eaten it on a regular basis- a little jar of it lasts us almost 2 years usually. I didn't know before how the queens were de-winged, and didn't realize that as we take honey it messes with the worker bee's heads. I do support bee keepers tho since the honey bee population is threatened.

So you see, I'm not vegan or vegetarian. What the hell am I then? Not eating factory farmed meat, conventional eggs or any dairy makes me a vegan in 99% of the eyes of the restaurant industry. As well as most passerbys, even some friends and some family. Out in the real world it's a hell of a lot easier to just say I'm vegan than to explained my choices of eating that just has no label.

I feel very comfortable in my choices and never have I been asked "why do you eat that bison, don't you know it's murder!" and gotten so defensive as to instead of reply with an answer to clarify my reasons say "I'll give up bison when you give up dairy." There is no worked up defense in me for my choices because I am at peace with them. I will answer your questions and I will tell you what I have learned and I will be open to hear what you have to say. But I promise I will never not answer a question about my eating habits because I feel bad about them.

OK with all this said I must say that anything anyone does to lessen animal cruelty is A-OKAY in my book. Hell yes. Baby steps is what usually gets any big job done. Most people have no idea of the horrors that happen to get the food to their plates, ya know? Hell I didn't know these horrors less than a year ago! And so any steps in the right direction are awesomesauce and I love you for taking the steps that you do take.

I reeeeeeeallly love the Farm Sanctuary <3

http://www.farmsanctuary.org/about/milestones/