Conversations with My Sister

This conversation with my sister from two Thanksgivings ago just popped into my head. Thought I'd share it here.

The scene: A three-mile hike through the woods of rural Virginia. Due to our fast walking pace, we've left the guys in our dust long ago.

Topics of conversation: Everything, including my brother-in-law and sister wanting to move to Mexico

Randomly...

Me: Sometimes living in The South just feels so "un-me." I'm not into big hair, big purses, and fashion.

My Sister: You're wearing a black, dry clean only shawl on a hike in the woods...

Me: (thoughtful pause)

Sent from my iPhone

It's Hot Chocolate Time

It is chilly enough outside (and inside at 67 degrees) now that we are in a hot chocolate mood here in Nashville. We've just gone vegan and I threw away our Swiss Miss in the great pantry clean-out, but I had several boxes of Abuelita on-hand still. It appears to be vegan and so I melted it down in a pot of soy milk. One cocoa block per four cups of "milk" makes a warm and comforting treat on a cool evening.

That wooden Mexican frothing tool (we picked ours up last Thanksgiving in Oaxaca, Mexico) makes it all the smoother and creamier, plus it's fun to use. A delicious treat that I'm sure will be a staple as the season progresses.

The Vegan Experiment

I'm about 68% (according to my ereader) through this book called The China Study and am feeling really convicted (well, scared, actually) that Les and I need to cut as many egg and dairy products as we can out of our diet. I've had borderline high cholesterol for the past few years, despite being vegetarian, and although blood cholesterol and dietary cholesterol are different, it seems worthwhile to try to reduce the amount of dietary cholesterol anyway. I'm also thinking that cutting high-fat dairy products like cheese out of my diet will lead to natural weight-loss.

We're still in the "eating through the bad stuff in the pantry" stage of dietary change, but we have started eating mostly vegan breakfasts and dinners. Overall, I've found many of the "fake" cheeses and the soy milk products to be pretty good, though we are trying to move down the path of whole foods rather than weird processed creations which just happen to be vegan.

We tried something like this about 8 or 9 years ago for a couple of months and didn't feel like we lost weight or saw any health benefits. Mostly we just found it terribly inconvenient because we couldn't eat all the foods that we loved (pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, yogurt, ice cream, etc.). As you can see, a lot of those foods weren't really the kinds of foods that we should have been eating anyway, but at the time, it was more about what we couldn't eat and less about what we should be eating for good health.

Online web resources are so much more robust now than they were back when we did this before. My favorite online recipe resource so far has been www.vegweb.com. As a person who doesn't really like to cook and doesn't like trying new things, such a big dietary change is challenging, but so many of the recipes on vegweb sound so delicious and seem so easy to make that I feel like I will keep wanting to try new things and won't fall into the habits of making the same thing over and over again. Les is doing cartwheels of joy at this news. He loves new experiences, especially when it comes to food.

This week's vegan dinner menu is as follows:

Sunday: Baked nachos
Monday: Mock chicken salad sandwiches and soup
Tuesday: Rice and beans + salad
Wednesday: Chana Masala
Thursday: Pasta with peas and cream sauce
Friday: Mini veggie tacos
Saturday: Tofu coconut curry

I have to also give a special shout-out to East Nashville's local vegan restaurant, The Wild Cow, who showed me how good vegan eating can be and convinced me that just because it tastes complex doesn't mean that it's complicated to make.

Enjoying this challenge and having fun eating more healthfully!

Education, Life, and What You Want to Be When You Grow Up

My husband and I have reached "middle-age," though I'm not really sure what exactly is considered "middle" anymore. To be specific, he's almost 41 and I'm 37-3/4. For us, part of being this age and not having kids to distract us from existential crises means that we spend a lot of time talking about our future, specifically jobs and location.

We've been in the workplace in some form or another for 25 years apiece. Most of my work experience has been office-based (everything from envelope-stuffing and filing to project management) and most of Les's work experience has been retail-based, with specific focus on music retail. These are careers that we've fallen into accidentally, but careers that we're good at and definitely have a wealth of experience in by this point in our lives. But I think that we're both of the mindset that "easy" or "good" doesn't always equal "best" or "healthiest," so we're always thinking and exploring. Success doesn't mean that it's not fun or important to think about what-ifs, how-abouts, and perhapses as far as the future is concerned.

Because of this general belief that we're only at an approximate half-way point in life and not just working a seam that leads from "here" to a defined "there," I'm always interested to read articles (and specifically articles that don't spout the usual business or faith-based rhetoric and don't use the words "maximize" or "God-sized hole") that discuss "Why are you here?" themes. This article by Mark Edmundson, "Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?" is an amazing read.

I posted it on Facebook along with my favorite quotes from the last two paragraphs, but since Facebook doesn't have a good way to search for content I've posted in the past, I thought I would also log it here so I can find it again later.

Oh, and for you, dear reader, to enjoy as well.

Read the article here.

Doing a Good Job...

A funny quote from one of our freelancers, which someone repeated in a meeting today:

"Doing a good job around here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit: No one notices, but it sure gives you a warm feeling."

That's not my own experience at my job, but it made me laugh!

Hot Pepper, The Plant Who Lived

This is the tale of a little hot pepper plant that I started from a seed in the Spring of 2010. The seed grew so nicely in my starter pot indoors. Two levels of leaves and a strong, strong stem.

When summer came, I happily put it right outside, having never heard of "hardening off" (yes, it sounds pervy). The newborn leaves got totally bleached in the sun. I thought this plant was a goner. It was completely yellow and the whole plant was dry like paper. Yet, there was still a little green at the base of the stem, so I kept watering it to see what would happen.

It never recovered last summer, but instead lost all of it's leaves and became mostly a partly-green stick. As winter approached, I brought the plant into the office because we keep our house so cold.

This Spring, we saw the first tiny leaf appear.

Now, several months later, it's looking fine: 12 leaves and a flower to boot! Since it seems so happy here at the office, and since Winter is not far away, I'm going to leave it on my desk and see what kind of growth occurs this winter. I might even get to put it in my garden next summer.

After hardening it off properly, of course.

My Other Blog

I have definitely not abandoned this blog, but I've started a new blog over on WordPress (because I'm just so NOT brand-loyal, or possibly because I don't like my life to be too uncomplicated) about things that happen in my yard. It's a very basic, focus blog that I created because I wanted to just document and not worry about being poignant or thought-provoking or funny or inspiring. Probably this new blog will end up having elements of those things, on the sly, but that's not my intention.

I just didn't do it here because I felt like it would take this blog in a very set direction and I prefer to have a place to dump all of my random thoughts.

If you'd like to read it, check it out here.