Sunday 17 June 2012

Love you dad.

Happy Father's day to the smartest man I know. Love you dad. xo

Wednesday 13 June 2012

Ready for Pick Up

 In keeping with my goal of cleaning out my closet and making a donation once per season ( I'm aiming for 4 donations in the coming year) I've gone through my stuff and managed to fill a heavy duty, extra large garbage bag with clothes.  I actually had another large bag full of dresses to donate, but brought them into the school where I teach for the child & youth worker to distribute to a few girls who might need them more than me.  I always struggle with where to bring my stuff, but this time, in a twist of fate, the Canadian Diabetes Association called a few days ago wondering if I had any clothes to donate to their Clothesline Program.  Yes, as I matter of fact I do!  This bag is waiting patiently to be picked up sometime between 9-6pm today.



Thursday 7 June 2012

A Month Without Meat-CHECK!

 2 down, 29 more to go! I am very excited to cross a month without meat off of my 30 before 30 list.  This month has most definitely been challenging, but also so very rewarding as I managed (with the help of so many of my friends and family) to create for myself a lifestyle where the beef wasn't the first thing my eyes went to on a menu.


After a few days of reflection I've put together some pros and cons that I found in my short stint adopting a vegetarian lifestyle:

Pros
-4 llb weight loss (awe yeah)!!
-The options for cooking vegetarian at home are endless, and for the most part totally delicious.  I was able to try so many new dishes that will be forever incorporated into our weekly menu.
-Better body functions.  Everything just seemed to be more regular.  I found I slept better, had more energy, and woke up feeling far more rested than normal.
-Less guilt about what I put in my body.  I found that in choosing not to eat meat, I was also more aware of the choices I was making.  This month I ate better than I ever have before.

Cons
-Vegetarian food at weddings/showers suck.  Most of the time fish is the second option, which isn't exactly conducive to a meatless diet; thus I resorted to claiming the relish tray as my own and eating everyone else's salad and every last green bean with almond available to me.
-Eating out was not easy.  At most restaurants the vegetarian choices consisted of pasta, pasta and more pasta.
-Everyone's a critic.  I found myself defending my choices to a surprising number of people. 


To celebrate the end of the month, Charlie and I had dinner with his brother and sister-in-law at the Keg.  Despite words of warning from my mother to "take it slow"-I decided to go for broke and order the Dungeness Crab/Sirloin special; two birds, one stone style.  This was a disaster.  I have never had a weak stomach, and hardly ever have negative reactions to food (surprised?) ...until now.  I made it through most of my crab and half of my steak before my vision began to blur.  I don't know if there is such a thing as being "meat stoned" but if there is, I imagine this is what it felt like.  I managed to make it home before I lost my lunch in the worst way, as Charlie stood by laughing and wondered if he should take some photos "for the blog".  Needless to say, it was back to veggies for the rest of the week.

So, have I decided to go vegetarian from here on in? No, not exactly.  I am definitely not willing to lose out on all of the fantastic pros that I feel have come out of this experience, but I also missed eating meat a lot of the time.  We've committed to going meatless for most of  our meals, and with the stock pile of recipes I wasn't able to get to, that's not going to be difficult.  I'm also going to cut way back on the amount of red meat I eat, and since I don't really care for chicken, that leaves me with lots of great fish options to try.  Since May ended we haven't yet made one meal with meat...so, there's that ;) 

The offending crab/steak combo...
Should have went with the pasta...