Life of a Vegan July 5, 2007

When most people see me, their first impression is that I am a goody two-shoes that spends her whole life studying and getting good grades. Which is mostly true. There are tons of things about me that surprise them about their smart, suck-up acquaintance. The biggest shocker is my being a black-belt, and then combined with being a vegan, my life must be just some ironic joke. Though it might annoy some people, I anticipate the reaction of some people that find out the deeper side of me.

When someone finds out I am a vegan, there are a few common reactions.

1: OMG, I could never give up meat, and MILK!

2: Where do you get your protein?

3: That is so unhealthy, without meat you won’t get any vitamins, it’s like being anorexic!

4: Why?

5: See, the thing about vegans, is that they have to get vitamin B12 from VITAMINS, and all they eat is goat food, and…and….etc.

I recently came across a website with vegan comebacks, and I have tried a couple on a few people, and it just makes it ever more enjoyable. Most people think you have to be insane to give up meat, and when you crack a joke about it, that just seems to justify it for them, yup, they’ve gone off the deep end.

The coolest comment I got recently when like this:

Kid: “You know, the animals are still going to be dead in stores, even if you don’t eat them.”

Me: “No, vegans and vegetarians actually are making a difference, saving about 47 animals a year each.”

Kid: “You’re right, someone halfway across the world is looking at the next cow about to die, and says, ‘I can’t kill this cow, because KT is making a difference.”

Haha, now he is my favorite seventh grader.

Here are the non-funny, short answer responses I am giving to all of you:

1: Well, you aren’t the one giving up meat or MILK, I am, and I love soymilk. I’m not sure I could eat meat anymore anyways, it grosses me out. I bet if you tried, you would be able to, though.

2: Where do you think the cows get their protein? There is a ton of protein in plants, you just have to use a combination, beans and soy have tons.

3: Yup, I’m anorexic.

4: Because it’s mean. (If they look at me quizzically, I add more, but it gets tiring repeating my schpeal over and over again.)

5: Ummm…no

I am dedicating this post to my friend Gabe, who I have no idea where he has run off to (haven’t seen him in about 2 years), who originally inspired me to become vegetarian. Also, I am terribly sorry for bombarding you with, “I could never give up meat, veggie burgers are gross!” because I know how terrible that one comment can be. BTW I love veggie burgers. THANK YOU for opening my eyes!!

Toodles!

My Garden!! July 5, 2007

These are the first pictures that I am showing of my garden, they look fabulous to my untrained eye!

My Cukes:  

My Beans (Something has been eating them!):

My Straight Neck Squashes:

My Tomatoes:

My Radishes:

My Peas:

YAY They almost look good enough to eat!!

Vegan Coconut Pineapple Bread Recipe July 5, 2007

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup margarine
• 1/2 cup sugar
• Egg replacer for one egg (I used a banana)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp rum extract (optional)
• 1/4 cup soy milk
• 1 8 ounce can crushed pineapple, with juice
• 1/2 cup chopped macadamia or other nuts (optional)
• 1/2 cup coconut flakes

PREPARATION:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a bread loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the margarine and sugar, then add the egg replacer, vanilla and rum extract.

Add the soy milk and dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir well to combine. Add pineapple, including juice.

Gently fold in the nuts and coconuts

Bake in pre-heated oven for about 1 hour.

Thank you to: http://vegetarian.about.com/od/breakfastrecipe1/Breakfast_Recipes.htm 

for your WONDERFUL recipe

Fourth of July: OOOs and AHHHs July 5, 2007

Today started off wonderfully. I baked this FABULOUS recipe called Vegan Coconut Pineapple Bread, with a banana as the egg subsitute. It was amazing, banana bread with a zest. I am sorry to say that it has almost all disappeared.

Then, I think to escape the Fourth of July festivities, my dad invited me to go off-roading in his jeep. Scary thing, I drove up this little hill and down again. Sounds easy right? I have never driven a manual transmission, for one thing, and the hill was very steep, made up of these huge, (volcanic?) rocks. Phew! First off-roading ever!

My fourth of July was pretty fourth of Julyic. We went over to our…opulent friends’ house and the people in their neighborhood always have tons and tons of big fireworks. I thought it was like being at a professional show, except all of the little kids were lighting the fireworks. Scary stuff. No real accidents until the end, when they were trying to light everything, a couple of kids got burned a little, but no lost limbs. By that time, most of the adults had had a few glasses of wine, if you know what I mean, which could have resulted in the lack of supervision. I would put some pictures of fireworks up, but I didn’t take any, and I don’t think my mom did either.

Today is my last driver’s education class. I am so excited…for it to be over. I suppose I already knew the rules of the road, because I learned squat. So watch out in 5 months, I’ll have my license!

AQUARIUM! and some catching up… July 3, 2007

To start things off, everyone who lives in Seattle MUST visit the Seattle Aquarium, for a couple of reasons.
One: Well, you should obviously go because I am there, and who wouldn’t want to see me rambling off the “right” answers to questions? (of course they are the right answers…)
Two: It is amazing, especially since the new part was added (as of June 22!)
Three: Because there is a really cute little red octopus, and a crescent wrasse (my favorite fishy) and harbor seals and cuttlefish and…

So…you must visit.

For those of you that don’t already know, I am volunteering at the Seattle Aquarium 3 times a week, and today was my second day. It is a blast, and so fun to see all of the tourists from all around the world. The little kids are especially fun, with their glowing faces and cute comments.

Yesterday, I was volunteering in the Pacific Coral Reef exhibit with two Blacktip Reef Sharks. This little boy comes up to me and says, “Is that a shark?” I said, “Yup, that is a Blacktip Reef Shark,” (very enthusiastically, I might add) then the little boy said, “Cool, I’m gonna shoot it!” and he held up his little hands like a hand gun, pointing at the poor, innocent, little shark. I was speechless, but his parents said something along the lines of, “We don’t shoot sharks,” or whatnot.

I hope to have more cute little kid stories, because I am expecting more…

I also have recently started a little vegetable garden, with my grandpa, that is doing surprisingly well considering my gardening skills…I will put pictures of it up eventually…

Here I am! June 17, 2007

Hey guys, I’m back! It has been a long school year, but school ends on Friday. I wanted to give everyone a heads up that I will start to blog again, as time permits. For these first couple of days, I might post a couple a day, to catch up

On the Road Again August 10, 2006

I didn’t have any time to post something before we left, but I am going to now.

Going on road trips, packing is the part I dislike the most. I always over pack, but I can’t wear the same clothes more than 2 times in 2 weeks. I am okay wearing pants more than once, but I at least have to have some variety with my shirts.

I also always feel like I am going to forget something important, that isn’t easily replaceable. Clothes are replaceable, and my mom did say that we would do a bit of school shopping on the trip, but there are lots of clothes that I can’t leave behind and wouldn’t like to forget.

Then, there is leaving behind all of the animals. The dogs always know when we are going somewhere, and they will just watch you, with their sad puppy dog eyes. They miss us terribly when we are gone, my dad, who is home, said that they didn’t eat anything for the first couple of days. It’s not that we neglected them, but we didn’t pay that much attention to them.

Packing always reminds me of all of those things, but it also reminds me of what is ahead, the wonderful vacation (complete with palm trees).

Palm Tree Sightings August 9, 2006

I have a fascination with palm trees. I was born in California, and we moved when I was five, so I guess it is just me wishing to go back to
California. My mom loves it in
Washington because of the mild weather and all of the green, but I love the hot weather and palm trees. The brown doesn’t bother me, if there are palm trees scattered throughout it. (I also like eucalyptus trees, but they come second). At first, before we left for the trip, my mom and sister wanted to fly to California so they wouldn’t have tot endure the driving portion, but I desperately wanted to drive, so that I could say where the first natural palm trees were.

 

When we pulled off in
Redding, (we were looking for a grocery store) we saw a bunch of palm trees, but they were all in front of stores, there weren’t any lonely ones. We decided that those must have been planted and we didn’t count
Redding as the first palm tree bearing city.

 

We were driving for about another hour or so, and just before Orland, we saw a couple of lonely palm trees, but not a large amount. We are a few miles past Orland now, and there haven’t been any more palms. They must have been planted too….

 

I have just spotted a few more palm trees in Willows.

 

There haven’t really been any more palm trees until
Los Angeles, and then from there on they have been really abundant.

 

We have finally arrived here, at my Grandparent’s RV, at about 2:30 AM. It was long, but worth it!

Day One (Driving) On Our Trip to California August 8, 2006

Today was our first day on the road. We left the house at around 12:30 (pm), and then we had to run a few errands. We went to the library, returned and bought some stuff at Target, and returned some more stuff at Sears. Then we went to Joann’s and bought Mimi a lap desk for the car (bright pink I might add). To top it off and fill up our tummies we went to Taco Time and all got kids meals (along with the ‘watch water games’ toys). Then, at about 1:30, I pulled out the GPS device and we figured out how to find I-405.

We just made it to
Oregon and I had to hold my arms out (at request of my sister) and it is 5:48. Just beyond the border there is…..a Hooter’s! What a lovely border marker. So, we have found different ways of keeping ourselves occupied and among them are:

• Coloring little strips of paper to make Mimi’s window pretty. (But Mimi got tired of it after about 10 minutes, so there are only about 5 strips on the window.)
• Playing with states flashcards and playing for (Dark Chocolate, my favorite!) Raisinets. I especially enjoy this game, because it is really funny listening to all of the capitols that they come up with, like how Mom said
  Butte for practically every state until I told her that that wasn’t even a capitol. My favorite one is
  Annapolis, Maryland. Mimi has a friend named Anna, so my hint was that it had Mimi’s friend’s name in it. So my mom and I would just sit here, laughing at what she came up with, it went sort of like this…

“Maryland!”

“Annaplalpolis!”

“Annanapolis!”

“Annanaplapolis!”

“Annapolis!”

• Laughing at Mimi and her silly things…such as being excited to having her own hotel coupon book.
• Listening to Mimi sing along to her MP3 player. We tell her to quiet down a bit, and she belts it out, so if you are trying to sleep, you have to imagine that she either isn’t there, or is politely singing you a lullaby.

I have set up a states excel page, so I can keep track of who wins (and who to award the Rasinets to.) I am getting Mimi ready for 8^th grade if she gets Harris. Mrs. Harris said that nobody in her class has ever aced the beginning states and capitols test (it is a pop quiz) so I am hoping that she will get Harris, and show her that it is possible…..heehee.

We are going to do another round of States, so I’ll blog again later. As soon as I get to the hotel, I will post this.

We made it to
Medford, Oregon and I will be posting at night, because that is when we have internet access.

Mimi’s New Room, and My New Bed August 5, 2006

First off, I would like to apologize for not blogging for a few days. On Wednesday and Thursday, I had my final exam for summer school, and I got an A- on the first and I don’t know on the second one. The highest that anyone did get was an A-, so I am pleased with my grade.  

This summer, when my dad and my sister were on their vacation to New Mexico, we (me and my mom) redid my sister’s room, I cleaned it (which took a good week) and we finished painting, and such like that. Even though it was my sister’s room, I did it how I might’ve liked my room when I was twelve (if I hadn’t liked the marine biology thing). So we were at Ikea searching for anything that would fit and work with her room, when I remembered that I had found my dream bed there. It was a loft bed, that would fit in my room with my low ceiling and would also create a bigger space for me. I love looking at all of the displays they have, with all of the different loft beds. So we did end up getting it, though we agreed that we wouldn’t put it up until Mimi’s room was done. I found this one display with a couch and a light fixture that you put on the wall, and I fell in love with it. Although, we only got the bed and decided that I could get the couch after my mom got new couches for the living room. Now you need to understand that my mom has been looking for new couches for a year or so, so my new couch could be a couple years away.

So anyways, we had gone to Ikea the Sunday before they were supposed to come home, which was sometime on Friday. We still hadn’t finished painting and organizing everything, so it was crunch time. We worked really hard those last couple days, and on Wednesday, my dad had called my mom when I was in summer school and told her that they would be home in 2.5 hours. We freaked out, because the room wasn’t done yet, we still needed to put up the light, organize and vacuum, and the organizing part could take forever. (I sorta got fed up with her stuff when I was cleaning her room at the beginning and I put all of the unorganized stuff into boxes in the living room, and we still needed to sort through about half of that.) We ended up getting everything done with around an hour to spare, but left a bunch of stuff in the living room for my sister to take care of when she came home. (We thought it was the least she could do after spending three and a half weeks on vacation and we slaved away on her room, including mostly cleaning it.)

So as soon as we were done in her room, I ran outside to the car and attempted to take my bed out of the car. I almost managed to get it out, but I didn’t want to hurt it, so I asked my mom to help. She said that she needed a break though, and I was forced to also. So we got it inside, and I started reading the instructions, and soon enough, Mimi and Dad came home. So then I managed to get my mom, and at times my dad to help me put it together. When we got through most of it, I realized that the stupid man at Ikea that tried to help us, was stupid. We were missing the bed frame. It was too late, so my dad and I managed to get my mattress into the bed, but on the floor. I slept on the floor that night.

When we had gone to Ikea before, we were making sure that we had all of the pieces, because we didn’t want to make another trip, so we asked a guy if we had everything. He assured us, but we weren’t really assured, I think he was getting annoyed and just said that. Both me and my mom remembered the tag saying $199, but the part we were buying was only $101. So we went back to Ikea, and got the bed frame, I think it was on the Friday when they were supposed to come home. We finally put it together, and I got to sleep in my new bed.

That is how I got my new bed, and my sister, her new room.