The End?

Hey guys.
Google has recently cured me of using any of their services other than their search engine... and even that isn't so much to my liking anymore. This unfortunately includes Blogger. *sadface*

I'm looking at Wordpress and Tumblr as alternatives. Actually I think I have a dusty Tumblr account floating around somewhere. So if anyone knows much about either of those alternatives let me know what you love and hate about them.

The reason for this is that recently all my blogger pictures sync'd themselves to my Nexus. No big deal right? Except I already have all those photos on my desktop, I don't want them on my tablet, and it won't let me erase them. That is only the beginning of my huge issue with the new and improved Google machine.
I've been on the interwebs for a little while now, and I really hate where it's going.
It used to be a fun place full of imagination and colors and poorly designed webpages and you didn't have to pay for access to things. It just was, and it was great. Now everything is stark colors, blue and white, orange and gray. Minimalist... boring.

Well anyways. This blog wasn't doing what it was supposed to anyways. So I guess this is The End. Maybe I'll catch some on you guys on the other platform I try to figure out. Maybe not.
Thanks for being awesome.

The Light Heart Lives Long~ Old Irish Proverb

Cheaters Never Win

My Vegan experiment is up in two weeks. Well, actually a week and a half.
Even with all the complaining I've done it has actually been a very positive experience. Being forced waaaay out of one's comfort zone is a good thing every once in a while. I've learned all kinds of delicious recipes and so much about veggies in general. Jex has been very supportive, even if he was a jerk and told me about how great the beef jerky was he was eating on our drive to Sandland while he sat there next to me filling the car with meat smell. *laughs* We're going to have Vegan Vednesdays. You know, German pronunciation... *coughs* well we thought it was clever.

Since the race and promptly after the start of my cycle I hit another "all things meat and cheese" wall. I've researched the hell out of what to eat to make sure I'm getting iron and all the protein I'd usually get from meat. Nothing I've eaten has been enough. I swear that salad burns up on entry to my stomach. I'm back to that first two week starvation period.
Jex being the loving husband that he is (probably tired of my puppy faces while I watched him eat hamburg steak) declared that I could just do a juice cleanse and shave a week off before I go Vegetarian (milk + eggs). Of course in my weakened state I was all over this idea. That's not cheating, nooooo.

Today, day 1 of the juice experiment, I learned that cheaters never win. The juicer that my mother in law gave me was fine when I tested it last week. Halfway through my breakfast juice it kind of exploded. I spent the last hour taking it apart. Everything looks fine. It's a balance issue that I can't get to without actually cutting into the case around the little motor. Annoying.
No big deal I'll just use the Ninja and juice like I have before. The ninja apparently needs ice or water or some other liquid to do it's damn job. Oh and my mesh strainer is 4 inches in diameter. Gah!!! It took me almost an hour to juice my breakfast juice.
Snack juice #1 is straining as I type.
On top of all this I just got over a head cold and my left hand is some what useless because of a deep tissue injury on my middle finger.
I'm sure there are a zillion proverbs about adversity one could whip out at a time like this.

So, let's see them.
What is your favorite saying about adversity, trouble, trials? No really I want to see them. Don't be shy interweb friends.

In any case I'm still going to juice. Because I started, there's really no stopping now. I just need to figure out a system for it. Hmmmm.

Oh yeah... race pictures. I don't have any good ones. So I stole a couple from my sister in law.

The obligatory PreRace Group Photo

Jex being all manly. That's a pipe filled with water, and I think maybe sand as well. It was really hard to keep the balance right.

The crawl under barbed wire. FW and the Sister in Law there at the bottom of the hill.
I swear there was broken glass in that mud.

And the obligatory PostRace Photo.

Till next time my lovelies!
~The Light Heart Lives Long~

Recipes and Race Day

Hi!!!

Doing the Vegan dance is hard. We get invited over for some homemade Tuna Casserole, I have to bring a sack lunch, or we get invited out to some bar and grill where NOTHING is remotely even Vegetarian, let alone Vegan to hang out with Jex's unit mates; not being allowed to bring my own lunch I end up ordering one of those tasteless iceberg lettuce salads with a slice of lemon instead of their questionable dressings.

But that's not all. Recipes are kind of a pain too. A lot of the Vegan cookbooks I found were crap. I'm sorry but if I can't eat butter I'm not going to buy a "Vegan Buttery Stick" or any of the other pretend meats, cheeses, and egg substitutes. For one thing their probably incredibly processed, for another I'll just eat the real damn thing for cheaper. Skinny Bitch was an especially big let down. I live in a town just barely big enough to have a ligit mall. Even if I was going to eat all the Vegan pretend foods there is really nowhere to buy them.

So I've made stuff up as I went along, it's still hard some days but I'm getting the hang of it. Below is my recent favorite made up recipe. Hopefully you guys like it too.

Nonbasa
This is a spin off a meal that my dad would make for us from time to time that he called simply Kielbasa, because that was the main ingredient of the dish. 

1 Med Zucchini, cut into inch thick slices, then quartered
1/2 an Apple (Fuji, McIntosh, or Granny Smith)
1 small onion, quartered then sliced into 1/2 inch slices
1 cup Mushrooms (optional)
2 cups Cabbage (optional) 
2 Table spoons Coconut oil
Salt, pepper, and cayenne (red pepper) to taste
A cap full and a half Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar

In a med skillet with a decent lip, or wok, melt the Coconut oil on med-med hi heat and toss the onions and apples to coat. Stirfry about 10 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the vinegar, stirfry for another 3 minutes or so before turning the heat down to low and covering. Cook until cabbage and zucchini are tender, about 15-20 minutes. Uncover and add the vinegar, toss and taste, adjust seasoning to taste. Serves 1 very hungry new Vegan. 

Here are a few of my favorite places to get ideas when I have no idea what to make for dinner, or if I feel like branching out.

Olives for Dinner - I think this one is my favorite because the food photography is gorgeous.
Love and Lemons - I like the recognizable meals, like bean burgers and various kinds of root veggie fries that this blog has to offer.

Also, guys tomorrow is race day!!!! I'm going to die!!! I'm also hoping to get some pictures. Yay!

Till next time.
The light heart lives long <3 p="">

Week 3

Well, I'm halfway through my experiment. Week 3, the magical number that I'm supposed to feel better by. Let me tell you what, I kinda do. Now I don't feel like a million bucks or anything, but I'm done feeling super gross. Yaaaay!!!

I am running out of ideas for food though. Doesn't help that I'm not in my own kitchen. But that's ok! Asian food is easy.
I also want to give my heartfelt thanks to the vegan bloggers who post recipes. Really, you guys are life savers.
Here try some Coconut Creamed Spinach.


More than the veganry, I'm kinda here to complain a little.

You all might remember that my dude is military. Perhaps you noticed that my blog got really really quiet while he was deployed.
Jex is a reservist. It basically means ten times the stupid, a quarter of the time and a few of the benefits. Unless you have the stupid pink reserve Dependant ID on a nonreserve base, then no one knows what the hell is happening.
I just spent the better part of an hour trying to find a reserve support group online to help me out with the finer points of Jex's reintegration headache. Specifically the healthcare bit. Guess what I discovered.
Army, Nat. Guard, or Marine reserve spouses have it covered. Navy and Air Force reserves, not so much. I think I was more surprised over the fact that Marine reserves exist rather than the lack of support for someone in my position.

I live over 300 miles from my husband's station. No I did not type that wrong. To top it all off were in a totally civilian community. It is so hard to connect with some one who has lived in one place their entire lives. Especially when your struggling to figure out something like TAMP.
There is no key spouse to walk you through things. To share stories of the times she fell to little tiny pieces when no one was looking. To laugh with you about the lovely, but totally awkward, phrases the nonmilitary wives would say to to you. And as much as the active duty spouses get it there are still things they don't have to deal with because, well, it's kind of completely different.

I want to start a site for people like me. But from what I hear every reserve base does things completely different from every other base. I also have no idea what to do.
You know that "Yeah, that's a great idea" moment that is immediately followed by silence? Yeah that's where I am.
I guess I could try the Facebook thing... Even though I kind of despise the book of face.
Oh well. I guess I'll figure it out. Always do, eventually.

Till next time,
The light heart lives long.

Running into Recipes

The Spartan sprint is coming up guys!!! March 9 I'm going to go do a stupid 5k filled with stupid obstacles for a T-shirt, some beer, and a little Pride.
You might have to be in the military, or a military brat to fully apreciate this next bit. While testing my 3.1 mile time on base the anthem played.
Now, for those of you unfamiliar with why that might have been an issue let me explain. At about 4pm every day the base speakers play the anthem. While the song is playing you stop driving, walking, doing whatever it is you were doing, face towards the nearest flag and put your hand over your heart or stand at attention (if in uniform).
I have done this all my life. Never have I been caught mid PT. And there I was, running my buns off, fighting with my self. Do I stop? Would it be ok if I jogged in place? Is it ok if I keep running?! I had no idea what to do.
Being so close to the end of my run I kept going; feeling guilty the entire time.


Over the past few days I feel like the luck fairy kissed me on the nose while I slept. I have discovered delicious things to eat. Thank God! Salads were starting to make me want to cry.
So, I decided to post some recipes here, maybe some aspiring vegan or someone who is having a vegan over for dinner will stumble across a post or two.

Here's a tip: Asian food is the easiest to veganize.

Lunch/snack
Avocado and brown rice Onigiri (rice balls)
Makes 6 Onigiri

1 Avocado
1 1/2 cups of cooked brown rice. Note: rinse your rice before you cook it or it won't stick properly. I rinse mine 5 or 6 times.
2 tsp white cooking wine/sake
1/2 tsp chili garlic sauce
Salt to taste.
Furikake (optional seaweed topping)
Saran wrap for forming.

Cut the avocado into cubes. In a small bowl combine the other ingredients. Add the avocado and toss.
Tear off about 16 inches of saran wrap. Place 1/4 cup of the brown rice in the center of the wrap and squish it down into about 1/2 inch layer. Place a heaping teaspoon of sauced avocado in the center and fold up the sides. The saran wrap keeps your hands clean as you press the rice ball together.
Repeat the process, and tada!!! Tasty vegan food.

Till next time my lovelies,
The light heart lives long~

I can't believe it's not butter!!!

On any regular day I'm about as far away from 'vegan' as one can come. No I don't binge on Velveeta Mac n Cheese or eat TV dinners on the regular. But I do, or did rather, eat a lot of meat.
Every meal typically had a flesh element to it. Or did before I decided to run my little experiment. Most, if not all my recipes are centered around meat in one form or another. Chicken pies, beef and broccoli, pork chops with apple stuffing and sweet buttered carrots; you get the idea.
Relearning how to cook has been the single hardest part of being vegan for me. But even more difficult than finding new recipes and not so mainstream veggies (one can only eat carrots potatoes and onions for so long) has been what to use instead of butter. I cook everything in butter; everything. Pan frying things with butter has been my go to when I don't know what to do with a new menu item.
I love butter. Buttered toast is one of my favorite snacks. I miss butter.

Coconut oil is a silly fad. Or at least that's what I've thought. Before my foray into veganry I even bought a jar of it to see what the big deal was. You know the white louanna jar one can find in just about every grocery store. I wasn't impressed. It smelled kind of nice, but that was about it. I think the jar is still over half full and I've had it fore more than 6 months.
While shopping I realized something: I don't buy cheap butter. I spend a little extra on the challenge butter. The only butter in my area that says on the package "No rbgh." So, why was I buying the cheap coconut oil?
I bit the bullet and bought the organic, virgin, unrefined coconut oil. Truth be told I was prepared to be let down. You can imagine my surprise when it was actually really good.
Not only is it smooth and creamy you can spread it over toast with a little salt and it tastes just about the same as butter. I kid you not. Jex tested it for me. He had a piece of toast with the salted coconut oil and one with butter, both melted so he couldn't see a difference, and he couldn't tell which was which.

I'm so excited!!!!! I'm still forever hungry, but at least I discovered a few new tricks to make my life a little better.

The light heart lives long~

The Hungry Blogger

If you read my previous couple of posts you'll note that I'm trying to go Vegan.
Some of you might not appreciate how hard this has been for me. I eat bacon, eggs, down raw milk because warm and with a little honey it's kind of Ambrosia, and veggies are more or less a side dish that should be covered in cheese or garlic cream sauce.

It's been a little over a week now and I've not been satisfied since starting my veganry. I cannot get enough food. I ate 8 cups of broccoli soup and I might as well have been eating cheap sugary cereal, there's this gaping hole were my stomach should be. It's awful, I'm literally hungry all the time. I keep nuts and dried fruit on me to snack on. The closest I got to being full was when I ate some Spicy Stir Fry night before last over Brown Rice.
Doesn't matter how much I eat I'm never satisfied. I'm always hungry. God, it's like sophomore year all over again! *laughs*

I also have learned that you'll find animal and milk bits in the weirdest stuff. I was going to buy some of those premixed seasoning shakers. You know like McCormick has the different spice mixes for different meat and all that. I think it was like 'spicy asian five spice' or something; in any case I was reading the label more out of habit that anything and found 'chicken fat' in the ingredients list. It kind of confused me. Any 'italian' seasoned thing is going to have parmesan in it. Interestingly enough nasty packaged cookies are pretty vegan as far as I can tell, hey I might have to eat them if this infinite hunger continues to be.... well... infinite.

Jex says it's probably because I'm detoxing but I feel gross. I have more muscle spasms that ever, my intestines are kind of pissed off at me, no energy, lots of weird joint pain, and did I mention that I'm hungry? It's only been a little over a week and I already want to give up; throw in the towel and eat a brick of cheese, or a nice hot Ruben. Ugh!

I'm still doing cardio at least twice a week for more than 20 minutes, and smatterings of strength training here and there when I remember. *shrugs*
Even though I really, REALLY, want to quit being a vegan already I'll stick with it. Jex said that one of his coworkers assured me that I'll start feeling much better after week 3. *sadface*

Till next time my lovlies,
THe light heart lives long.