Moving.

About three weeks ago I packed up my life and moved halfway across the country, from Texas to the East Coast.

In the process, I got rid of more and more stuff.

In the end, I had 9 boxes, a mattress, two chairs, two small tables, and a two-shelf bookshelf in the U-Haul.

My current situation is temporary - only a year, then it's time to move again. I plan to reduce what I own by at least a third again before then.

I'm already considering tossing out one of the chairs.

My goal in the next year? To purchase a 16 foot Scamp trailer to live in for the next 4-5 years, maybe longer.



Which means more simplifying. I'm good with that. :)Nothing is worth more than freedom.

Vegan in 30 Days: Update

Okay, I know I totally dropped the ball (because I have the attention span of a goldfish) and just disappeared without finishing my "Vegan in 30 Days" series.

Well, I will tell you all: I've been a full-fledged vegan since 1 January. I didn't even need to go through the whole process outlined in the book, because I'd eliminated so many things almost immediately after learning about the nastiness of the meat, dairy, and egg/poultry industries.

I've lost 16 lbs with zero effort. We're gonna start an "Ultimate Slim Down Challenge" at work in a couple of weeks and I know I'll lose even more.

I feel great, but I find Taco Bell to be the hardest thing to resist. I know it's just me wanting certain things out of habit -- after all, I ate there almost every day for about a year and a half.

Going vegan wasn't really that hard, and I will remain vegan for the rest of my life, inshAllah.

Day Fourteen: Gather Vegan Recipes

Task:

"Go to your local library or bookstore and browse their vegan cookbook selection. Borrow or buy a book that looks good to you. Also, go online and research vegan recipes."

I actually did this step a few days ago. I have three cookbooks I've checked out from the library, as well as my own copies of "Veganomicon" and "Vegan With A Vengance", which I purchased about 3 years ago when I found them to be the most commonly recommended vegan cookbooks on there.

I do want to get a tofu cookbook, though. There's more to tofu than "toss on pan with salt and pepper" or "serve chilled with soy sauce and green onion and rice as hiyayako". My skills, they need expanding.

Had sweet-and-sour tofu over microwave Asian rice. I actually didn't eat it all, and grabbed four Cuties oranges out of the fruit bowl for the bulk of my dinner last night. The white rice just didn't taste as good as it used to, and the tofu... well, we've established my tofu cooking skils need help.

My taste buds far preferred those little oranges to the white rice, and that came as a bit of a shock to me.

Gotta go to the store and buy some more bananas and frozen fruit and resume my smoothies. I haven't had one in about 3 days because I ran out of bananas. I miss them!

Oh, and casein. Sneaky, sneaky casein. Bought two packages of non-dairy cheeze, only to get home and find that it contains casein, which, if I recall correctly, is the thing in milk and cheese that makes it actually addictive to us. Note to self: do a better job of reading labels. Taking that stuff back and getting the Daiya.

Day Thirteen: Health Food Store Tour

Task:

"Call your local health food store and sign up for a tour. After your tour, buy one new product that you've never tried before."

I'll have to ask about this. I generally just wander the aisles in a mind-boggled state from all of the foods I've never heard of and wouldn't even begin to know what to do with.

I did try a new product yesterday: vegan Italian sausages, cooked on my knock-off George Foreman grill. They were very good, but I decided about halfway through the second sausage that I will limit myself to one per meal. I was completely stuffed after eating two of them on buns with yellow mustard.

Also, found that Sprouts' store brand tofu (made with non-GMO soybeans) is 99 cents (versus $3 for non-GMO, $2 for possibly-GMO at Target). I love to toss a slice of tofu on the pan with salt and pepper. It's like a fried egg. Minus the icky yolk. And the cholesterol.

Day Twelve: Eliminate Cheese

Task: Eliminate cheese from your diet and your kitchen.

I didn't have much, just a few boxes of mac 'n cheese I'm going to donate to the food bank, and a little container of parmesan cheese that I used on my rare spaghetti night.

With the delicious melty-ness of Daiya, I don't think I'll miss cheese, though I might miss sharp chedar from time to time. Still, I'll just remind myself of the suffering cows go through for that cheddar to be made. That will curb the craving quickly enough.

And then I'll nom on Daiya cheddar shreds. :)

Day Eleven: Fruit and Veg Cleanse

Today is supposed to be the second of two all-fruit-and-veg-cleanse days. I must confess to a sense of utter rebellion on being told when to eat nothing but fruits and veggies, so it's likely I'll pick another day at random on my own and not feel the petulant "I don't wanna!" temper tantrum of a 5-year-old coming on at the thought.

I'm gonna admit: I'm gonna cheat today. I finally got paid, and I want to hit up my favorite local veg restaurant for the first time in close to two weeks. They have a phenomenal vegan sesame chik'n entree with coconut cilantro rice and a sublime kale salad. It's run by Seventh Day Adventists, so they're closed on Saturdays.

Sooo... yeah. I'm gonna cheat for lunch. (Sorry, Sarah!) I'm gonna nosh on Cuties oranges tonight, though. Bought a bag of them today to fill that fruit bowl with, and I have no problem eating 3 or 4 of them in a row.

Actually, I cheated at my mid-morning snack: pretzel crisps, hummus, and dark chocolate from Starbucks. (I gave the salted caramel piece of it to my friend.) But dark chocolate with pistachio or orange peel or ginger and peppercorn counts as veg, right?

Day Ten: Read "Diet for a New America"

Day Ten:

"Read 'Diet for a New America' by John Robbins."

Evidently this is one of the most popular and influential books in the vegan reading repetoire. I don't have a copy, but I'm going to be near the library, so I'll swing by there and see if they have one.

I *am* reading "Main Street Vegan" by Patricia Moran, though. I'm really enjoying it. Her style is not hoity-toity and she doesn't have that Vegan Police snotty attitude towards vegetarians that too many vegan authors do. She provides a lot of information, from nutrition to cosmetic and household cleaners that do animal testing, and a bit (but still shocking in cruelty)on animal farming and slaughter practices.

I find that the horror inflicted upon "food animals" unconscionable, and I can no longer see myself eating dairy or meat. As a Muslim, my faith urges me to compassion, and I am seeing more and more that there is no compassion in eating meat.

The things that "food animals" suffer would carry jail sentences for an individual who inflicted even a quarter of this upon a dog or cat, but because it's big companies, with government sanction, because, hey, these are "only" food animals... they get away with torture. All in the name of making a buck. It makes me feel ill. If more people would educate themselves on the meat and dairy industry, we wouldn't fall for the "Happy Cow" commercials that show cows grazing peacefully in an open field, one of them talking and eager to give over her milk for drinking, butter, and cheese.

Today's smoothie was a truly fabulous banana-blueberry-spinach-vanilla soymilk combo. I think it's my favorite flavor so far.