Vegetarian Musings

I have been a Vegetarian for a year! A fellow veggiesaurus (yes, I just referenced Jurassic Park) told me that the first year is the hardest, or was it six months. I don't remember, but anyway apparently the hard part is over. Not that it has ever been all that hard.

When I started out on this endeavor I didn't give any thought as to how long I planned on living this lifestyle, I was just concerned about having enough self control to not backslide. I still don't know how permanent this is, I'd certainly like it to be permanent, but who knows, maybe I'll decide to have kids and when I'm pregnant I'll crave meat. That would be horrible! It happened to a friend-of-a-friend, she couldn't stop eating McDonald's, and they are the worst.

Here are some cool things about being a vegetarian:

• Spend less money on groceries
• Spend less money at restaurants because things like pasta primavera are always cheaper than steak, or even chicken.
• Spend less time deciding what to order at restaurants. I'm notoriouse in my family for taking forever to make up my mind about what to order. Now I'm always the first one done because as soon as I see the words, beef, chicken, steak, lamb, goat, shrimp, crab, turkey, etc. I move on to the next thing, or better yet when the menu is organized by protien I can skip entire sections! I get excited about the strangest things, i'm weird, I know, my mother-in-law tells me all the time.
• Eat less fat, especially saturated
  
• Eat less calories overall
  
• Eat less soidum & other things that are bad for you
• Tends to make you eat more fruits, veggies, whole grains & other things that ARE good for you, partially because you have to read the labels on EVERYTHING. For instance: cambell's minestrone soup is made with chicken broth and its not all that good for you because like most canned soups it's high in sodium, like 960mg! That's almost half the amount of salt you should eat each day!
  
• I lost a few pounds, yay!
  
• Less cholesterol
• I get to feel good about myself when I read articles or hear stories/news reports about how bad mass farming is for the environment, and how wastefull it is. So humble of me, isin't it?

Sorry about getting preachy in there about some stuff, but I want to encourage you all to think about what and how much goes into your body. You don't have to become a vegetarian, just take care of yourself.

It Worked!

I successfully shamed myself into sewing more on my cross stitch project. Here are the results, which you can compare to my previous post:



As you can tell, I decided to post on my progress once a month. Now I need to work on blogging more often so that my life doesn't seem so pathetic.

Cross-Stitch Project

At the end of February 2008 I bought this cross-stitch kit:


I started within 2 weeks and have been dabbling in it ever since. As of today here is what I have done:


Pretty pathetic, eh? Actually, it's even more pathetic when you consider all of the medium and light colored green thread has been added within the past month and a half, or so. Of course, by "or so" I mean more like 2-3 months, but I get so busy with life that I lose track of big spaces of time.

So, I have decided that I have to post my progress on the blog every week, 2 weeks, or month, in order to use humiliation as a motivator in finishing this project. As you can tell I haven't decided the frequency in which to post the cross-stitch. This is because I don't know yet how much time will be adequate enough to hide my shame.

My hope is that making all these tiny stitches will improve my hand-piecing skills for the king-size quilt I am making. ALL BY HAND. That project will take even longer than this one, but that is a post for another time.

Ben's 25th Birthday Surprise

Last satuday was Ben's 25th birthday and I took him to Seattle for the weekend. He had no clue we were going anywhere until we turned onto the road that becomes the road that goes to the airport! We were supposed to get out of Phoenix at 3:30 in the afternoon but didn't end up catching a flight until the last one for the day at 7! Oh well, I got catch up on some reading. When we got to Seattle we rented a 2009 Hyundai Sonata and drove to our hotel to check in. We had a really late dinner at the 5 Point 24-hour cafe with our friends Aaron & Kristen.

The next day we slept in and found out that this was the view outside our window:


I couldn't have asked for a better one. We walked the 5 blocks to the Seattle Center and toured the Sci-fi Museum, where I bought Ben a nerdy Serenity shirt. We hung out in the hotel the rest of the day until the grand birthday dinner at Anthony's Bell Street Diner.

A few of our wonderful friends that helped us celebrate.

The nerds from Ellensburg that made the trek.


More of our friends.

I have more pictures but I didn't want to call anyone out and embaras them. That evening we saw Aaron & Kristens new house and enjoyed the warmth of their hot tub. We also saw Cara's new town house. The next day was spent relaxing and catching up with more friends.

Between the success of our friends, the beautiful rainy overcast weather, and the general pleasantness of the population, we really missed this place and can't wait to move back. To all our friends: thank you so much for keeping the secret and making this Ben's best birthday ever!

Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA

I know, I know, I haven't blog in quite some time. To make a long story short: I've been learning to balance work and home while fitting all the things I have to do each day into only 24 hours. Plus the digital camera broke. But not to worry, Ben got these great pictures of my first trip ever to the Grand Canyon:

Standing on the ledge looking down

I always knew it was a giant ditch, but seriously, this thing is HUGE! Not to mention very beautiful. It was so nice to get up out of Phoenix. It was cool enough that we were able to do a 2.5 mile hike of the South Rim from the parking area to El Tovar Lodge.

We stayed two nights in Flagstaff. I fell in love with the place and I told Ben that if we had to stay in this state for the rest of our lives we would live in Flagstaff. We have decided to make trips to Flag a monthly ritual.