Non - Vegan relationships. Dying to make it work.

                In my last post I mentioned a new relationship. It lasted about 8 months and now that it’s over I have some insights about vegan with non vegan relations and maintaining your individuality while trying to make a relationship work. Please understand that I am certainly not a relationship expert and these are simply my opinions and observations.

                Vegan or not I’ve always had a tendency of focusing so hard on maintaining my relationships and the other persons happiness that I end up giving up the things I love and losing my own sense of self in attempts to keep them and therefore “us” happy. Obviously this ends up not working as overtime my self-worth, confidence, satisfaction, and inevitably my happiness falters, thus tainting and in turn self-imploding the relationship. I believe the technical term is called Self Sabotage.

                If you’ve read my other posts then you know that I have been working on myself for a few years now. Isn’t that what life is after all? The search for oneself, and the constant struggle to become a better person. For me it is. It’s been four years now of serious reprogramming and I have never been happier with myself as a person. I found myself ready to make another attempt at love.

                The biggest lifestyle change that I made for the sake of this relationship was getting back on birth control. This is in my opinion the main culprit. For years I have been charting my cycle and using that to know when I am fertile. I had a fling that lasted a couple months using this method and never had an issue. But for my partners peace of mind I agreed to again use the depro provera injection form of traditional birth control. I warned him that I experience severe emotional side effects from hormonal birth control. Sure enough every month was worse than the last and even though we were trying other possible solutions it just got to bad for us to keep waiting for it to get better.  I will address feminine hygiene and my fertility struggles in another post.

                From the beginning I knew being vegan was going to be a challenge for my partner but it ended up being a bigger challenge for me. I found that it made the family uncomfortable when I would make my own meal to eat at dinner while they ate hamburger helper, taco salads and such. Albeit their eating habits were balanced and by today’s American standards would be considered healthy, the meals simply were not vegan. So more and more I started slipping back into eating ‘normal’. It started with things like “I steamed some broccoli so you can eat with us.” But he had melted cheese on it, and for the sake of not hurting anyone’s feelings or coming off as a stuck up B, I would smile and say that it looks good. All things in moderation, right? Wrong. The negative changes within me were obvious within just a couple months. From weight gain, skin problems, energy loss, exhaustion, loss of motivation, to depression anxiety, and feeling like I was going straight up crazy.  My whole life I’ve struggled with energy levels and being able to keep up with peers as well as depression, anxiety, and endometriosis. Since going vegan I had raised energy levels, no longer had depression, rarely had any anxiety, along with having consistently stable moods, and hadn’t had an endometriosis attack for a couple years. Although we were a relatively active couple I found my energy levels lowering and my muscles would be sore for days after doing a 3k when the first month that we were together I was able to run a 5k with minimal soreness. The only changes in lifestyle were the birth control and diet. So I found myself not being able to keep up with my boyfriend and as a result we became less active which aided in us both gaining a few pounds. All the nesting jokes aside it affected us both as individuals and in turn took a toll on the relationship. Long story short I ended up so depressed and with such horrible mood swings that we just couldn’t survive any longer. Not that we didn’t give it our all, we did and I am eternally appreciative to him for all his patience, understanding, and efforts. While I wish I had known better and as much as I wish we could have made it to the other side together it simply wasn’t meant to be and I am grateful for the many wonderful memories and even more so for the valuable lessons that I’ve learned from and will apply to what will hopefully be successful future endeavors in love.

                Lessons to learn from: Never sacrifice what’s important to you for the sake of another. It is far too easy to fall into bad habits! I gave up my yoga classes and regular workouts to fit into his family’s schedule better. The guilt I felt for eating non vegan just to please the family made it hard to focus on the positives of the relationship. Longer term, the SAD (standard American diet) put me back to the health levels I was at before going vegan. I developed cervical cancer before going vegan and after having the cells removed and being strictly vegan for over a year the cancer had not returned and my doctor was in awe of how fast I had healed. I now have to start all over again to regain my health. In addition, I knew that using hormonal birth control was not right for me and should have stuck to my gut on it. I hope this insight is able to help others who may be experiencing similar difficulties in their lives. While we all must learn our own lessons I also believe in learning and taking ‘pointers’ from others. Why suffer if you don’t have too? Stay tuned for a future post about my experiences with SAD diet, endometriosis, cervical cancer, birth control, how being vegan changed things and natural feminine hygiene.

My first Manicure!

I've been MIA for a really long time. I've been up to a lot. I'm finishing up my course work to become a certified personal trainer. With that I've been continuing to overhaul my life, diet, nutrition, people, everything. And along the way, I found myself ready to love again. I had given up on the idea and spent over three years alone, not dating at all. I had made piece with the notion of being alone and in that I found myself. As if on cue, he found me :-) So in my excitement about our first trip together, valentines day in Las Vegas, I decided to get my nails done. Yep, at 25 years old I had never had my nails professionally done. The reason for that is simple, it's expensive and I've always had nice and healthy nails to begin with.

So I have to admit that it was nice to pamper myself like that and they looked really good. For $25 it wasn't to painful on the wallet either. I know that many places charge more than that for a full set french mani. Being a small town girl the concept of keeping money in the community is an important factor to my spending process of thought and the lady that did my nails has worked really hard at opening her own shop and she is the best in town. I loved my mani, for the first couple weeks.... Then they really started to annoy me. I wasn't interested in getting them filled and continuing to ruin my natural nails. One of them chipped and the girl that did them fixed it at no charge which was awesome. But They really were starting to drive me crazy. I had to have her take the gems off when she fixed the chip because they kept snagging my hair in the shower. Around the month and half mark I took matters into my own hands and filed the length off. The edges where they had starting lifting were now snagging my hair in the shower as well as the cracks that a few of them had developed. So I tried to soak them off with acetone like the manicurist had told me. So didn't work! The couple that I did manage to get off that way was due to my chipping them off in painful pieces. So I finally just filed them down to nothing both length and thickness ways. It only took and hour :-/ Now I have absolutely no nails lol and they are super sensitive and even painful from the file getting so close to my nail beds. They are super weak as well. I was expecting that but not this amount of hassle and annoying pain. So yes I like the way manicures look but I highly doubt that I'll ever do it again. I really don't understand how this has become such a beauty addiction for so many people. But I love new experiences and am happy to scratch this one off the list, on to the next!

Vegan Food!

I try my best to be as 'raw' as possible but with two jobs, and limited variety on freash produce, a girl has to make exceptions. Such as...
Comfort food #1 - Amy's Baked Ziti





#2 - Annie Chun's vegan noodle bowls

Quick and Easy - Bananas are literally the perfect food! Pre wrapped, fast, and perfect nutrition! I usually stuff a few of them in my lunch bag as I'm heading out to my next shift. Remember that you want your nanners slightly spotted, not just yellow or even green.

Bean Burrito - The easy classic, no need for frozen, expensive. Just beans, salsa, avocado, roll it up on a torrtila or make a dip bowl either way it's a true tummy pleaser.
PB&J - Yep, it's still as yummy as ever. I use Dave's Killer Bread. You can easily make your own peanut butter in your blender. Same thing with jam. One favorite of mine is peanut butter and nanners.
Veggies & Dip - So fast, easy, and delish! Just slice up the veggies, grab some peanut butter or whatever dip you have on had and go.
Fruit - Nanners aside, apples, peaches, pears, even just an avocado are all amazing grab and go foods.

Fast, Harty, Filling - Can't go wrong with pasta! My favorite's are using the quinoa variety of pasta's, or whatever other vegan pasta's I can find. Just add some tomatoe sauce, salsa, veggies, whatev and presto! Same thing with stir frye. Throw the veggies in a pan, sizzle a little and yumm.

My typical work days consist of..
1) a fruit smothie with a handful of greens thrown in.
2) nanners or other fruit
3) Soup, pasta, salad, pb&j, something like that
4) veggies & dip or more nanners
5) Annie Chun's noodle bowl, borrito, something
6) whatever fruit I have on hand

See, easy peasy!

Back to Basics - Vegan for over a year! Ep.1

Well I've definitely gotten back to my roots! Sorry for my long absence but I've been on a path of rediscovery and I have to say that I love the person I've found within myself. I've lived most of my life just scraping by with no hopes, dreams, or goals for the future. Just surviving day to day as best as I can. Now I at least have hope! I'm going to be sharing my struggle, triumphs, discoveries, treasures, and new found hopes and dreams with you all.

I've been vegan for a little over a year now and it amazes me just how all encompassing the vegan life is and how quickly your entire life gets taken over by it. I've always tried to be 'aware' of my impact on our planet and such, but really.... Just how conscious can you be if you have no real knowledge to go off of?! I started by taking animal products out of my diet but quickly realized that some of the 'vegan friendly' alternatives are filled with more crap then the original foods. This opened up the world of GMO's to me, and a whole range of nightmares LOL. Having my mother living with me is a challenge on it's own. She tries so hard to be understanding and encouraging but it seemed like everything was deemed 'healthy' by her simply because it was 'fat free' or low sodium. She was born in the 60's, I've learned to think of it as the 'margarine era'. It took several attempts to make it clear to her that jello is not vegan friendly, since gelatin is derived from animal bones/hooves. That one kind of shocked me when I found out. I mean really.. Who sat around and had that idea to grind up some animal bones to eat?! Another thing, Soy is not always healthy! There was a few times at the store mom would pick something up and by like "oh it's got soy, it's healthy". GMO soy, maltodextrin, etc. No, it's not healthy. Yes I do eat soy and wheat, it's darn near impossible not to right? But I do try to avoid these thing as much as possible. So it's been a huge adjustment for everyone in my life. My mother, who believes that if she doesn't know what's in it then it can't hurt her, has learned to quietly roll her eyes while I spend hours reading the labels at the grocery store. My 17 year old brother asks questions and wears a permanently confuses expression at meal times, but he's a trooper and always tries it with a positive attitude. My co-workers tease, criticize me and try to trick me into eating animal filled foods. But they always mention how good my lunches look and smell ;-) and that gives me hope.

A co-worker of mine shared with me the story of how her youngest son nearly died due to ingesting cleaning chemicals and how now she uses products that are so safe you could drink them and survive. The real head turner is that they actually work as well as the artificial, chemical ridden ones, and they smell heavenly. This is yet another avenue of living a 'pure', natural, eco - friendly life. Why save the animals if we're just going to poison ourselves with fumes and DNA altering chemicals? I've always gotten massive headaches from bathroom cleaners and so have usually opted for an SOS pad, hot water, and some serious elbow grease instead. It's like itstinctual light bulbs have been going off all over inside me for my entire life saying "yes, this is healthy, do this, not that".

I'll be posting my favorite vegan things, transitional things that have made my life easier, etc. Feel free to ask questions and post responses.

September Eco Emi!

September
                                      
This month's box is amazing! Look how adorable it is in all of it's fall glory. Of course the first thing I noticed is that the green bag is actually made out of some kind of silky, polyester type fabric. Untill now I've only had mesh and burlap type bags witch are of course awesome in them selves, but this was a nice suprise.
Now I just realized that I forgot to do an August Eco Emi review. That's probably because I was thoroughly upset with it. But this month they made more than a come back. August's box was a bust for me because I was so excited that the main item was a mini skin care set, but they sent me one for dry skin. I have oily/combination skin. Apperantly this happend to several people as there was quite alot of outrage from other subscribers. Eco Emi handled the comotion incredibly well. They promptly put out a survey to determine theire subscribers individual needs in regards to hair and skin types among other details. But even after all that I still found myself a little apprehensive as to what this months box would entail.

I cannot rave enough about this box! It had three of my favorite things... honey, pasta, tea... Yes I am a food lover ;-) I was very impressed to see that we received a full size tin of mints instead of just four individual mints this time. These mints are a lemongrass mint flavor and smell amazing. A lip gloss was incuded which was a bit of a surprise for me as I haven't had one of those in any of my previous box's. It's a very flattering shade, slightly mauve red. I didn't notice any flavor and it felt smooth on my lips. I really can't stand sticky glosses and so this one is a keeper. Another rather unique item was the perfume. For some reason I was expecting it have a barely there scent but it's actually quite strong and very floral, musk. We received a large packet of bath soak that I'm dying to dive into. It's got oats in it so I imagine that it's very calming and moisturizing. Also included was an eyeshadow sample in Sandalwood (I beleive) which seems like a very neutral beige color, and of course our traditional chapstick. I couldnt beleive how delicious this months chapstick smells. I think it's some sort of Apple scent but oh my goodness it smells like the apple crisp candles at those super spendy candle shops. It's formula seems ultra creamy and the adorably cute little smiling bummble bee on the tube is just to cute for words.
My favorite about this month is all the foodie things they gave us. I'm a honey junkie and we received not one but two good sized packets of 100 % pure honey harvested in Florida, yumm. My mother and I both gasped at the honey and the box of pasta. We couldnt beleive how pretty the multi colored pasta is and we can't wait to make a beautiful pasta salad with it. Other then the mints a sample of tea was also included. Not just one but three packets of tea, all of which sound delish. The really unique thing that caught my eye about this tea sample was that one was caffine free, one light caffine, and one caffine. Talk about appealing to all levels right? So yes I think Eco Emi deffinately learned something from last months events and maximized the turn around. Nice work Eco Emi we love you!

Pink Cheetah Nails

Cute? I saw this look in a Sephora catologue and thought it looked rather easy and really cute.
To start I used a simple pink sally girl color for the base and let it dry. Then I used the Cina Nail Creations Nail Art Pen  in white to do really easy white dots and of course let it dry before proceeding to the next step. Next I outlined random sides of the white dots with Cina Nail Creations Nail Art Pen in Black, let it dry. Final step is of course the top coat. The nail art pens are somewhat water soluble so correcting mistakes is easy, but that's also why the top coat is crutial.
So what do you think? I think next time I'll try zebra stripes, hmm.

All products used can be found at Sally Beauty Supply or basically anywhere ;-)

Tarte For True Blood Palette

This is by far my Summer favorite! I never considered myself a 'Trubie" untill I realized how much I love this. I bought this palette a couple months ago because I was on the hunt for 'healthier' eyeshadow and wasn't much luck with the drugstore brands. Now I know this palette isn't the best as far as ingredients go, but its better than most. It's at least paraben free anyway.

 I chose this palette over the other 'more natural' choices for several reasons but the first reason was the overall bang for your buck you get with this one. The palette includes 17 shadows! And the're rather large shadows to boot. You also get the ephaseyes liner, lifted eye primer, & lights camera lashes macara. All that for $52. Then of course there's the fact that it's designed for the True Blood fourth season premier. I love that show! I really wish it wasn't so graphic tho.

So the shadows are big & there's many of them, plus the packaging, but let's talk about the actual colors of the shadows................

Colors themselves? Wow. Colors names? True fanger love lol. These colors are massively pigmented & in general, great quality. The only issue I've had with the shadows is that some of the glittery ones fallout onto my cheeks. Not the shadow, just the glitter. But still, it kind of makes me feel like a teeny bopper again. Other than that I haven't had any creasing or any other negatives for the shadows & the've become my everyday shadow.

I've been sticking with the guide book that came with the palette. It just seems easier since I haven't had time to really play with it freelance style. There's 2 neutral(ish) looks in the guide & the've become my everyday looks as of late. The 2 Looks are called "not your average waitress" (more of a natural, smoky eye & is my favorite) & "Luminess Fairy". I might have that wrong but it's something with Fairy in the name. The Fairy look is a lighter, more sutle, golden tone eye that I really like but feel might be a shade to light for me since I've got a summer glow going right now.

Long story short. I love it, it's worth the money, I don't even look at other eyeshadows because this is all I need. So the whole True Blood Line also has a lip surgence & a cheek stain. I didn't need these so I haven't tried them. But I have heard that they are wonderful as well. All the tarte for True Bood Products are available on both sephora.com & tarte.com. Tarte is having a 30% off friends & family sale until August 15th. Unfortunately this discount doesn't apply to the True Blood Products but hey, it's still a good sale. Want to know my secret to aplying these looks? Keep reading.

Yep, its this EcoTools eye brush set! These brushes are seriously the perfect shapes! I've never had it easier when it comes to doing my crease colors. The best part is that the set is only $8 and with EcoTools choose to live beautifuly program you can score a $7 coupon.