Feelin' Crafty

I have been feeling super crafty lately. I just created an account through a website called Pinterest and am having way too much fun finding ideas for my future house. Now all I want to do is decorate and paint walls and buy pillows with fun patters and textures. And I'm pretty sure I've come to the conclusion that I need to live in a big city in a skyscraper. I don't think I can afford that right now, but it would be ideal.

Cities I'd like to live in:

• Denver
• Chicago
• Washington D.C.
• Boston

I would honestly move anywhere with the right job, but those are the perfect cities for my first move out of the mountain town I've lived in for 26 years.

Can I please move now? I'm so desperate to live somewhere other than Utah.

Doesn't this look delicious? That's because it is! I made this for dinner last night. It's from The Kind Diet, Thin Mushroom Pizza.

It starts with whole wheat tortillas, topped with a tofu/vegenaise/lemon juice sauce, and sauteed onions, garlic, olives, shiitake mushrooms, and I substituted regular mushrooms for porcini, because I couldn't find them in Whole Foods. Oh, and it's topped with fresh basil. Here's the recipe if you're interested.

Yum, yum, yum!!

I'm having leftovers for lunch and dinner today!

Future Home

I have been watching a lot of HGTV and checking out decorating ideas online a lot lately. I'm definitely ready to move and start fresh. Through this process I learned that I love gray, mustard yellow, and burnt orange. I think these will be the colors I decorate my house with.






I also have a new favorite band. These guys:



Everyone should love them for their album artwork alone.

Vegan update: I decided to try Superhero for a month. I haven't been losing weight. I'm kind of stuck. I started working out, weight lifting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, walking on my lunch hour Tuesday and Thursday, trail running after work on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, and hiking on Saturday and Sunday. I might give myself Sunday off, but right now I'd like to be doing something every day. With that routine I can't image why I wouldn't lose weight, especially with the Superhero plan.

Father's Day Dinner

I made red potatoes with rosemary, veggies, and corn on the cob all on the grill for Father's Day. Of course, my dad's plate included a huge steak, but still. Pretty delish!

Trail Running

Last Friday was my first day out hiking. The whole month of May was very busy for me, and just before I left for New York there was still tons of snow on the trails. When I returned, the snow was finally gone! I hiked Friday and Sunday and am so excited to start trail running today. I know I will need to start out slow, since I'm not quite in running shape yet, but today will be great!

I took Babsy up on both days last week, but the first day I kept her on the leash in case there was more mud than I expected. On Sunday I let her off the leash, but she did get muddy paws with the snow melt coming across the trails in a few spots. It rained pretty hard last night so hopefully it's not too muddy. I know how much she loves going off the leash and having that freedom.

I still need to invest in some trail running shoes. I found a pair on Under Armour that look neat, plus I get 50% off since they're a sponsor of USSA. I might need to buy those soon. I did buy some nice Columbia hiking shoes from www.steepandcheap.com that were just $30! Whipped those out for the first time last week, so I still need to break them in.

Also, I'm hungry.

Pet Peeve

During my few months of being vegan I have realized the ultimate pet peeve, which I used to pose around vegans just one year ago.

As I said in my last post, my cousin came to Utah last summer for our grandma's funeral. She has been a vegan for many years and only tried to educate my family when we asked questions about the vegan way of life. In return, we came back with angry responses, which I now fully regret.

I have had those angry responses from both family and friends. My father was the first to criticize. His reasoning is entirely religious. God put animals on this earth so we can eat them. Then why don't we fry up my Golden Retriever, Babs? Why don't you boil your precious little kitten? I think those are legitimate questions for those who don't understand. This is one of the first things I read about in The Kind Diet and what ultimately made my decision to go vegan. It's a great question, don't you think? Why eat just livestock and poultry and fish? Why not go for the endangered panda bear or your very own pet? Maybe God put animals on this earth so we humans can eat them to survive, but let's think about this for a minute. God also put all of these amazing fruits, vegetables, and grains (half of which I hadn't even heard of until I became vegan) on this earth for humans to eat, too.

I'm one of those people that believes that all dogs go to heaven. I also believe that the rest of God's creatures go to heaven. This means they have a soul. How could my dog, Babs, the most loving dog on the planet, not have a soul? You have to have a soul to love, don't you? My dog loves me with all her heart, and that's proven every time I leave the house. My mom tells me she walks around sulking and lays in my bed all day waiting for me to come home. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Now I'm just getting side-tracked. I began this blog with a pet peeve. That pet peeve is simply judgement. Why must everyone around me judge me for being vegan? This makes me want to pursue this even more! If they think they're going to change my perspective on this, they're absolutely wrong. I'm the kind of person that when you push, I shove. Put me down all you want. So I don't eat meat, dairy, eggs, what have you. I feel amazing! I used to get angry pretty easily. Now, I feel absolutely no hostility towards anyone or anything. I feel so laid back and calm, it's actually hard for even me to believe. Holding the infamous Steinbach gene that automatically gives you a short temper and impatience was not easily avoidable.

And why does everyone want me to fall off the wagon? You all hope that I'm going to fail, why? I can happily tell you that I never crave meat...ever! I thought I would in the beginning, or even a month or more into it, but nope.

I will tell you the benefits of being vegan and the amazing life changes that I've witnessed, but I will never try to force being vegan upon you. You can eat whatever you want, so let me eat whatever I want. And stop judging me. Only God can judge me for my decisions, and I doubt he's judging me for being a healthy human being and taking care of His creation.

This concludes Act I of Chelsea's Venting.

And P.S. If any of you are thinking that I'm not getting my protein and calcium, you are wrong. I have done my research and have found many foods that fully provide my daily intake of both food groups.

Month 3: Vegan

I have now been vegan for 3 months, June 1 started month 4. I would have weighed myself on June 1, but I was in New York. I would have weighed myself this morning, but I'm just finishing up the monthly and thought my bloated-ness would have taken away from my real weight. I will weigh myself on Friday and keep all my amazing followers posted (I believe my followers equal approximately zero).

Ok, so I went to New York, with a detour to Boston where I had one spoonful of clam chowda, one piece of lobsta, and one muscle. That's it! I told myself before going that I would try small pieces of things. At least it was all seafood, and it wasn't all in one day. Some vegans eat seafood and fish, so I ok'ed it with myself.

I don't think I've ever felt so good about this change. I feel good mentally, physically, and spiritually. My complexion is amazing (I still get the typical zit every once in awhile), I'm still losing weight (not sure how much as of today), and I absolutely love telling people that I'm vegan. I've never been so proud!

I do have to admit that my reasons for being vegan have changef slightly. I am still doing it for the health reasons, but the animal rights reason has increased significantly. I think that health and animal rights are now 50/50. I don't ever crave meat or dairy products because every time I see a commercial for a cheeseburger on tv, I always think about what that cow had to go through to get in between those two pieces of bread. And then I think of the pain the cow suffered to get the milk from her utters to make the milk and butter in that bread, and the cheese on that meat patty.

One year ago, my vegan cousin was in town for my grandma's funeral. She had all of these facts and information about everything vegan and I didn't even bother to read them because I didn't agree. I was honestly judging her for her decision to be vegan and sort of looked down on her because of it. That is one of my biggest regrets. I hate thinking back to that time and realizing that I did that and felt that way about the vegan lifestyle.

Since I have been vegan, my dad keeps saying the word "diet". "Can you eat that on your diet?" I feel like he thinks this is a temporary thing and I'll be back on meat and cheese in no time. I don't know if I'll be a lifelong vegan, but I do know that it's something that will be a long-term lifestyle for me. I don't know that I like the word "diet" when it comes to being vegan. It's much more than that. It is a way of life. I haven't gotten to the point where I won't wear my leather boots, but I know that I'm heading in that direction.

Ooh! Like I said earlier, I went to New York and Boston last week and I had some amazing vegan food! I had a whole list of restaurants that I wanted to go to when I was in New York, but I didn't get to any of those. I did, however, have the opportunity to go to Peace O' Pie in Boston, a vegan pizza company. I'll be the first to admit that vegan cheese isn't nearly as good as real cheese, but this pizza was pretty delicious. We had The Classy, which is artichoke hearts, roasted garlic, and kalamata olives. It was a bit more expensive than a regular pie, but it was totally worth it. I was able to show my brother and a good friend that being vegan can mean eating delicious food. We also went to this place called Other Side Cafe, where I ordered the Buffalo Tempeh sandwich. Yum!

If any of you vegans are going to Boston or New York I have a huge list of vegan-friendly restuarants, most of which are entirely vegan!