My Vegan Challenge

All this week I've had "We've got the power, so can yoooooooooooouuuuuuu" stuck in my head. My husband got me She-Ra, Season 1, Volume 1 for Christmas. The kids are loving it, especially my daughter. She is totally into "Princess" and go-go Girl Power! :)

This week I've been undergoing a "vegan challenge". I had joined the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart (free to join), which began on January 3, but I didn't follow a vegan plan for the entire first week. Then I learned about a "vegan challenge" where I work. They were doing a 7-day challenge, and I was determined to give it a try. (A vegan diet contains no animal products - so no meat, dairy, eggs, honey.)

The majority of my meals this week came from Brendan Brazier's Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life and from Robin Robertson's Vegan Planet. In some ways, it was nice (lots of fruits and veggies, new recipes to try), but my food processor definitely got a workout, and so did my digestive tract. Let's just say I had a lot of fiber and flax. :)

Here's my menu so far this week (in somewhat random order, not necessarily by meal):

*Denotes Thrive Diet recipe, or at least derived from a Thrive Diet recipe ;)

Monday:
Quinoa and Sweet Potato Pancakes*
Salad with cukes, tomatoes, nutritional yeast, sesame seeds*
Dressing made with tomatoes, oil, vinegar, and agave nectar*
Homemade vegetable crackers*
Clementine, banana
Energy bar*
Tofu & Kale Spanakopita (Vegan Planet recipe)

Tuesday:
almonds, date, flax, carob powder, Vega powder, almond milk*
Tofu & Kale Spanakopita leftovers
pear, apple
Energy bar*
potatoes/onion
Boca burger
applesauce
prunes, peanut butter, almonds
popcorn with nutritional yeast

Wednesday:
Quinoa and Sweet Potato Pancakes*
lentil soup with quinoa
clementines, banana, pineapple
Energy bar*
Polenta Chili Casserole (Vegan Planet recipe)
almonds, raisins, peanut butter

Thursday:
Oatmeal with pumpkin, walnuts, almond milk
Salad with cukes, tomatoes, nutritional yeast, sesame seeds*
Dressing made with tomatoes, oil, vinegar, and agave nectar*
Clementines, pear, almonds
Homemade vegetable crackers*
Energy bar*
Mac and "Cheese" (Vegan Planet recipe - pictured below)
Chocolatey Peanut Butter Brownie (Vegan Planet recipe - pictured below)

Friday:
Tortilla with peanut butter, banana and strawberries
Mac and "Cheese" leftovers (lunch and dinner)
Homemade vegetable crackers*
almonds, pineapple, carrots
Chocolatey Peanut Butter Brownie











Quite frankly, I miss eggs. I don't really miss meat, but I miss eggs. Thursday night I had a dream that I ate something with egg in it and after I ate it I thought, "Wait, eggs aren't vegan!" and then I woke up. One of my son's favorite meals is "eggs and toast" and we usually have that for dinner a few times a month, so I think those dinners will stay. :)

Energy-wise, for the first 3 days I was kind of tired (probably sugar withdrawal) but by Thursday, I had tons of energy. Basement painting here I come! We are turning part of the basement into a playroom for the kids. I let the kids choose the colors - one wall will be pink, and the other will be green.

Have a great weekend!

Lots of Randomness

It always seems like there is so much going on around here, and then when I sit down to type I can't remember anything, lol.

But one of the most important things is that I *might* have talked my husband into joining me in the next TT Contest. ;)

The half marathon went really well! It was a warm, humid morning. By 6:00am, it was 70 degrees. Not the most ideal running weather, but at least it was overcast so the sun was not beating down on us. I felt really good while I was running. I drank a ton of water in the days before the race, and had lots of carbs. :) My first mile was my fastest - about 10:45 - and my overall pace was about 11:15/mile. Total time was just under 2 hours and 28 minutes. So...not blazing fast, but I am proud to have finished! The first female finished about an hour ahead of me. She was racing. I was running, but she was racing. I'll do better next time! ;)

Last year I joined the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart. I didn't really take advantage of it last year, so I signed up again this year. If you are interested, you can sign up here ==> 21-Day Vegan Kickstart Starting September 6, you receive a daily email with tips and a vegan meal plan. I don't typically eat vegan, but I like to look at the meal plans for ideas. (The plans are posted for the week so you can shop and prepare ahead of time.) I have been trying to eat vegetarian a day or two per week.

This weekend we are finally going to start repainting the kitchen. We've had the paint for a while, lol. Speaking of painting, I think I remember typing here that my daughter picked out a color for her room that looked like a strawberry milkshake. Well, I decided I couldn't live with it anymore and we repainted her room a nice neutral color. :)

Have a great week!!

TT Contest Week 1: Insomnia

TT Contest Week 1 is in the books and for some reason this week I have had trouble sleeping. This is totally unlike me. Usually I am out like a light and I don't wake up at all. A few nights during this past week I was awake every hour. As a consequence, I've been feeling exhausted all week.

Part of the reason may be that last weekend we started building a brick paver patio. It's a lot of work! Lots of heavy lifting. Both last Monday and yesterday I did not workout because my back was really sore. Instead, I did my Monday workout on Tuesday. (That's my plan for today as well. My back still feels tweaky, so I am going to try to take it easy.) Anyway, the patio still isn't finished. We didn't finish it the first weekend - let's just say someone (who shall remain nameless) miscalculated the number of bricks we needed. ;) Then it rained for much of the week so we couldn't work on it. Then this past weekend, we had all the bricks in place and realized it wasn't really level. (Bob Villa would not approve!) So it was back to the store for more paver base! We had to make 2 trips because the guy at the store feared our car would bottom out if we piled it all in. But we ran out of time again so the saga will continue this week. I'll post pictures when we are finally done!

Have a great day! :)

Fun With DIY

When we moved into our house, the kitchen was purple. We immediately painted over it with what we thought was a copper color. It was more of a basketball orange. So after about a year, I went to the store looking for a cranberryish color, and came home with something called Spiceberry, or what I like to call "the Great Hot Pink Mistake". It's HOT PINK. I painted it all by myself as a surprise for my husband last Memorial Day. I believe he was quite surprised. So what started as a simple repaint the kitchen idea today ended up a mess. All started well (it always does). I moved the table out of the way, carefully removed all the trim, and discovered that the paint was peeling right off the wall. All 3 layers. Yikes. I couldn't paint over that! So here's 9:45am:

So I thought, well, it's peeling off pretty good, we'll just peel the whole wall. Here's 11:30am, lunch break:

Hubby started helping on the other end there. By 2:45pm, things were looking up:

Next came the first coat of paint. Finished about 4:00pm:

Now the final coat. Hurray!

So a 3 hour paint job turned into a 10 hour experience. It's hard to tell in the picture, but it's kind of a goldy yellow. I'm not sure I like it yet. I think it looks better in the picture than it does in my kitchen. LOL I only got 3 cuts on my hands from scraping off the paint. It hurts under my nails from prying the paint off with my fingers. And my arms are going to be pretty sore tomorrow, I think. I hope it doesn't interfere too much with my workout! I have to do T-Push ups tomorrow. And there is still one more wall to go, but I think we are going to wait until Sunday to finish. Unless we decide we don't like the color. Then it's back to the store!

I Almost Smelled My Shampoo

After I got my perm over a week ago, I bought a new perm-friendly shampoo. I still don't know what it smells like. I haven't been able to smell or taste anything for over a week. I went to the doctor to confirm I had a sinus infection and got some antibiotics so I am hoping to clear up soon. I thought I caught a whiff of my shampoo the other night, but not enough to discern the scent. Not being able to smell came in handy on Saturday when I painted the entire kitchen and never once smelled paint. I was over half done before I noticed that I seemed to have bought unscented paint. :)