Happy Birthday Tyler!

Surprised Myself

If some asked me to choose between giving up dairy or breathing, I would have easily ditched breathing. My bf "Pearl" has become a vegan vegitarian this past year, and I told her when she first started, "I could probably do it, if I wanted to, but I could NEVER give up dairy". Well I have given it up for almost a week now, and I'm so happy about my progress.

Dairy Free Journal

day*3
I cheated for the first time today. I was out in Newport with a friend and we went out for lunch at the Rouge Brewery. I was weak in the knees when I saw the crab melt and I caved. There was a wee bit of cream cheese and some chedder. Darn it. Oh well, surprisingly it's been the only time, so I'm still pretty proud of myself so far.
I also had a really great soy 'ice cream' bar.

It's vegan, organic, and oh so heavenly! You just have to try them.
day*4
I finally opened the plain Safeway Organics today. I poured into my life cereal and I didn't even notice the difference. I have not had it in a glass yet, but on cereal it was just great. I couldn't find the milk free Slim Fast.... I think it might have been 'lactose free', but that's not dairy free. Well at least I can have cereal instead, but I'm not an 'eat in the morning' kinda gal. Rats.
day*5
Tyler wanted pizza tonight. I told him I'm not quite strong enough to handle him eating that in front of me quite yet, so we went out for Chinese instead. I had the best won ton soup. The won tons are SO good, and it's loaded with veggies like pea pods, broccoli, water chess-nuts, carrots, and baby corn. I love the shrimp, chicken and bbq pork in it too. DElish!
day*6
I've been 5 days headache free now! Amazing. Maybe this is working :)

Dairy Free..... Me???

This past year has given me a few presents I haven't been crazy about.... dark circles under my eyes, weight gain, the discovery of my sinus cavities being full 24/7, and the on again/off again ear aches. And let's not leave out my old 'friend' the migraine, who's been faithful at never leaving me. The doc says that my sinuses are trying to drain, but my ears are not cooperating and keeping all the nasty stuff to themselves... thus the earpain, headaches, etc. I'm on a new med for that, so hopefully that will get rid of the immediate trouble, but long term.... well that's in my hands.
My mom has been suspecting food allergies in me for a while and the local guru at the health food store thinks so too. I guess the whole 'dark circles under the eyes' is a big red flag. And here I just though age was catching up to me, lol. I've just been feeling like my body is out of whack because I'm packing on the pounds so easily too. I know, I'm already 'livin large', but I'm a 'maintainer'... I've held the same weight for years, and actually last year, I started dropping since going to the gym, but all of a sudden my face is unrecognizable - even to me, and it's mine. Damn. So long story short (too late for that now isn't it?).... I'm trying the DAIRY FREE thing for 2 weeks to see what kind of difference that makes. She wanted me to go wheat free too, but I told her I couldn't try both at the same time, or I might go totally insane.
I'm a total milk drinker... love cheese, and love sour cream even more, so this is not easy for me. To make easier though, I'm reading all the horror stories I can about dairy, so if health isn't enough inspiration, the grossing me out part will be. I'm such a child.

Dairy Free Journal

day*1
I usually drink a high protein Boost every morning, but discovered (while drinking it and reading the label at the same time) that it contains milk, so that sucks. I don't like eat breakfast when I get up, but I need something to keep the gitters away till lunch, and I found those to be perfect. I'll have to find something else, since my next item of choice would be cottage cheese, and that's of course dairy. Drat! Lunch was easy - I just had left over pasta, and didn't even miss the usual addition of parm. cheese. Dinner.... oddly I don't remember, but I know I did fine.
I went shopping for soy milk. The only time I ever drink it is at Sandy's. She makes yummy lattes with her fancy machine and steams/foams Silk instead of milk. I like in that, but have never had it on it's own. I don't remember if she uses reg or vanilla in the coffee.
I ended up buying an assortment of soy stuff, to see what I like. I got vanilla Silk, and Safeway Organics in regular and chocolate. I had a glass of chocolate when I got home and it tasted almost identical to my boost shake, so I was happy that I liked it.
day*2
I didn't eat or shall I say 'drink' breakfast this morning, but while I was getting ready for work, I heard a commercial for dairy free slim-fast shakes. I will give those a try when I go shopping on Saturday. For lunch I splurged on Taco Bell and had 2 Fresco tacos. Basically they had lettuce and a chunky salsa. They were good, and although I really wanted sour cream, I lived without it. Dinner was an easy dairy free meal... kung pao chicken and rice. I tried the vanilla soy... it was a bit sweet. I tasted like a melted vanilla shake. I still haven't tried the regular yet.
So far so good. Even if I can pull this off 'forever', I don't think I'll be fanatic about it when it comes to small amount like milk in chocolate, but I won't eat something that's mainly made from milk, like say... pudding. I wonder if butter would make a difference. I won't eat it for this 2 week experiment, but I might try adding it back after, and see what happens. I don't like the idea of margarine ... it's just so nasty and fake. I guess I don't look at this from a 'vegan' point of view, since I'm not a vegetarian... this is prompted from what might be an allergy, not a social/moral point of view. Hmm... it will be interesting to see where this takes me.

Got Soap?

I love ETSY

oh yes I do!
I've been selling lots of nest charms and I've been buying some very neat-o stuff too. I'm anxiously waiting for this sweet drawing:

It's from DUDADAZE's shop.
And this cool patch:

From my fave Altered Diva.

It's 2:20 am.... I must TRY to get some sleep. Just 5 more minutes of Etsy & Flickr!

Bird Bottle?

How come I've never seen one of these before?

It's fantastic! Another thing on my wish list :)

You can find these cool bird bottles here: Williamsburg

* * *
My art reception for my gallery opening at the River Gallery last Saturday went really well. There was champagne, brownies, and lemon tarts, and everything looked great... Jan did a great job of displaying everything. Almost all my friends came, even those I had n't seen in a year and it was a nice time. Tyler was a trooper and hung out with me the entire time... not many teenage boys are that cool!