Being a Vegan (But not a "Vegan"): Day 1

For the next 6 weeks I will not be eating any animal products (and also following some other ridiculous strict standards). Technically, I suppose this means that I will be vegan. My concerns/notations about this experiment follow:

A. My reasons for doing this defy an intelligent sounding explanation (at least so far). However, I want to make it clear that none of my reasons involve a moral objection to eating cheese.

B. Further to Point A-- I don't really want to tell people that don't already know me well that I'm doing this. Why? Well, because I might be eating a vegan diet for the next 6 weeks but I don't want anyone to think I am a "vegan" (Who knows, maybe eating this way for 6 weeks will give me an odd religious zeal for a way of eating that I will feel the need to talk about endlessly and an urge to judge people who like a good roast beef from Arby's...)

C. Now that I've finished Day #1, I can already tell there are going to be some issues with my culinary laziness.

D. I feel I should email Chick-fil-a and apologize for the hit their bottom line is about to take. (I wonder if the drive-thru crew will miss me)

E. I'm already creating my own rules because any plan that tells me not to snack between meals has clearly never been to a place I like to call Sarah's afternoon cranky time. (Conveniently, it is right next to a Diet Dr Pepper plant)

(Incidentally, never have I ever been able to spell "convenient" correctly with no help. I'll let you appreciate the Alanis Morrisette-ish "irony" for yourself)

F. It may have been really dumb to do this during prime Halloween candy season.



(Feel free to leave angry and offended comments below as necessary)

Just Embrace It (Otherwise Known as The Beauty of Being in Your 30s)

1. I will never be able to resist cutting my own bangs and I'm done apologizing about it.

2. I am really good at starting things. Finishing them is a little more...

3. Giving people the benefit of the doubt often doesn't work out well-- but I'm still almost never sorry I did it.

4. Attracting crazy people might not be convenient but it sure beats attracting bears.

5. My innate inner joy at listening to a good accent is God given and not something I will ever mature out of

6. Sometimes ending sentences with a preposition is just what I want to do.

7. Trousers on girls with hips are stupid 99% of the time. I don't know why I wasted years trying to wear them. Give me a sundress over a nice pair of slacks any day of the week, please.

8. Yes, I own a lot of cardigans. You will not shame me out of my collection. Cardigans rock and you mocking me about owning enough to start my own Gap Outlet just reveals your own ignorance about the joys of layering.

A Post That Says Nothing

I kind of miss blogging. And I kind of don't.

I think I've somehow been sucked into the notion that making the occasional smart remark on Facebook somehow equates to writing something. And that's really rather pathetic when you think about it because the desire to take 5 seconds to do something instead of 30 minutes to do something well sums up a lot of what seems to be wrong with people these days.

I started this blog seven years ago, encouraged/harassed into it by a friend I no longer see or talk to much (if at all). It took me months and months to tell my other friends about it and even longer than that to tell my family. For some reason the thought of them reading what I wrote seemed quite terrifying. Interesting to note (at least to me) that I don't even really remember why that was. Have I become more transparent or have I just started to care less what people think?

Is that the beauty of being in your 30s? I think I may have just have a topic for my next post...

Going on 17

For some reason I've been thinking a lot lately about what I would do if I could go back in time and talk to myself at 17. I don't know if it is because I'm just about double that age now (!!) or what...but I've been having these strange mental arguments with myself about what I would say. Almost none of it has anything to do with specific things I'd do differently-- so it isn't as if I'm thinking of trying to rearrange any major life happenings. Mostly it seems to involve relational things. Who to trust-- who to not trust. Who to listen to-- who to disregard.... that kind of thing. The funny thing is that I don't think that 17 year old me would BELIEVE 34 year old me about most of it anyway.



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I had the perfect idea for a blog post last night but now I can't remember what it was. I blame the Chesapeake lights. I had a perfectly good thought pattern going while driving down Western and then their Vegas-light-like brightness hit my corneas and whatever thought was in my head didn't stand a chance.

Obsessions Pt 1

Throughout my life I have been somewhat prone to getting obsessed with things. I can't pretend to remember the first thing I was ever obsessed with, though I suppose you could argue that my red checkered blankie (that is currently about 10 feet away from where I'm sitting) was a good start.

For some reason, lately I've been thinking about two TV shows I fell in love with when I was 11 or 12-- Tour of Duty was a somewhat (in my memory anyway) gritty show about the Vietnam War. The Young Riders was a somewhat ridiculous show about the Pony Express. They couldn't have been more different, but oh how I adored them both. My week just absolutely hinged on going to my grandparent's house on Thursday nights so I could look at their TV Guide magazine and read the upcoming descriptions of what was going to happen next on those shows. What was so riveting to my pre-teen brain? I'll give you one big hint:

Oh, LT-- how I loved you so. I still can't believe they blew you up...


XX

Just So There Was SOMETHING posted in 2011

Posting this is probably a bad idea. My blog has been in hibernation for so long that people have finally quit asking me when I am going to update it. When they do mention it, they say things like "Well, Sarah used to have a blog...." and then I feel that little twinge of guilt like I abandoned a puppy sitting by the side of the road.

Not that my blog is a puppy, but you see what I'm saying.

It's just that I haven't had much to say in awhile. 2011 was a really weird year for a lot of reasons. I can't pretend I'm not enormously glad to see it go... but it seems a shame to not have ANY posts to mark the year. (Plus my last post is me basically unintentionally lying to my grandmother, and who wants to end on THAT kind of note?)

And so I bring you the Things I Learned and/or was Reminded of in 2011:

1. People are ALWAYS capable of surprising me. Doesn't matter how long I've known them. Doesn't matter how much time I've spent with them. There is always some buried nook inside them that you never had any idea was there...

2. Soy Yogurt is not something you can force yourself to like. If you try, it might lead to you gagging into your own kitchen sink after a few bites. Hypothetically.

3. I am rather bad at punctuation which is awkward since people seem to expect me to be the grammar police (not sure why since I'm 99% sure I've never corrected anyone's grammar...my dad does it enough for the both of us).

4. On the same subject, I'm a bit too fond of parenthesis.

5. Kashi products are best eaten in small doses.

6. The people who have known you the longest are not always the people who know you best.

7. Trying to eat with chopsticks is still one of the most frustrating endeavors EVER

8. Fur is creepy.