Vegan MOFO Day 26- Black Friday and a Vet appointment for Spanx

Black Friday wasn't as interesting this year as I would have hoped. I was looking forward to it for a couple months. I was looking at the black Friday websites everyday waiting for the adds to come out. Specially Walmart they are normally my first big stop. But then the Walmart paper came out and there Black Friday add was split into..... Half at Midnight and Half at 5am.... I live an hour away.. there was no way I was going to at Midnight and waiting or returning at 5am when they opened. 

We wanted a 42" tv and some games. So instead of going out at 5am I went to Target and purchased a 40" tv for the same price as the 42" I was going to buy... I would smack myself later for this...

We came home Thanksgiving evening and laid down to take a nap after visiting with his family for a while. I never fell asleep. But that was ok. The adrenalin of the evening was kicking in and I was ready to shop. we show up at Walmart around 9pm and people started showing up around 9:30pm. We waited by the PS3 games till midnight and then kaos broke loss. We got all 7 PS3 games we wanted we were first in line. Plus I grabbed a Wii game and A game for Chey's DS. Then I went and grabbed some picture frames and a few other things. Plus I price matched an 8GB memory card for my new Nikon. Price matched it for $12.88.  O yeah and I got my first 2 blue ray movies....

Don't have a PS3 yet but we have a bunch of games!!!! $10 each on Black Friday plus two I got off like for $12.99 each. Got my wii game for $10. DS game for $7, The dark Knight for $5 and The Wizard of Oz for $10. So we made out on games!!! Now we just need to purchase a PS3...lol

After our Quick Walmart visit we went home. We had to get up early to go back to Mo-town to take Spanx to the vet. The day before Thanksgiving I noticed he had two swellings about were his Lymph nodes should be. So I made him an appointment as soon as we could get him in. They took a sample to test for Lymphoma. Luckily  4 days later the test came back good. but while we waited Abu also swelled up. The Vet doesn't know why this is happening. she said the test said some kind of infection so they are both on Antibiotics.

After the long vet appointment we drove across town to Mountain Peoples Market only to find out they were closed. So we went to Walmart... where what did my wondering eyes see..... the stupid 42" tv the I wanted... They still had it ins stock.... Evil people!!!! the only time I have ever not waited and just purchased something in advance and they had to have the tv when I walked in to Walmart at 2pm.... evil... Then went to target and looked through what they had left. I got my pyrex fridge set that I had been wanting so I could get rid of all my plastic storage bowls. I also got a kind set of sheets. Chey used her B-Day money and had me pick up a Barbie boat and Barbie.... So I even got a couple of things on Black Friday that I didn't think I would run into... 

But no interesting food.. Sorry...

Vegan MOFO DAY 23 Mo-town, Daiya!, and cookies

Well today I decided I was going to Mo-Town and do some shopping.  I decided I was going to go to Mountain peoples market which I hadn't been to in for ever. I used to go there all the time for my organic spices and bulk pantry items. I had stopped going because they had taken the whole back section out and only started carrying about half the stuff and I could no longer find some of the stuff I was looking for. But I am really happy that I stopped that day. I didn't only get ....

Vegan Parm topping, 2 spice jars, Bulk organic popcorn, organic cinnomon sticks,
organic dried apples, Organic coconut, & organic pumpkin pie spice.

But I also got Daiya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been wanting to try this stuff for ever and now I got too!

Cheese pizza anyone!!!??? It was really good. But... When you use
daiya you have to use it sparingly because it has such a sharp flavor. We used the
Mozzarella daiya and it tastes more like a super sharp cheddar. So use it sparingly.
I will only put about half of the bag on our next pizza instead of 3/4 of the bag.
But it was definitely worth the money!

After I got home I wanted to make some cookies to take to my in laws for there baking day. so I tried 2 new recipes...

Espresso Chip Oatmeal cookies

These are from Vegan cookies take over your cookie Jar and I thought they were promising  I mean how can
chocolate and espresso get  messed up??? well I didn't like them.... I had so
 much hope for these and was so sad when they didn't work out. But next time I make
 no bake cookies I will add some Espresso I am sure those will turn out alot better.

So then I tried another cookie recipe that looked so good in the book. I had even remembered to pick up the dryed organic apples at Mountain peoples market....

Peanut Apple Pretzel Drops

These cookies also came from Vegan cookies take over your cookie jar. I thought they looked really good in the book.
But after I cooked them I thought they tasted bland.
So I might try these again but next time I will add more spices. Plus for buttery cookies I need
to find some vegan stick butter and I can't get it around here.  

these are the cookies. They came out cute but not as cute as in the book.
 I think it was because of the bowl butter. Bowl butter normally has more
 water in it but I am not sure about the vegan butters. Really wish I could find vegan stick butter here. 

25 years

I have now been on this planet for 25 years... ick.... lol... When I turned 20 it was bad enough but turning 25 is mid life crisis territory...lol.... John had to pipe in with the now you are a quarter of a century old... So I told him to shut up that he was close to one third of a century old! so .. blah.. lol... He has now left me at the age of 23... which I think he should count back till I am 21 again.   :) that would be good. Just leave me there for a while. lol.

On my birthday John woke me up and gave me a B-Day card and some Roses. He hasn't given me roses in forever because I think it is wasteful to cut flowers that are grown just for that purpose. But it was nice to get flowers after so many years. When we first started dating he used to bring me a single rose ever so often. It was really sweet. He also sent me flowers for my B-day when he was deployed in Iraq. There has only been a couple times since then. So its not an every year thing.  But it was nice to wake up to flowers from my Husband. :)

Very pretty. But I wish I could enjoy them more. They have to sit in the pantry and hide from the cats so they don't eat them.

John worked for most of the day. When he got home we went to my parents house for cake. Mom made me a Vegan Chocolate Chai cake from The 100 Best vegan Baking Recipes book. It turned out really yummy and moist.

Is that 25 candles?? way to many

Look how yummy

Even the coloring inside this cake is pretty

Then John and I went to Mi Pueblos for dinner. We haven't been there in forever. It was a nice evening. Just to sit and relax for an hour or so and chat while we ate some yummy Mexican food. That was the first time we have been out to dinner since Roxie started her HW treatment. We are starting to work up the time she is home alone again. We went to subway a couple weeks ago and left her for an hour and a half and that night it was around four hours but she did really good. But back to Mi Pueblos.  They have really good food and they serve a huge amount for not much money at all. The whole dinner was $25 bucks and that includes the $5 tip.

John watching women's fighting ...lol

They have all kinds of very pretty hand painted art 

This is Johns picture of me.. Thanks Hun....

The Decorative chairs

More of Johns Camera work

Making me look like an idiot while I am trying to eat...lol

First look at the Vegetarian Fajitas, No guacamole, sour cream, or cheese

They have huge portions

All the chips and salsa you can eat. Their salsa is really good and super tangy.

The main dish comes with rice, re fried beans, pica de galla, and lettuce

Really bad cellphone pics but thats better than nothing

Me eating my last shell. This is how much came home with me. It made a midnight snack and breakfast the next day!

This is what was left of my side

Another picture of the enameled chairs. The table tops all have painted enameled pictures too. 

After we ate we stopped by walmart. john wanted me to pick up something for myself but instead I got the kitties this scratcher :) they really like it and that makes me happy.

Greenhouse shopping & Sinfully Vegan Orange Bundt Cake

I finally have my tomato, eggplant, & pepper plants for the year. The husband and I went to Freeds Greenhouse again. I had a list. Knew exactly what I was going after. And then they didn't have the ones I wanted. I was just there last week and they had them. When I want them of course not. They had one out of the five tomato varieties I wanted. My list was as follows:

Tomatoes

• Brandywine
• Cherokee purple
• Striped German
• Blackcherry
• Baby Reds

Peppers

• Jalopeno
• Serrano
• Kind Aurther
• Sangria

So out all the tomatoes they had the Cherokee purples. I really wanted these so I was glad. To sub some of the others I bought Mr. Stripys and some variety of orange heirloom to make up for the striped german. But I still haven't found any cherry toms. But I think some of the Organic yellow plum cherry toms I planted might pull through. So thats good. I found King Auther bell peppers & Serrano peppers. Decided to skip the Jalapeno and they didn't have the ornamental Sangrias.

Came home and called around to a couple other greenhouses but every one else caries the every day better boys, early girls, beefsteak, etc. So I guess I will have to check back. This is our new garden bed this year.


Cooked out over at my parents house again. Decide to try a recipe from Sinfully Vegan. It is a Orange Bundt cake on Page 79 Called Orange you glad it has chocolate chips cake. The batter for this is extremely tasty. If you have ever tried the orange cinnamon roles the batter almost tastes like these. I loved the batter! As you know once you cook flavors they tame down some. I think the cake was still good. It was very moist. I really liked the chocolate chips in it. Even those the book doesn't tell you when to add them. I forgot they were even supposed to be in it and had to stir them in after I had put the batter into the bunt pan. O well. I wans't a big fan of the icing that it is paired with. It was already really moist and when you added the little bit of icing it made those spots kind of mussy. The instructions say wait 10 minutes before dumping the cake onto a cooling rack I would wait a little longer. Mine broke when I went to put it on the cooling rack. I didn't really care but if I would have been taking it to a party or gathering I would have had to start all over. The taste was nice & light once it cooled. But I liked the upfront orange flavor of the batter more than the finished product. I think I will cut it down and just make the batter to snack on every once in a while... Yum.. ;)
The finished cake picture is on my moms camera oops...

Freeds Green House & an Alpaca Farm

Stopped by Freed's greenhouse for the first time on Thursday. Its alot bigger than I thought it was. They have like 9 greenhouses plus more plants outside. My first thought was "wow! I wish I would have stopped here sooner" but my thoughts kinda changed after asking an emplyee a qeustion about organics and got an ear full for it...

We looked through some of the flowers & tropical plants. They have some gorgeous flowers. Than moved over to the annuals, which I skipped most of. I don't really like spending money on plants that won't come back next year. I took my camera to take pictures but after the first few pictures I started looking at the plants and forgot to take anymore.. oops :)John and I went straight back to the perennials which are not housed in the green house. But in the center of 4 other green houses. They have a good variety. We got a small pot of chickens, and another plant that looks similar to the chicken plant but more bulbous and lighter green and pink. We also got a plant that feels really weird. It has its own little fingers and really pretty purple flowers. $4 each. They had a ton of plants I wanted but for money sake.. I couldn't.

Next was the green house full of garden plants. I was excited to get in there and see what the different varieties are. The only varieties I see at regular stores like walmart, and local smaller stores are the big boys, beefsteak, early girls, et cetra. But Freeds has many varieties. But I didn't see any organics so I walked over and asked the garden attendants. He said no they don't but after we purchased them we could grow them any way we wanted. That it wasn't pratical expense wise to bring them up with organic fertilizers. Synthetic pesticides are just as good and are cheap. And that they didn't raise them by the phases of the moon either. He went on and on. I was so annoyed and I could see it in Johns face that he was too. This guy had this "know it all" attitude that I just could not believe. He was plain out rude to us. So John said we should buy anything and even wanted to put my perennials back but I wouldn't let him. I went ahead and walked around to see what they had. They do have a huge variety of "non-organic" tomatoes, peppers, & pumpkins. Plus a smaller variety of cucumbers, lettuce, musk melons, etc. I will probably go back and grab a couple of the Cherokee purple toms, some German stripe toms, and a couple peppers since ours didn't do so well. But I hope I don't run into the same defensive garden attendant. It really doesn't make their business look good.

Although a few of my plants are doing well alot of them have had a hard time. We had some storms so I covered them back up and a hail storm that came through on Friday damaged alot of them. So I guess I will try again next year. I am getting over trying to grow from seed though. Its annoying when they all die and I don't know why.... I did pick up some eggplant plants at Speedway market.

We also drove half way up to see the Hearts Desire Alpaca Farm. I don't know if we are actually aloud so I made John stop so I could take pictures of the gorgous alpaca from the car.

Vegan Lunch Box- Chili Con "Carne"

My Long day!

I had a long day yesterday. Up at 4am drive into work with John to pick up our car from his job. Went to Walmart to kill some time because I needed Dog food and the pet store didn't open till 10am. Had subway at 7am. Its in our Walmart. Spent Almost $8 at Walmart in 2 hours. lol.. Then went to Target about 20 minutes away. Got there at 8:30am. Spent about $15 on kitchen stuff they had on sale. Then went to Krogers and 9:30am and spent about $4. Wow right.... In 3 hours time I spent including Subway $31. Not bad right. Finally I go to the Pet store at about 15 till 10 only to find out that I have been wasting time for nothing because that have been open since 9am.... I wanted to scream! Wow. So then I can back to Fairmont and John was working and wanting to have lunch. He didn't know I had ate at Subway.. Shoooooo.... :) So he wanted Taco Bell. Which I don't normally do. So I went and got a Plain Bean Burrito & he had 3 Fresco Bean Burrito and and two cups of water. O'yeah I forgot to mention I swear off Soda yesterday. Haven't been feeling good and have had sinus drainage and it gets worse when I drink my beloved Diet Caffeine Free Pepsi. So. I was drinking water all day. After we ate I came home. Did have much time to waste though. We keep Roxie in the bathroom when we are not home. I got ready to leave again. I was going to Chey's Schools Christmas Party. School has been cancelled so many times because of the snow that they just not had it. So I went up there for about 2 hours. Then finally came home. Then I started on the Chili Con "Carne". It was about 4:00pm. I sauteed the onions. Couldn't find the frozen bell peppers so I skipped them. Boiled 5 cups of water. Chopped up 2 tomatoes (Not in the recipe). And put everything in the pot. Luckily I had measured everything out except the water the night before. I was so tired by 4:30pm. I don't work good on 2 hours of sleep. Anyways. Then I flopped down no the couch. Ate a bowl of cereal. Watched a couple tv showed that had taped on the DVR and then fell asleep 5 minutes short of the 3 show ending. Oops. :) So i slept for about an hour on and off till John got home a little after 8pm. The Chili smelled great. So we had chili at about 9pm.

Chili Con "Carne" Click the Link!

This recipe is simple to make and easy to throw everything together and leave it in your crock pot. I wasn't sure about the spice blend. I am a little picky about my chili. Growing up I always had the pre-seasoned canned beans mixed with kidney beans, and with a packet of Chili seasoning added. So I really like it that way. For the most part that is how I cook it. I mean I add veggies, etc to it. But, other wise its store bought.

The texture to this chili is really nice. I really like the TVP in it. I have never cooked with TVP because I just wasn't sure how to cook with it. This recipe showed me that it is simple and I will definitely cook with it more often. It gave a great texture to the chili. I normally only have beans and veg in my chili. But for now on I will add TVP. But back to the herbs. It calls for Thyme, Sage, & Oregano. Measuring the spices the night prier I knew that the one herb was really fragrant compared to the others. But I decided that was the recipe so I am going to make it that way. I think it is the Oregano. It is really pungent to me. To over powering to the other spices in the chili. You could definitely smell it over everything while it was cooking. But when I took the first bite I could tell it was just to much for me. so I added another tsp and a half of paprika and a half tsp of cumin. That didn't really help it. The oregano was still very strong. I made a bowl. Added some more paprika, smart balance light, and crackers. ate a couple bites and them gave it to John. He said it was pretty good. He ate my bowl and another bowl.

I tried it again this morning. After the flavors had more time to meld together. Its a little less pungent this morning but still a little to strong, Oregano wise, for me to eat. I think I will make this again. Well I am going to mix up the herbs & spices a little bit But I am going to make something similar in the future.

Open mindedness and Religious beliefs

I was raised as a Christian and still have many Christian based beliefs. But if someone would ask what my beliefs are I would probably say I have beliefs from many different religions. I think other various religions can teach us alot. Alot of religions come from the same places around the world. And alot of those same religions have pagan derivatives in them.

Now you may be saying Christianity has no such thing. But that Christmas tree that is probably still standing in your living room right now was first a pagan tradition. It predates Christianity by many centuries. Pagans, Druids, Hebrews, and many others celebrated the Winter solstice on December 21. They would decorate coniferous trees with pieces or metal, fruits, & candles. They were celebrating the change of the sun and a new season for growth in the coming year. The taking down of the tree on January 1st is also another Pagan tradition. They would take the cut evergreen and burn the Yule log for remembrance of the past year.

My only point is some Christians make religion so cut & dry without really thinking about what was truly behind many "Christian" traditions. They care not to learn were traditions stemmed from. They just do it because the rest of the Church does. Their belief systems are based around not only the bible but what is the popular belief. i.e. meat eating... I have been on the retrieving end of alot of grief for my beliefs that are not popular belief or that stem outside of Christianity. Even if in stemming outside of Christianity it is just spoken differently but really has the same meaning. I have literally been verbally attacked and they want to actually argue about why my beliefs are "wrong" and why theirs are "right" and why I am going to hell for having various beliefs outside of what they consider to be "Christianity".

I mean things like.. I don't feel it honors our lord to mass slaughter & eat his creatures...

Take the mass slaughter of animals today. God teaches compassion, love, & respect. Mass slaughtering creatures that were supposed to be made by him probably isn't a thing that is looked very nicely upon. God was said to have made humans in his likeness. Well I think that if that is true he would want us to care for his creations to the best of our ability. All of his creations including people, animals, and our world . Creatures that he has made to have emotion and feel pain, and have lives of their own should be respected right along side humans.

Wiccas have a creed and in this creed it states "Live you must and let to live. Fairly take and fairly give" its also states Eight words the Rede fulfill "An' ye harm none, do what ye wilt". Those are all very important words to me. I think they are all three good values to live by. When I was growing up and people would find out I didn't eat meat the first thing they would say is "Well god put them here for us to eat" and I am sure everyone has heard that. And even though I knew god taught love, compassion, & respect I started reading through other religious materials. I wanted to find more teaching of kindness towards all. Wicca was one I stuck on and to this day still read about.

Another religion that I am sure you have heard of is Buddhism. In Buddhism there is so much respect shown to all. The most foundational teaching is Ahimsa-the prohibition against the bringing of harm and/or death to any living being. Why should one refrain from killing? It is because all beings have lives; they love their lives and do not wish to die. They fear death just as you and I do. The Karma of killing is also seen as the root of all suffering and is the cause of sickness & war. To a Buddhist the purpose of life is to end suffering and become enlighten. They believe that all living creatures are sentient and that they all have a chance to become a Buddha, or perfectly enlighten. But unlike Christians they do not believe a god created the world. They do however look to the Deities for assistance.

Other religions also share kind thoughts about other living creatures besides our selves.

Hindu
"Meat cannot be obtained without injury to animals, and the slaughter of animals obstructs the way to Heaven; let him therefore shun the use of meat." The Laws of Manu V, 45 - 52 (Indian Sacred Book)

Islam
"All creatures on earth are sentient beings. "There is not an animal on earth, nor a bird that flies on its wings - but they are communities like you." The Quran, 6:38

I don't feel that I am going to hell for these beliefs outside of per say "Strict" Christian beliefs. I know that I am in good standing knowing in my heart that I am on the right path and that god is in my heart. So many Christian beliefs stem from outside religions Christians are just afraid to find the original origins. They are stuck inside their box. And I think that is a huge down fall. I think there is a love and calmness you can feel in your heart from being in tuned into nature around you. By not hurting any of it and feeling the love. Empathizing with each other and the animals. I think empathy is a beautiful state of being.

The only reason that religion was brought up was because I was at Borders purchasing a new Calender. I have been thinking about getting one of this type for a while and just so happened to run into it. So I picked up a Witches' calender. When I checked out with it and an art book the cashier was all nice at first and then looked at the calender then me then her happy none caring attitude kinda dried out. I don't know if it was the calender but that was the only thing that she looked at then at me and then... she was different. Who knows. Then thinking back over the holidays at how proud Christians are. They have such pride. And no thats not a bad thing. But when their pride makes them act like they are right about everything & better then everyone else it makes for a not so great holiday, view of the church, and of Christianity all in one. Sometimes it is time to drop the pride and not be so rude to each other. To have a more open mind instead of being on the attack of others beliefs. And to not be so hypocritical about those religious beliefs.

A Snow Storm, Chickens, & the Hawk!

For a while now we have had very cold weather. But we have finally started getting snow. But I really shouldn't say finally because we haven't gotten this much snow before Christmas since I was little. We even had a snow storm the other day.

John & I went out to finish up Christmas shopping and get some groceries. We ended up being out all day. We were trying hard to get home before the snow storm hit but it caught us at our last stop about 30 minutes from our house. So we left about 10 minutes after it started snowing for our drive home. It was a very eventful trip. I was on edge the whole way home. Lets face it. I live in WV and what is in WV.. Hills... Mountains... Luckily no mountains on my way home from were I was. But there is 3 large hills/ inclines.. that were awful. First we leave Walmart and our first turn we slide around. So after that we went very slow. John handled the slide very well and countered it. Did I mention he drives for a living.... Then we make it about half ways home and start coming off a pretty good hill and all the cars in front of us are spaced out nice. But the jackass behind us was right up on our bumper. So we pulled off on the 2nd pull off going down the hill. Well he sped up and while everyone else had gone maybe 10 down the hill he pretty much flew. Then the car behind him also sped up and we watched that car end up right in the ditch. Nose first and there was no coming back from that. So we called 911 and I talked to the cops. Then we sat there for another 30 minutes. No cops ever showed up while we where still sitting there. But finally John talked me into going down the hill. We didn't go over 3 or 5 the whole way down... There was 2 more hills the one went smooth. the last one which is 5 minutes from our house didn't go that well. We made it about half was down when we started sliding. We slid a good distance. It slid long enough for my digital camera to be turned on and for me to catch the end of our sliding on camera... It was a very frightening experience. But again John came through and we made it without kitting the ditch. I don't know how he did it but luckily we were fine. Although I was a little shaken up..

The roads were bad for the rest of that night and the next 2 days. John did leave for work when the roads were still awful on Sunday. But they had be treated in other places. So they were not as bad. We live in a small town and there is no good way in or out. Because there are hills * mountains all around us. And we are the last people to be treated if there isn't any school. and of course there was only one day of school schedule for the week because of Christmas vacation. so they never treated out road. But John made it hope safe thankfully.

The night that we slid down the hill it snowed all night and all day Sat & Part of Sunday. But Friday night at 3am going into Saturday we decided to let the dogs out. They loved the snow! They ran and played. And even Chloe played. And she doesn't play very often with the other dogs. She even played with our new dog, Roxie. Which was unheard of... :) So that we a good night. John, the 3 dogs and I spent about 20 minutes out there that night and it was so quite and there was no cars. It was really nice. The neighbors probably didn't enjoy all the noise from the dogs and us talking though.. oops...

One group that really doesn't like the snow would be the chickens. In fact they really hate the snow. They don't want anything to do with it. They hide under the chicken coop all day. Although Lil Banti has decided to actually take up a corner in the chicken coop and lay on eggs. So who knows. we may end up with winter chicks.... and that I am not looking forward to. I don't even know how many eggs she is laying on. Lets hope its one and that its a hen not another rooster. Either way we are going to keep them but. I don't need to any more. I am going to have to enlarge the coop.

All summer I have felt bad and really wanted to move so the chickens would not have to stay in an enclose. Our chickens do live in a good sized enclosure attached to their coop. Under some trees with tree limbs to climb on and sit. They love sitting on there tree branches. But I have been telling John that I wanted to move to a bigger piece of land so they could be totally free. Then the other day after it had snowed. There was still snow all over the ground in there enclosure so they were still staying under there coop and under the roofed part of the enclosure. All of a sudden I heard a lot of noise and I seen them out the window landing in the snow having a cow...! so I put my boots on run outside expecting to find a dog. I walk out and I don't see anything and then out of nowhere a Hawk dives and runs straight into the side of the enclosure... Right under the coop. Just diving at the mesh like nothing was there. He did it three times and then landed on the top of the enclosure and stared at me like he was coming after me next. My parents live beside us so I ran next door not sure what to do about this hawk. By the time my dad and I walked back the hawk had left.!!! So right now at this point my chickens could have all been killed by this hawk... wow... Now I am rethinking taking them out of their enclosure... This hawk could have had everyone of them and the sheer speed this bird had was totally amazing! So now they probably really beyound hate the snow... Today they stayed int the coop most of the day.

Well the roads have finally cleared about 4 days after the snow. I love the snow but at the same time. It is crazy what a little snow can do. We only got about 8 to 10 inches. So we were the lucky part of the state. There was over 90,000 in WV w/o electric and some are still without electric today. 4 days later....Some of my family live in Beckley WV and they received over 2 feet. So... As much as I love to take pictures and watch the dogs play. I hope we don't get to much more winter. But we still have a few more months. So we will see.

O' yeah.. and all this cold weather brought on comfort food and 5 pounds.... Evil.... I tell you... Evil !