She Likes Purple

Summer of Fail

My Vegan Summer is no more. I could list a dozen reasons why this wasn't the right time for an experiment that requires a lot of thought and planning, both of which I don't seem to have or be able to make right now, but, in short, I was eating far crappier than I was a few short months ago. This is because I would get so hungry, I'd just allow myself to overeat, even if I was only eating hummus and chips. I was exhausted, all the time, because I wasn't eating the right foods, and forget about good work-outs. I'd run a mile and want to collapse. I also had these little bruises all over my body, which might not be related, but certainly could be.

Now, I'm not blaming a vegan diet on any of this, not at all, but on my own shortcomings in tackling this diet the right way. This is a really hardcore lifetsyle, and one I respect quite a lot, truly, but it's just not one I can swing right now.

Anyway, maybe one day (maybe one day soon, even) but not right now. This feels like the Summer of Fail, which sucks, I hate quitting things, but I also hate being miserable and feeling like the work isn't worth the reward, so I'm trying to focus on quitting as a good thing (for now).

Weight-loss and health is some tough shit, hate to be a foul-mouthed Master of the Obvious, but as soon as I have a big breakthrough on something, I have a day (or week?) of screw-ups and poor choices. It can certainly feel like a constant dance of two steps foward, two steps back, I'M RIGHT WHERE I STARTED, can't it? I wonder if that ever gets easier or better or less of a struggle?

I've talked ad naseum about all this, both from the frustrated stance of someone stuck in a rut of bad habits to the celebratory stance of someone who's Rocking It, and sometimes I'm both those people in the same week. My archives are just bursting with my thoughts on my thighs, and, trust me, it's just as annoying to write one more post on the subject as it is to read one more post, but that's kind of the point, right? I mean, it IS annoying, but it's also a universal annoyance. One so many of us experience, and so many of us need to let ourselves off the hook for.

We're all losing weight and gaining it, trying to figure out the magic trick that works best for our individual souls and our individiaul asses.

Sometimes we're frustrated and sometimes we Rock It.

Sometimes we quit and sometimes we soar.

If we can't be real about the one, celebrating the other is far less sweet.

To Catch You Up

(In list form, to give you the foolish impression this post is cohesive, when it totally isn't.)

1. So, I caved and flipped on the tv this week. IT WAS GLORIOUS, BY THE WAY. Apparently my breaking point is sacrificing The Bachelorette because going without tv was harder than all the days without meat or cheese or chocolate or booze combined. My whole idea behind doing away with my DVR queue was to read more, to meet that goal of reading 25 books this year, and I realized quickly I just need to turn off the tv more often, instead of never turning it on. Never turning it on is depressing, and no one should voluntarily be depressed.

2. Kyle's officially in a full-size bed. I'd be sobbing over my baby no longer being a baby if it weren't kind of nice to read bedtime stories while laying in a new bed instead of uncomfortably sitting cross-legged on the floor. He'll also occasionally request for Molly to sleep with him, until about a half-hour later when he screams for me to come take her away, she won't stop moving, "GET OFF MOLLY." Oh that poor, poor dog.

3. Hey, speaking of Molly's endless supply of patience, we've given Kyle his first chores around the house, aside from picking up after himself and helping me with the dishes (which he loves, don't feel badly for him). Every day he has to put up his shoes and feed Molly, and he takes a lot of pride in these tasks while also taking his sweet, toddler-loving time with them. So, Molly just sits there, waiting for him to scoop up enough food for her before dropping it into her dish, which could take entire minutes. She just sits there, staring at me like, "HAVE YOU NOT TORTURED ME ENOUGH, WOMAN." I swear, it's shocking that dog doesn't constantly chew my good shoes or pee all over my pillow.

4. I recently found Barnivore, a great site for vegan-friendly booze. You are welcome, if you ever find yourself in a similar Crazy Vegan Situation.

5. The Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Championship, I'm sure you heard. I want to be really thrilled about this because it's exciting! Go Mavs! We were the underdogs and Dirk seems like a really decent (albeit unattractive) man! But. Yeah. I'm just not a basketball fan. I was happy to see them win, sure, although by "see them win" you do realize I mean "realize they won when my Facebook feed erupted in exclamation points"?

6. I re-discovered Kelly Willis the other night, a Texas country artist I used to listen to a lot in high school and college. One of her songs, "Not Forgotten You," was perhaps THE song I got over my first love to, and as I stumbled upon it in a random way, I couldn't believe it had been over ten years since I wore out my CD playing this song on repeat. It took me right back. What break-up/moving-on song is like that for you?

7. My son is cute, let me show you.

8. It is so hot in Texas. I complain my way through every summer (and, admittedly, every winter), and I know it's annoying, but it's also just so miserable. The other day I picked Kyle up from school, and we had to run to the store. As we got out of the car, I said, "Ugh, it's hot," and Kyle said, "GO AWAY SUN! IT'S TOO HOT!" I was proud, I can't lie. 

9. I've signed up for the Rock N Roll Las Vegas half-marathon, this December, so we'll be traveling to Vegas for that. It falls a month before my 30th birthday, so we're combining the two celebration-worthy events and while I'm really excited (I'm one of those people who falls very much into the I Love Vegas camp), I also think it'll be quite the interesting trip. The first two days will be all run, run, run, sleep, sleep, sleep and the last two days will be all I AM GOING TO BE THIRTY HAND ME THAT BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE. My body is going to be drastically flip-flopping between "I am so proud of you!" and "YOU ARE FIRED!" But, hey, if you are looking to run a half-marathon down a neon-lit strip at night and then celebrate with lots of bubbles, come join me!

10. Kyle calls umbrellas "kites" and, yes, I did die of the cuteness the first time he did this, if you're wondering.

How's That Vegan Stuff Going?

I miss sour cream.

In all honesty, though, this whole Vegan Summer hasn't been easy so far, and it's not yet been a week. Hold me. Surprisingly, it's not the cravings that are tripping me up or the smell of a juicy burger, it's accidentally screwing up.

I nearly ate guacamole the other day that was made with some chicken additive or broth or something. I ordered tomato soup tonight that clearly had cream in it. I know a sprinkling of cheese has worked its way into my mouth at some point because, turns out, a lot of things are sprinkled with cheese (and scraping it off is sure to leave something behind). I wouldn't be surprised if my veggie burger was on a butter-toasted bun the other day.

I'm trying my very best, and making super tough choices, and I think that's pretty damn good. This isn't easy, but it's also not worth throwing in the towel because of the occassional (and unintentional) screw up.

I'll keep pushing forward, knowing at the end, I'll probably have consumed animal products at least 10% of the time. But that's 90% of the time I'm sticking to a goal. I can live with that.

I went to the store the other day and stocked up on more produce than I had stocked up on in a while, I bought almond milk, and the good hummus and some veggie sushi, too. I'm reading labels like a crazy person, and I am asking real and in-depth questions about my food, and that's a huge bonus to all this. I can't be perfect, but I can try to be. If that makes any sense at all.

Now, it's time to start running. I took off too many weeks between the end of March and now, and my half-marathon is a (short) six months away.

I do hear there's a nice vegan alternative to sour cream. So there's that.

I'll keep you posted, of course, and I'll share some recipes and fun finds at Food Lush (and here too), over the next (gulp) 12 weeks, and when the 12 weeks is over, you're all invited to the cheese and wine party I'm going to throw.

Summer Experiment

I am about to take off for the rest of the month. I know, that's insane, right? I'm a little tightly wound over it, too, truth be told. Now, I like traveling, a lot, and if a few months go by and I haven't taken a trip -- near or far -- I start to twitch. That's not even an exaggeration for blogging effect, I really do get restless and cranky when there's not an out-of-town overnight adventure to look forward to.

So, a trip to NYC for work (but also for fun) and then a cross-country flight to the Bay Area to see my brother graduate high school is exciting and I am looking forward to nearly everything that's going to happen over the next (gulp) nine days, but my chest tightens at the thought of being gone that long.

It's the longest I've been away from either of my guys.

(Mike has very strict instructions to take no fewer than five pictures a day and to mention me endlessly to Kyle, so he doesn't forget me.)

(I know he won't actually forget me.)

(RIGHT?)

I'm going to try and schedule a few posts to go live next week while I'm gone, so my site doesn't collect too much dust, but no promises. I haven't started my laundry yet and I leave bright and early on Sunday morning.

When I get back, though, I've decided to give up tv for the month of June (except Friday Night Lights, which I live-tweet for work) and I'm also kicking off a 12-week Vegan Experiment.

I plan to visit a doctor at the beginning of my Vegan Summer, to see what all my numbers are and then again afterward to check again. I think that makes the experiment a little more credible and interesting.

(Although come to find out, a lot of champagne isn't vegan. So. Yeah. That's not good news at all.)

You know, after wrapping the Biggest Blogging Loser, I was kind of emotionally drained, and I took a mini-break from challenging myself so I could recover a little bit. (Well, unless you define "challenging yourself" to include a lot of chocolate. If you do, you're my kind of person.) I really do like challenging myself, I like seeing what I'm capable of doing when I put my mind to something, so after an April and May mini-break, I'm ready for a new challenge. 

I also start my half-marathon training in full-force this summer. 

It's so easy to get complacent, and really all these wacky ideas of mine are just ways for me to prevent complacency. To have new adventures and new stories and new experiences, and I think that makes me happier, in the long run.

In the short run, I'm off to research the hell out of "vegan champagne options."

Oh, and hold my kid for a lot longer than he'd prefer because, my oh my, am I going to miss the hell out of him.