Veeg-itarian

   Continuing the weekend extravaganza last Sunday, I went over to Mia's apartment in the afternoon. We wore our super cozy matching hippie outfits and had a little photoshoot with Bingo. Then she let me have some of the clothes and necklaces that she was giving away and we went to Walmart. Last time I visited her we fed the ducks (and alien turtles) at the pond. There were about 20 ducks! We only have five in the pond in our neighborhood, but I haven't fed them yet.  

   After Walmart, Mia drove us to Ethos Vegan Kitchen. It looked like a regular restaurant and we had to wait with a buzzer. More of a professional environment, less hippie, but I like both types. The hippie restaurants seem more warm though. The food was really good and none of it tasted "weird". Even the soy based cheese was good. 

   My vegan "experience" kind of started when I was in Gainesville for Daddy's birthday, a couple weeks ago. Before I drove home, Mommy and I went to Lucky's Market and got salad. It was crazy to taste all the delicious different vegetables together (kale, spinach, sprouts, carrots, corn, broccoli, edamame, sunflower seeds, quinoa, and artichoke hearts) with lemon vinegarette, and my first cozy hippie outfit from Ross helped me get into the zone. 

   Perhaps you remember my happy hippie rant from July where I talked about veganism. Well I've been leaning towards that more in the past few weeks. I have really enjoyed watching videos by Alyse from Raw Alignment and Kate's Fruit Flowers. I made dinner on Wednesday- wow, bruschetta is my super favorite! Not as amazing as we've gotten from Carrabba's or Macaroni Grill, but so good homemade for the price ($6.50 without cheese) and we got about 12 pieces when at the restaurant for that price we would only get four. I only had one bite of the chicken that I made. Michael ate four small cutlets at dinner and took the rest to work with the leftover asparagus. It was our first meal eaten at the dining room table that Michael made last month. For dessert I tried making vegan ice cream, but she recommends a very expensive, heavy duty blender, and we only have a smoothie blender so it turned out more like cold pudding.

    Recently Michael was able to get me a Fitbit Flex for free! Since he has now worked at Universal for five years, he got to choose one of about 12 items from the online catalog, but didn't care for any of them, so I picked the Fitbit. He picked it up on Thursday and I haven't taken it off since then. (It's pretty difficult to put on.) I have been very interested in tracking my sleep, restlessness, and awake times during the night. Of the 6 hours of "sleep" I normally get on work nights (11pm-5am), about 40 mins of that is moving around! Wow. I also like tracking how many steps I take (I got to 10,040 yesterday) and how many calories my body burns in a day (about 1,700-1,900) without calculating what I eat. It's a hassle for me to keep track of what I eat. I'm just being smart and healthy. 

   On Thursday night I joined Mia at an indoor art show in downtown Orlando that she was attending because her neighbor friend, Jacilyn, had two pieces displayed. She was nice and I met her parents and boyfriend, Peter, and two other friends. After the art show we all met up again for dinner at Dandelion Cafe, a house turned into a cool restaurant that makes vegan and vegetarian food. The vegan chocolate chip sea salt cookies were really good. Mia and I shared our burritos so we could try different kinds. I liked it so much, I went back again the next day after work! (My hilarious caption for my food in the last picture of this post was: Someone call a lifeguard bc I'm about to drown in my own saliva!) It was very busy at Dandelion Cafe when I went on Friday and they had guys playing bongos outside and two tables of handmade items being sold. 

   Last night Mia and I had dinner at Stardust. (I'm trying to hang out with her as much as I can since she may be moving seven states away in a couple of months. Nooo! Plus I don't know anyone else who would want to try all these vegan places with me.) I got a tempeh quesadilla with vegan cheese (their recipe was not my favorite) and she got tempeh tacos. I liked hers better because it had lettuce on it. We looked up that tempeh is made by binding soybeans into a cake form. Sounds similar to how a black bean burger is made. We're still learning every day! And after seeing a very funny ad at Stardust, my new answer, if anyone happens to ask me why I am suddenly deciding to become veeg-itarian, I shall reply, "Because I care about stuff or something."