Apparently there was some major girl drama today in the 4th grade glass. My 10 year old said it was a great tragedy. I asked him for the definition of “tragedy” and he agreed “drama” was a more fitting word.

My boy is me made over, tender heart and all. And when a friend is upset, even over something a little silly, he feels it deeply.

He went into detail over dinner about how one girl decided she no longer wanted to be friends with another girl. The second girl just so happens to be his “girlfriend”. She told him all about it and then said, “today is not the day to be messing with me!”

His tender heart didn’t interpret this properly and he was convinced she was upset with him. He even said he gave up tossing the ball around with his boys to play tag with her to hopefully make her feel better. 💜

I explained to him that sometimes the best friend is the one who lets you yell and get all your anger out and then stays by your side while you compose yourself and go back to your normal activities. I assured him that he did the right thing and that maybe tomorrow will be less of a tragedy and more of a comedy.

Veganism at the holidays can be extremely stressful, especially if you’re invited to a dinner and the host has no intentions of taking your diet into consideration.

Luckily, my family is made up of planners. We talk about a get together well in advance and everyone is responsible for providing some type of dish for our Holiday meals. Another plus for me is my aunt and uncle are veteran vegans, so my aunt and I split up the vegan dishes and there’s never a shortage of vegan fare.

Now, I know not everyone can be so fortunate. So, here are a few tips for the non vegan, hosting a vegan for a meal (holiday or otherwise):

• Substitute your butter. Trust me, no one will be able to tell you substituted butter for a non dairy version in your mashed potatoes. Offer traditional butter for your guest to add to their plates but make recipes calling for butter with a substitute. This is a very easy swap.
• Use vegetable broth in place of beef or chicken brother in your vegetables/casseroles. This is also helpful for any vegetarians you may be hosting.
• Look for vegetable recipes that contain things like nuts and berries. These recipes can be filling for the vegan who may not have a lot of other options at mealtime. My favorite holiday vegetable dish is roasted brussel sprouts, covered in a balsamic glaze with dried cranberries and walnuts or almonds. So delicious.
• Appetizers are easily vegan friendly. Think guacamole and chips, hummus and pita chips, fresh veggies, nuts, fruits, bruschetta.
• Desserts can be tricky and expensive to make for one or two vegan guest. Choose a fruit salad if you don’t want to make an entire dessert for that one vegan friend or family member.

The one thing I would like you to remember is, communication is your friend when you want to include anyone to dinner who may have dietary restrictions. We don’t expect you to plan your entire meal around our diet but we do appreciate being invited and don’t expect to have to cook an entire meal for ourselves to bring to your house when we are your guest.

If you are inviting a friend to a meal who has a dietary restriction, talk to them about the types of things they eat and do a little research about ways to alter your favorite meals to suit their needs. It’s probably a lot easier than you think.

Wow, it has been almost a year since my last post!! I have been so slack, I apologize. This blog started as a way for me to talk about my life and the last few months I keep coming back to writing more about my life but the timing has not been right.

In May I finally finished school! No more online classes, no more late nights cramming, no more weird online proctored tests! I’m finally finished with school.

In June the business really took off. We went into our first antique mall with a “Man Cave” inspired booth, also featuring our beard products. We also went into three new retail locations. We are now in about 11 different retail outlets with our business.

This month I cut back to only one day a week at my job and started focusing more on the business and spending time with the kids.

About three weeks ago, The Beard and I decided to start eating a more plant based diet. The plan was to integrate a vegan lifestyle slowly into our meals while finishing off the meats and non vegan food in our fridge and pantry. But that isn’t what happened. As soon as we started making meals full of veggies and trying new things, we no longer had the desire to eat the meat in our freezer. We aren’t forcing this lifestyle on our children, so they will be the ones eating those things or they will be tossed as they become expired.

A few days ago The Beard has surgery. It was a minor surgery but one that will put him out of work for at least four weeks. The last couple days have been difficult. He’s relying on me a lot. I’ve been making every meal by myself, while also working and taking care of the children.

Today was especially difficult. The first two days after surgery, he was pushing himself a little more every few hours and seemed to be doing really well. Today, not so much. He is feeling very ill today. I’m a little worried about his recovery and I am keeping a close eye on the things they went over. I look forward to the coming weeks when he’s feeling better and we actually have time together to be able to go to the farmers market and cook together more.

I’ll talk more about our vegan journey but until then, enjoy some photos of recent meals.

I have been debating, for months, if I wanted to continue blogging. So much has changed for me and I think I have finally decided where to take my little slice of the interweb. From now on I will write about my life – my hectic, crazy life. In the next post I will introduce you guys to the special people in my life, so following this blog will be a little easier. 😉