vegan chai

the triple bypass wtf

my mom's 56-year-old cousin was experiencing some chest pains before christmas, and after doing a heart cath they determined that he had 100% blockage in his main artery (i hope i'm using the right words), 80% in the secondary one, and 20%, 30%, and 40% in the others. yikes. they said there was no actual damage to his heart, which was a good thing, but they decided then and there to schedule a double bypass for the day after christmas.

once they got in there, they learned that there is an artery that is sometimes hard to see unless you're actually in, but it was blocked pretty good too, so they ended up doing a triple bypass. he came through the surgery very well and is recovering nicely in the ICU.

the reason i'm blogging about this is because i got an email from him the next day--here's the relevant excerpt:

Just wanted to send my personal thanks to everyone for all your thoughts, prayers and well wishes!  I'm already sitting at a table and just finished lunch (meat, potatoes roll, fruit, vegetables and pudding), and M was kind enough to bring her laptop to my room... so here I am!  I had a liquid breakfast... but my progress is so good that they ordered this big lunch for me already... and it's still less than 24 hours since my triple bypass!

the hospital gave him meat for lunch, the day after a triple bypass. i'm speechless.

i'll shut up about the coats now, i promise

so. i totally kept both coats. the price tags have been removed, and they've been moved from the dining room chairs into the coat closet. the columbia-with-the-crappy-zipper has moved to the basement with my dog-walking shoes, and the j.crew coat is hanging in the basement while i decide what to do with it. i'm thinking of putting it up for grabs in ye olde vegan community in case anyone prefers warm-and-recycled to new-but-vegan, but i'm not sure if i'll have any takers. failing that, it will likely be donated to goodwill.

the past couple of days have been somewhat mild (considering), but today it is super cold and all of the snowbanks that didn't melt over the past two days have turned to solid icebergs. yay. the good news? i wore my new merrell coat out today, and it tOtally kept me warm. hooray! tomorrow i'll probably dress up for our christmas eve festivities, so the north face might see its public debut then.

in other news, i was doing a little wrap-up shopping on friday, and the carriage horses are at the mall (excuse me, "shopping center") again. grrrr. i was so bummed. you are not in a quaint old british town, people--you're AT A MALL. god.

hairsheep leather

i feel a bizarre need to set the record straight: i mistakenly called my ll bean mittens "goathair leather" when in fact they are "100% hairsheep leather." in my defense, both terms are new ones on me and both sound confusing and strange. it's just that one is a real thing, and the other was totally made up by me. heh. when i realized my mistake, my husband suggested googling just in case hairsheep leather was some type of exciting synthetic, but alas, they are sweet little lambs, of course. boo. the mittens, of course, are headed back to ll bean.

in the meantime, i've learned that target has some puffy but squishy mittens with a microfiber strip on the palm. they're not thinsulate or anything, but they're warm-ish and they'll probably do in a pinch.

whoopsie

aw crap, i didn't post before midnight. alas, my NaBloPoMo streak is broken. *sniff* but i'm still posting before hitting the hay for the night, so maybe this still counts, kinda sorta.

today i took the cookies to school and fed them to my TAs and also to the campus animal rights group. the container came back home a LOT lighter than it was when i went in this morning. success!

tomorrow is my final exam, which means that on about thursday afternoon or so, i will officially begin my christmas panic. the holiday is never an actual reality for me until my semester is over, which causes a bit of craziness every year. oh well, at least i've learned to expect it!

i feel like i had something of substance to say, but i'm hecka tired so i think i'm just going to call it a night. maybe i'll remember in the morning.

surrounded by cookies

i have cookies coming out of my ears! last week i made the joy of vegan baking cut-outs (with the royal icing from the same book), and then the next morning our entire city basically shut down and i wasn't able to unload them on all the people i meant to give them to. sigh. we ate 90% of them ourselves.

yesterday was cookie day at my dad and stepmom's, so we made three huge batches of cut-outs (1 vegan, 2 non) and they also made some kind of m&m drop cookie. i frosted the entire vegan batch myself, and brought a few dozen home. you may recall that i was planning to try a different recipe, but when i got there my stepmom had already started putting the ingredients together for the garden of vegan recipe, so we just went with it. i did use a new icing recipe, though--the one vivaciousvegan posted in my comments the other day. thanks! once they were made, i realized/remembered that i REALLY like that cookie (and so does my sister) so i don't know what i was making such a big deal about. i guess i was worried more about them "matching" the omni recipe than actually, you know, whether i liked eating the cookie. also, my dad came through and stole like 10 of them over the course of the afternoon, i swear, and his "preference" for the non-vegan recipe is the only reason we haven't switched all the way over to the vegan ones. argh. maybe next year.

last week i also made the dough for the soft cut-outs that amanda makes, and that was still waiting in my freezer, so tonight i rolled and baked those, and made the accompanying frosting. that dough is super duper DUPER sticky, and i have to say, before tonight i don't think i've ever uttered the phrase, "argh! you little f*cker!" to a cookie before. first time for everything! hee. anyhow, the cookies definitely live up to their name! they are like puffy little cookie clouds, and very cute. i frosted half of them with amanda's icing recipe, and the other half with the leftover frosting from yesterday. i'm planning to take these to school tomorrow so that i can hopefully have a do-over of last tuesday.

and aside from all that baking, st. nick (the one who visits my dad's house) brought me a box of candy cane joe-joe's from trader joe's (from what i can tell, they're like oreos with crushed peppermint in the cream layer), and i am beyond excited about that. oh, AND i received cookies in the mail this weekend! peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips. yummy.

so, like i said, drowning in cookies. i suppose there are many worse fates.

the great blue heron

i was driving along the lakefront tonight, about an hour ago (9pm), and unbelievably, i saw a great blue heron standing in a snowbank in the boulevard. right there in the middle of the street, at night. in the snow. i totally rubber-necked and hit my brakes, looking for a place to pull over. instead i had to drive umpty bazillion yards to find a place to turn around, and then drive umpty bazillion yards back to try and find him. i was terrified the entire time, certain he must have been hit by a car, or frozen to the snow, or something awful. i wondered what in god's name i would do with a great blue heron at 9pm on a sunday night--just put him in my back seat and take him home? i pictured him pecking me in the head as i drove him to my house. it's funny the things you think about in these weird panicky times.

anyhow, i drove all the way back, and couldn't find him. i made yet another u-turn and drove past the original spot where i saw him--not there. i drove around in a loooong oval like this three times, searching the wooded side of the road, then searching the lakefront/beach side of the road--no birdie. finally i decided he must have been okay, and had simply flown away. whew. but still, how bizarre!

naked vaygun

i just finished listening to episode zero (otherwise known as the pilot episode) of the naked vaygun podcast and i lafted almost the entire time, for reals. this is josh and isa at their finest, and it's hilarious--or at least it's hilarious if you have my particular sense of humor. you can read a blurb about the podcast here and also here, or you can just go straight to iTunes and subscribe to that puppy and start listening. episode one is also up, so i'll be listening to that one next. naked vaygun is my new favorite thing.

amusing fact: if you google or goodsearch "naked vaygun" it will ask you if you meant "naked raygun." true story.

battle of the vegan winter coats

okay, i know i already rambled on and on about the merrell coat, but now i have the north face coat in my possession as well, so i thought i'd better catch everyone up. i'm sure you're all just on the edge of your seats.

quick refresher: the merrell is longer than any coat i've ever owned, slightly more casual-looking than i'd planned, but very warm and inviting nonetheless. it has cute turquoise details that probably amuse me more than the average person. i try it on almost every day because i'm being indecisive. it has a great hood, which fits very well and would even work on days that i regretted leaving my hat at home. of course, when i'm all zipped up to the chin and hooded i look a bit like a turtle in a sleeping bag, but that's half the fun, isn't it?

okay, so the north face coat arrived on wednesday afternoon, which was a great distraction for about 15 minutes during a time when i really needed one. i ordered the merrell in an XS, but i ordered this one in an S because it seemed like the measurements were a bit on the small side, and i was afraid of the coat being too tight. as it is, now i'm really wishing i had access to this coat in a store, because i'd really like to go back and forth and try both sizes just to see. the S seems fine, i just have to keep reminding myself that as far as fit goes, this is a winter coat, not a dress. it's a little loose over long-sleeve t-shirts or thin sweaters (which is what i wear a lot of in winter), but i tried it on today over a sweatshirt (to approximate a heavier sweater) and it seemed better. i also keep trying on the old j.crew coat to ensure that i'm not over-romanticizing the style or the fit. heh. so anyway, probably the S is just fine, but i'm waffling. all righty, on to more interesting things!

just like with the merrell coat (and actually even moreso with this one), i was shocked at how light the box was when i brought it in. i don't know what the heck i was expecting, but this coat is super-lightweight. it's also very cute. the fabric is nice (it's waterproof, but it doesn't look like a windbreaker or a raincoat), the insulation is thin but cozy, and the peacoat style is really nice. also a great bonus: unlike a normal peacoat, this one has a hidden zipper! so you zip once, then button three times... rather than buttoning six times on a normal peacoat. efficiency! as with the merrell, the north face has cute details--a nip in at the waist, buttons at the wrists, an ipod pocket (although it's much lower on the body than the merrell's ipod pocket), and of course it comes in several great colors. you may recall i went with boring ol' asphalt grey (hee), but there are also a bunch of other colors, which i always consider an exciting option.

then there's the faux fur collar. in the online pictures, i have to say, i think it looks (potentially) very genuine, so i was kind of freaked out about the whole thing. the moment it got here and i touched it, though? faaaake city. it is very obviously synthetic if you touch it. i've tried it on both with and without the collar, and i'm not sure what i think yet. i have never worn anything with fur trim, so it seems weird to me to have this puffy furry collar on my coat, yet i do see the appeal--it's snuggly, and it's a pretty color. that said, when i modeled the coat for my husband, he said, "are you going to keep that on there?" and when i told him how i thought it looked pretty real on the online photos, he said, "yeah, it totally looks real." so, as i mentioned last week, if i end up keeping this coat, and if i do ever wear the collar, i will absolutely wear one of those faux not fur pins.

okay, so the long and the short of it is that i like both coats, for different reasons. i think the north face coat is a reasonable replacement for the j.crew coat, style-wise and warmth-wise, and also price-wise (i did some searching and the north face costs pretty much exactly what i'd pay if i wanted to buy a new cashmere/wool/thinsulate coat from j.crew). it's not perfect (as in, it's not the dream coat i was whining about in the first place) but it's much much MUCH better than anything i've found so far, especially when you factor in the warmth issue. it's easy to find cute vegan coats; it's much more difficult to find cute, vegan, dressy, can-stand-up-to-a-midwest-winter coats, so with that in mind this coat is definitely the best i've seen. plus: waterproof!

but i really like the merrell coat as well, because it's long and ridiculously toasty and has a hood. it's not as kicky or stylie as the north face, but it's cute in its own right and i could see wearing it as an all-purpose it's-frickin'-cold-out coat. in other words, kind of as a replacement for my columbia, whose zipper disintegrated a year ago, but i still wear it a lot (especially for dog-walking and snow-shoveling) because it's the warmest coat in my closet. so i did some searching on this as well, and  the merrell costs pretty much exactly what i'd pay (seriously, within fifty cents) for the columbia coat that is most closely matched to what i have now.

so basically what we have here is an "i choose me" situation where i want to keep them both and feel pretty justified in doing so. tee hee. (i mean hey, i returned like ninety pairs of boots and an expensive pair of goathair-tainted mittens; that has to count for something, right?)

vee-jin

one of the guys i work with pronounces it "vee-jin," which i find oddly endearing. i love that he misprounounces it wrong. hee! he totally means well, so i don't have it in me to correct him. yesterday he had a long discussion with my husband about it, and my husband had the exact same reaction--he didn't have the heart to point out the mistake. awesome. i'm a vee-jin!

another fantastic news update

if you haven't been reading my blog very long, you might want to start with this post (from april) and then this tiny follow-up (from may) and then the original fantastic news update (from july). if you've already read all of those, then you can just skip to the good stuff. hee.

finley had his second follow-up sonogram today to check on his heart. as predicted, we were nervous wrecks over the past couple of days, and this morning we were just dreading taking him in. it's not that he's seemed worse or sick or anything--he's been great!--but he just gets so afraid at the vet and we hate doing that to him. plus, i am a complete spaz and i'm always convinced that some Big Horrible Thing will be revealed and, well, bleah.

anyhow, this morning finley was extra super-duper lovey from the moment i got up, following me absolutely everywhere, and i felt so guilty knowing i was about to stuff him into a carrier and cart him off to the vet. poor baby. he caught on that something was weird about a minute too soon, and tried to hide upstairs, but thankfully i caught him and we stayed on schedule. we dropped him off, learned that he was the only scheduled procedure for the heart specialist today, and were told that we'd maybe hear back around noon. my husband had a meeting to go to, so i went home and tried valiantly to distract myself for a few hours. (thankfully UPS gave me something to do during that time--more on that later.)

as it got closer to noon, i got more restless. finally at 12.02pm, i decided that i had too much nervous energy and i went to find avery to channel some of my kitty-anxiety into kitty-affection. i walked into our room, found him, and before he could even walk up to get petted, the phone rang. it was our vet, of course, and she sounded very sunny and cheerful. yay!

she said that finley was extremely good during the sonogram, and also during her exam (she did some bloodwork and urinalysis, just to see how he's doing now that he's been on the meds for 8 months), and i said, "great!" then she said that his scan looked really good, and i said, "awesome!" and THEN she said, "and i have some REALLY fantastic news for you today!" and i said, "oh yeah?" while trying not to freak out.

she said that he had a Completely Normal Heart Scan. as in, NO evidence of anything ever going wrong, ever. totally fixed. size is normal, thickness is normal, cardiac output is normal, no scarring, no "remnants," no nothing! just a perfectly healthy little kitty heart! he's good good good, and can go off his meds effective immediately. she said that we will probably never know what it was that screwed things up in spring, but that evidently treating it quickly and aggressively was the ticket. much like our july visit, i had a difficult time even talking to her, because i was afraid i was going to cry happy tears all over the place.

i went to pick him up, and was able to talk to the  vet tech (the same one i mentioned in the july post) and also the heart specialist, and they both told me separately that he was SUCH a good boy, and they were so happy about the good news. i brought home a very very happy kitty, and he marched around purring and being a total sweetheart all afternoon.

we won't hear about the bloodwork and urinalysis until monday (our vet is going out of town), but i will be keeping my fingers tightly crossed that all is normal on those fronts as well.

i can't even tell you how relieved we are. i had absolutely NO idea that this outcome was even a possibility, and i hope i never have to relive anything so depressing and terrifying as our ordeal with him last april. gah, that was awful. but that's over, and i'm so happy today. yay, finley's heart is strong and healthy!

a tale of two shipments

welp, i don't know if you've heard, but the midwest is in an icy grip (tm msnbc.com) and i'm sure that includes hodgkins illinois, wherever that may be. our campus (along with much of the rest of the city) canceled all classes today and tonight, so i've had nothing to do but think about random miscellany. i was very afraid for my poor north face coat, stuck in hodgkins illinois, and have been checking on it compulsively all day. well, guess what? it left, and it's on its way to my town! so it might actually reach me tomorrow after all! it's completely silly how goofy i'm getting over this coat. i hope i like it after all this!

in other news, my mittens arrived from ll bean today, one day early. i was totally stoked, tried them on and they're quite nice, hip hip hooray and all that, when all of a sudden my husband said, "uh oh, these are going straight back," and showed me the label: the palm is made of "100% goathair leather." now, i'm not even going to pretend that i know what "goathair leather" is supposed to mean, but i am relatively certain that it's not synthetic. BOOOOOO ll bean! boo i say! i'm so bummed at them for leaving leather out of their item description. right now i have an email in to them, asking if i can get the return shipping waived. i don't really see why i should pay $6.50 to return them when i wouldn't have even ordered them in the first place if their item description had been accurate.[/grumpy]

ridiculously impatient

i've had a tab continually open in my browser to keep an eye on my coat's UPS progress since december 6th. that's last thursday. i got an email from them, saying that the coat had shipped, and i've been keeping that tab open in firefox ever since. it hasn't changed one bit since then. it's on its way to hodgkins illinois, wherever that might be. i hit refresh several times a day, only to be told that it's en route to hodgkins illinois. SIGH.

a few minutes ago, i hit refresh, and guess what? it's in friggin' hodgkins illinois!!! now i just need to wait two more days for it to actually get HERE. hmph. the merrell and i are lonely.

vegan cut-outs, roll-outs, sugar cookies...

we always call them "cut-outs" but i know they go by lots of names. i'm looking to hear about tried-and-true veganizations, if you've got 'em. my dad's side of the family is BIG on cut-outs for the holidays, and this will be the third year that we make a vegan version along with the regular cookies. i'm not totally sure that i want to stick with the ones we used the past two years, though... while quite tasty, they're different enough from our non-vegan version that they stand out. i'd like to find a recipe that is more similar, so that maybe we can stop making two versions and just go with the vegan ones. i'm selfish like that.

the past two years, we've used the "mum's sugar cookies" in garden of  vegan. they're very good, but they're a little sweeter and crispier than my family's usual version, and i also find that we have to tinker with the icing quite a bit before we get it right.

right now i'm considering the sugar cookies in the new joy of vegan baking, along with the royal icing from the same book. has anyone made those yet? or do you have a different cut-out recipe you've tried, and would like to steer me toward? i'm also looking for great icing recipes! if i get a chance to try the joy of vegan baking versions, i'll report back and let you know how it went.

boots + coat: partial review

okay, i was going to wait until everything was settled before i yammered on and on about my winter clothing projects, but it looks like my mittens and the north face coat won't get here until wednesday, and i'm getting too impatient! so i'll tell you how things are going so far, and i'll check back in later next week with the rest.

so as i mentioned, the boots arrived from zappos on the same day that the merrell coat arrived. my husband went to answer the doorbell that morning, and came back with a giant tower of merchandise. awesome. unfortunately, i had to wait until that afternoon to open the boxes and try everything on. boooo.

i started with the coat. i was actually surprised at how compact the box was; i think i was expecting a gigantic puffy thing, but it's really quite trim, considering. the fabric is not exactly what i expected, either... it's kind of a "heathered black" rather than a solid pitch black, i suppose owing to the "denim-touch" nature of the fabric...? now that i look at the pictures again, they're very true-to-life... i think that i just thought the pictures were grainy! hee. anyhow, that's fine, but all i'm saying is that it looked a little different than i expected, and i think it makes it seem slightly more casual in nature.

the coat is quite long. i ordered the XS because i'm not very tall, and i think it was the right choice. i'm guessing if i'd ordered the S it would be even longer and somewhat comical. it zips both ways, which is good, because if you sit in the car or just want to walk with a big ol' stride, it's nice to have the option to open the bottom of the coat. i was originally scouring the planet for a 3/4 coat, so a full-length is an interesting departure, but i can see how it would be awesome the colder it gets!

one thing i hadn't noticed on the pictures but LOVE about the coat is that it has adorable turquoise details. they are tiny (a ribbon edge on the inside of the collar, the mini-bungees you use to cinch the hood tight, etc.), but i get a kick out of stuff like that. there's also two inside pockets, one of which is specifically for an mp3 player, with a cute (turquoise) loop to keep your earphone wire in line. love that!

i've been trying the coat on in the house a lot. i'm a dork that way. it seemed quite warm after wearing it only a few minutes, so that bodes well. yesterday i decided to wear it out for a field test, and wore it to run two quick errands. it kept me VERY warm, even without a scarf, so i think it definitely passes the "but can it handle a cold winter?" test. in all, i like the coat a lot. it's not as dressy as i'd probably like, but it's long and warm and has a hood and is basically not really what i was looking for, but very nice anyway. i'm torn on what to do at this point, so i'm hanging onto it until the north face coat arrives. more on that next week!

and now, the boots. lots of disappointment on that front, unfortunately. i ordered the moda spana mandy and the naturalizer leisure, and i wasn't crazy about either one. the moda spanas are fabric, which was interesting and maybe doable, but they had REALLY pointy toes and i felt like my feet looked an entire size bigger. they were kinda goofy. (in their favor: the heel was very comfy and stable, and the profile of the boot is very cute.) in any event, i decided against them pretty much right away. next i tried on the naturalizers, and they were very comfortable, but fit totally weird. the entire ankle area is super-big and baggy. like, they fit my foot great, they fit the majority of my leg great, but my ankle could have wandered around and taken a little walk in there. so strange! what a bummer. i decided to return both pairs (and wore my merrell coat to the UPS store!).

however, all is not lost! remember the crazy last-minute decision to add the sexy not-tall boots to my order? well, i absolutely adore those, and i'm keeping them. yay! they look great with jeans and pants, and i think they're even tall enough to wear with skirts... they're not knee-length, but they're several inches taller than my usual jeans-boots.

i revisited my zappos list to see if i wanted to try different knee-length boots once i realized i was sending almost everything back (two to mooshoes, two to zappos), but i think i've decided to hold off for now. maybe my stupid payless boots aren't so bad after all? stay tuned; i imagine i'll revisit this topic someday. heh.

lip balm tint shimmer thingies

i am a lip balm fiend. this has already been established, many times over. i am fussy about what i want in a lip balm, and i pretty much always have a tube within reach. my three favorites are alba (the hawaiian line), avalon C (which is the exact same formula as alba hawaiian; just a different flavor and fatter tube), and crazy rumors. not that you asked.

anyhow, you may remember when hemp organics decided to start sucking. at the time, this created a major crisis for me, because that's basically what i was using for lipstick, even though it was really more of a pigmented lip balm. i ended up tracking down a few tubes of the old stuff, and they're hanging out in my fridge like rations. even so, i'll run out someday, and yikes.

but wait! the other day i basically tripped over some stuff i'd never even heard of before at vegan essentials. evidently a company called kuumba made has created a small line of lip shimmers that are basically tinted lip balms, and they're vegan, and they're similar to the hemp organics stuff, but half the price! how awesome is that? they have four colors, and i bought two of them: the brownish one (tierra) and the plumish one (twilight). i really like them both. they're a bit more sheer than the hemp organics, but other than that a very similar product all around. except that: (a) they don't have beeswax, and (b) they're cheap! yaaay!

so, if you're looking for something along those lines, get your booty over to vegan essentials and look under cosmetics, and then lip stuff. hope you like it!

busted

in the past week, i've ordered three pairs of boots from zappos, a pair of mittens from ll bean, a coat from merrell, and a coat from the north face. i also paid a visit to vegan essentials yesterday.

today the credit card company called to make sure our credit card hadn't been yoinked. HA!

p.s. i received the boots and the merrell coat today. i have initial thoughts but i'm going to hold off until i've composed myself. more soon!

the official word on north face

well hooray! a couple of you have asked, and a couple of you have helped, and i finally (duh) figured out where to contact north face for customer service, and it is now my pleasure to confirm yesterday's good news... i just got an email from north face that sounds very much like the one laura received:

Dear [over-exuberant vegan customer],

Thank you for contacting The North Face. The fur on all of our jackets is
synthetic.

Best regards,

Eric Worthington
Consumer Response Specialist
The North Face

so, hooray!! that cutie-spendy coat is indeed safe (i have NO idea why they're not labeling their fur as faux all over the place, though. weird). thanks to lisa for bringing the coat to my attention in the first place, and thanks to laura for chiming in yesterday--you gave me a final burst of hope. hee!

my next step is to decide what to do about it. i ordered the merrell coat last night (finally) because i was SO sick of hemming and hawing over it when there's no way to know if i'll like it unless i see it in person and try it on. this north face coat is much more similar to the style i was hoping for, but it's also $100 more than the merrell. but... so many pretty colors (i'm currently waffling between bluestone and asphalt grey), and so much cuteness! sigh.

robin in the snow

i had a meeting this evening around 8pm, which meant that i had to trudge across campus in the middle of the giant snowstorm we're dealing with at the moment. luckily, it wasn't snowing in that gross aggressive way--the flakes were small and light, and relatively fluffy on the ground--but still, it was wet and kind of messy. as i started to head toward our library, i realized that i could hear a bird singing. for some reason, that always kind of trips me out if it's nighttime, but i thought it was even weirder in the middle of a snowstorm. i looked around, bewildered, trying to figure out where she could be, but that was silly, because it was dark and night + streetlamps + snow = not seeing much in the way of tiny wildlife in trees. anyhow, she sang a few times, and i realized she was a robin, which just seems crazy to me. what the heck is that little birdie still doing here, and why is she so happy about the snow? what an optimistic sweet little bird.

no progress on the coat front

i went to H&M today, but every coat i could find contained wool. boo! i poked around a little at the mall, but got bored and came home.

i can't figure out how to contact north face about the coat with the is-it-faux-or-is-it-murder fur collar, but i did look around at all of the various online retailers carrying the coat, and none of those descriptions were much help. i think right now it's probably safest to err on the side of caution, unless and until someone finds the coat in person and checks out a label. which is a shame, because that coat is a cutie.

soooo, i think i'm going to order the merrell and see if i like it. i'm tempted to go with the brown, because i love me some chocolate brown, but i will probably stick with black because it's much easier to accessorize with a black coat (in my experience, anyway).

in other news: i've ordered some mittens from ll bean, and i'll report back when they arrive!

beets

i really like beets! who knew? not i, that's for sure.

i was one of those kids who (like most kids, probably) ate what my parents liked (carbs), and didn't even try stuff my parents didn't like (chinese food). if my parents came up with a split decision, i might give it a shot and decide for myself... or i might just err on the side of caution and join the "don't like it" team. my grandma was always a total sweetie pie and she continually told me that i didn't have to try things if i thought they seemed gross, and she also regularly said, "don't make yourself sick, sweetie--you don't have to finish it if you don't want to." i don't really consider myself a fussy eater, per se, but there are definitely things i DON'T like, and i tend to have rather strong opinions about them (i.e., mushrooms, eggplant, mustard, pickled ANYTHING).

but there are also lots of things i have just never tried, owing mainly to my parents, and over the years i have learned that i actually adore plenty of things i never bothered with as a kid. like what, you ask? well, like: guacamole, avocados in general, caesar salad, chickpeas, hummus, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, refried beans, black beans, tofu, and yogurt... these are but a few examples of things i never tried until i was in my 20s (some not until i was in my 30s!) but completely am head over heels in love with today.

when i went vegan, i became a lot more adventurous with my eating, and i started trying all kinds of things i had never wanted before, or maybe never even heard of. nowadays i readily order tempeh and seitan when i'm out, and i'm eating cuisines i never experimented with before going vegan (indian, middle eastern, thai). i guess veganism basically facilitated breaking down a lot of boundaries for me, as far as trying new things. and yet there are still tons of things i've never eaten, like kale, for instance. or beets--until the other night, that is!

i came home a couple of nights ago and my husband was involved in some top-secret dinner project, which i eventually learned was vegan cheesesteaks and a side of beets. hee! i had been talking about beets lately, and he loves them, so i guess he decided to take matters into his own hands and make some for me. he prepared them with a little olive oil and some salt & pepper, and plated them very prettily next to my sandwich. i was totally excited to try them, although a little tentative, but i shouldn't have worried--i really really liked them! hooray! i get very excited when i try something new, and i'm all proud of myself when i like it. i have no idea why i get proud of myself (and i also usually ask my husband, "are you proud of me?"), but whatever, i'm weird.

anyhow, i thought it was kind of funny, once i tried them, to learn that beets are somewhat unremarkable. they remind me a little bit of carrots, which i've loved since i was practically a baby. they have a mild and somewhat sweet taste, and a nice texture. they're so unassuming, yet tasty. i don't know what i was so afraid of all those years. yay beets!

hello, december!

well, i made it through NaBloPoMo, so hooray for that! i'm hoping that (like last year) i will stay motivated and keep blogging regularly through december and january and beyond... it's a lot easier if there's a sense of routine. you know, kind of like going to the gym. *looks around guiltily*

in other news, my winter-clothing entries (tall boots, mittens, dressy coats) have suddenly seen a flurry of commentary, and now i'm all jazzed because one of you pointed me toward some mittens and another of you pointed me toward a fabu coat! and a whole mess of you are helping me narrow down my boot options. how much do i love you people?!? (a lot!)

in sadder news, we got our first disgusting nasty snowstorm today, which was basically 5 hours of snow followed by 3 hours of freezing rain. oh gee i sure can't wait to try and shovel that off our driveway. :| i think i'm going to go get a start on that now, though, while i am still riding high on thoughts of shopping. whee!