Where Do My Bluebirds Fly? | I'll Write and I'll Draw

What you ate today, in great detail

October 22, 2010

To get this out of the way…

So far today I haven’t wanted to eat much. For breakfast I had my usual giant mug of coffee and a Naked Super Food juice on the way to work. A veggie filled sub sandwhich for lunch. A handful of pistachios for a salty snack. And I just put sliced bananas with dollops of peanut butter on them in the freezer. Who knows if I’ll feel like dinner.

Teaser

October 22, 2010

The Way Things Are

October 6, 2010

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. -Winston Churchill

Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it. ~Emily Dickinson

This is going to be two long and difficult posts for me. One of friends(which isn’t a part of my list of topics) and the other of my parents. Here goes. I normally write while listening to music. But for the life of me I cannot stick with any one band. If this blog post sucks please point your finger at Fiona Apple and scowl.

Friends:

This past week I burnt a few bridges, trimmed the fat from my life, literally set the house of cards ablaze! I’m making friends into foes and walking away from a very confusing/ever lasting battle of wits. Have you ever stepped out of line and then realized that maybe just maybe there was no coming back? Have you ever lit the flame to someone elses candle and realized, only after it was too late, that the elephant in the dark room was really just you? Well I have! It’s not the most glorious moment in my life and I probably took one too many blows below the belt but I’m glad I did.

Long story short…I might have stepped on and broken a few toes. With the ending result being me complaining for a few nights and deleting a whole group of people from all of my social networks. My advice here should be that you should really try to work things out, especially if you use Twitter or Facebook because tiny tits! it takes forever to sort through all of those people, click remove, and actually make the choice to finalize it. Being removed from any social network is kind of under the table for ‘I hate you’ and for most of us it rubs us the wrong way. But these days I can honestly say that I talk to more people via Twitter than on the phone or through text. So how else do you finalize the ending of a relationship? Un-friend them of course. So I’ve done just that. I’ve cut myself off from people I’ve known for years. Tired of the shenanigans and constant bickering. It was easy though, seeing as they were never my group of friends but Robbie’s. So now I’ve left him with the flaming bag of shit while I’m hurdling over bushes to get away from the situation. I never intended to. But who ever really intends to leave themselves with no friends?

People have a way of creeping into my life and without me even noticing they start to rally against my never-ending cynicism. I can’t help myself. I find that I can actually compare myself to a thorn that so easily and without fail will dig inch by inch under the surface of your skin. The more you pick, pinch, and pull the deeper I go. Only by the time your throwing bacon on me do I realize that I have yet again made an enemy.

I’m forceful with my opinion. I find it hard to relate to people who aren’t interesting and if I’m not gaining some thing from the relationship I quickly pluck you from the line up of people I’ve known and keep going down the list. Over the years of never being able to trust anyone I’ve morphed into a fickle person. Now that I have a child I force myself into situations with people just because they also have children, this normally ends badly. I love solitude but when I find myself restless I go searching for a companion and normally I pick who ever isn’t obviously disturbed in any way. This method is going to get me into a lot of trouble one day.

But this last plucking has really rubbed me the wrong way. It’s hard to dye my sheep’s wool black and actually graze on the greener side of things. I ate my last meal before motherhood with these people, I spent a great deal of my time making sure that Robbie kept his connection with them over the years, took a giant leap of faith to break down personal barriers to actually feel like I belonged to this group, his group. I’ve experienced a lot of my childs ‘firsts’ with them, spent a lot of nights changing who I was based on enlightening conversation that we all shared. It’s not easy making the decision to be too honest and ruin a good thing. But I did it. So here I am. Whats left of the rubble I wont know for some time. I’ve had this dark shadow lurking over me for the past few days and no amount of self loathing will make it rain on me. I wish the storm would just pass already but it won’t. We’ve sat around and complained that things need to change. I finally did something permanent but only now do I realize that I did it absolutely alone and that really sucks. I’ve chosen to isolate myself once again. You know when your standing on that bridge looking out over the water and your all holding hands saying that on three you’ll all jump? Remember that most of the time everyone else will change their minds and only when your falling through the air do you realize that you were just bored with what ever it was that you usually do. I’m always the one to jump.

My Parents In Great Detail:

My mother is a very stubborn person. So much so that when I was conceived she decided that we would rough it alone and make do with having just the two of us. Therefor the bit on my father will be extremely short and filled with years of hate.

My mom’s family is from Louisiana. She grew up in Grapevine, Texas with her mother, father, and brother. Both of her parents had kidney trouble and were often sick. From what I know she had a wonderful relationship with both her mother and her father. She did well in school, played sports, dated, caused trouble, married young, and suffered greatly when she lost both of her parents to their illness. Her brother was much older than her, maybe around 15 years older, and was already living out of the house. After my grandparents died my mom kind of started a really long process of loss. Before my grandmother died she married my mom off to a man named Rory from the same exact town that Robbie is from, kind of creepy really. Anyways, I’m assuming the beginning of their marriage was good. I don’t really know because it’s such a hard topic to talk about. Rory was a very violent person and was only the beginning to a long line of physically and verbally abusive men that my mom some how found one after another throughout the years. She has this superhuman knack for wanting to heal the most dangerous people and I’ll never understand how she has made it this far but thankfully she has. Her marriage to Rory ended because of infidelity on his part.

The house that my grandparents lived in was paid for so my mom took up permanent residence there. She had a few horses and spent a great deal of her time doing rodeo activities. My mom lived alone for some time and then during hard times acquired a room-mate that came and went as he pleased. I’ve never actually asked about this in great detail because I don’t want to know all the details but all the stars aligned and that room-mate was my father. My mom discovered she was pregnant shortly after he moved out. She approached him about the pregnancy and he didn’t believe her or want anything to do with us, so my mom moved on. During the end of her pregnancy she met a man named Gary Bethany. He took the reigns without question and that’s why my last name is Bethany instead of Richardson. For what ever reason Gary started using drugs and they split up. I continue to have a relationship with him and his family. To this day I still call him my dad and have a somewhat constant relationship with his side of the family.

I’m not sure how old I was but my mom moved on and met a man named Russell. This man single-handedly ruined my childhood. He made me fear so many things and just by writing this out I’m on the verge of a panic attack. My mother had two children with him, my sister Linda and my brother Cody. To say that we walked on egg shells around this man would be an understatement. He terrorized my mother, beat her so severely that she feared even to leave him. I spent plenty of nights huddled under the covers listening to my mom scream for help. Those nights changed a lot of things for me. To see how brutal this world is without even opening a history book is a lesson you never forget.

My mom has always had a way of mending things by silence. She just keeps going. There were times that I couldn’t figure out how she even had the will to face us in the morning. But she did. She woke up and made us breakfast with or without a busted lip. She hushed our curious questions and she got us ready for school. She always drove the oldest and loudest cars and not until now do I realize how much it probably hurt her when I would crouch down in the front seat or asked her to drop me off at the corner so no one at school would see how poor we were. She put up with my fairy tales that I told my friends and she understood when I never invited anyone over to our house. I remember getting bikes for Christmas and spending the whole entire spring having her wash gravel out of my knees or put the chain back on my bike over and over again. No matter how little we had she always made sure that it really seemed like Santa Claus gave a shit. I know that some times it takes a really long time and a lot of growing to understand why your parents do the things that they do. But I can honestly look back and say that she did the best she could.

When my mother finally had enough, she left Russell and we made another change in our daily routines. My mother worked a lot and we spent a great deal of our child hood at a baby sitters house. My brother, sister, and I stuck together. They both had awful speech impediments so I was more or less their voice. We had this trio thing down. Where ever I went they followed and when ever Russell came for his weekends I would go along. My mom didn’t have time to favor any of us so what ever we did we did it together. It was just easier that way. But one weekend Russell took the two of them and left me behind. He took them and never intended to bring them back. I’m not sure what it would feel like to have a sibling die but I’m pretty sure I’ve felt something close to that. My mom spent a long time crying over this. I spent a lot of time forgetting because I have no idea what I did during this time. For a long time we never heard any thing from them. Maybe my mom just couldn’t take it, losing your children can’t be the easiest thing to just get up from and continue on caring about the rest of the world. She started using drugs. I’m not going to go into detail here because I’m not going to drag my mother through the dirt. Obviously she wasn’t dealing with the cards she was dealt and made some really horrible decisions. I moved out for a while. She crawled through the mud and found herself. I moved back in.

I have a very weird relationship with my mom. Some times I’m not sure what exactly should happen. I don’t have a strong need to have a perfect relationship with her. I almost feel like we’re still a bit broken, like something or someone is missing. We rarely talk about Linda or Cody. It’s easier to act like nothing happened than to touch the doorknob to the room on fire. We’ve tested it a few times, and we’ve tried to repair our relationship with them, but I’m not really sure it can be mended. It’s hard to consider them strangers. But in reality they are.

On to my father. As far as I know he works on an oil field a few hours away from where I live now. His parents own a farm and he lives in a trailer on their land. He drinks a lot, has depression, and writes music. His brother killed himself and his sisters are crazy, except for one. She’s a school teacher and I’ve been told that I look just like her. Although I’ve never seen her it gives me some sort of amusement in all of this crazy shit. I’ve spent about a month total in the presence of my father. In that time I learned that he has several children from many different women. He only speaks to the ones that he pays child support for(not me). He was in the Navy and is so severely under weight that he looks like a skeleton in Wranglers. I’ve had my fair share of broken promises from that guy and I’ve yet to feel the need to have him in my life.

Must Read.

October 4, 2010

I’m off of work this week and I thought I’d have the time to blog about my next topic, My Parents, but honestly that blog post is taking me longer and longer to finish.

Until then I’d love to share this article by Single Dad Laughing because so many people I know right now, including myself, suffer from “perfection”. Please read the full post. It’s bound to strike a nerve or cause you to cry for a full 45 minutes while you clean the kitchen.

I’ve Got The Blues

September 21, 2010

We started paying off our credit card, slowly but surely. It’s not a very large amount but for our personal income its larger than either of us are comfortable with. For our last hoorah, Robbie bought himself a Kindle and I got a gym membership at the Hurst rec center. I obviously made the wrong decision, Robbie’s always known how to treat himself like a King while I’m more along the lines of wanting to punish myself with diets or in this case spending my last chance freedom money on a gym membership.

It’s been five days since I had the brilliant idea to get the membership and I haven’t stepped foot inside the building. I know how to walk on the treadmill and I know how to use a stationary bike but beyond that I’m kind of a fish out of water. I promised myself I’d go to the gym after work tonight and if I dont do it now I’ll keep pushing it off until it’s time to renew my membership. Exercise is the one thing that motivates me to eat some thing other than carbohydrates because I’m smart enough to know what keeps my body going and how to get the best results. Lately I’ve been eating nothing but carbs and fruit.

So tell me what gets your sweat pant covered butt into the gym and once you’ve found that motivation what the heck do you do when your standing in front of mirrors, thick necked body builders, and free weights?!

I’m planning on going back to the library to get Thrive to give me a little extra motivation and insight but I’d love some advice.

Your First Love

September 13, 2010

I’ve only had a few long term relationships. One was in middle school, the other my freshman year of High School. I consider both of those experiences just that, experiences. ‘Dating’ is just something you do in school, even if neither of you can actually drive a car to actually go on a date. So those two relationships were not LOVE.

My first love came after a horrible experience, the second long term relationship I had my freshman year, we met online(he was friends with my then ex) using AIM and his wit and topics of conversation won be over almost immediately. Neither of us could drive so we chatted online for a few months and pretty much dated over the internet. I remember sitting in my dark room at odd hours of the night with my face glowing from the computer screen just laughing and typing so fast my fingers would ache by the time our conversation ended. Theres so much you can tell someone when you don’t actually have to see them. I spilled the beans about a lot of things, personal and pointless. He didn’t seem to mind.

Weeks into our internet tryst a friends parent drove me to the street that he lived on and my friend and I stood at the end of the cul-de-sac screaming ‘Robbie Hickey!!’ until an annoyed neighbor pointed us in the right direction. I rang the door bell and delivered an envelope filled with photos and a letter. I ran off pretty much as soon as his little brother opened the door. Robbie was wearing a Sublime shirt and I about peed my pants from being so nervous and acting so childish. We talked on the phone all night that night.

After Robbie got his license we hung out as much as we could. We dated throughout high school and fought most of the time. Our fights were amazing and so very passionate. I wish we could have video taped most of them, the plot would be hilariously dramatized and the crying would make the audience hate me. Seriously though, we spent a great deal of our relationship hanging up on each other and screaming into the receiver. I loved it though. It was never about anything important, always something like me saying ‘you looked at that girl 200 feet away and i feel bad about it’ and him saying ‘whatever’ and me going bananas. I can make something out of nothing better than anyone else I know.

Robbie started college at UTA and I started going to a alternative school so that I could work and attend school. I ended up dropping out a year into the program, moved in with his parents, and started working full time. We began to save up for an apartment shortly after that. I think that was a huge step for us, we planned and saved everything we both made. He was working full-time at Pizza Hut and going to school full-time as well. I worked at a few different child care facilities during the saving up period, which lasted about a year? We moved out into our first apartment, a few weeks later we bought a puppy and that same day found out that I was pregnant.

There is not one single person on this planet that I can trust as much as I trust Robbie. He has been a constant for me when so many other people have not. We are loyal to each other and I cannot express all of the happiness that he has single handedly provided for our family. In many ways he has carried us through the thicket of the toughest times we’ll have as a young couple, as young parents, as young lovers. He’s a reassuring hug away when ever I need it, a compliment in my darkest hours, he’s been the greatest and most proud moment of all my moments.

He’s a great father, and a wonderful friend. Truth be told if I threw a wig and a skirt on him he’d probably sip coffee with me and pretend to be my only reliable girl friend. I know where I stand with him, he’s never ever given in to my nagging and constant fear of a failed relationship. He’s been my backbone when ever I lose my own. He never ever agrees with me if he thinks I’m wrong, and he’ll argue with me if thats what I need to get some stress out. We can talk about anything, we talk about books, music, the boring movie I hated and he loved, the way our daughter does this or that, the smell of the carpet, the way this dress looks, the sign on the side of the road, the length of the grass, the stars in the sky, the future, the past, and the list goes on. He’s hilarious and charming. He can make me laugh no matter the circumstances and I love to laugh. We fight under our breaths when he wants this and I want that, we agree in the end, or we don’t. We kiss and hold hands without making you uncomfortable. He’s hairy and strong when I don’t need frail and I simply cannot ask for a better companion in this life time.

Without him I would still be listening to really crappy radio music and watching blockbuster movies. He’s opened a lot of doors for me and we’ve experienced amazing things in the eight years that we’ve been together. I cannot look back and wish we did or didn’t do this or that. We grew together, we created a child, we keep each other company and it’s the most satisfying thing I’ll ever do.

Home is when ever I’m with you.

I Am Not A Robot!

September 12, 2010

I thought about doing this once a day questionnaire over at my private Livejournal but as more and more time passed I decided that I’d do it here, just to try and be more personal with the few readers that I do have here.

Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Your first love, in great detail
Day 03 – Your parents, in great detail
Day 04 – What you ate today, in great detail
Day 05 – Your definition of love, in great detail
Day 06 – Your day, in great detail
Day 07 – Your best friend, in great detail
Day 08 – A moment, in great detail
Day 09 – Your beliefs, in great detail
Day 10 – What you wore today, in great detail
Day 11 – Your siblings, in great detail
Day 12 – What’s in your bag, in great detail
Day 13 – This week, in great detail
Day 14 – What you wore today, in great detail
Day 15 – Your dreams, in great detail
Day 16 – Your first kiss, in great detail
Day 17 – Your favorite memory, in great detail
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday, in great detail
Day 19 – Something you regret, in great detail
Day 20 – This month, in great detail
Day 21 – Another moment, in great detail
Day 22 – Something that upsets you, in great detail
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better, in great detail
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry, in great detail
Day 25 – A first, in great detail
Day 26 – Your fears, in great detail
Day 27 – Your favorite place, in great detail
Day 28 – Something that you miss, in great detail
Day 29 – Your aspirations, in great detail
Day 30 – One last moment, in great detail

Introduce Yourself:

My name is Tassie Renae Bethany, I’m 23 years old, 23 years of awesome-ness.

Anyways, I’m married and we just recently celebrated our 1st year of being hitched but we also celebrated eight years of togetherness which is much more praise-worthy. We have a little sunflower of a child that goes by the name Emmerson, sun sun,turd,and so many other delightful things that she responds to. Tassie Renae Bethany has a really great family unit and you wont stop reading about it, ever.

My current occupation is being the babysitter to a very spunky family that over the past two weeks I’ve grown to love. Never have I ever met a family thats as rock and roll as these three. I love my job and not many people can say that!

Accumulating hobbies is my hobby. I have gear,crafts,books,videos,and unfinished projects to show just how bored I get with things. If my own child wasn’t so ever changing she’d probably have dust on her head, kidding. I like to change my hair, style, scent,weight, and finger nail polish when ever the mood strikes. My house on the other hand stays pretty consistent. We don’t have knickknacks or art on the walls. I cannot honestly keep anything for long, especially if I have to clean or match furniture around it. When and if my house is clean every single surface is empty or very well organized. I’m either too lazy or too OCD.

Anyways, I live in Texas, and I’m honestly doubting that will ever change. It’s hot here. Lately it’s been humid so that’s added an extra slice of hell to this summer. I’ve traveled only a handful of times and only two times out of this state. I’m not big about the idea of plane rides or long car trips so my chances of going far are really limited. We did go to Austin, TX this year and that was plenty of driving for me. I actually like living here. Maybe it’s because I only know how to live here, I know how things work here, and how far I have to drive to the grocery store so I feel comfortable about that. I would like to travel but I wouldn’t want to place roots any where other than here just yet.

I’m a new Vegan. I love to read books. I like TV series that have too many seasons. I can’t play any musical instruments other than a recorder(hot cross buns). I love my tiny tiny tiny family and I want to keep it tiny. I live in a tiny house with two rooms and a cold tiled bathroom. We never ever mow our grass and I think it really bothers our neighbors. I like chores. I’ve had one out of body experience on the roof of the Fort Worth art museum while dancing to Dan Deacon with Robbie. I like walking around at night, or smoking secret cigarettes when every one else is sleeping. I’m obsessed with food right now. I want to be more involved with bike riding and all things bike…?

If you’ve never ever in your life heard anyone say this then your probably going to tip over in your computer chair but I’m a proud High School drop out. I dropped out the summer before my senior year. I never once wanted to be there and caused too much trouble when I did attend. I honestly had a very hard time academically and struggled with math from around 5th grade on. I never had an honest relationship with any of my teachers and never felt compelled to excel in anything other than being tardy. My own experience of public schools has given me a hard edge when it comes to how Emmerson will be schooled. I’m on the fence between home schooling or enrolling her in a charter school. Both have yet to be highly talked about since she’s not even three.

I’m an atheist. See picture below for description.

We don’t have any pets. For two obvious reasons. The first being that we’re horrible pet owners, we’d probably kill or some how lose a snail. The second being that our landlords want to charge us an extra $400 a month to even have a goldfish. I’m not sure if this is their way of making it impossible for us to even have a goldfish or if one of our relatives(that we’ve given all of our ‘oops’ animals too) called and warned them. Anyways, we can’t own anything that doesnt speak a language and I’m actually kind of glad about that. Our last two apartments were ruined by our horrible lack of pet knowledge and our new house has really nice everything so I’d like to keep it that way. This is where I say that having a toddler is pretty much like having a cute chimpanzee. But thankfully we parent better than we pet own, hah.

Errrr, this is where I start really forcing myself to actually think of interesting stuff and I cant so I then start to feel bad about myself. So I’ll leave you with this!

Spare-Ohs

August 23, 2010

Is Summer over yet? It’s nearing 5:30pm and it’s still 105 degrees out. All three of us are ready for Fall. I’m ready to play outside again and to be able to turn on the kitchen stove without regretting it all day. We haven’t even mowed our lawn in over two weeks because of the heat, our neighbors love us.

I don’t want to talk about the heat anymore. This whole Vegan thing has changed my life. Oddly enough it’s made eating fun again. I’m making a sandwich out of chick peas, making veggie patties,baking my own granola,and creating smoothie masterpieces. It’s never boring. Kidney beans on a whole wheat sub roll can never be boring! Emmerson is eating and enjoying things that our old diet never encouraged us to eat. Grocery shopping is exciting and our spice drawer is growing larger with each trip. Not to mention our lack of idling in the fast food drive thru. We’ve saved so much money by only eating what we buy at the store or farmers market. *High Five!*It’s also revamped my interests in animals and their wellbeing. Right now I’m reading The Animal Manifesto by Marc Bekoff. He’s made some really valid points about all animals being sentient and how we as humans need to step outside the boundaries of speciesism. I also recently finished reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. An excellent book for anyone struggling with making the decision to become vegetarian.

Lately it’s been way too hot to do anything other than long trips to the library. We’ve spent a lot of time this summer between the rows and rows of picture books at our local library. Robbie recently stumbled upon a popup dinosaur encyclopedia that Emmerson thought was really amazing. We’ve also spent a lot of time inside at home. I’m newly obsessed with Nip/Tuck, often staying up all night in some cases casually watching each episode while snacking on hummus or drinking tea until my bladder is on the verge of popping. It’s a new ‘me time’ ritual that I’ve taken to a new extreme. At least I normally do laundry while I’m zoned out.

This is going to be a short post because I have dough begging to be baked and a toddler asking to play Jenga. Hopefully by the time I’m able to making another post my camera battery will be charged.

To Be Vegan

August 3, 2010

“But where was I to start? The world is so vast, I shall start with the country I knew best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No, my home. No, my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself.”
– Elie Wiesel

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”– Martin Luther King

I’ve done this before. I remember in High School a close friend of mine declared one day, out of no where, that she was Vegan. Vegan? I thought it was a shorter word for Vegetarian. There was some oooh’s and aaah’s in our small group of friends, we shrugged after asking a few questions, and went back to our chicken rings. The word was tossed around for the next few days or weeks, I cant really remember exactly, but I found out the bigger meaning to it. NO ANIMAL PRODUCTS. Simple right? One day I’m making mini chicken ring sandwiches with a yeast roll and gravy, then there I was just sticking my toe in the Vegan water’s. I went through a whole day without animal products. A normal morning was cereal with cows milk which gave me instant diarrhea, the cheese and meat on my burger gave me acne and extremely oily skin, and the unhealthy snacks I had throughout the day often left me irritable and tired by the time I got home from school. So a day without any of these things left me in a really confused limbo. I hated veggies, couldn’t cook to save my life or growling stomach, and fruit was seen as a treat not sustenance. Tired of my stomach growling and not getting the instant results I had planned for I went back to my ‘normal’ diet.

Fast forward to me being pregnant and breastfeeding Emmerson. During my pregnancy I ate like I shouldnt have. Gained a lot of weight and by the time I delivered I weighed closer to 215pds. Wow…just wow. During my first trimester I would joke that Emmerson would be delivered with Secret Sauce covering her body because I lived off of Big Mac’s. Thankfully I never developed high blood pressure or even diabetes so I can thank my body for not completely boycotting me or my growing fetus. Emmerson was born 40 weeks later and I began breastfeeding. As she grew to be a few months old I noticed a scaly rash behind her knees, on her calves, diaper rashes that wouldnt go away, long sleepless nights with her often crying and waking up fussy,and horrible smelling poop. I did all the online research I could, took her to the pediatrician, and did more reading. Everything I read told me it was the dairy in my breast milk and to stop consuming dairy products ASAP. The pediatrician just looked at her inflamed red skin and prescribed some ointment. I was very hesitant to just cover up the issue with some cream. If she had a rash that meant something was going on inside of my daughter causing this on the outside. I stopped consuming dairy shortly after. It was hard to say the least. Your whole life your told over and over to drink your milk, no matter how bad it hurts you stomach, because your body will collapse without the calcium from cows. But it was causing my daughter so much pain and I wasn’t about to give up breastfeeding. I sacrificed a tiny ‘want’ in my diet so that my daughter could eat and not suffer. Her rash went away. Her eczema scars haven’t and I can still see her discolored skin on her calves and arms when ever I’m getting her out of the bathtub.

She naturally weaned around the time that she turned two. I tested her on dairy right before this time and she seemed fine. No rash or any other weird outbreaks so I started giving her cheese and all the other foods that have milk products. She’s never had milk to drink because when I stopped drinking it my stomach problems vanished and we both already loved soy milk. Anyways, I continued to give her dairy and started eating it again myself. She’s had some chicken but never really liked to eat meat in the first place. I on the other hand love fast food. It’s good. It’s greasy. It’s cheap. I couldn’t really argue with that. So for a long time, basically my whole life, I’ve had this false image of meat,dairy,eggs. I’ve driven through the fast food line, loaded up on hamburger meat at the grocery store, encouraged my daughter to dip her chicken nuggets in ketchup, and all the while never once had the image of a suffering animal in my mind while doing so. We’ve gone to the zoo, nearly purchased tickets to a circus, and once because I thought it would be a cute picture-pulled over in a church parking lot to let Emmerson ride miniature ponies that were tied up in the 100 degree heat. What a mixed message I’m giving her. I enforce kindness to animals when she’s being too rough with the family pets, but then I turn around and feed her cheese or yogurt? What does that say?

My stomach has been in knots lately. When I broach the topic of living a vegan lifestyle with Robbie or family members I feel like an outcast. Robbie still wants to drink milk, eat cheese, and meat. I’m sarcastic and witty with him while he’s grilling burgers. But this topic is a dangerous one. After watching movies like this one http://www.unleashed.org.au/features/earthlings/ it’s hard to turn a blind eye and keep silent. I’m hoping to sit down with him and watch these movies, listen to the lectures on being vegan, talk about it out loud, cry, feel shamed by what I’ve contributed to all these years, and hope that I can do right by these animals even if it’s just changing the way my family lives. It’s a small step, it’s probably a spec of dust when your looking at the big picture, but it’s a step.

Pretty much a photo dump.

July 27, 2010

Before I go ahead and post a billion pictures from a recent outdoor play time and numerous blurry iPhone pictures I wanted to give an update on our eating situation.

Honestly, we’ve been doing awesome. Mainly vegetables are being eaten. Tons of fruits for snacks. Lots and lots of beans and Lentils,whole wheat pastas, veggie filled/cheese free pizza’s, and what ever else I can think up. Google is a gratifying recipe giver and it’s made last minute meal preparation extremely easy. Emmerson still has small bumps all over her arms,legs, and torso so we’re going to cut out dairy, eggs, and meat products all together. I’ve been going steady with that for a few days and we’ve both been feeling much better. Robbie’s fallen under the ‘if you make it I’ll eat it’ mantra so he’s gradually stepped on the healthy lifestyle express(harhar). I feel great though. On the days that I don’t eat like I should or have a bubbly glass bottled Coke I feel pretty sluggish and miserable. I’m more in tune with what my body is trying to tell me and getting better about doing as it says. I went for a pretty awesome run this afternoon. I didn’t feel winded and my ribs weren’t crying out in pain for me to stop. My breath was even and consistent. I ran for a long while, longer than I can usually endure. When I finally got back home I felt great. The urge to stuff my face with sugar and unrefined carbs didn’t exist. If you can do anything for yourself…eat more vegetables. Eat mostly vegetables actually!

Enough about food! Onward to the photo dump. Splat!

Self: