Today, as many of you know, is World Water Day. And we, like many of you, strive to help increase awareness of the ongoing need to protect and conserve water and other natural resources.
Are you aware that:
- Reducing your shower time by 5 minutes can save up to 20 gallons of water per shower?
- Washing dishes in a dishwasher instead of hand-washing them can save 16 gallons of water?
- A low-flow toilet can save 25 gallons of water/day?
- A dripping faucet can result in 20 gallons of lost water per day?
Thanks to our friends at The Nature Conservancy, who created this “Water Footprint of an American” infographic and shared the valuable water-saving tips!
Find much more info on The Nature Conservancy’s blog here.
Spring Break. Gone too soon.
I had planned to post a bit more recently, but spring break had other plans. I had a wonderful week full of non-law school activities, which left little time for blogging. Now I have spring fever and I do not want to return to school tomorrow. I enjoyed having time to be with my fiancé, read about things that interest me, watch a little tv, be outside, cook, and many, many other things. Guess all that will have to go on the back burner with a return to school.
I have really gotten into the idea of following a vegan diet. I am so far from perfecting a vegetarian diet, but I want to explore the vegan world some. I ordered a couple of vegan cookbooks off of the internet and I am really looking forward to those. I know I won’t be the perfect vegan. I probably won’t even be a great vegan, at least not until I have the time and money to put into it. But I do want to be as vegan as possible. I really do feel great and cannot wait to explore this more.
Spring break was also filled with weddings and wedding planning. The first Saturday of spring break meant a wedding that my fiancé and I attended. It was a nice wedding that was perfect for the couple. Then the week led into wedding planning. The week had its ups and downs from seeing reception venues to having issues about money. We still haven’t settled on a wedding date and it seems like we’ll never be married at times, but I know that we love each other and nothing will stop us from being with each other, even if wedding planning gets in the way. All in all the week was great and I learned a lot for the future. More importantly, I FOUND my wedding dress! I went on a second round of shopping and found the dress! I am greatly looking forward to more wedding planning triumphs!
Best.Beer.Ever. In my humble opinion, at least. I wait every year for this limited seasonal brew. Abita is a brewery in Louisiana and they turn out some great varieties of beer. I am not a big drinker, I usually stick to the occasional beer or glass of wine, but I was looking forward to the return of this great beer. I cannot wait to drink the other 5 in my fridge (in moderation of course)!
Homemade trial mix! I mixed raw shelled pumpkin seeds, walnuts, toasted sesame seeds, raisins, and dried cranberries for my mix. I put the mix in small plastic containers to take to school. One for each day of the week!
Berries and banana smoothie! Since it is hot once again, I’ve turned to smoothies for a small meal replacement. This particular smoothie has 1 cup of frozen mixed berries (blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries), half of a banana, about a cup of light vanilla soy milk, and a bit of maple syrup. Such a great smoothie. The only downside is that is turns my mouth purple. I bought some spinach, ground flaxseed, carrots, and strawberries to add into the smoothie game, so we will see how smoothie experimentation week goes!
Eggplant Delmonico! This is a recipe that my fiancé has made a couple of times and we love it! Yes, it does have shrimp in it, but if you take out the shrimp, it would still be deliciously vegetarian. It’s mostly just eggplant, onions, celery, tomatoes, and breadcrumbs (without the shrimp). It’s got a nice array of spices that are reminiscent of New Orleans creole dishes. I’m not a big spice person, but this dish can run the gamut from just veggies to super hot. This will probably be a pretty regular dish in our household once we get married (although I’ll probably keep it seafood-free more often then not).
Irish Carbomb Cupcakes!!
Vegetarian sausage on a poached egg with an English muffin and earth balance spread. Yum!
Long time, no post.
I realized today that I have not posted on my blog in a while. Sure, I’ve been on Tumblr everyday since my last post (sometimes several times a day) and yes, I’m still lively the (mostly) vegetarian lifestyle. However, the 3rd prong of my major life aspects, law school (the other two being vegetarian/blogger and fiancée), has kind of taken up a good bit of time lately. The 2 Ms of law school, memos and midterms, have promulgated themselves as the center of my attention the past few weeks. I began this lovely descent with a Contracts midterm, a memo for Summary Judgement in the middle, and capped it off with a Civil Procedure doozy (complete with a cheating scandal, but I will not detail is since it’s not my place to report that to the internet). I have yet to finish the perilous journey to Spring Break (about 39 hours away and counting). I have to present my oral argument for my Motion to Dismiss (my side loses in the end, according to my summary judgment memo). But it will be over soon enough!
That’s enough about law school. On to Food!! I’m a food fanatic. I love to eat, read recipes, follow food blogs, and watch Food Network incessantly. I also like to cook, although my occasions for cooking are few and far between these days, sadly. I have recently been doing some food research and learning more about the food system. I recently watched the documentary, “Food, Inc.” about the American food industry, primarily the meat and agricultural sectors (specifically GMOs or Genetically Modified Organisms). I highly recommend the documentary to anyone curious about the American food industry. As a caveat, there are some gruesome scenes of animals being abused and the documentary is shown from one perspective, so I highly recommend you do your own independent research to draw your own conclusions. After watching it, I was relieved with the fact that I am already vegetarian (if I wasn’t, this certainly would have made me quit meat). It also instilled a desire to explore organic farming and the vegan lifestyle. I am not sure if I would switch to being vegan, but I think I’d like to incorporate more vegan meals in my diet. I am also completely freaked out about GMOs. I wasn’t a big fan before, but now that I know it’s more common than I thought, I am really weirded out by it. Whatever happened to REAL food, not genetically engineered vegetables? I know that GMOs probably have their place and their purpose, but I don’t really want to promote them. I think I’ll try to be as organic as possible.
Also, a book recommendation! Alicia Silverstone’s (also known as Cher from Clueless) wrote “The Kind Diet”. I got this book on sale last summer when I was struggling to find help with my digestive problems (before I knew it was my gallbladder). It’s a mainly vegan book with lifestyle changes and recipes. Silverstone writes with great commentaries on everyday challenges that vegetarians and vegans face. The book is very easy to read, has great recipes, and gives great advice. The book was a New York Times bestseller and I highly recommend it. Although I didn’t really follow through with the kind diet very much when I bought it, my nearly month long journey as a vegetarian and watching Food, Inc. has somewhat rekindle my interest in Ms. Silverstone’s book. I hope to use it as a guide for the coming vegetarian adventures!
I’ll try to update my blog a little more often now since the hard work is not as heavy (at least until finals) and I’ll try to make my posts a little shorter too. And more pictures!
And after rereading this post, I realized how much I like to insert comments into parentheses (I still like it and will probably continue doing it).
My veggie quesadilla from last night! A strange but delicious amalgamation. A wheat tortilla with queso blanco, vegetarian refried beans, sautéed mushrooms, and banana peppers. It may not look pretty, but it sure tasted good!
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