low points

readers, our deepest and most sincere apologizes about the lack of blog post yesterday. we have to admit, it was a rough day, with a few defeats.

1) while sitting in my curriculum and methods class, i noticed a strange dark discoloration on my hand. it looked as if i had spilled chocolate ice cream on i hand and it dried, or i had a tanning accident gone bad. however it was neither of those. after a lot of thinking and discussing with the vegan guru (chelsea tarnas) it came to our conclusion that my skin condition called hyperpigmintation has returned. i decided to do some research on it because it has been a while since i have had it. hyperpigmintation is caused by two things: overexposure to the sun and/or hormonal change.

it turns out food does strange things to your body. when you change your diet in anyway, weird things happen. your hormones are wack and you get hyperpigmentation, you feel tired but are so energized--more energized than you have felt in a while, or you poop alot. it's weird how much control food has over our bodies.

2) marlee and i decided from the very beginning that on wednesday, the half way point, we were going to make vegan brownies as a reward. marlee pulled out her vegan, gluten free brownie mix and instead of giving us specific directions on what to add, it said, subsitute egg and milk with vegan ingrediants. so we just threw in ingredients based on our prior knowledge. we put in a banana, soy milk, blueberry soy yogurt and mango peach applesauce. we would have liked to put in regular applesauce, but we only had mango peach. turns out these brownies were DISGUSTING. even our two friends who are gluten free hated them. major low point of the week.

3) for the first time this week, i craved a piece of chicken.

4) today was a really hot day and i really wanted ice cream

however, marlee and i have been great supports for one another. neither of us have let the other one fall or dwindle. we both have been tempted to drink pop and check our phones. luckily we have each other, and we have you, the readers.

tonight, we are having our last vegan dinner of the week. our last meal will be tomorrow during lunch.

it has been a fun week and we have learned a lot. i can say for myself that i have never thought more about veganism and the vegan way of life as much as i have this week. there are bumblings of continuing this diet. however, we will see what our bank accounts say and the cheese and the meat that we need to eat before the school year ends.

dissapointment

I must admit to my readers that I just hit a low point. Sitting in the library I couldnt stop thinking about my text messages that I may have had for 5 days now. I wanted to read them, wanted to be able to reply. So what did I do??
I am embarrassed to say that I emailed Katie asking if I could just sneek a peak at my phone tonight.
WHY WOULD I DO THIS??

Well its because were addicted to technology and this is the detox. Every crack addict eventually wants to smoke again- but they call their friends. Friends are there for you when you arent strong enough yourself. So I just have to say thank you Katie. You are a true Amish supporter, and a true friend. Also thank you blog supporters because really what is this without you??

ITS FOR THE BLOG
ITS FOR THE PEOPLE
ITS FOR AWARENESS

amish twentyten

day two

breakfast:
mango peach applesauce (katie)
cereal and soy milk (marlee)

lunch:
wrap with red pepper, onion, garlic, asparagus, spinach, tofu, and hummus
beans

snack:
nuts
peanut butter and bread

dinner:
WHO KNOWS WHAT WE WILL COME UP WITH TONIGHT

in other news: we miss our phones.

also: what we have learned:
you can be a vegan and still eat all the junk food in the world (oreos are vegan???).
considering how much we think about/want to be on facebook and our phones, we think about these things to much.
current issue: greece is falling, so is the euro ($1=.7 something...STUDY ABROAD NOW)
more tonight by candle light.
we are hungry and sleepy.

Day one......SUCCESS!!

So here we sit by candle light to report on day one:
We realize that this blog is completly irrelevant concidering this is Amish week, but were going to disregard that because we took showers in the pitch black this morning. That was Amish. Our day looked a little bit like this:
Woke up to churn a soy smoothie, made with all vegan ingredients.(YUMM)
Then cleaned and washed the dishes (all by hand), thankfully we dont have a dishwasher so there was no temptation there (the true Amish way, flee from temptation). Also thanks to the sunlight we were able to see every dish. :-)
We then rode our bikes to find our friends, it took a little longer because we had to hit three spots in order to locate them (phone sabbath!!).
We studied and got SO much more done than normal concidering facebook wasnt an obstical.
We ate lots of tofu for dinner. We hit a vegan high while Katie dumped out an old cup of bacon fat, realizing the vegan way of life is our way; and bacon is the highway.

Its really been a great learning experience so far. Our stomachs are a little confused, but we are confident they will happier tomorrow. Our high point: Making lunch together--it was a regular comedy show.

Low point: We are hungry.

Tune in tomorrow, and remember its for the blog-its for the readers. Its for you.

TOMORROW

Countdown to Vegan......1 day. We have been preparing for this adventure by eating lots of mexican food and ice cream. We are growing more and more nervous about the obligations we have to ourselves as well as our readers. We are however very excited for this indevor and cant not wait to embark on this jouney together. So plug you noses and dive on in with us while we go to mejer to buy our vegan products and veggies.

Also snail mail will be appreciated throughout this process.
Support can be written in the form of a check or money order.

LOVE LESS.
ITS MORE.

.kATIE AND mARLEE.

All Natural Week

Less

stop buying unnecessary things. toss half of your stuff, learn contentedness.

list four essential things in your life, stop doing non-essential things.

do these essentials first each day, clear distractions, focus on each moment.

let go of attachment to doing, having more.

FALL IN LOVE WITH LESS

While sitting at our kitchen table in Boer's Cottage, Marlee and I read this quote and decide to apply it to our lives. From Sunday, April 11 to Friday, April 16, we are VEGANS and we are AMISH. That means we will read by candle light, will not watch television or movies, will not wear leather boots or silk, will not ride in cars, will not use facebook, will not eat meat, eggs, or dairy, as well as not use cell phones. The one exception to living our lives simply is computers. Unfortunately we are still in school and have a lot of mandatory word-processed assignments that are due. What will we be doing with all of our extra time you might ask? we are going to read our bibles (like a true amish), catch up on political current events, and exercise (like a true vegan)

side note: we are going to dress like the amish, because we can't afford a new wardrobe. we are going to dress like vegans-no leather, no silk. we are also going to try not to use our refrigerator-- but we cannot make any exceptions. does anyone have a cooler or an ice box we can borrow (for our soy milk)

(nothing about this is meant to be offensive, this is simply a time of curiousity and exploration)