Grocery list for a newbie vegan

This is stuff I bought today. It's a LOT because it's all start up items...the extent of my cooking in the past has been warming some frozen mashed potatoes on the stove or frying bacon:) Every week I'll just need to buy more fresh fruits and maybe some pastas. Not much else. 

Shopping list for a newbie gluten-free vegan:

*Frozen blueberries

*frozen blackberries

*frozen peaches

*frozen cherries

*fresh pineapple

*bananas

*clementines

*dried cranberries

*lemons

*avocados

*unsweetened applesauce

*coconut milk

*cranberry juice

*almond milk

*spinach

*romaine

*carrots

*vegetable broth

*onions

*brown rice pasta

*chickpeas

*brown rice crisp cereal

*coconut milk

*sugar

*brown rice syrup

*brown sugar

*baking powder

*canola oil

*coconut oil

*unsweetened shredded coconut

*course sea salt

*white vinegar

*millet flour

*sorghum flour

*tapioca flour

*almond flour

*buckwheat flour

*oat flour

*almond extract

*vanilla extract

*ground cumin

*thyme

*cinnamon

*paprika

*garlic cloves

*basil

*almonds

*chunky almond butter

*pistachios

*ground flax

*chia seeds

*pumpkin seeds

*sesame seeds

*all natural peanut butter

* dark chocolate

Taking control

When I told my friend at work that I am going to be switching over to a vegan, gluten free diet this coming new year, he had some interesting things to say. 

"No. You're going to turn all hipster. Soon you'll think you know everything there is to know about art. You're going to get all pale--you already are pale. You'll get even paler. You'll hate it. The food is so gross. Have you ever had rice pasta? I have. It's gross. And you'll... become all hipster."

Haha well, I don't know about all that. And, in regards to me turning all 'hipster,' I retorted with the fact that I did just purchase some clothing from Anthropologie. He threw his hands in the air and said it was all over. I do believe I giggled. 

I digress. I guess I don't care much for all these stigmas that go along with being vegan. Truth is, people, I've been living a constant battle with my own body since before I was ten years old. I've had surgeries, steroid shots, joint aspirations, medicinal concoctions, bone scans, MRIs, weekly injections, monthly blood tests. My mouth erupts in canker sores from inflammation in my mucosal tissue. I suffer from headaches nearly every day, also due to inflammation. It's all connected to the auto-immune disease Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. Which, I have. A blood test confirmed the genetic marker for this disease when I was about twelve years old.

Inflammation in the body is the perfect set-up for cancers and lymphomas. And not only that, but the drug I received for years growing up as a weekly injection--methotrexate--has now been directly linked to certain lymphomas in patients.

This isn't some fad, some dire proclamation of animal rights. (Although, I do deeply support that issue, but that's a topic for another day). This is just a kid who is tired of being in pain. Tired of not being able to be the normal healthy college student I'd like to be, and tired of not being in control of my own body.

I want to do what I can to stay away from proven inflammatory triggers (dairy, beef, gluten, preservatives, etc) to better my quality of life...and if it makes me some pale, art enthused hipster in the process, so be it.

Anyway, I'm already pale. So this is me taking control!

The small things

At six years old, nothing was more magical then the glow of the multi-colored lights illuminating the artificial branches of our tree every December. Pink, blue, green, yellow. Glowing in a dark room, I’d imagine the tree was it’s own secret, magical world. How amazing would it be, to shrink down into a height of one inch and live in a forest of bright, sparkling colors everywhere you turned? How enchanting? I would gather a bunch of blankets from the linen closet upstairs, and make my own nest on the floor beneath the tree. A peaceful luminescence hovered even beneath my closed eyelids. I’d love to live there, I’d think, my thoughts getting blurry and faint until I fell into a comfortable sleep. That was just a part of the magic of Christmas to me as a small child. It isn’t about Santa Clause and a pile of gifts to everyone, it wasn’t for me. It was how my mom and dad seemed happier for a moment. How icy toes didn’t matter when a snowman was being built in the eerie gray of winter as intricate snowflakes drifted to the world around me. I remember wondering how odd it was that silence could be so deafening. How calm could be so exciting, and how comfort came from a pink, fleece blanket made for me by my mama.

But, anyway. That’s how I remember it. I hope I never forget the small things.

Merry Christmas everyone

What does it feel like?

What does it feel like to lose your innocence?
Dreaming, you're blanketed in ignorance. You stumble from the reverie unknowing; you drop the covers from your unscratched body, lift your eyelids to the blinding, painful knowledge, stifle your tears, stumble forward heavily, and fall into your life.
The realization blurs your eyes, washes in rays over your chest and shoulders. The unwanted truth falls over you and you feel it envelop your neck and spine, slipping down, down to the shaky bottom, full of electricity that numbs your fingers or unleashes pain at its very worst.
Can you recover here? Here where the electricity is crippling and only the will of your mind keeps the stinging force from your soul? Yes, you can recover even here. You could learn to block it out. And you can, if you try desperately, even hold on to the sweet memories where we all once lived and breathed.
Just maybe you could try to forget. How it grabs you firmly, how it shakes violently!
It is life that wakes you, life. Realizing what has happened is looking in from the outside at the end of the beginning, and forgetting what you've lost.

I wrote this 4 years ago. My heart still aches when I read it, remembering how I felt at that time. How I still feel today.

Second dog, second apartment, second break-up

Do you see a trend here? I'll try not to make a habit out of it. If I try to get back with Tom, someone smack me. Obviously it wasn't meant to be. 3 years in a row of breaking up every autumn should have told me that. What is it with autumn, anyway? Why do I get so restless? I break up with my boyfriend, I buzz my head, I stop paying attention to whatever chemistry class I'm currently attending. At this point I'll be in college a whole extra semester just learning about divalent cations, whatever the heck those are. Just kidding. I know what those are. And for the record, I'm doing just fine in college, despite my autumn acts of rebellion.