Vegan Baking and Other Musings

This is a picture of a delicious cookie I made yesterday.  Please excuse the poor photo--J. is a much better photographer than I am, and he often takes the pictures of food that end up looking really great.

One thing that this vegan experiment has done is pulled me away from random treats.  I actually would suggest eating vegan as a way to curb most mindless snacking--without feeling like you're counting calories, blah blah blah, because SO MANY treats have animal products in them.  Eggs in desserts, cheese products in chips, etc.  I have found that I don't really miss the random sugar cookie that someone brings in to work, but I do miss sweets.  So I've baked two types of vegan cookies.  Both involved chocolate.  Here is the recipe for the cookie I made yesterday.

Not eating random treats has been good for my body, I think, but it has made me think about food and connections to other humans.  Over the weekend, I was offered pizza after judging an awesome lego robot tournament.  In that moment, I was prepared to pick off the cheese and call it good.  I was also able to make light of my eating choices, attributing it to a "crazy vegan-for-a-month experiment," which didn't require too much explanation or defense.  It made me think about what I would have done if actually was a vegan.  It made me think about how personal our food choices are, and how we balance our eating principles with our connections with others.

I believe that sharing food is a way to connect with others.  I know that people can connect without eating, but man I love to eat.  And try new food.  And compliment people on food they make.  And cook with people.  And learn about people's cultures through food.  The list goes on and on.  To me, some of those connections can be made difficult or impossible if I make stiff rules about what I will and won't eat.  So I generally make loose rules that I break for a variety of reasons.  In my mind, I can justify all the rule-breaking by thinking that my principles are still met by using loose guidelines.  But these two weeks (and two weeks to go) have made me think about this a little more, and it makes me wonder if I'm actually compromising my principles with such loose guidelines.

These are the two main principles I use to make decisions about what I eat:
1.  It is best for my body to eat very little meat.  I've known this for a while.  My digestive system works better and I have more energy when I don't eat meat.  This may not be true for others, but it's true for me.
2.  Much of the meat produced in our country is bad for the environment. I like this article as a resource to explain some of the issues involved, even though it's now a couple years old.  I know there are other foods that are produced that are harmful for the environment as well, but this seems like a conscious step I can take that doesn't require much thinking.
3.  I have concerns about the way meat is industrially produced in our country--hormones, antibiotics, etc.  I don't want to be putting these things in my body on a daily basis.

I have been an on/off vegetarian for the last 8 or 9 years, with varying degrees of strictness.  The last time I started up again (it's been about 2 and a half years), I decided that I would approach my eating with more flexibility, in an effort to sustain my diet and not feel deprived.  Thus, I would say 98% of my diet is vegetarian.  However, I:
1.  maintain a don't ask, don't tell policy with broths and other flavoring agents when eating out or in the homes of others.
2.  sometimes buy beef or other meat from our local dairy, which supplies meat from other small local farms, for special occasions or if I am really craving it (I sometimes think my body is lacking something it needs when I have very strong cravings for meat). 
3.  try food if I want to, even if I know it has meat in it and I don't know where that meat came from.  For example, we went to our neighbors' house for a cocktail party and they had a delicious appetizer with prosciutto and pears and cheese and I had one.
4.  eat seafood once in a while (probably less than once a month) and try to pay attention to the seafood sustainability list.  

These four exceptions/policies have made me feel that I am never deprived of things I want to eat or try which makes my diet really easy to maintain.  If I look at reasons 2 and 3 above, this will be much better for the environment and my health in the long run than if I go back and forth every couple of years.  In terms of how I feel, well, the quantities of meat I eat are usually so small now that I don't feel affected.  This is how I justify keeping loose principles about my eating choices.  I feel able to meet my major principles while still connecting with others over food.

Sometimes, though (and this month, especially, while I use more restriction), I wonder about my little justifications.  I think I could probably have very similar connections with people even if I made stricter rules for myself.  I might not feel deprived if I changed my mindset.  I guess what I am trying to say, in this long-winded post, is that this weekend, and this month in general, has made me think about the balance between principles with eating and human connections--if I should really feel okay about justifying as much as I do with my eating.  I don't feel I've articulated my thinking very well today, even though I've revised and written two drafts, so this may be something to come back and explore more.

I miss cheese.

Actually, the detox plan is overall going well.  I am feeling healthy and strong and sleeping well, which was the whole point.

I am realizing how rich cheese is, though, and how much I love it.  Last Thursday I made a pizza and put cheese on J's half.  Some sneaked onto my half.  I probably had, in all, one bite of cheese, and it was heavenly.  I think a side effect of the month of detox could be a decrease in the quantity of cheese consumption after January is over. 

And... while popcorn with butter is delicious, popcorn with olive oil is also delicious.

Today I ate:
Breakfast: coffee, cereal with blueberries and soy milk
Lunch:  veggie chili mac (my veggie chili, "tofutti" (a soy cream cheese substitute), and elbow macaroni... I made the chili too spicy over the weekend, and sour cream and cheese can really help out with that.  I had to find an alternative so we could finish the pot.  It's actually pretty good.
Afternoon snack:  almonds and green tea
Dinner:  Spaghetti squash saute (with chickpeas, tomatoes, and herbs) and a chocolate raspberry vegan cookie I baked over the weekend. Water.

Next goal for the week, more water.  My skin is super dry, and while the cold weather isn't going away anytime soon, the least I can do is combat it from the inside out.

A Month of Vegan

I mentioned in my never-ending posts of yesterday (that were really just my personal journal--sorry!) that I had a health goal in mind as the year began, but I don''t really count it in my New Year's thinking because it's more of a post-December detox than a planned lifestyle change.

I eat vegetarian most of the time, and I would say that over 50% of the meals I eat are vegan or are made with very little dairy.  I also generally eat pretty healthfully, and I usually feel like I'm on the right track for sustainable healthy eating.

December took a toll on me, however.  I was eating cookies non-stop and drinking more than usual.  I was also mostly eating high-fat dairy like butter and cheese.  For the first time in my life, I developed consistent heartburn for almost a week straight.

When I became a (mostly) vegetarian the last time, I decided to be less strict with my eating habits so that I could sustain it long term.  I don't generally think that being restrictive is helpful to my health because my self-imposed restrictions just make me want what I can't have.  But the way my body was feeling at the end of December was a catalyst for a drastic shift, at least for a few weeks.

So, I'm going vegan to see how my body feels.  I'm also not drinking for the rest of January.  I'm on my first day of veganing and my second day of teetotaling.  I ordered my favorite herbal tea from Gong Fu Tea so I would not feel like I was missing my liquid treat.  I'm trying to be more routine about taking my vitamin as back-up, and I found this article really helpful to examine the different amino acids I'll be getting.

Here's what I ate today:
Breakfast:
Cereal (did include honey, but it was on sale!) with blackberries and soy milk
Coffee

Lunch:
Leftover french lentil soup recipe from Veganomicon
Homemade wheat bread
Apple

Afternoon Snack:
Green tea
Almonds

While preparing dinner:
A pear (usually I am drinking wine and/or eating crackers and cheese)

Dinner:
Curry Noodles with Tofu and Veggies

After-Dinner Treat:
Herbal tea (I was really looking forward to it--I love this stuff!)

So far I feel great.  It's early on so I'm not yet missing some of the things I know I eventually will.  I'm definitely going to have to try some vegan baking to satisfy the sweet tooth I know will arrive.  I'm looking forward to seeing how I feel.  I was even considering (gasp!) weaning myself off coffee and toward green tea for the month to see how my body is impacted.  I suppose there's no time like now if I'm going to deprive myself of other things I love.  Maybe next week...

Making Time to Think about Teaching

In an earlier post today, I wrote about how I'm waking up in the night about teaching.  It seemed to be the first thing I should tackle for self-improvement in 2010.  (Yes, I did get my thank-you and birthday cards written, and I'll write about my health improvement plan tomorrow, so there's more than just this, but still.)

I've been making lots of excuses to myself about why I'm not teaching to the best of my ability.  Yes, I'm busy.  I have other exciting things to work on (wedding) along with sometimes not so exciting things (13-15 page literary analysis).  The truth is, though, that I'm not working very smartly when I'm at school.  I'm wasting lots of my planning time and study hall supervision work time because my mind is moving in too many directions of things I need to complete (do you see a pattern here?), and then I avoid.  In early December, I decided that what I needed to do was to schedule my time for all of these "open" time periods in my day, so I would make it a priority to do some of the things I wasn't doing.  This afternoon, I made a list of all the tasks in an average day/week, and then I placed them in a chart of when I was most likely to be successful accomplishing each of them.  Some of them are daily tasks, or ones that will be best done a couple times a week.

I'm not able to import my chart due to my lack of skill with Blogger (or perhaps Blogger's limitations--I'm not sure), but I feel pretty excited to try it out this week and see if it improves my productivity.  If I find a way to display it, I will.

I'm also excited this week about introducing my students to a Book Pass they lead instead of writing essays this month about their independent reading books.  I've been working with them on writing about their reading, in part to understand their own thinking better, and in part to share their reading with others.  This will make the sharing the most important part, and I look forward to it.  If you're not familiar with a Book Pass, you basically set out high-interest books in small groups of students.  They pass the books on a scheduled timeframe (about 30 seconds) and make a list of the ones in which they are interested so they have an idea for what they'd like to read next.  Asking the students to contribute their favorite books of the semester will ensure the inclusion of high-interest texts.

Finally, I feel prepared to re-visit The Diary of Anne Frank.  I'm working with my students on developing questions more deeply.  We worked on it the week before winter break but it didn't go very well at all, and I was ready to abandon my original idea for something that would go more smoothly.  We had a couple professional development days before we went on break, though, and we read an article about what employers are looking for in our students today.  One of them was the ability to ask questions so they could anticipate problems to solve.  It reinforced the idea that I need to stick with the concepts and skills that I know kids need to learn, even when it isn't easy.  If it was easy, they probably wouldn't need help with it.

I also found a new mantra for the school year, on thingsweforget.blogspot.com:

Sometimes I forget to build foundations for my kids to get to those castles I build in the air.  Sometimes at this time of year, I'm tempted to relax my expectations, and this reminds me to just build better foundations.

2010 Goals

I've always been a better list-maker than doer, especially when I'm working with things I don't really want to finish. As a kid, when I needed to clean my room, I was great at making a checklist of things I needed to do, categorized by area of the room. Unfortunately, I would only actually finish the first two items on my list and my room would still be a pit. I would spend just as much energy on the list as the task at hand.

I always feel tempted to do this with new year's goals as well. I start thinking of all the areas of my life that could be improved, and I make lots of lists and goals and end up so overwhelmed that I don't really accomplish any of them. I decided that this year, because I already feel like I'm moving in the right direction (no major overhaul needed), I might try to focus on one goal each month. As I write that, I'm tempted to list all the other things I want to accomplish in 2010, and assign months to focus on each. I will list. I won't assign.

1. Send prompt thank-you notes and birthday cards.
2. Continue developing writing habit, and finish novel first draft by Spring Break.
3. Further automate money and re-allocate funds so I am giving more to charity.
4. Push myself as a teacher by doing more reflecting and deeper planning. I feel like I'm connecting well with my kids and serving them well on a daily basis. I also think my best planning has gone by the wayside as I work on my master's degree, and I'd like to spend more time with this so I can really feel that I'm doing my best teaching for student learning.
5. Throw a meaningful ceremony and kick-ass party (with John!) at our wedding in June.
6. I ALWAYS want to stop biting my nails.
7. Continue making our house a home. I hope that by the end of 2010, our house reflects us much more than it does right now.

That's a pretty tall list. I also feel like I want to work on them all right now. I suppose that's a good sign that they are all important. Which should I work on first?

One of these, however, is keeping me up at night and waking me in the middle of the night: #4. I am concerned about my writing elective the most and apparently it haunts me. If I'm going to do #1, I feel that I need to start now. But that one seems easy... get the cards ready at the beginning of the month, and mail them out as the dates get close. #5 is a goal with a deadline, but so is #2. Yikes!! This is why I schedule and make checklists that are never completed.

(Note to anyone who might actually be reading this blog: I plan to continue thinking out load and incoherently as I figure out how to attain these goals.)

There is also a health goal that I will address in another post (looks like today will double the amount of posts I've written on this blog) but that seems totally separate to me as it's a short-term detox rather than a long-term change.

Here's the plan:
1. Send deposit checks and complete any necessary tasks for wedding (ones that need reservations) by next weekend, January 9th, so I can relax from wedding planning for a month.
2. Start #1 today. Then I will have something to show for my new goals.
3. I'll write another post about my plan for #4.

As I re-read my first paragraph, I'm chuckling at myself, because I've just made a big list and another big plan. Apparently it's in my nature and I might just need to embrace the fact that the big changes, the ones that will keep me up at night, will naturally come to forefront as the thing to work on next.

2009 Recap

As this is the third day of 2010, I'm a little slow on the uptake for 2009 recap and goal-setting/resolution making. As a teacher, though, I always feel more impacted by school year deadlines than calendar year deadlines. Since we return to school tomorrow, I guess it's time for me to do my end of the year reflection. I prefer to think of it as a reflection rather than resolution making because I feel pretty satisfied with the direction my life is moving. I don't see any drastic changes that need to occur. As a teacher, I try to build on strengths my students already have, and in the past years, I've improved upon treating myself as well as I treat others. I think it's important to consider the strengths and accomplishments of 2009 as I move into the new year.

2008 into 2009 was a rough time for me. As I dig through my computer archives, I can't find any semblance of goal-setting/reflection during this time last year. I think I was so stuck in a rut of my own thinking that I didn't know what I wanted to accomplish. I had just moved to be with John in August and was feeling dissatisfied with the move and the connections I was making. In January, I'm pretty sure I was on a manic hunt of a location we could move to. One week it would be Denver, the next Portland. I was refusing to make connections and decisions about my professional life because I assumed we'd be leaving in a year.

Somehow, in April of 2009, I was tired of running. John and I both had good jobs where we were. I was beginning to see my teaching improve and I knew that I couldn't continue making improvements if we took off again. I came home from class one night with a sense of clarity I hadn't had all year--that maybe we could stay for a while. When the time came for us to move, it should be because an opportunity was presenting itself to GO somewhere, not because we weren't making the most of our time where we were. To be fair, my mom did bring my attitude problem to my attention over spring break, and I was unable to see it.

When we made the decision to stick around, doors started opening all over the place. John found a home-brew club. I was asked to serve on a district committee to help with new Iowa curriculum. I started a writing group at school. We started seeing the pockets in our community that we had been closed off to before. This was a good thing.

Other big, good things happened in 2009, for which I am very thankful:
1. I finished a sprint triathlon in July 2009.
2. John and I became engaged in August.
3. We bought at house in September, which really allowed us to connect with our community. I was amazed by some of the people that came to the surface in our neighborhood once we held that elusive title of "homeowner."

I also made good baby steps in 2009--continuous goals that I want to keep working toward:
1. I'm beginning to feel more in control of my personal finances. As a teacher in a two-income household, there is plenty of money here that I just need to use more wisely. I began automating lots of financial stuff and feeling more balanced in this area of my life.
2. I started my master's degree which helps with the overall goal of teaching college someday, and fulfills a personal desire to be learning more. I read _Moby Dick_!
3. I am making more conscious choices about my impact on the environment. Our new home allows me to drive much less in daily life (when it's not dangerously cold to be outside), we've set up backyard compost and organized recycling. I'm continuing to think about how my eating choices impact the environment, too. Part of the challenge of the upcoming year will be in how to make our wedding as green as possible.
4. I'm improving with a writing habit. I don't write every day, but I write more frequently. My novel from November isn't finished, but it's coming.
5. I feel that I'm making more grown up choices. What grown-up means to me is less self-centered in my choices. We started buying Kleenexes. I'm trying to send more hand-written thank you notes and birthday cards (a goal for 2010!). This is an area that still needs improvement, but I feel like I'm headed in the right direction.

Whew. That was a long reflection about 2009 (and certainly more for me than an audience!). The best way for me to divide the old year with the new is to take a shower, eat lunch, and dive into goal setting for the new year then.