New year, new adventures.

That's a picture of me on Christmas day with my new (and first) vegan cookbook.  (Not my best pic, I know!) I have been following her blog for a few months now, and it has really helped keep me informed and on track with transitioning to a vegan diet.  I actually found her blog by accident.  I was on a popular vegetarian/vegan forum and someone posted a blog post she had recently made.  It was about how harsh some vegans can be to other vegans for not being "vegan enough".  I could completely relate, as I discussed in an earlier blog post.  Ever since then I've been inspired by both her honesty, cooking talents, and whole attitude towards herself being vegan as well as others striving to eat a plant based diet.  This was one of my Christmas presents I was most excited about.  Learning a new way of eating/cooking can be challenging until you get the hang of it, and this cookbook gives a lot of basics that you can use in all plant based cooking, not just these specific recipes.  For anyone who is interested in exploring a more plant-based diet, or even just healthier cooking in general, I would high recommend this cookbook, or her website.  I actually participated in my first ever Twitter party/discussion with the Happy Herbivore and a few other authors, and I won a virtual cooking lesson with her!  I will be sure to post all about it afterwards. :-)

This is Midnight laying on my new cookbook Christmas night, before I even had a chance to read any of it.  Looks like he's a fan already!!  :-)


I have also been thinking more about my decision to become Veganish, and how I could incorporate that into my passion of helping Americans become healthier.  That has been a passion of mine long before I considered becoming vegetarian or vegan.  After some research I have decided to enroll in an online bachelor's program and get my Bachelor's degree in Social Science studies.  It is a broad degree, I know.  But this program fits many of the college credits I already have, so I won't be going to school for another 3 years when I have over 140 credits already!  It's also completely online so I can actually manage it.  It's geared towards people like me who have many college credits already and work full time, so each class is only 4-6 weeks long.  Plus, it's actually affordable, especially for an online program.  I am applying this month, and hopefully will start in the fall.  That is, if I can get the financial aid for it!  That's the only way I can do it at this point in my life.  My goal is to take as many nutrition courses as I can that will also go towards this degree.  Then I will possibly get a job more social based, and maybe even get my Master's degree in Nutrition, which this college also offers.  But that's WAY down the line!!  Right now I really just want that Bachelor's degree under my belt.  I've always wanted to get it, even before I thought about a career change to more fit my passion. 

So I've been doing a lot of thinking about this blog the last few weeks over the holidays.  I wanted to streamline it a little more to make it easier to follow.  I've decided to have 2 different types of blog posts.  I will alternate between personal experience posts and informational/Q&A posts.  That way they aren't combined and each post will have one specific purpose.  I have been working on my first informational post, and hopefully I will have it up in the next week or so.  It takes a lot more work and research to do those than just a basic post about my experiences, but It's a good way to help me hone in on my plant based diet information for myself and others as well.  :-)