Saturday, May 19, 2012

I Truly Love Baseball!


Today we had a make-up game because every single event scheduled last week was rained out. It was a great day to play! We arrived knowing that the team that we were playing was undefeated (just like us), so we knew it was going to be a good game. Just how good, I had no idea! It started just like any other game, the parents cheering the kids on and having a good time. By the 4th inning, it was still a scoreless game.  It could be blamed on the hot sun beating down on us and the kids in polyester, but things started to get, for a lack of a better term, heated. The umpires (who were coaches for the OTHER team) started making really bad calls. Really bad calls. One of the Mom's on our team started getting a little (ok, a lot) vocal about it. Of course, the other teams Mom's did not want to be out done, so they started yelling. Mason had an AMAZING play at 3rd base, he tagged the runner and he was....SAFE? Ohhhh, let me tell you, people far and wide could hear all of the Mom's yelling! The field had a score board (a luxury, let me tell you) and two little kids were put in charge of it. They "forgot" to update it, which led to the other team getting more balls, strikes, etc.! They were getting more time at bat than they were supposed to! That is what lead to.....The parent/coach fight! Oh my goodness, yelling back and forth, the other team was going to quit, people were getting thrown out. They were cheating, they were not honest and fair and by the 8th inning we were tied 2-2.  We thought for sure with the bias, that there was no way to come back and win this thing. The second to last time Mason was up to bat, he got beamed with the ball right in the back:


(That is going to hurt tomorrow)
By this time in the game, not only are the kids tired, hot, and hungry, but so are the parents. I got the worst sunburn. I have not had sunburn in years and it hurts! I guess I should not complain, I did not get hit in the back with a pitch! So, this story seems to be as long as the game today, 10 innings!! I do not ever remember playing 10 innings, ever. Mason got up to bat with 2 outs (at this point we are up 1, the score is 3-2), I was so nervous because he has not been on a good hitting streak lately, he got up to bat and cracked the ball to the fence (everyone thought that it was going to go out!!) and he brought in 2 runs!! WE WON!! It was the most exciting game that I have ever seen! We are still undefeated!!

I saw this video circulating Facebook last week and not only is it very timely, it is VERY accurate!!




Oh, and I found spell check :P

Friday, May 18, 2012

I Blinked..

I closed my eyes and it became 2012, I swear, I blinked and it was the end(ish) of May. Where has the time gone? Time needs to slow down, for goodness sake, my "baby" (not to be confused with my "little baby" that has four legs and fur) is going to be a MIDDLE SCHOOLER. Nooooo...But anyway, I am enjoying the time raising my "baby" to be a great person!

Some of you may know that I have chosen to become a Vegan! After 30+ years as a vegetarian, I think it is just a natural progression. To be honest, I do not know what took me so long (cheese, maybe?). I wanted to start this journey after my birthday (the end of this month) because Mason and I started a tradition last year of making a trip to Pittsburgh to celebrate my birthday at The Cheesecake Factory (yummm, cheesecake!). I wanted to take a week and try it out before I went "cold tofurky." I went grocery shopping and loaded up on the usual vegan supplies: fruits and veggies! As long as I wash and cut the fruit, Mason will devour it. Breakfast was not too much of a change. I usually eat a smoothie with whole wheat toast, very rarely would I eat eggs. Lunch was a different story, I would choose cottage cheese or a Chobani (ohhh, chobani, you stole my heart) yogurt. Dinner went either way. So, with a few adjustments, I was ready to tackle that week animal-product free. I started eating a big salad for lunch with any and every veggie (or fruit) that I could find to top it. Sunflower seeds for some crunch and a low-fat dressing, YUM! I started craving and looking forward to building a new (and much different) salad everyday! After a week of creating new, interesting recipes (most off the top of my head), I have to say, I LOVE THIS!! I feel so good! I found a lot of resources online that have been very helpful in making the (not so big) switch.

My dilemma: Friday night pizza night. Every Friday night Mason and I have pizza. Sometimes it is plain cheese, other times it is mushroom and black olive, but my favorite is green-salsa pizza! It is so good and easy! What to do? So, in an effort to try and solve my problem, I looked for Vegan Cheese. Yep, they make that. I found a company on facebook that makes all kinds of dairy-soy-meat alternatives. So, I "liked" them on Facebook and wouldn't you know it, they had a contest to win full-size packages of their Vegan Cheese! It was a timed contest, the first 75 people (they have almost 35,000 fans, so my chances were not that great) that filled out the form on their page won a bag of their mozzarella or mexican shreds. I WON!! I chose mozzarella but they sent me BOTH flavors!


How exciting! It arrived UPS on Tuesday and I had it sitting in the fridge until this afternoon, when I planned on making the pizza early (Mason has to be somewhere tonight). Ok, I put on the green salsa and opened the bag of mozzarella. Yep. My enthusiasm stopped there. It was odd and crumbly and smelled a little "off." But, I gave it a shot anyway. I baked the pizza as usual and when I opened the oven, I was a bit disappointed, this is what the pizza looked like:


Uh.Yeah.

Now, looks are not everything (I'm not that shallow), so I decided to cut a slice and give 'er a try.


The truth is, it did not taste *horrible*, but after the first few bites, I was done with it. Oh well. I think pizza night will resume with pizzas made with lots of extra veggies, sans cheese. I like pizza like that anyway, so no biggie!

After all that I have been reading about dairy and the dairy industry, the less I miss it. I really think that, as a nation, it has been forced on us how dairy is so good for our bodies. I'm not so sure about that, and after this week and a half without it, I cannot see a point in my life where I will want to have it again. But, with foods like this:


Whole grain toast with vegan cream cheese (that is good!), fresh dill, ice cold sliced cucumbers topped with sprouts:

Homemade Tropical Oatmeal with creamy almond milk:

Who needs dairy? Yum!

~Apparently Blogger removed spell-check. This isn't good...

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

You Know...

I leave for a few weeks and Blogger has changed everything!! I just want everyone to know that my life is back to normal (whatever "normal" is) and I will be back to blogging this week. That is, if I can figure out all these new settings!! Ahhh, sometimes change really depresses me. I'll be back soon, keep your eyes peeled for some great new pictures!! ~And...I'll leave you with this funny picture: