How about a little snowy eye candy for you? As long as the office is closed so that I don’t have to drive in it, I love weather like this. Everything looks so pristine and silent when you wake up in the morning and look out across the white blanket of snow. It’s the perfect morning for warm coffee and a good, hearty, home-cooked breakfast.

So, I went MIA for a few days, which I was expecting because of the big project that I had to do, but it’s done and all is well! So, I finished the week out at about 95% vegan. Some of my non-vegan indiscretions included: 1 cookie, a few pieces of chocolate Halloween candy, 2 marshmallows, and maybe 4 individual serving containers of non-dairy creamer (which contains a milk derivative).

What did I learn? First, I don’t need cheese to enjoy food. I love cheese…so much so that I could have it at every meal, but going a week without it made me realize that it’s really not that important. Next, dairy makes me feel worse, not better. I can definitely tell you that my stomach has been less upset this week that I went vegan. And, I lost three pounds also!

Would I go vegan 100%? Probably not at this point…as far as my religious reasons for vegetarianism go, I don’t believe that veganism was necessarily prescribed by God originally, so I don’t feel obligated in that way. However, I’m pretty deeply convicted about factory farming and the cruelties that are done in the dairy and egg industry, so I suppose I’ll have to find a way for my ethics to meet with my purchases…perhaps finding someone who has chickens that I know treats them well? Or maybe trying to buy milk at a farmer’s market or looking into which brands treat their cows well?

What’s important, though, is that it’s a learning process; if I didn’t learn anything other than the fact that cheese is not a necessity to make food better, then the week was worth it. That’s one more lesson that will keep me on the path of eating whole, clean, nutritious food, avoiding processed “junk” and enjoying what God gave us to enjoy.

Yay for Joey and me…we hit the gym tonight after work! Step one down:)…now just to go back tomorrow and we’ll be on the way to starting a habit!

Stay tuned tomorrow for information about my upcoming challenge for November!