Of Turkey's and being Thankful

This year, for the first time I made a Thanksgiving Turkey. I had a whole feast with my friends. And let me tell you I was scared out of my wits-because quite honestly I never had made a Turkey before. But after various facetimes with my father, advice from grandma and my aunt I just had to close my eyes and hope for the best. I powered through. And you know what my Turkey was awesome :). My stuffing was legendary, and the cherry cobbler was to die for. When a friend, who usually only eats one portion, eats 2 1/2 you best believe that it was delicious.

I am extremely thankful that when I decide to cook something so intricate and difficult that I manage without any trouble. I could've failed miserably but instead it was a success. I am thankful for my father who had the patience to deal with my 50thousand questions, and my mother who kept re-directing me to him. And because this reminded me how much I enjoy cooking/baking I decided to make a lemon cake today for my friends Llea's birthday and I hope it also turns out delicious.
Something else I learned, when after the party you are left with a mound of dishes-it is best to do said dished immediately! I decided last night that if I waited I would wake up and feel that daunting feeling of not being able to do anything until the work was done, but desperately looking for other things to do, instead I did all of the dishes immediately and I woke up refreshed and happy :)!
Sometimes it's the little things in life-now I will begin counting down the days until I get to fly home!! I'm super excited to see my family :), though I think this thanksgiving my friends were like my little family and I'm a pure ball of happiness!!

Accountability

Today I want to talk about a little word: accountability! What does it mean to you? To me it means that you have to answer to yourself for your actions. Of course there are other people we answer to: our boss, our teacher, our parents etc. but in this case I want to talk about answering to yourself. When I was younger, my daddy always told me: You can lie to me all you want, but you cannot lie to yourself. Yet that is exactly what we do oh so often. If you want to change something, then you have to be able to be accountable to yourself, if you want others to depend on you, and look to you for answers, you first have to answer to yourself. So I guess what I am getting at is, that lately I have not been so Vegan, or even Vegetarian for that matter-not at my house and not outside my house, yet I spend all this time telling myself, no no this is just a small slip up. Well no more, I decided I needed to get back on track and that starts now-with me making sure that I answer to myself, I do for myself what is best for me!
One of the reasons I write this, is because I have seen some changes since I've had a few "slip-ups" the biggest is that I've had migraine like headaches (though only 2 thus far) both have come with problems in my vision, making everything blurry and my prescription seeming to be a totally different one. There are many reasons why this can happen, however, as my cousin pointed out to me this weekend, and my optomologist before it can have something to do with your blood sugar levels. If all I eat is crap, and I don't keep a good schedule, and on top of that overdose on sugar-should I really be surprised by these headaches? I don't think so...this is why I will return to my old new eating habits. In order to get up to a new and good start tomorrow-I have put some overnight oats into the refrigerator (if they turn out yummy I'll give more on that) and I made vegan banana bred for snacking. Though I will not be able to eat vegan all week-as it is Thanksgiving and I am making a big Turkey, with stuffing, mashed taters, and cauliflower I will do my darndest to stay healthy until then. If not vegan at least I need to be conscious about what I am putting into my mouth-though I think that I prefer the vegan/vegetarian diet for most of my meals!!
I will be accountable to myself, and if I don't feel well-I should probably look at what I've eaten (is that a food diary in my future? who knows...)

Budgeting 101

So I found out recently, that due to change in administration by contract will not be fully extended. I will keep half of my hours, but loose the other half, this means that I also loose half of my money. Of course I am searching for a job to make up this money-but in the case that I am not immediately successful I have to keep a close eye on my money.
I have noticed recently, that I do not pay much attention to how my cash is allocated. It does not make a difference wether it is actually cash, or money from my card. I have a ballpark idea how much I have left but I do not always now how much I have spend and what I am spending it on. And as anyone who has read anything about budgeting and keeping track of your money knows-step 1 is to write down every little penny you spend. So instead of using budgeting apps on my ipad, as I originally planned a year ago-I will start with exactly that as of now I will write down every cent and where it is going. This way I will hopefully be able to look at what I have spend, and why I have spend it and where I need to improve my expenditures. If I am successful with just this one simple mission-keep track of the money I can follow that up by allocating money to specific needs. But as with everything start small. If you start too big, it is easier to feel overwhelmed and give up and now more than ever that should not be an option.
Wish me luck :)

You Are What You Eat

It is amazing how after weeks, months of eating semi-health conscious-and predominantly vegan, one weekend of meat filled foods does not make you feel good. I have talked before how I'm enjoying the veganing, and at least mostly eating healthy meals-but a couple of weeks ago I went to go visit my grandmother, and it seemed easier for her to just leave my diet as it always was, eating whatever she put on the table. After the first 24 hours I felt tired and sluggish, and by the time I got back to my own place I was simply exhausted. I have not needed so many naps, and so many hours of sleep in the lasts months as I needed that weekend, so I guess the saying "you are what you eat" rings true. I am not saying that vegan is the one and only answer to healthy happy living, but I am saying that a diet high in fruits and vegetables is.
In order to eat such a diet, I have started browsing the frozen vegetable section as well as finding cheap but good fresh produce. Most of my produce comes from a little lebanese shop down the street from me, but if I want more variety I will have to go to the local market-good thing that it runs three days a week! Though, I have learned that frozen is also good, and sometimes even better. For instance, I have recently acquired a taste for brussels sprouts-yes I know shocking. But these little beasts are hard to cook, and if you do it wrong they taste bitter-however, if you have frozen brussels sprouts it takes away all of the bitterness as they have been pre-cooked in a certain way. Let me just tell y'all yummm-o.
Another thing, when eating well-and mostly vegan is that I have to constantly cook. Cooking on my current schedule is not really easy, but I do have a favorite new meal that is quick easy and extremely filling. Whenever I do not know what to do, or I'm in a time crunch I make myself peanut butter sauce with broccoli, brussels sprouts and spaghettis, and when I have them I toast some fresh peanuts-it is one of the most delicious and easy meals to make!!!!
That's all for now

The Not So Vegan Weekend

So it turns out, that Vegannism is not easy.
The purpose of eating Vegan, is not for me to be Vegan forever. Instead it is for me to form a better relationship with healthy food, and healthy cooking. Believe it or not-making vegetable curry goes a lot faster than making chicken curry. However, during stressful situations (such as a presidential election for the Graduate Student Association) it is a lot easier to not go shopping for food and instead go out for food. Oops! And once I finally went shopping, because stores are closed on Sunday in this wonderful country-I went to the wrong store that barely had any vegetables, especially not fresh ones-and no tofu. So I ended up with some frozen vegetables and frozen pizza. Not the healthiest option but for this weekend it will do-next weekend deserves some prior planning.
On some different news-I started doing martial arts on campus. The teacher is a win tsun expert, and does  a lot of self-defense. But he lets my friend Samaneh and I do a lot of Tae Kwon Do moves and it feels really good to use my muscles again! I have missed martial arts more than I realized. We also went to a Verein, where next Friday we have a Schnupperkurs-idk if it is a good idea to sign up as I have so much going on at Uni already. If I do then I will make it a mandatory schedule, and whatever comes up instead I will have to decline. After all, I cannot dance at every wedding!
I will keep working on the Vegan on a Budget, thus far I am still stretching my money too far-but I am getting better at anticipating what I will need and what I will eat :)

Update :)

It seems that Vegan on a Budget only works at home...right now my friend Amber is staying with me, and as long as we are in the confines of the apartment, or just going shopping our Veganism works awesomly. However, as soon as either of us goes to school or to visit someone else we seem to forget that we were planning on Veganism. I think the solution to this is pre-planning. But since I am always on the go between work and GSA stuff it is hard to find even an extra minute to pre-plan. But having sandwiches prepared for work and some nuts, or dried fruits to snack on is always a good habit to keep-so this is my goal to start pre-planning. On the bright side there is tofu marinating in the fridge, we have leftover rice and veggies so what the house is concerned we are being very healthy!!! I guess one step at a time :)
On another note-I've been asked by a Professor to translate one of his articles. This is a great honor, and I hope that I manage to do a very good job, one he can be proud of and I can too!! I think such confidence in my work is brilliant! This weekend will be schedule time, as I will need a strict dissertation and translation schedule to not fall off the wagon-after all I am still at University to write a dissertation and get a PhD at some point (soon :)).

Vegan on a Budget

Hey Everyone,

It's me...I know I know it's has been a while-actually forever, it seems my ability to blog regularly is actually impossible. But some updates on the new stuff going on.
As everyone knows I just moved to a new apartment and it is great!!! I feel so comfortable here and it is nice to know that no one else can enter without permission! Due to a new semester starting, not everything is set up the way I would like it yet-but it is getting there.
So now to my actual reason for blogging on this beautiful sunday :) As most everyone knows I decided before my move to do the Vegan challenge for 28days, this was very fun but not as fulfilling as I had liked because I did not have my own kitchen to use, now that I do I decided I would start over! This time I have a German book which is the 30 day Vegan challenge-and I want to be able to do it on a budget! And in order to encourage me to write and update regularly I decided to have at least one post a week that is Vegan on a Budget! So wish me luck everyone :) till next time

Milestone

Since September I have been a PhD student, and working on the topic that I will hopefully be able to follow over the next years to produce a wonderful PhD thesis. Unfortunately after months of research and work-I had found a dissertation that covered my entire chosen topic-it was over 800pages long. So disgruntled I went home in December-with a new topic idea but having very little to show for my work! Of course this sucked! And I was not a happy camper-but upon my return I worked on this new topic-reading and researching-researching and reading and managed to write up a nice proposal by the end of March. I have now successfully defended it and can happily say that I am officially an accepted PhD student that has finished her first milestone :). Except for some reports of progress my only job now is to read all the material and write my dissertation that I may also be a graduating student-as my mother is this year!

I couldn't be prouder of my mother!! And I am happy that I have such a good role model to look up to! My proposal in hand and complete I am sure that I can and I will be able to work at a steady pace on my dissertation and hopefully be able to finish within the next 2 years as it is expected! 

Well that's that for my happy update :)

now the excitement of traveling in a few days! Going home!!! TN here I come

Ash Wednesday-beginning of Lent

So today for the first time in a long time I went to Mass. I have not been to mass for a really long time, and I am unsure what made go today, but I felt like I wanted to. For the last few months life has been really stressful, and I have often unnecessarily stressed myself out, gotten angry at the wrong people, or have just generally been upset for no reason. Partially it was due to time-management, but partially it was due to the fact that I neglected myself in favor of others. Therefore this year for lent I decided that instead of giving something up I would re-invent myself. I would take time in my day and do at least one good thing for me-something that revitalizes my spirit and makes me happy, something that saves me from getting grumpy, and mad at people and things that dont deserve it. Today that something was walking home from school with my friend, and then of course also visiting Ash Wednesday Mass. I am really happy I went, I saw some friends I did not know attended catholic mass here, and realized I never much think about other peoples religious believes. Well all in all a good day :)

Stay happy everyone

And then its February

Where has all the time gone???? I finally managed to visit my Oma-but its February *gasp* I was supposed to go in January-yet somehow that entire month just disappeared. Now I am sitting here on my probably last free weekend of the semester (or at least till April) because on April 11th I will have my proposal defense which means from now until then I need to really step up my game and work hard to finish my proposal. Since its not 100% clear what I will be writing this should be interesting-let the research begin. But first I will enjoy my time with Oma! It is nice to see her happy. She is glad I am here and she is very glad that I am wearing the Mother Mary charm she gave me. I am not really sure why I decided to finally buy a proper necklace for it, but I felt like it was necessary so I did. Okay-i guess thats all for now-I should really practice blog writing-but oh well here is the small update :D

2012

And so another year has begun, and I have still not become a better blogger. Oops. Good thing y'all manage to keep up with me over messenger and phone calls. Still I hope that this year will be a better year for my bloggerness. I am currently at home, enjoying my time with the family. I especially enjoy my scrabble tournaments with my mom!! (Especially when I win). They are oodles of fun, and we always manage to laugh. I had a great time going Christmas tree shopping with dad and then setting it up afterwards, and I am really excited to do some fun things when he has some time off prior to my departure (though what these fun things are or should be I really don't know) But spending quality time with my parents is what is important.

Of course I have also loved spending quality time with my sister, and my little nephew Joey!! And I miss them oodles now that they are visiting with the other grandparents, but at least their husky Lance keeps me company and for the time being I have named him Jacob!! Why is that you may ask-well he kinda looks like a wolf, and I have been listening to the twilight books so that is how that one came to be.

It is also great to see my friends again! Though it seems I have grown apart from some of them, I have come to realize that that is just part of growing up sometimes you just have to let go. This does not mean that I am saying goodbye to my friends, or that I no longer care about them, it just means that for the time being we are at two different points in our lives and we are not compatible, but it is possible that after some time we'll become really good friends again!! Time will tell and I will not worry too much about this, as I have other great friends still.

I especially have some really great friends waiting for me back in Bremen. Some of them anxiously hoping for my return :) this puts a big smile on my face, and tells me that I am in the right place with the right people around me!!! But for now I am enjoying my time at home!

I would add pictures, but it seems my camera has gone mia....If and when it is found I will either update this post or make a new one!

For now I bid you good night and a wonderful 2012!!!