Day 38: My last day as a herbavor

     Well, another storm seems to be moving in. I was at work and witnessed one ridiculous change in weather. Earlier today was a mild 50 degrees with a pleasant, mostly sunny sky. Now thats some weather I could get used to...well at least until summer finally gets here. I cant take this freezing overcast environment. Its too gloomy and depressing. I feel like the sun complements any situation, always. The warm rays it brings and comforting breeze can make any scenario suck a little less. I feel like we're all a little solar powered, or at least our mood is influenced when its beautiful outside. Point is; Love summer, bummed out during winter.
     Today is day 7 of my vegetarian challenge. That means its over, I beat it. I think that might even be my first edible challenge that wasn't a complete failure (I guess that the raw egg challenge {day one} was a successful food challenge, but I wouldn't really consider myself the winner with all things considered. No one's a winner when it comes to raw eggs). So yea, I completed my challenge and to celebrate, I made a full on veggie friendly meal. It wasn't anything special because I had school and work today, but it was damn delicious. I cooked some cheesy noodles, fried up a couple grilled cheese sammiches, cut up some apple slices, and cut up a lemon wedge for my sprite (for looks). The cheese, along with everything else, was delectable. It was a simple yet time and cost efficient way to make a tasty, meat free meal. I finished my meal and headed off to work where I served fat people food that they absolutely do not need while we got dumped on with the worst of winter. Another day in the life of Kyle Garlock.

Day 35: Vegan Pizza

     The weather outside today were perfect condition for laundry, homework and watching Lost on netflix. In fact, thats basically all I did today. I wrote two and a half essays, washed and folded one load of laundry and watched roughly 5 episodes of Lost (they leave you with such suspenseful cliffhangers so you are forced to watch another episode). I may have been pretty lazy today, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't new things to be had. So, I'm like on day 4 of the vegetarian challenge and I realized that I had only been taking note of the crappy parts of being a vegetarian (like, you know...not eating meat). I was settling for crappy grilled cheese sammiches and tomato soup to calm my needy tummy. I wasn't really enjoying the experience, which was not cool with me. I should be siked that I'm trying new things like the veggie lifestyle. I shouldn't be punishing my stomach by only consuming cheese and bread because its the only thing I could make that was meat-free. Thats why today, with my friend Mouse, I made my first vegetarian meal. Vegetarian pizza, its a new thing for today and it counts towards that veggie challenge, now thats a 2 bird, one stone scenario.
     Mouse and I went to the Sunflower Market to pick out some tasty meat free foods. As it turns out, eating healthy may pay off health wise in the long run, but it rips you off financially right now. Everything in there was a pretty penny. We made it out of the store with minimal damage to the wallet. We got some stuff called tofurkey (which sounds like next big curse word), a build your own pizza starter kit (that promised 3 packets of pizza sauce inside but only held 2, rip off!) and a 6 pack of organic orange cream soda (Mouses idea). The rest of the story is pretty straight forward; we cooked the pies and the tofurkey with some cheese. Once the pizzas were done, I layered mine with ranch dressing and Frank's Red Hot. The lunch was pretty alright, I wouldn't compare it to the pizza that I almost couldn't resist from last night, but it did the job. Tofurkey is basically tofu that has been molded into the shape of a hot dog that has a hint of sausage aftertaste. I wouldn't recommend hosting a tofurkey BBQ, but I would defiantly check into them if I was considering going veggie for a more long term plan. It was that simple, I was tired of eating crappy meatless food, so I made a mediocre meatless pizza. Great success!

Day 32: Be A Vegetarian

     So, right now its -9 degrees outside. That means that its so cold, that even if the temperature magically shot up a hefty 41 degrees, it would still be cold enough to consider getting your tongue stuck to a metal pole a practical risk. Its so cold out that we were given a snow day, not because of the amount of snow that had fallen (about 2 inches), but because of the amount of ice on the roads and the dangerously low temp. My friend had to e-mail his teachers and explain to them that he couldn't get to class because of the inch thick layer of ice that had encased his car. He literally broke his ice scrapper in an attempt to get the ice off. It snapped in half. Its that kind of cold that justs slaps sheets of frozen pain onto your cheeks with every whip of the wind. It penetrates every inch of your lungs with cold, brute hate as you inhale. Its terrible, and I fucking hate winter.

     The whole winter thang had nothing to do with my challenge today, but I just felt like getting that off my chest. So in an effort to distract myself from my own haterid/loathing of winter, I decided to focus on my new thing of the day. I decided to be a vegetarian. Now, I think that its safe to assume that you know the jist of how this project goes. I pick a new thing to do every day, and today, I picked to not eat meat. I know what your thinking, thats way too easy. People go without eating meat all the time, even dinosaurs probably. And thats true, I can even admit to not consuming meat for a 24 hour period at least a couple times in the past(usually when I'm working at my dish washing job, their food just isn't worth it anymore). Thats why this challenge is going to be in effect for the remainder of the week. 7 days of resisting anything from prime rib to road kill. Now that sounds like a challenge worth doing, and don't worry, I'll still be doing new things every day as well as attempting this longer term project. We are witnessing history in the making people. This is the first time since the start of this project that one of the challenges required anything more than a 24 hour attention span. That means that this may be a week long endeavor, but it only counts as one day's challenge. I made it through today pretty well. I just had some cereal, potatoes and a bean and cheese burrito. Lets hope that the next 6 days go as smooth.