Back From the Holidays

The past two weeks have been very busy. The trip over 299 to my parents house was alright, we ran into some snow and ice, and lots of rain, but David and I both made it over and to Red Bluff just fine.

Christmas was pretty relaxed, and for a Christmas that we had agreed would be no presents, everybody got some really good gifts. I gave baskets of homemade/canned applesauce, blueberry syrup, and bread and butter pickles, as well as some loose leaf tea, candy cane sugar scrub, and a cookbook of my favorite recipes. I also put together a CD of some vegan podcasts for my grammy so that she could see (or hear) that I'm eating a healthy diet. My mom and I made vegan truffles, but they didn't end up in the baskets because I forgot to grab them from the fridge on Christmas day, so I had to eat them all myself. Darn.

For Christmas dinner, I ended up making everything I planned on. We also had stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, rolls, and there was turkey for the rest of the family. Everything turned out really good, and besides from a small incident, everyone got along real well and I for one thought the day was very nice.

We would have taken the next few days to relax, but my little sister has decided that it is time for her to move away from home, so we spent the next several days getting her packed up (and fighting, and bickering, and being upset and pissy....). On the 1st, we set out on a nine hour drive to San Luis Obispo. We unpacked her into her new home (that she's sharing with five other girls), took her to dinner, and then took off. Mom, Dad, and I left first thing yesterday morning for an eight hour drive home. I feel like we left under bad terms, but I think I'm the only one that feels that way, at least at this end of California.

My grades posted the day after Christmas. I earned two A's, two C's, and a credit for a PE class. I'm not exactly happy, but I passed Physics and Chemistry, so they are out of the way and I can focus on next semester, which will be even worse than this one was. I'm already looking forward to summer break.

I had blood drawn at the doctor's while I was home to finally get this diabetes thing put to rest. They did an A1C and a thyroid test, as well as a regular blood work-up. After a little confusion (they lost my blood work), I received a phone call yesterday with the results. I haven't gotten the exact numbers yet, but they said everything was perfect except my iron was a little on the low side of normal. I'm assuming that means that I lowered my cholesterol and lipid levels from what they were in February. The doctor said my iron level was nothing a supplement or two, or a week or so of some iron heavy foods wouldn't fix. So good news; I don't have diabetes or anything wrong with my thyroid. Bad news; there's still no reason I should be this overweight or gain weight so easily. Maybe that's just how my body is, but I'd still like to look for a medical reason before I resign my self to a lifetime of obesity.

Well, I think that brings everyone up to speed. I spent some time thinking about my words for 2009, but I'll do a separate post for that.

Going on the Big Trip

Tomorrow my sister and I are leaving on our month long road trip up the Pacific coast to Alaska. I won't be posting anything to this blog until we get back home, but I will post updates about our trip in a journal dedicated solely to the trip.


Bye for now!

Relaxing at the 'Rents

I have been at my parents' house the last couple of weeks, and so have not been posting. All of the meals I've been making have been repeats of the best things I've made since the last time I was down here. That way I get to impress everyone with my yummy vegan food. Even my dad has liked most of it, although 99.9% of the time he claims the meal would be better with meat.

I did try a couple new recipes though. The lemon bars from The Joy of Vegan Baking are very good, and pretty simple to make. The lemon cheesecake from the same book would have been excellent, but when we bought the Tofutti cream cheese, we picked up the herbed kind and didn't notice until too late. It's not bad, a little weird tasting, but I think with some little adjustments it might actually make a really good savory cheese cake. I also made up a crunchy chocolate truffle pie, which had a little too much peanut butter in it for my taste, but it was still very good and all the omnivores it's been served to have liked it.

We experimented last night with a veggie lasagna made with the vegan alfredo sauce I blogged about before. In a compromise with the family, I made it with mozzarella cheese. It came out pretty good, but still needs some tweaking. More veggies, more flavor in the sauce, and some Teese should do the trick.

Now I'm focusing on finishing up my sister's late graduation gift, a cookbook with all of my best vegan and vegetarian recipes (she's lacto-ovo vegetarian). I also want to look up good vegan restaurants along the route of our up-coming Great Alaska Adventure, with stops in Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Juneau, Anchorage, Denali National Park, Fairbanks, and many little towns in British Columbia. I should probably find some good and cheap camping recipes. Any recommendations?