About Me

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I'm Shelly, a nature-worshipper, animal lover, mom, yogini, and adventure-seeker living in the great Northwest US! I share my life with an amazingly strong, kind man and a beautiful, compassionate and hilarious daughter. In 2009, we embarked on a new path of veganism, and are eating so many delicious, healthy foods, feeling great and finding the transition to be easy, exciting and fun! We also have the wanderlust! So this blog will include our journeys around the world!

Monday, July 26, 2010

Mad as hell at Dairy industry

This is what I just posted on Facebook:
Bawling my eyes out. Just watched the most horrific video of animal brutality I have ever seen on You Tube, of Conklin Farm in Ohio. If you can, watch it, and send a note to this man, asking him to stop (the main abuser was arrested and fired, but Conklin himself is also in the video committing acts of abuse). Just another reason I will not support the dairy industry. Please don't kid yourself if you think this doesn't go on...

Johnson Ⓥ I know that some of you will say that "this isn't the norm". That may be true, I don't know, I am not aware of what all goes on as far as horrific abuse on most farms. I do know that this one did happen, it's on this video and it is horrifi...c. I also know that innocent cows on dairy farms are continuously impregnanted every year, so that they can be hooked up to machines and milked, so that humans can have what was intended for the calf that was ripped away from it's mother soon after it was born. ( I have seen cows and calves wailing for each other when they are separated, it is no different than if you took a human's baby away.) The cows are given hormones to make them produce so much milk that their udders are painfully enlarged, often to the point of infection called mastitis (which makes udders pus-ridden and bloody), and this is treated with... antibiotics. They are simply milk machines. Is this not abuse??

Thursday, July 22, 2010

yoga

Did an hour of yoga tonight...because I needed to, and to help me sleep...but I am still awake! I was lying there thinking of something I read in Yoga journal that I think is so profoundly brilliant. It is regarding envy, and here is an excerpt:

"Forget about the person you envy. Forget about what she has that you wish were yours. Look instead at the energy that feeling is made of, and you'll notice that nothing in the feeling has any real solidity. Perhaps, at that moment, you might open to the insight that the energy forming and dissolving within your mind and heart is not really separate from the energy around you. Perhaps, at that moment, you might realize that the person you envy is not really someone separate from you; that you lack nothing because you are, at your deepest core, part of a vast field of energy that contains potentially everything you could ever want or need."

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Suz and Nana's birthday parties





Had a super fun weekend! Started out at the Farmer's market, where we bought a flat of berries, $26 dollars worth of blueberries, raspberries and yummy boysenberries! Then went home and had them on pancakes! (froze the rest for smoothie pops in our new popsicle maker!)
Cindi made Jossy a little apron and sent it in the mail...there's Jossy cookin' in her little kitchen!
Suz had a fun BBQ at her house yesterday. We all got to hang out in her newly landscaped beautiful backyard. We ate and chatted, hit a pinata with the kids, danced and laughed as usual. Love that funky disco music! Jossy danced until she fell down and skinned her knee.
Then today Steve and Karen had everyone over for a pool party for Nana, but we also sang to Suz since today was really her birthday. It was really fun and great to get together with the whole family. After Jossy went to bed, I took Suz out for a couple martinis tonight at Bardenay downtown. It was nice to talk just the two of us. Jossy is restless in her sleep tonight, probably from too many jellybeans at the party, she called them "beans" and wanted to eat a ton of them!
Tomorrow we have swimming lessons. She is doing great, learning how to get in and out of the pool and kick her feet; and we are working on blowing bubbles but she keeps drinking the water instead!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

4th of July with my fam

Went to Tamarack and rented a great house with Mom, Suz and Lex and Taylor. We had a blast! The house had a hot tub, a wrap-around porch with a view of a gorgeous meadow and the lake in the distance and an outside fireplace, and plenty of room. We played Dance Revolution on the wii, ate and laughed, roasted marshmallows (ours were yummy vegan coconut ones!) hiked, and went to the lake. Suz rented a jet-ski and we hung out on a small sandy beach all day on the 4th. We watched the fireworks on the lake from the deck. I had planned every meal, and made stuff ahead of time, so we could do more relaxing and less cooking! It turned out great! We had french toast, sticky buns, pesto pasta, and spinach salad with maple sugared pecans and craisins. Suz and Mom brought bacon and chicken and stuff and I wasn't even tempted by the bacon. Jossy and I did have an egg, only because Mom got them from her co-worker from his very small farm, and they were good. It was really an incredible time, so much fun!!!