Bought Husband Wool Sweater...Damn

My first day of being vegan was September 12, 2010.
Within that first week, I found out about these really cool looking sweaters while at Metro Pet Market. They're from a company called Granted Clothing. Super cool sweaters.

Lebowski

Minus one detail:
Made from wool.      wah wah  
I never bothered looking into the how we get wool.
I saw the sweaters, and I knew Troy would want one.
They are very similar to the sweater that The Dude wears on The Big Lebowski. Very cool!

Speaking of!!
For the last six hallowe'ens we have hosted a costume party because Troy's birthday is the 29th.

Scott(of 'Shannon & Scott', of our adventure friends)usually comes dressed as a drunken pirate.

This year Scott dressed as "The Dude". It was rad! 

Some guy in skull sweater

Back on topic, Alyx!!
I saw the skull sweater and I ordered Troy one for his birthday.
He loves it.
I mean, it's a siwash, and it has skulls!
What's NOT to love?  Again, rhetorical. I don't love that it's made with wool. I'm actually rather irritated. And a bit sad.

This is where I forgive myself for making the mistake. I have learned from this mistake.

You may wonder what the problem with wool is. I wondered the very same thing.

Thankfully, I found the answer on Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's podcast, Vegetarian Food For Thought.
The episode titled, The Shearing of Sheep, told me what the problems are with wool.
I know there are many YouTube videos that talk about this as well, I just really appreciate the way that Colleen delivers the information. Compassionate and truthful.

My next task is to commission someone to knit a vegan sweater with skulls for the love of my life, Troy.
I can do many things, but I don't know how to knit.
I'll start with Etsy.com.

Content Warning

You probably noticed that I recently put a content warning up before you enter my blog.
I did this because I tend to drop the f-bomb here and there.

I feel guilty about a kid(not a baby goat) reading the foul language. I don't know.

What do you think?

I kind of feel like, meh.                       I think I may remove it.

Does it really matter that children see me using that language? Do porn sites even have content warnings? Hmm, probably not . . . it IS porn! Are you really surprised to see naked people???
And how often do kids stumble onto a brain injury blog focused around veganism?? Besides, kids have parents for a reason. So parents, start parenting.
There are way more offensive websites out there.

I was raised by a Catholic, and my understanding is that Catholicism is all about guilt.  

I am not Catholic. I'm not sure what I believe . . .

There's probably nothing to feel guilty about. I mean, my mom taught me to not ring doorbells in case there's a sleeping baby, for crying in the sink!

I am still in the habit of knocking, even when I know that there are NO babies to wake.

I Don't Eat Eggs

It's funny . . . because I did LOVE eggs!
Every way possible!
Egg salad, scrambled, hard-boiled, sunny-side up, over-easy, eggs Benedict, in omelets, in sandwiches, and in bagels(with cheese and salsa!). Loved eggs!

The reason it's funny, is because once I started to associate eggs with the pain and suffering and truly see what they are, I was able to change.
Now when I think about chicken's eggs, I have zero interest or desire to eat them.
I think about all of those birds forced into that tiny 'living' space with other diseased, miserable birds. Forced into those terrible conditions. Only to meet a cold end.
I watched Mercy For Animals' Fowl Play a couple months ago. Very disturbing!
I refuse to give my money to that industry! Well, my taxes still pay to subsidize...but I am not giving them the money that I have a say about! Damn it!!

There are ways of creating the same, or very similar, flavors and textures that I crave. I really and truly don't feel like I've 'given up' or 'sacrificed 'anything for the vegan cause. If I want it bad enough, I'll either find a way to make/get said item, or I'll practice patience and wait till I can have it. It'll be more special, is my thinking.

That being said, my grandmother makes this dessert that is incredibly delicious. My family calls it Hungarian Torta. I love it. My grandma even made some to serve at our wedding.
I think it's so good.
But I grew up with it. Troy doesn't think it's that great. In fact, once he heard the ingredients, he said it's actually a little gross.                 Wah Wah
It is absolutely not vegan. It has a lot of eggs. A lot.
I would love to veganize this torta, but I am lost. I definitely need help.
**I'll post a link to the recipe once I get some more details from my mom. It is the most poorly written recipe that we have ever read! It's so confusing! I have many many questions for my mom, and once she's able to give me more direction, I'll post the recipe. That will be my challenge.
          Veganize this!(see, then I'll post a link there, where it's underlined!)

About six months into my veganism, I watched a video on YouTube, "Best Speech You Will Ever Hear-Gary Yourofsky". It was amazing! 
I bring up this inspiring speech because Gary Yourofsky talks about chicken's eggs. He refers to eggs as 'chicken periods'.
This was mind-wrinkling for me.
Chicken periods?!? Come on, now, they are different!
                       ...once I started to think about it though...

Yes, I realize it's not quite the same as eating human menstrual fluid. 

But it's damn close.

The real difference is that our babies grow inside of us.
For birds, the chick gets all of its nutrients from inside of the egg, while baby humans first get all of their nutrients from the menstrual lining in their mother's uterus. The same thing happens to female chickens as female humans: If the egg is not fertilized, it gets discarded. It leaves the body.

Ta Dah! Eggs and periods. Well, to be completely accurate, for birds, the egg leaves the body either way.

So, yes, eggs are nutritious.
Nutritious for chicken fetuses!
They do have a hell of a lot of cholesterol!
Yes, I realize that we aren't really eating the "unborn fetuses of chickens". They are unfertilized. Still, that's fucking gross.
Chicken periods.

A Vegan Living With A Non-Vegan

I read Skinny Bitch in the spring of 2010.
Once I read that book, I knew my life would be forever changed. I began reading aloud to Troy, the parts that I thought would interest him. I was blown away by a lot of the information, and I figured Troy would be too. It introduced some nutrition and health ideas that we had never heard or even considered before.
How can milk be bad for you?!?

I can't recall exactly how Troy reacted to my announcement that I was becoming vegan. Actually, I can't recall even telling him. It just seemed like the natural next step as I learned more about the food industries.
Well, of course I'm becoming vegan!

He simply asked if I understood that I would have to learn to cook. I said that did occur to me, but I really wanted to try this vegan stuff. He said he was fine as long as he wasn't required to go vegan too.
He wasn't. And isn't.

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, Troy didn't typically cook or eat a lot of plants. Pasta and bread, sure! But his experiences in the kitchen has primarily been preparing parts of dead animals and their secretions, or baking with their secretions.
We learned a megaton that first few months.
I read Troy Skinny Bastard, Eating Animals, The China Study, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows,  and The 30-Day Vegan Challenge over the last year and a bit. Reading aloud has been very helpful in practicing my speech.
If I'm not good at something: practice, practice, practice.
It's good to read books too because it expands your vocabulary. In fact, I credit my fairly large vocabulary(well, it was definitely large before my brain injury)to my learned need to read. Which makes my, sometimes, inaccessible vocab all the more disheartening. There's a lot of words I don't normally say in my regular speech, but it's great practicing how to form sounds together.

Okay, I just read what I wrote, and I sound like a RIDICULOUS NERD!
"It's great practicing how to form..."<mocking tone>
Ugh. <sigh> Seriously though, I know it gets so frustrating when something isn't working. I am guilty of getting entirely too frustrated for many things. I get worked up, and Troy has to tell me to stop shouting while looking for a juicer at Home Outfitters, and it turns into this whole "thing"!
<smirk>
No, it doesn't get that bad, but that is a real example. Usually once Troy's told me to chill out, or to stop shouting, it's alright. I do tend to get more worked up at stores...there's a lot of people...and stuff...
Sorry!
Off topic!      Focus Alyx!!


Troy was very patient with me in his kitchen(let's be honest here, it was his kitchen for the first 4 or 5 years we were married). For the first few months I was learning, he had to cook with me because I would get distracted and completely forget that that burner had been on high for entirely too long, or I forgot to cook the rice, whatever, the point is that I would usually forget something.
It was actually a bit of a safety concern.
Luckily, I am able to focus a bit better, so I can cook and bake and Troy can be at work, and not worry about me burning our house to the ground. Yay Brain!

Troy has been so incredibly patient with me and my brain injury and me being vegan. That's the best word to describe Troy. Patient. 
I'm sure he would disagree with that assessment, but . . . he would be wrong.
He's patient.
He understood when I told him we wouldn't be buying animals or products made from animal parts. It took about 6 months of me being vegan for me to finally persuade him to give his parents our frozen cow carcass pieces.

I tell him everything I know.
Okay not everything, because sometimes I can't convince him to take the time to listen to a podcast, or watch a documentary. I don't feel confident in my ability to express some of  these ideas, and certainly not as beautifully or poignantly as these podcast hosts or documentarians(it's a word now).
But most things he'll give a chance. He watches most documentaries with me, if I'm willing to wait for him to be ready. (Or sometimes, I can't wait, so I watch without him. Then I just watch again with him later-doesn't matter to me, it's good to see what I missed.) Sometimes he'll want to watch the moment I suggest it, but other times it takes longer. That's fine. Took me over a year to watch Earthlings.

For reading, Troy doesn't like it much. He does read comic books, excuse me, graphic novels. 
Personally, I LOVE reading!! I am more than pleased to read my vegan library aloud to him as he's drawing(he's a really good drawer!).

It's been established that no non-vegan food in the house. Food at home is vegan. Troy also takes vegan lunches to work. When we go out, Troy does eat animals.
He regularly goes a month or two not eating them, then when we're in a family/social situation, he eats animals. He feels like poop for 2 days afterward, so he definitely sees the absolute health benefits.
Give him time. He'll wake up.