“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”   Albert Einstein

Transitioning to a new way of eating takes gumption, dedication, and kindness. Be kind to yourself. Give yourself credit for each step in the right direction. If you make mistakes, learn from them. Realize that mistakes are a sign that you are trying.

Here you will find an encouraging post from Kelly about her struggles during the holiday season.

And just for good measure here is another quote from Einstein (yes, he was a vegetarian):

“Nothing will benefit health or increase chances of survival on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

With that in mind–take it away, Kelly!

Sometimes being bad isn’t so bad ……………

Happy New Year to you all!  I hope the holidays were good to you. I was hoping to start the New Year off by blogging about all the delicious vegan dishes that I had made to bring to all the holiday parties this year. But that didn’t happen this year, for me, that was last year. Last year I helped make several vegan dishes for a vegan Thanksgiving feast. Roasted Brussels sprouts with cranberries, Waldorf salad with apples, broccoli, red onion, edamame, pecans and creamy vegan dressing, roasted sweet potatoes– the works! 

For our New Year’s Eve party, we had a delicious baked potato bar, with cut veggies, spicy black beans, and other vegan toppings . But this year, ugh, this year, between sicknesses, shopping, parties, kids activities, did I mention sicknesses??? and a yoga retreat, I totally dropped the ball. 

And I didn’t want to blog about it. I didn’t want to tell you that I had a hard time this holiday. But I promised to be honest. And here it goes. It was a tough one this year. 

I love the holidays. I love the food, the family and the cozy nights. We still had that. But I wasn’t able to make a lot of my vegan dishes to bring to contribute to the parties. So I didn’t eat as well and I paid for it, big time. My tummy does not like me when I eat dairy or oily foods. It gets mad at me and turns into my enemy. 

When you don’t bring your vegan dish to share at a gathering, the chances are very high that you will eat a dish that has dairy or other unwanted ingredients in it. 

But at home, I still made my family our vegan meals and snacks. It’s just been during the party times I’ve been “bad”. 

I love making oatmeal, homemade vegan chia yogurt, and tofu scramble for breakfast. I make vegan soups, stews, stir fry, wraps,  tacos and pasta dishes for dinner. For lunch, it’s anything goes, left overs from dinner, salads, breakfast items, smoothies, almond butter and jam sandwich, toast and tomatoes with a slice of avocado, or whatever is good to munch on:)

Hey, now that I’m writing all this, I don’t feel so bad about myself. I’ve been dreading telling you about my “holiday mistakes”, I really have. But now I’m realizing that I’m still doing my best to serve healthy foods at home. 

One night during the holiday break, we went to a Coney Island type restaurant, and I had no idea what I’d have besides a salad.  I wanted something more filling. So I saw that they had veggie stir fry, and I saw that they put chickpeas in the Greek salad, so I asked if they would throw some chickpeas on my stir fry. And they did! It was really delicious and filling! 

We had a really nice family dinner that night. And I didn’t even care that we had bought our Christmas tree 3 days before Christmas at a hardware store. And that we only put a few ornaments on it and one string of lights, that the bulbs didn’t even all work. 

We were together. We are happy and have each other. (And the tree was only $11!)

Throw in some air popped popcorn topped with nutritional yeast (my fave) and watching Home Alone (for the millionth time), it was a great Christmas. ❤️🎄

I have a whole year to be better at being bad, I mean good. 

-Here’s to your new year, 

Kelly