Monthly Archives: October 2008

Action Alerts, All about books, Animal Rights and Veganism, Current events, In the News, Writing Corner

NaNoWriMo 2008… and free Thanksgiving Recipe flyers!

Okay, first things first.In the interest of not neglecting my obligatory mini activism for the month, you may print out your free flyers here. The Thanksgiving one is very simple. You print out both sides and then cut the paper in half. When you see it, you’ll understand. You should get 2 flyers out of each sheet of paper. They have enough simple vegan recipes to make a nice Thanksgiving meal.

If it’s in your budget, for $20 you can “Adopt a Turkey” at Farm Sanctuary. The money helps the sanctuary care for the animals. The sponsored turkeys get a nice Thanksgiving meal before they are taken to their new adopted homes.

***Now on to NaNoWriMo!

To be honest, I had no intention of doing this for 2008. I had decided in the past month that I just had too much on my plate to squeeze it in. I had no definite plot ideas like I did last year, and I was not feeling particularly motivated. However, after reading about the people who squeezed it in despite working on doctorate thesis and working another job, I felt a little guilty and so I decided to go for it.

It’s fun. I just didn’t feel like I had a right to make time for myself when I had other things to work on. But you know what? Everyone needs some time to themselves. Plus, I remember that last year I actually felt more productive overall when my time was constrained working on Nano.

Oh, wait… You don’t know what Nano is? I’m sorry, let me rewind a bit. NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. For the month of November, you challenge yourself to write a complete 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Start at Midnight the beginning of the first day and finish by Midnight of the last day of November. The novel cannot be something you’ve worked on previously. It has to be from scratch and have a beginning, middle, and (hopefully) an end. Other than that, the sky’s the limit. Want to write about aliens kidnapping Queen Elizabeth and replacing her with Herbert Hoover? That’s fine! As long as it’s begun on November 1st and (hopefully) the plot is resolved with at least 50,000 words by the 30th, you’re gold.

The Office of Letters and Light created free programs such as National Novel Writing Month to help spark a lifelong love of writing in children and adults around the world. If you would like to sponsor my Novel, the proceeds would go to this wonderful organization. Please go here to sponsor my Novel. :)

I’ve stocked up on sugar and caffeine, soda and chips, and fingerless gloves. I even have my Typewriter Snoopy to inspire me. Never underestimate the power of large amounts of caffeine and a writing mascot. Once this blog is posted, I’ll be off participating in the literary abandon of high speed novelling!

I usually try to update this webpage weekly, but holiday season is the exception. This post will probably stay up for the month for 2 reasons. Reason One is to highlight the Thanksgiving flyers so more people will be able to download them. Hopefully, at least a few will use the recipes and save a turkey’s life. Reason Two is that I’m devoting my extra time to increasing my word count for NaNoWriMo instead of posting here. The two issues of this post are relevant for the whole month anyway. If I can either figure it out or ask hubby to do it, I might add word count widgets to the page (just in case anyone other than myself is interested). If not, you can always check my word count at my Nano page here.

Happy Thanksgiving, and see you in December!

***

For past posts concerning last year’s Nano novelling experience, please check out:

Nanowrimo 2007 Next Month!

Nanowrimo 2007 Winner!

Writer’s Cafe (the program) and other technical writing tools.

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Action Alerts, Animal Rights and Veganism, Current events, Human Rights, In the News

A Vegan Parent's Survival Guide to Halloween!

It’s that time of year again. Time to put up cobwebs instead of sweeping them away. Time to stay up late watching scary movies instead of going to bed at a sensible hour. And, of course, time to Trick or Treat!

Now, speaking as a rabid raving Halloween lover, I have to tell you that I’ve given this quite a bit of thought. At first, you might think that it’s nearly impossible for vegan kids to get (let’s face it) butt loads of candy and treats that they can actually consume – Not to mention what the beleaguered vegan can give to greedy little Trick or Treaters that come a knockin’ October 31st. But never fear, it’s not really hard. It just requires a little foresight and planning.

For one thing, if you want to try to avoid the whole “getting non vegan treats” from well meaning omni friends and family, you can always have a party in your home. That way you control the games and the types of treats the kids are given. One year we had a costume party for my son’s birthday, and it ran along the same lines as Halloween. For starters, I put out a large box full of dress up items like funny hats and plastic googley eyed glasses (which was a big hit)! To get their goody bags, they had to go on a scavenger hunt with lots of clues sending them all over the house.

It’s not expensive to create vegan goody bags filled with vegan jelly beans, assorted non chocolate candies and a few inexpensive toys. At party stores you can usually buy bags of toys to give away such as spider rings, bouncy balls, marbles, and mini card games. If you’re feeling especially generous, you could maybe buy a slave free chocolate bar (such as Newman’s Dark Orange Chocolate) for each child. Another time tested idea is to have your little ones Trick or Treat for a charity like UNICEF. Again, as long as they get goodies at home from you, they shouldn’t be disappointed.

The party idea might work for younger children, but once those vegan tykes are old enough to go to school I’m fairly confident they’re going to be besieged with treats that you wouldn’t want in your home. How do you deal with this tactfully? Do you make a point of returning the candy? That’s really up to you. Personally, I’d at least explain why the child can not have the intended treats, if possible before hand so as to avoid any hurt feelings.

Let’s just cut to the chase and say that, despite your best efforts, you’re child comes home with a bag full of non vegan candy and slave chocolate. What do you do? How do you handle this without the child being disappointed? I assure you, I’ve given this quite a bit of thought.

From my own experience and also that of some other vegan parents, the ol’ switcheroo seems to work nicely. Basically, your child brings home their “goodies” but you offer (give) them in exchange a much better bag of vegan ethical goodies that no kid in their right mind would refuse. The trick is to make YOUR goody bag much more appealing than anything they would bring home. So far this year, my son’s exchange-bag-o-goodies includes 3 of his favorite candy bars, some snack bars, a mini notebook (a guaranteed favorite as he loves to draw constantly), and a monster hand puppet. I plan on getting a few more things here and there over the next few weeks; Maybe some little bags of chips and some vegan jelly beans. I might even throw in a pack of Chaotic cards and a Tech Deck (he collects them). Whatever your child is interested in or collects that isn’t too pricey would be a good choice. And, of course, I will let him keep any vegan candies he does happen to collect. The exchange only applies to the non vegan ones.

So enjoy your Halloween without taking a “holiday” from your ethics. And, of course, have a BOO-tiful Holiday!

***

Below are some links for Fair Trade vegan chocolates and jelly beans:

http://veganstore.com/sjaaks-organic…age_1/810.html

http://veganstore.com/vegansweets-je…age_1/842.html

**In the interest of full disclosure, the past Halloweens my son was vegetarian but not vegan. So he was able to “keep” a greater percentage of the candies he was given. This Halloween will be his first completely Vegan Halloween. I asked him about the exchange bag though,and he’s very excited about it! Also, the other vegan parents I’ve communicated with tell me this method works well for their own children. :)

**Also, please check out the Free Pamphlets page I posted (always found on the right column underneath the page search engine) for some literature to give out before the Holiday. Thanks!

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Recipes

Recipe: Dilled Puree'd Lima Beans

As a little girl, I never was fond of beans. I’m not talking about regular ol’ string beans, but BEANS beans if you know what I mean. You don’t? Well then, I guess I’ll have to explain. The little roundish beans of infinite variety – everything from black beans and pinto beans all the way to (gasp) LIMA BEANS. Honestly, I don’t even remember if I’d ever had Lima Beans as a little girl, but that didn’t stop me from hating them anyway just out of principle.

So, you can imagine the enthusiasm with which I greeted my husband’s offer to make Dilled Puree’d Lima Beans one Thanksgiving several years ago.

Yes, I’m sure you can.

But I was wrong! So wrong I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong I was… They’re something like the consistency of mashed potatoes, all “buttery” and creamy richness. I loved them, so if I, of all people, loved them I’m sure you will too.

Dilled Puree’d Lima Beans

You will need:

Lima Beans (obviously)

nondairy margarine (such as Earth balance or Smart Balance light with Flax oil)

dried dill

lemon juice

salt and pepper

Instructions:

Cook lima beans according to package directions. When done,drain and put in food processor.

Add remaining ingredients in the following order : margarine, dill, lemon juice, salt and pepper. I’m not going to give you hard and fast amounts because its really up to your taste, and I never got the recipe from hubby so I just winged it anyway. :) But I usually use 2-4 Tab of margarine, 1-2 Tab dill, a few squirts of juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

Puree’ til the consistency of thick mashed potatoes.

Enjoy!

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