Its my Veggie-Versary!

Tomato bud in our garden

Today marks one year since I made the decision to stop eating meat. I would quit all animal products, but I like cheese too much. :)

We've been keeping busy the past few weeks working on the condo some more. In our continual effort to organize and streamline our lives we put up new shelving. In the patio closet we installed two sets of Ikea's Aspvik wall shelves. We finally have a nicely organized closet out there and its easy to find things. And yes, that's a machete hanging on the door. Gotta be prepared and all.

An organized patio closet

In the kitchen and adjoining laundry area we installed Ikea's Grundtal wall shelves. I have one shelf over the sink for my cookbooks and a few other items.

The green book is my favorite, Bittman's
"How to Cook Everything Vegetarian"

There's a matching rail on one wall to keep my oven mitts handy. By the way, that picture above the rail is a print of a painting done by my third-grade teacher Mr. V. It always hangs in my kitchen, through all the apartments we've lived in. It makes me happy.


I have two sets of shelves above the dryer/cat feeding station, high enough so that I can hang some of my pots and pans (freeing up cabinet space for my nesting mixing bowls).


There are three sets of shelves above the washer for more storage too.

Ayla always hits the vertical blinds in the living room to notify us that she needs to go out. It gets annoying, especially when she only wants to go out and doesn't need to actually do anything. Its like a kid whining that he's bored. So I took them down and replaced them with Ikea's Kvartal (sensing a theme here?) panel curtain system. I love how low-profile it is, and we can use just one row of the three-panel-deep panels to let light in but still keep our living room private. And Ayla doesn't hit them! She just looks at us now, which is almost as annoying but not as loud. A definite upgrade.

Bonus Mac-booty shot, curly pig tail and all

Other than working furiously on the condo, organizing and sorting and all, we've had a little time for relaxation. I'm geeking out with the Firefly DVDs and loving the show. Too bad it was dropped after 14 episodes. I've been taking walks with a few neighbors on the golf course in the evenings which have been great. Between the three of us we have five dogs, so the pack runs around, plays in the sprinklers, and they wear themselves out while we chat. I also completed the Traveling Roses scarf.

Lace work close-up

It turned out too short due to my yarn substitution choice, but I don't think I've seen my intended recipient wear a scarf so she can use it as a runner or something. Even though the color doesn't photograph well, I think its pretty and I enjoyed the process.

Full-length shot

The last thing I have for now is this:

Lasagna and salad topped with grilled tofu

Lasagna doesn't photograph well either, but this one was made with eggroll wrappers rather than noodles. I have seen a recipe on the wrapper package for lasagna and was intrigued. It was good: I layered it with half marinara and half pesto sauce, as well as ricotta, mozarella, and a little cheddar on top. I made the pesto from our bountiful basil harvesting - its growing like crazy on the patio and in the Aerogarden! The lasagna was a bit doughy for my taste, but I liked the thinner "noodles". I'll have to try fresh noodles next.