Thanks for that info, Ren!
So pretty much I need to start eating lots of rice varieties with beans, as well as more veggies (salads)? What on earth is a legume (probably a dumb question). I will have to go and check out our only health food store and see how much their rice and beans are in the bulk canisters.
I'm just really scared that I won't get "everything I need" because I am a picky eater and I guess "bland" food just doesn't sound good. I really love making homemade black beans burgers (eat them between leafs of lettuce and pile on the veggies) and I suppose Ryan and I can make healthier mexican food (no more refried beans and goodbye to cheese).
I did have a crunchy peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread this morning, which filled me up just as much as eating an egg would have.
One of the hardest parts of being a vegetarian is when you are at work and someone orders pizza and its piled high with meat (that happened today), or you go to a pot luck and everything is meat, oooooor you have family that doesn't quite get the fact that you don't even want little itty bitty bits of ham that are chopped up in a salad. My parents finally started making me all veggie meals when we come over, but I think they'd be clueless when it comes to vegan meals.
I guess I need to just keep researching over the next month (before the farmers market comes to town), so that I can slowly weed out the cheese and start getting used to "bland food"
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On a side note....
Today at school I had to groom a Humane Society dog - he was a Lahsa named "Sebastian". My goodness I wanted to just cry and run away with him in my arms. I feel good knowing I make needy dogs feel better, but its so emotionally hard
. Sebastian had really long hair that was matted right down to his skin....you couldn't even tell he even had ears! The poor guy was really good while I was shaving the thick matted "coat" off, but he was very touchy and cried/bit a lot when I got near his legs & feet. He must have been fed a kibble mostly made up of corn at his previous home, because he had bright yellow poop dried all over his back end...it was soooo matted to his skin. He also must have just been locked into a small kennel and left to run around in his feces because all 4 feet were stained that nasty bright yellow color.
Once I got his matted coat off he went straight into the tub. I used a whitening shampoo to try to get the bright yellow poop staining off, but after washing him 4 times the stain was still there! I could tell Seb was feeling better while I was washing him because all he wanted to go was give me kisses.
I got him out of the tub and high velocity dried him (which he was really good about)....then I fluff dried him with the stand drier and put him back outside in a dog run to give him a break since I had another dog to get done.
When I went back outside to grab Seb he was soooo excited to see me! So much more of a difference between him nasty matted and all clean. I got him back onto my table and started to shave him down to even his coat out...he was still very touchy about his legs (back ones specifically). Once he was shaved down I started trimming up his face and he was giving me "that look"....you know the look where shelter dogs are telling you "PLEASE TAKE ME HOME BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!!!". Ugh.....it just killed me. After his face was all trimmed and perfect (hehe, as best as a newbie groomer could do!).....I had to clip his nails. Well, he was biting and screaming when I was touching his back legs, so my instructor came over and took a look....come to find out, his dew claws (hadn't been removed as a pup) had grown so long and curled that they embedded themselves into his dew claw pad :grumpy::tears2:....my instructor cut his dew nail while I held him down, mind you he was screaming bloody murder because it hurt so bad. Well....his dew pads were purple from lack of circulation and were bleeding/oozing.
At that point I started tearing up pretty bad.....I just felt to bad for the little guy knowing I helped him feel better and he trusted me and obviously bonded to me during the day while I groomed him....and then he had to leave and go back to a shelter where his fate is unknown and he'd never again see the nice lady who made him feel better :tears2:. God, I am crying just typing this.....I can't get his sad adorable face out of my head.
He also had hematoma in his ears - which is where a dog keeps shaking their head and it pops a blood vessel and they have to perform surgery to drain the blood (quite a process, apparently). So, now I am sitting here wondering if they are going to get his medical issues taken care of or are they just going to have him put to sleep?
I wish I could take Seb home and give him all of the love and care in the world that he obviously never had......but I just shouldn't. I know I CAN do it....but what happens when the next pitiful dog comes in and I fall in love all over again? I just can't take them all home. I'm just upset because I really bonded to this dog and he bonded to me and I feel like I failed him because he has to go back to a cold cement floor in a kennel with lots of barking big dogs.
Ughhhhh....I'm going to keep checking the shelter and will call about him because I want to know if he gets adopted. The shelter here is secretive and will probably tell me he got adopted but they really put him to sleep, so thats the tough part. The only real way of knowing he's safe is if I adopt him myself. The shelter has a 70% success rate, but those are all the healthy adoptable dogs....who knows about the ones with even little medical issues, mild aggression, and really old dogs.
:tears2::tears2::tears2::tears2::tears2:
