Weekend List

Happy, relaxing weekend! It is nice to have a little down time after a busy week. Miko and Smokey love couch time with hubby.

Leela is happy to have her cuddle cube bed all to herself.

Until she claimed the mountain of warm, clean blankets that came out of the dryer from our camping trip.

I’ve been starting a new habit in the mornings of taking the dogs for a longish walk before I go to work, it’s better for them to get in a little exercise and empty out more before being in the house for a few hours versus a quick outing in the backyard. It’s also good for me to get a little fresh air before being stuck in an office for hours. And we get to watch the geese that have set up a colony in the field nearby.

It’s been a lot of simple salads this week with a busy schedule like this one with a spicy almond butter carrot dressing and a rainbow of veggies.

The leftovers made a great lunch the next day with watermelon.

But there has been a little splurging too, we went out for Thai Friday where I got this tasty and spicy vegan coconut curry tofu dish.

The sauce was a spicy coconut tomato curry gravy that was fabulous, I need to recreate an oil free version soon.

I got a little crazy with the Da Kine Hawaiian Coffee seasoning blend my sister brought back for us from Hawaii recently with kona coffee in the salt and seasoning blend.

It was great on a tempeh cucumber salad with a little apple cider vinegar and nutritional yeast.

And  I made a simple lentil quinoa stew last night with broccoli, celery, and onions seasoned with miso paste, curry powder, cumin, and dried cilantro.

Very good and hearty! Looking forward to the leftovers for a simple meal today.

Today I’ll be attempting another long run, going to my happy place – Whole Foods, and finally catching up on laundry for the week. But first, the list:

Here’s 12 great things about practicing gratitude to start the week off right.

And 7 psychological hacks to help survive the week.

I’m fascinated with Mayim Bialik and have been since watching her in Blossom as a teen and currently in Big Bang Theory. She’s highly educated, vegan, down-to-earth, and seemingly unfazed by social and Hollywood pressures.  She has a new blog, Grok Nation, where she openly talks about everything – divorce, race, current events, politics, etc. The posts are quick and insightful reads, so add it to your news reader.

David Carter, the 300 lb. vegan Chicago Bears defensive linebacker, share’s his daily food intake here. I love lunch #1 and # 2.

UFC fighter Mark Hunt is also a vegan heavyweight and I am loving these muscle vegan super athletes proving you can be a strong bad ass without consuming animal lives. And here are more vegan bad asses!

This is a quick read on a high, but not 100% vegan lifestyle. Sure, 100% is awesome, but I consider anyone eating less animal products a win for their health and environment too and would never call someone out for not being totally plant based. Rather use that to build on the positives of the lifestyle.

Downton Abbey star Peter Egan has opened a vegan charity shop which is rad and one of these days I will start watching Downton Abbey.

Here’s recipe overload for vegan versions of comfort foods. The raw vegan Oreos look divine.

So do these Balsamic Caramel Swirl Bars.

And this Pumpkin Chickpea Soup because Fall is around the corner!

This Banana Split Smoothie Bowl would be good any time of the year.

Finally this women is living completely plastic-free. I’ll admit, it’s not an easy lifestyle. Making my own cosmetics and cleaners sounds romantic, but making time for it is another story. But there’s a lot of inspiration here to reduce plastic use and become less dependent on it.