typealice

Since Ash is a vegetarian and I don’t want him eating all of the soy crap – fake meat – that I do, I’ve had to look at alternatives for him to get his protein. Quinoa and brown rice instead of white sticky rice in his favorite meal of all time- sushi, chick peas, kidney beans and most recently lentils.

I have been vegetarian for ten years this coming May, but only gave up meat once the fake stuff came onto the market. At the time I didn’t like tofu, and still wanted the substance and texture that meat offered, so as soon as Yves was readily available in the grocery store, I was all done with meat. I’m definitely not vegetarian for the health reasons- I’m a vegetarian for the guilt of it. If I don’t have to take part in the death of an animal for any reason, I will choose the alternative, thank you very much.

I don’t remember ever eating lentils, though I probably have in soups or in some sort of recipe my vegetarian mother forced on us as children. I had no idea how to prepare them, so I just boiled the crap out of some organic red lentils and gave them to Ash with a spoon. He likes them. I had lots and lots and lots of leftovers, so I made a soup out of them and FELL IN LOVE.

Simple:
approx 1.5c cooked-the-crap-out-of red lentils
2+c veggie soup stock
1/2 diced onion
1/2 tsp cumin

Boil till you can’t boil no more. Add more water as necessary and your desired consistency. I love the boiled onion bits the best.

I tried to make it again tonight but only had green lentils, and they have some kind of shell that makes them keep their shape and so I’m just kind of eating boiled, seasoned lentils instead of a lentil soup. It’s still yummy. In fact, it’s 10pm and I’m eating them cold. Along with a glass of super sweet white wine.

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Ash had his allergy testing yesterday including a skin test and it showed that he doesn’t have any type one allergies. Not sure what that means, but basically it’s a good thing and hopefully he’ll grow out of his sensitivities (animal milk, oats, banana and cashmere) by the time he’s three. We go in for a “banana challenge” in a couple of months- Monday morning he eats a banana in front of them, and Tuesday morning we go back to show them his congestion and eczema spots. Should be interesting.

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My landlord came in on Sunday and washed the walls in our bedroom (the nicotine stains), primed and did a first layer of paint. She did them all so close together that the wallpaper underneath bubbled even more and the paint literally dripped off the walls onto the floor because she hadn’t waited long enough between coats. Oh well, it’s not my floor.

She came back yesterday to do a final coat and I came home to the absolute STENCH of oil-based paint. We camped out in the living room last night and suffered through the fumes. I don’t know why oil-based paint was chosen, but I thought it was a pretty lousy thing to do in the middle of winter and no airflow in our house. Our entire bedroom is in our living room. I have a LOT of cleaning to do tomorrow now that the paint is (hopefully) dry.

She asked me outright if I’ll be renewing my lease in August and I had to tell her no. The rent is stupidly high in comparison to other places in this neighbourhood, there’s no parking (and there’s a parking ban until the END OF MARCH where we’re not allowed to park on ANY street in the ENTIRE CITY at night!), and the windows suck so bad all of our expensive heat just goes out the window. Our thermostats are set at 15 all day long (and lower at night) and we’re bundled up in lots of layers all day and all night. Clive sleeps fully clothed with his hoodie hood on his head at night. Seriously.

I kind of wish she hadn’t asked me because it’s like when you’re in a relationship with someone and you both know you’re going to break up at some point so how hard do you really try to make it work? You don’t. You’re just in it for the good sex or whatever, ya know?

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I’ve been pretty good about turning out a purse-a-day for the past five or six days. This weekend we hope to have a photoshoot so I can stick them on Etsy. I may put them on my old typealice account and keep G Slings primarily as a baby shop. I love the colour contrast of this purse. It’s so much better in real life, too.

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