Vegan Schmegan.

I’m going to take a moment away from writing in this post. Kind of. Technically speaking, this topic ties into an idea for a book that I have, but I mostly want to focus on how unexpected life can be and how you never know where you’ll be a year, month, let alone a week from now.

Let’s go back to the beginning of this year. A good friend and coworker mentioned that, with the start of 2013, they were going to do a cleansing fast, which called for two weeks of going completely vegan in their diet. I remember goggling, shaking my head, and commenting on how I don’t think I could ever do vegan.

Fast forward five months later, and guess who has three browser tabs up for vegan recipes? This girl.

Yup, that’s right. The same girl who grew up on a farm, who paid for a chunk of her college education by auctioning beef cattle, whose family Sunday drives involved taking cows to the slaughterhouse, who subscribed to every Paleo blog she could find and considered eventually making “meat-za” (wherein the evil carby crust is replaced with meat, meat, and more meat)….is looking at vegan recipes. And eating vegan food. And has stopped drinking regular milk altogether and is stock piling boxes of Almond Dream. What the hell happened?

Well, when I skeptically eyed my friend and thought of mourning a lack of bacon in one’s life, I had no idea that I would soon be embarking on a relationship with someone who hadn’t had bacon in his life for years. He’s made it very clear to me that he doesn’t expect me to be vegan, too, unless I absolutely want to, but the thing is, I definitely want to try. I’m a far cry away from pulling it off, but I’ve been managing to work into my diet a lot more vegan options, usually pulling off at least one completely vegan meal a day.

I was reminded of that moment in January because that same friend to whom I stated I could never do vegan is now handing me recipes recently, and that’s what inspired this post, because I attempted one of them for my weekly Tuesday Vegan Dinner Night. Yup, weekly Vegan Dinner Night. No meat-za here.

It just really shows how much we can change and evolve in a short time. They always say that you shouldn’t do things for other people, and, while I can’t say I’m doing the vegan thing for myself, I know I’m doing it for us. And I’m loving it. I love having something to focus on; I love feeling accomplished when I’m able to really pull out a good vegan day. I love being so incredibly conscious of everything I eat now, too. That’s reflected in the way I write, too, always wanting to focus on something and pushing for it…even if there are some feta-related hiccups on the way.

There also might be a memoir in the making, tentatively titled “The Half-Way Vegan.” It’s what you get when you switch to almond milk in your coffee, but still brew it with CoCo Caramel Sea Salt…

I’m working on it, babe!