Life As A Veggie

Bucket list #4: Tour through Greece!

7:00 AM
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Bucket list #3: Learn sign language.

8:00 AM
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How to make vegetable milks! (The simple and easy way).

When you are lactose intolerant, trying to go vegan or just think cow's milk is too unhealthy for you to consume, you usually try to find a healthier alternative, and the first thing that pops up most of the time is vegetable milk. Vegetable milks are milks that are made out of vegetable, like grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. I'm gonna be posting the two with the easiest ingredients to find here in Venezuela, which are rice and oats.

As I have heard from many vegans I have had the pleasure of speaking with over time, sometimes the thing about some commercial vegetable milk brands is that they are enriched with sinthetic vitamins and minerals or are made out of GMO veggies, and it is no secret that no good comes from GMO's or sinthetic stuff.

So, we go for the safe, homemade stuff. You're gonna need a few things for this (Besides a trip to the supermarket):

Blender
Measuring cup
Mason Jar or Thermus (For storage)
Medium sized bowl

For the Oat milk you'll need:

One cup oats
Three cups water

Instructions:

First off, you're going to have to soak your oats. You need to soak them for at least 20 minutes. After that, rinse them and wash them to get off any oat slime that might have apeared during the soaking.
Place the oats along with the three cups of water in the blender and blend for about 30 seconds.
Strain the oat/water mixture through a cheesecloth, store in a mason jar and enjoy!

For the Rice milk you'll need:

One cup of brown or white rice (Brown would be the healthier choice but the milk will probably be thinner)
Four cups of water
Sugar, stevia, agave syrup or any other sweetener of your choice.

Instructions:

First, you put the rice and the water on the stove and cook the rice until it's really soft.
Put the rice and the water in a blender.
When the rice is completely blended, strain it through a cheese cloth,
Put it in a mason jar or thermus (It has to be an airtight conteiner since rice milk picks up odors from other foods), add whatever sweetener you prefer and store in the fridge.

As always, I hope you liked this post. It is wonderful to share these things with my readers. Stay tuned for more posts and stay awesome!

7:00 AM
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Bucket List #2: Vegan macarons!

Bucket list

The day I discovered Aquafaba I realized I had a higher chance of going back to Miami than finding any kind of chickpea in Venezuela. This miraculous liquid that made most of my wildest dreams come true (Vegan lemon meringue pie, vegan lemon meringue cupcakes, puffy and light vegan yellow cakes, perfect brownies, amazing VEGAN MACARONS) was pretty much nowhere to be found and I after much thought I found myself asking my mom for permission to use the ONLY CAN of chickpeas we had left in the house for a little aquafaba experiment. I was planning to make something simple: Vegan meringues. I thought to myself "Well, If there are people that manage to make them with hand mixers, I can totally pull it off with the kitchen aid!". So I opened my can of chickpeas, put the aquafaba in the kitchen aid, ate half of the chickpeas and began to mix that motherflecker in medium speed for about 5 minutes, then high speed for about 10 minutes. I added powdered sugar, set them on a baking sheet and baked them according to instructions. This was my result:

My meringues totally sank. I ended up with these little sugar cookies that no one ate because they were soooooo sweet! Sadly, I had to throw them away.

Even though my first aquafaba experiment was an utter fail, I really hope that someday I'm able to learn and succeed in vegan macaron baking. Have any of you seen macarons? Those things just yell "Eat me! I'm as delicious as I look!". I've never had any, but gosh if I ever got the chance to use aquafaba ever again I would totally try and make macarons. So, if any of you lovely readers are anxious to see a vegan macaron in the making, check out this video Step-by-step Vegan Macarons and this webpage Vegan Macaron Troubleshooting so you can bravely face any problems you might encounter in your vegan macaron baking adventure! Happy baking!!

*So, this is my second Bucket List post. I'll be doing a ton of them but not precisely in order so I might make a random post between each part of the Bucket List. AND those amazing macaron pictures aren't mine. Just sayin'*

As always, thanks a ton for reading! Stay awesome!

7:30 AM
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Bucket List #1: New York City.

Bucket list

As some of you know, I live in Venezuela. Yeah, that really beautiful, warm country in South America with a bad management problem. Certain circumstances have made it extremely difficult for me to travel, but do I let that stop me? NO! One thing I've come to understand in my very short life is that things change, situations change, people chance, etc. I force myself daily to think in a positive manner, even though it gets a lot harder whenever I'm outside in the real world. When you go outside and see mostly misery, hunger, poverty, etc; all those good thoughts you managed to work up slip away like water between your fingers. The real challenge is keeping them and thinking about yourself and your dreams. That's the reason for a new post series I thought up: My Bucket List!

I have always been a dreamer, I want to do amazing things with my life, I want to help animals and people alike, I want to travel, I want to cause a change in the world, I want to give myself completely to what I believe in. Most of all I want to be a really old lady and feel super awesome because I did everything I wanted to do. One of those things is to visit New York City. These are the things I need to do when I go:

Walk hand in hand with my boyfriend through Central Park.
Ride the subway.
Visit the Empire State Building.
Visit the 9/11 Tribute Center (I was living in the States on september 11, 2001 and I've always felt deep respect for everyone who was involved in that tragedy.)
Steal a cab from someone who needs it more than me (How I Met Your Mother Reference)
Visit the Statue of Liberty.
Drive across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Visit the American Museum of Natural History.
Eat as many vegan cheesecakes as I can!

Obviously when I get there I'm gonna do more things, but just with these I would feel accomplished! I hope I get to do all of these things someday!

Also, I'm a huge Suits fan, so everytime I listen to the theme song I immediately think about NYC. You can listen to it here:

So, where would you guys and gals love to go? Share your comments on the comment section below! As always, thank you for reading! Stay awesome!

8:00 AM
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Blog revamp + Life update.

Life update

Hello there! Remember me? Legend says I used to post on this blog. Well, wait no more! I am back! With a really interesting life update. This year has been extremely amazing. I finished my career last month, now I'm an attorney (Frick yes!). I am extremely satisfied, since I got to finish my career at 21, with a post-graduate course and with a job. Oh yeah! This young lady finally (and after months searching) HAS A JOB. A real job! And it's not only A JOB, no no no. It's an amazing job at an amazing international Law Firm. When I started my career I thought that speaking english would do me no good but turns out I was wrong! It got me a fantastic job at a fantastic firm that is currently giving me training for international legal practice. Just when I didn't think things could get any better, I got a chance to be an english teacher at an up-and-coming national project. So that's pretty awesome too. Oh! And my big sister is getting married, so THAT'S FRICKING AMAZING AND I'M SO SO SO SO HAPPY!

I've actually felt a bit overwhelmed at all of the good things and opportunities that life has been throwing at my face lately. Literally, so many things are going on that I feel unable to focus. So, to clear my head and help myself out I've started a clean eating challenge, I spoke to a nutritionist about my eating habits, I started working out and meditating every day. I figure that things might not always stay this way, so I am doing the best I can in most aspects of my life to be able to find myself and give myself support in case I need it.

Since so much has been going on, I decided to come back to my little personal space in the internet and keep track of things. Consequently, I revamped this whole blog to fit a changed-and-grown-up version of me. I loved the background from the moment I saw it and changed everything to match it. I feel it's much more classy than my last background; which was also awesome but a bit too colorful now that I think about it. Besides, who doesn't love vintage roses? They're so pretty! So, since this is kind of like a new beginning for my blog, I'm gonna be making a list of posts to keep it active and to keep myself motivated.

As always, thank you so much for reading! And remember, stay awesome!

8:00 AM
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2014 Book list and reviews.

book list

So, I'm back guys. I couldn't let the year end without posting again, could I? This year was pretty amazing, and unlike most recent years, I actually managed to get most of my 2014 new year resolutions done. One of them was to read a book a month. This year, I made a book list with every book I read, and guess what? I read 19 books (I'm a total overachiever)! I used to love to read before I got to college (And books got too expensive). Las year I decided that I would make reading new books a challenge, and boy did I come through!

I have fallen in love this year, I have cried, I have laughed and I have felt scared thanks to the amazing books I had the pleasure to read. I discovered new things, I learnt a ton about history and much much more! So, here goes my book list, I absolutely loved it and I hope you guys love it too!

Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan: This is the first saga I finishd this year and it was by far the best nest to Heroes of Olympus. I absolutely love it and recommend it *-*

The Lightning Thief.
The Sea of Monsters.
The Titan's Curse.
The Battle of the Labyrinth.
The Last Olympian.

The Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan: 10 times more badass than Percy Jackson and the Olympians. This saga was so many levels of amazing I can't begin to describe it.

The Lost Hero.
The Son of Neptune.
The Mark of Athena.
The House of Hades.
The Blood of Olympus.

The Demigod Files by Rick Riordan: Cool book, cool stories.

Looking for Alaska by John Green: I actually read this right after reading The Fault in Our Stars so I didn't have so many feels. Still a good book though.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: This book turned me into and emotional wreck but I love it. I wouldn't read it for a second time though. My feelings would break.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: Cool book, I don't think it was amazing but it was definitely entertaining.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K.Rowling: It was an amazing ending to the first saga I ever read. Cried tons at the end. Super good *-*

Wallflower Series by Lisa Kleypas: These books are amaziiiing and romantic and beautiful and incredible and SUPER DUPER AWESOME *-* Only for +18 people though.

Devil in Winter.
It Happened One Autumn.
Scandal in Spring.
Secrets of a Summer Night.

So, this was my 2014 book list.

There are some others I left out because I'm not done reading them yet, but I guess I'll add them to my 2015 book list haha.

I hope you guys liked it.

If you have any comments or recommendations leave them in the comment section.

Thanks for reading!

5:22 PM
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Tips to have a successful rescue and not die while trying.

adoption

This is the moment when I get philosophical. Brace yourselves.

I believe, as I said in a previous post (Not sure which one), that there's always a defining moment in our lives. It's different for everyone, but it's usually when we decide that we just HAVE to do something. In most animal rescue cases, we decide we just can't leave an animal on the street. We see that poor little creature, with those sad eyes and dirty fur and we just think "I can't leave it there. I just can't. My mom is going to kill me" or something along those lines.

At first, we don't know what to do, we don't know if we should hold that animal with our bare hands or where to put it. You just kinda grab it but you can't put it down. You feel responsible. You feel as though you just made a commitment to that animal and you just can't let it go. You start thinking about who might want it, you worry about how you're gonna be able to get someone to adopt it, how long it will be with you, and you just kinda panic a bit.

My goal is to help you out when that moment comes. Of course, my journey was a bit difficult considering I never really knew what to do or anyone to give me advice. So, I'm gonna make a small list with some of the things experience taught me. So, that being said, let's begin!

TAKE IT TO THE VET: This is the most important thing on this list. DON'T GO HOME AFTER YOU RESCUE. GO TO THE VET. Specially if you have other pets at home. You don't know what kind of disease your rescue might have and it might need medication or some sort of treatment. I can't stress this enough. GO TO THE VET. If you do have pets and were not able to go to the vet straight away, put the animal in a bathroom o a place where it can't have immediate contact with your pets. Trust me on this one. I learnt this the hard way.
Give it food and water: Alright, important thing number two. You don't know if the animal you rescued has had anything to eat. For all you know, perhaps it hasn't eaten in days. So, it's important to hydrate it and fill up that tummy. Food and water will help them get more energy and recover if they have wounds. Animals tend to be grateful, specially strays. Since the treatment they usually receive is made up mostly by abuse in many forms, you can expect them to be grateful for food. Thing is, you have to be careful. You don't know if that animal has a problem with people getting too close to their food or something. Best thing you can do is serve them some food, leave it on the floor, and watch their behavior. Give them space, they don't know what's going on.
Check for fleas, ticks and injuries: If you didn't get the chance to stop by the vet and went straight home, you're gonna have to do the checking. Look for an old eyebrow tweezer and run your hand through the animal's hair (Most of the time it's easier when you rescue dogs. I wouldn't try to touch a cat's tummy at the very least). Check the ears, between the toes and the tummy first. These are usually places you can find a lot of little bloodthirsty (and disgusting) bugs like fleas and ticks. You have to be careful when removing the ticks. You have to grab them as close to the skin as you can and pull up with even, steady pressure, careful to not break the mouth parts. If they do break and stay in the skin, don't panic, just let it heal. If you find the animal has any injuries or myiasis. If it does, a trip to the vet is gonna be absolutely necessary.
Deworming and Vaccines: When you go to the vet, the first thing you're probably gonna have to hear is that the animal needs to be dewormed and vaccinated. This is very very important since there are tons of parasites that could be harming that animal and preventing him from becoming that healthy, adoptable, beautiful animal someone will fall in love with, and, in case someone decides to adopt, it's a guarantee for you that the animal isn't going to get sick with the disease you vaccinated it against.
Bathing (Dogs): I say only dogs because obviously cats are much much more delicate. The don't like to be handled around a lot, and they don't like getting wet. Put those two together and it might not be the greatest idea ever. After the vet, you should give that little angel a nice bath and let it rest. They'll feel a ton better, and bathtime is ideal to check if there are any fleas or ticks left.
Last but not least, putting it up for adoption: The last tip. If it's your first time it's not all that easy to find someone who will adopt. You have to turn to social networks. Most animal welfare organizations have Twitter, Facebook or Instagram accounts where they put the dates of their events. Look for an adoption event near you and take your rescue when they are absolutely healthy. When you are there, don't let it come in contact with other animals or step on places where other animals might have been. You don't know if everyone has been as careful as you have with their rescue's health and you don't want your rescue to catch something. You should also post the animal's photo on social networks like I explained in this post Stray animal rescue and Social networks: Tips for posting and sharing information.

Remember, you can't just wait for someone to do something. You are that SOMEONE! You are the person that can make a difference. We are all agents of change in our world. If doing good things was easy, the world would be a very different place. Since it's not, we have to be brave enough to do something to make the world a place worth living in. We might not see immediate results, and things might not go as planned, but we have to think that everything we do and everything we say is an opportunity to inspire people, to help them understand, to open their eyes to one of the many cruel truths people refuse to see.

I hope you awesome readers liked this post. I really hope it help you out and gives you that little push you need to help out stray animals. Stay tuned :)

11:25 PM
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How to go from being a passive activist to an active one.

adoption

Hey there everyone! Ugh I'm sorry I've been away for SO long. Sadly other things caught my attention and I never found the time to finish these posts. So, here I go.

Let's start with passive activism. The way I see it, it's when you get involved in some cause without interfering directly in its events or activities. The first form of passive activism I ever came in contact with was with the people on facebook who shared animal cruelty cases. When I first noticed people could do that (I had a very limited view of social networks) I started sending friend requests all over. It wasn't long before I filled my friends' timelines with stray animals looking for a home, adoption and neutering event dates, people asking for medicines or donations for a rescued animal, etc. I really felt I helped. I mean, I was just sharing, but I shared it and each post got seen by over 300 potential owners, so it was worth a shot.

Sharing stuff on social networks really makes a difference.

So, how do you go from sharing stuff from the comfort of your home to going out there and getting "Down and dirty"? First of all, you go step by step. Find out if there is an animal welfare organization near you and find out if they accept volunteers. Volunteer work is actually a really good place to help out without having to take an animal to your home. Personally, besides the rescuing, I go to adoption and neutering events to help out with the animals. This work includes a variety of things like cleaning up after the animals, feeding them, gathering information from new volunteers and giving away balloons with rescue related messages to kids. By volunteering, you become an active activist. By this I mean that you get involved directly in the cause and interact with the people on the other side of the mirror. Giving out information, sharing pamphlets, speaking to people face to face. It isn't easy, but at the end of the day it is really, really gratifying.

Of course, you don't have to be active if you don't want to. Thing is, I consider just the sharing of information enough. Of course, if everyone actively helped out, the stray animal problem probably wouldn't exist. But I believe that doing something is better than doing nothing, and I appreciate the fact that some people at least make an effort to do something as frivolous as sharing a post on facebook.

So, let's get down to business. Yes, most of us animal lovers would love to help out, to be a hero, to change the world. But let's face it, it is really,really, really difficult. It's not because we don't have the will to change, or to do something, or to go out to the world and kick some serious butt. Thing is other people usually make the already hard road a helluva lot harder.

Most of us don't see how much of an impact we have on the world. Just because the good things we do don't come out on the morning news doesn't mean they aren't important. That dog you shared on facebook might have gotten a home because of you. Or maybe that cat you retweeted might have been adopted by one of your followers.

Anyways, given that I'm not really making any sense, my recommendation is that you volunteer. It's a really beautiful experience and it'll make you feel a lot closer to your cause. Helping animals first hand makes you understand on a deeper level how much help they actually need. Find a local shelter and contact them, go to fundraisers and adoption events to help out. That is a really nice way to go active and meet a ton of awesome people who think the same way you go about animals :)

I hope this post was helpful somehow. I'm sorry for the delay and the lack of overall coherence. Please stay tuned for my next post: Tips to have a successful rescue and not die while trying.

8:24 PM
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Stray animal rescue and Social networks: Tips for posting and sharing information.

adoption

Hey there guys! So I'm finally gonna be posting the first part of the stray animal rescue special, in which I'll be talking about activism in social networking. I'll address the difference in passive activism and active activism in my next post, but for now I'll tell you what I mean by "Passive Activism". My definition in this case for passive activism is the employment of social networks (Or the internet in general) to campaign for a cause, and to not interfere directly in the cause. For example, the people that spend most of their time in social networks sharing useful information about a certain subject, or ways to help in a specific case. Now, that being said, let's begin!

Posting information.

Social networks are a great way to comunicate. Most of us have facebook, twitter or tumblr accounts. We follow what interests us, and thanks to this we receive useful bits of information on a daily basis. I am no stranger to the use of social networks, I have accounts in various websites. When I started rescuing strays, I had a really hard time trying to find people who were willing to adopt. I hadn't realized how much potential social networks have for campaining. One day, I decided to make a facebook profile only for posting and sharing stray animals in need of homes. I called it "Animal Rescue Network". Later, I had the idea to make a facebook page just for that. Then, a twitter account. The idea for these accounts and page is to get info out there as much as I can. I don't really need to put a TON of work into this, just an hour or so a day to share cases, answer messages and post whatever needs to be posted.

There are vital things you need to know. First of all, you need to know what to post. There is no point in posting your rescue if you don't give people the means to adopt. What I mean is that there are certain pieces of information your can't forget to share when posting something. Here's what your post should have:

Pictures: Pictures are super important! Why? Because this is what is going to capture someone's attention. When possible owners look at the animal's picture, they're going to feel empathy and more of a connection with it, and maybe, they'll feel more tempted to adopt it.
Phone number: Your phone number is vital! If you post a rescue online, there will usually be someone interested. You have to give them a way to contact you. The best thing is your phone number, this is by far the best way to ensure fast communication. Second best, your twitter/facebook/e-mail. The idea is to give people a way to get in touch with you.
Location: It's important to post the city where the animal is located. This will act as a filter, since it's more likely to be contacted by people who live near you (Most of the time people adopt animals in their cities or states, given that it will be easier to go where the animal is).
Age: You have to post the age of the animal, that way the possible owner will know what vaccines it needs, food, etc.
Health: When rescuing a stray animal, it's very very important to take it to the vet. If the animal has any kind of disease, you have to post it so whoever wants to adopt knows about the animal's condition and continues the animal's treatment.

Sharing posts

That being said, let's move on. The whole point of posting a rescue online is to get it out there, and how do you get the world to know about your rescue? Sharing. Now, the most important thing to take into consideration and something that you can NEVER forget is to change the privacy setting on the specific post you're going to share. For example, on Facebook, you have to make the post visible to the public, that way everyone will be able to share it. Sometimes, because of the privacy settings, I can't share stuff on my page. It's really frustrating because the information doesn't really get around and that makes an adoption a lot harder.

If you're tweeting about your rescue, your account needs to be public, if not, people won't be able to retweet. Most of the time, a rescue's information doesn't fit in 140 characters. If you can, I recommend you upload the picture of your rescue to your computer and modify them in paint, adding in text the animal's info. It's a great way to share and you'll save space you could use for hashtags or mentions. Like this:

On Instagram, you account also has to be public. You can upload the image without text since Instagram has no text limit. The magic is in the hashtags and the mentions. It's always good to use corny hashtags like #Puppy #Cat #Cute. The idea is to use as many hashtags as you can, specially the most popular ones, since those are the ones that people use the most and there's more of a chance people will see your photo. There's not really a way for other people to share your pictures on instagram unless they use an app that reposts or make a screenshot, but it's still a real good way to get the information out there.

I hope this post was useful! If you have any questions or recommendations leave them in the comment section and I'll answer them as soon as I can. Stay tuned for my next post: How to go from being a passive activist to being an active one. See you next time!

9:55 PM
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Bucket list #4: Tour through Greece!

Bucket list #3: Learn sign language.

How to make vegetable milks! (The simple and easy way).

Bucket List #2: Vegan macarons!

Bucket List #1: New York City.

Blog revamp + Life update.

2014 Book list and reviews.

Tips to have a successful rescue and not die while trying.

How to go from being a passive activist to an active one.

Stray animal rescue and Social networks: Tips for posting and sharing information.

Stay tuned on Twitter!

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Stay up to speed on Instagram!

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