At the end of every school year at Mark Twain Elementary, there was a Western/Texas themed festival where everybody wore cowboy, cowgirl, or Indian costumes. Even though Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were my heroes I always loved Indians so my mother made this beautiful turquoise squaw girl dress for me to wear.

Here is another picture in color of the same dress.


I remember this dress so well. My mother had made a dress out of the same fabric for herself and I loved it and wanted one just like hers. She made this jumper for me out of the left over fabric. I wish I had a picture of the two of us in our matching dresses.
My mother was a wonderful seamstress and I always got lots of compliments on the clothes she made for me.

Faircloth Family

I'm not sure who this family is or how they are related to Laura Jane Faircloth. On the back of the picture is "Mrs. H. E. Faircloth, Grand Saline, Tex."

Carnegie Public Library, Bryan, Texas

Here is a little information about the Carnegie Library mentioned in my earlier blog about my grandmother:

"The Carnegie Library was founded in 1902 with a $10,000 gift from nationally recognized philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegie served the community until 1969 when the city opened the Bryan Public Library. Today, the renovated library houses the Carnegie Center of Brazos Valley History. Bryan's is the oldest existing Carnegie Library in Texas."

For more history see: http://www.bcslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/carnegie_history.pdf

Ninie

I've been thinking about my grandmother a lot lately probably because of all the old photographs and mementos of her I've run across while organizing family photos. Even though I didn't appreciate her when I was a child, I owe so much to her. This quote sums up up our relationship so well:

"What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance. They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life. And most importantly, cookies."

When I was a child I spent several weeks with her every summer at her big house in Bryan, TX. Our days were spent sewing, swimming, and going to the Carnegie Library in downtown Bryan. This is the only time I can ever remember being taken to a library and I remember how exciting it was going to story hour and then choosing books to check out. Her house wasn't air-conditioned so when it was really hot in the afternoons I would lie down in a bed on the sleeping porch, a room with 26 windows, and read. I have always loved books and reading and this was the only time in my childhood when I actually had enough to read. My reading was sometimes interrupted by the sound of a train coming. Her house was right on the railroad tracks and I loved going outside and waving to the conductor and the man in the caboose and counting the number of cars.

My grandmother was a wonderful seamstress and, along with my mother, taught me to sew. We spent a lot of time in the fabric stores in Bryan and one time she let me pick out some fabric and showed me how to make a crop top. I remember it was lavender gingham and I made most of it myself.

I also took swimming lessons or went swimming almost every day. On the way back from the pool we would stop at Dairy Queen for lunch and sometimes in the evening we would go out again for ice cream or a Purple Cow. AND...there was never a time when I visited her when she didn't have homemade chocolate chip cookies in her cookie jar. It was the first thing I looked for when I got there. So many wonderful memories.

Here is a little bit more about her:

Sarah Effie Meads was born in Kurten Texas in 1895, the youngest of 8 children, to William Joseph Meads and Laura Jane Faircloth Meads. She married Henry Fain LeGrand and they had one child, my father, William Henry LeGrand, in 1916. She divorced HFL and married Arthur L. Huebner in 1922 (more about him in another blog). She was very active in Central Baptist Church and the Eastern Star.

When I moved back to Texas from New Orleans, I moved in with my father for a few months to take care of her. She had broken a hip and needed help with everything. Although this was a difficult time for all of us I'm glad I had the opportunity to repay her for all the love and kindness she had always shown me, and to get to know her as an adult. She recovered from her broken hip and was able to move back to her beloved home in Bryan where she lived until she died in 1986 at 90 years of age.

About her name:

Her name was Sarah Effie and before I was born everyone called her "Miss Effie." At some point I started calling her Ninie and that name stuck.

School Days

This is a picture of my mother and her classmates taken in 1927 in Robstown, TX. The two little girls in the matching striped sweaters are her twin cousins Eva and Iva Magee. My mother is sitting next to the twin holding the sign.


Here she is in 5th grade standing next to her teacher, also in Robstown.


This was taken in Falfurrias in 1932. My mother is in the 3rd row, 5th from the left. Notice the cute dog (class mascot?) in the front row.

It's quite posible my great grandmother was the inspiration for the Granny Clampett character in the Beverly Hillbillies.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

My mom with friends.

Fain Family

Laura Jane Faircloth Meads

This obit of my great grandmother has a lot of information about the family.

Meads-Faircloth

My great grandparents Laura Jane Faircloth Meads and William Joseph Meads.

Meads Family

This is a picture of 6 of the 8 Meads children. They are the children of Laura Jane Faircloth and William Joseph Meads and are the siblings of my grandmother Sarah Effie Meads LeGrand Huebner.

In the photograph are:

Rena Evelena Meads Brower 1879-1967
William Frank Meads, 1882-1963
Ida Meads Evetts, 1885-1922
Marjorie Alice Meads Zimmerman, 1888-1942
Rufus Carroll Meads, 1890-1978
Mattie Dell Meads Elliott, 1893-1946

Henry Fain LeGrand

My grandfather Henry Fain LeGrand was the was the son of Dr. Peter G. LeGrand (1845-1890) and Petronia Olena Fain LeGrand (1854-1936) of Weatherford, TX. They married in 1870 and had 6 children:

Henry Fain (1872-1946)
Alma Lillian (1874-1909)
William (1876-?)
John (1879-?)
Mary Edna (1881-?)
Francis Cecil (1885-?)

Henry spent most of his life in Weatherford and like my father, worked for Gulf Oil.

My father never knew his father but my mother went to visit him when my father was in Kuwait and I have a letter he wrote to her about her visit saying how proud he was of his son. He died shortly after her visit while my father was stationed in Kuwait.

Perry vetoes texting-while-driving legislation

OK. After saying I was going to focus on family, Governor Goodhair goes and does something so stupid it can't be ignored.

From the Houston Chronicle:

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry has vetoed a bill that would have outlawed sending or reading text messages while driving.

Lawmakers approved the bill last month, but Perry called it an "overreach" and "government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults."

It was one of 23 bills Perry vetoed on Friday, in addition to a handful of line item vetoes in the state budget.

Perry set the known record for vetoes by a Texas governor in 2001 with 83, according to the Texas Legislative Reference Library. That was shortly after he ascended to the governorship in December 2000, once fellow Republican George W. Bush resigned to become president.

Bush had far fewer vetoes during his tenure as governor. His highest total for a legislative session was 38 in 1997.

This blog started out as an assignment for work. Over a period of a few months we were assigned 23 things to do on the web and then blog about what we learned. I'm not sure if I wanted to do this but since it was required, I did it and loved it. My blog has never had a real focus but in the last few weeks I've decided to focus on family. I'm trying to organize old family photos, memorabilia, and genealogical material and post some of this on my blog. My niece is doing a lot of genealogical work too and this has inspired and motivated me.

I may continue to throw in an occasional political rant or a cute dog picture or story but most of what I will be posting from now on will be about my family and our roots. I'm going to try and remember to label everything I post about family as "family" in addition to the names of the people in the posts.

My Dad

For Father's Day this year I've decided to honor my dad, who died in 1998, by posting some pictures of him from his earliest years through adulthood, at work, and at play.



Here are some early pictures.

This picture shows him with his mother, Sarah Effie Meads Huebner and his aunts Ida and Rena. Even though you can't really see him very well, I've included this picture of him in the car. This may have been one of the first cars he had ever seen and it's easy to imagine his excitement at being able to sit in one.

My father was very proud of this picture. It was his first suit and he was probably feeling very grown up wearing it. You can see what a handsome young man he was.

At work.

A true engineer, he loved working in the oil industry and loved all things mechanical.

At Play.

The cute little baby in this picture is his granddaughter Erin. They are sitting on his porch at the house he built on Lake Livingston. When I say he built the house I mean he really built the house. He was the contractor and did most of the work himself. He probably enjoyed building the house as much as he did spending time there after it was finished. The other picture was taken in Mexico when we were on vacation.



Here are two more pictures I found. The first was taken in Florida at Parrot Jungle. In the other picture he is enjoying the company of his 3 grandchildren, Tamara, Emily and Erin.

This was taken after he received a promotion at Gulf Oil and they needed a picture of him for one of their publications.

I've been on my plant based/99% vegan diet for about 2 months now. I feel better and think I may have lost some weight even though I haven't actually been weighing myself. I did buy a new scale on Sunday and might start keeping track. Weighing can be dangerous because if I don't lose any weight I can get discouraged and use that as an excuse to eat. Finding all vegan prepared foods can be tricky. You really need to look closely at all the labels on everything which isn't easy for a old person to do. I appreciate Amy's Frozen entrees because they state clearly on the box if it is vegan and I don't actually have to look through a long list of ingredients.
I'm continuing to have a fresh fruit smoothie every morning and a fresh vegetable juice several days a week.

Happy Birthday Bob Dylan

It's hard to believe Bob Dylan is 70 years old today. I can't remember the first time I ever heard him sing but at some point in my life he became my favorite singer/songwriter/artist. I don't know if I could come up with a favorite album or song and I don't associate any of his songs with events in my life like I do with other songs and albums by other artists. Strange that I can remember the first time I heard most Beatles songs and who I was with at the time but don't associate Dylan with anything or anyone. It's like his music was always present in my life.
If I had to pick a few favorite albums, I guess I would pick Bob Dylan at Budokan, Desire, Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks. I love the lyrics from Forever Young which seem a fitting birthday tribute.

"May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young."

My First Christmas

This picture is of my sister and me with our great aunt Rena Brower. She was my grandmother's older sister on my father's side of the family. Her full name was Rena Evelena Meads Brower and she was born on January 27, 1879.

A Rapture Sign I'd Like To See

Casualties From the War on Terror, 9/11, and the Invasion of Iraq

Interesting graphic from http://www.prosebeforehos.com/government_employee/09/11/perspective-on-911-and-the-invasions-of-iraq-afghanistan/

My Maternal Grandparents

Here are pictures of my maternal grandparents taken on their wedding day in 1908 and then 50 years later in 1958 for their 50th wedding anniversary. My grandmother's name was Mollie Ora Magee Wells and my grandfather's name was James Daniel Wells.
I have wonderful memories of the time I spent with them in the summer in their home in Robstown, Texas. My grandfather and I spent many hours playing checkers and dominos. He also let me come to court with him one time. He was the city judge and I sat behind the judge's bench with him while he presided over the court.

Another picture of my dad, this time with my daughter, probably taken on his boat dock on Lake Livingston.

Family picture

I don't have many pictures of my whole family but here is one I did manage to find.

Happy Birthday Dad!

My dad would have been 95 on May 5th (Cinco de Mayo). This picture was taken on a trip a few years before he died when we went to Huatulco, Mexico. He loved water, especially the beautiful beaches in Mexico. Over the years we went on many trips together but I believe this was the last one.

Another Beatrice Hat

OK. This one I kind of get. Monarch butterflies...the Monarchy.

Commoners vs. Royalty

Score 1 for the commoners.

William's Chocolate Biscuit Cake

To celebrate the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate, our own William, aka Mr. Bill or The Decider, made a delicious Chocolate Biscuit Cake. This is the same cake that is being served at the wedding today and was Prince William's favorite cake as a child. If you love dark chocolate you will love this cake. Here are some pictures and the official recipe.



CHOCOLATE BISCUIT CAKE
The royal family prefers McVitie's brand Rich Tea Biscuits for their chocolate biscuit cakes, but any firm butter cookie can be used in this intensely rich and chocolatey no-bake treat. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers; the cake gets better with time.
Start to finish: 3 1/2 hours (30 minutes active)
Servings: 12
For the cake:
7-ounce package butter tea biscuits (sold in the cookie aisle)
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
16 ounces (about 2 1/2 cups) bittersweet chocolate bits
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the glaze:
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
6 ounces (about 1 cup) bittersweet chocolate
Coat a 7- or 8-inch round springform pan with cooking spray.
To make the cake, with your hands break up the biscuits into 1/4- to 1/2-inch pieces; you want chunks, not crumbs.
In a medium microwave-safe bowl, combine the cream, honey and butter. Microwave on high for 1 1/2 minutes, or until bubbling. Add the chocolate and stir until melted and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the vanilla, then the crumbled biscuits. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan, using the back of the spoon to smooth the top. Gently tap the pan on the counter to eliminate any air pockets.
Refrigerate for 3 hours or until thoroughly chilled.
Once the cake is chilled, prepare the glaze. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the butter and cream. When the mixture reaches a boil, remove it from the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until completely melted and smooth.
Carefully remove the sides from the springform pan (you may need to slide a paring knife around the inside upper edge to ensure the sides come away cleanly from the cake). Invert the cake onto a wire rack, then remove the bottom of the pan from the cake. Set the rack over parchment paper to catch drips.
Pour the glaze evenly over the cake, allowing it to drip down and completely cover the top and sides. Allow to firm up, then transfer to a serving plate. Refrigerate leftovers.

My Mother's Birthday

Here is a picture of my mother who was born on April 17, 1918. She died on March 1, 1965. Today the dogs and I got up early and drove to Bryan to visit her grave. When J and I would go to Anderson every weekend I would visit the cemetery more often but now just go once or twice a year. To see more pictures or read more about her you can click on her name in the labels area.

The Library Card as a Pop-Culture Fiend's Ticket to Geek Paradise

This essay by Linda Holmes is from NPR:

There's a big public library literally across the street from my bank and the supermarket where I most frequently pick up stuff like milk and paper towels. Across the street. As in: first I buy Diet Coke, then I dodge one SUV careening around the corner, and I'm there. And yet, until this weekend, I'd never been in it and I had no library card. I know. I've talked a bunch of times about the economics of e-book purchasing and paper book purchasing, about my love of paperback romance novels, and about how unattached I am to book ownership and the growth of my personal library, and somehow, I never crossed the street. After finally heading over to get signed up and then leaving on Saturday with the odd sense I tweeted about that they had let me walk out with six books and three DVDs for nothing and I felt like I'd committed a heist, I gave this some thought. Why, when there's such bitter frustration over pricing of all the things people actually buy, is library borrowing often only faintly heard about in noisy, angry discussions you can so often hear about "How do I stop getting broken on the rack by publishers of various kinds?" What kinds of hesitations stop this from happening? (Note: I know that for some of you, you've always been library hounds; I salute you. Don't feel marginalized. I'm speaking of those — whose numbers are strangely large — who, like me, just kinda ... stopped thinking about public libraries at some point.) Do they have what I want? Obviously, one of the issues is always going to be selection. I think when I envision libraries, I think about ... encyclopedias? Children's books? History? It's not that I don't know that they have new books and popular fiction, though you often don't see that stuff on display because it's out with lengthy waiting lists. But somehow, I don't think of the library as possessing the same books I buy for myself. I see it the way I saw it when I was a kid. I see it the way I saw it when I assumed that all books that didn't have pictures in them were dry and important. I have always associated the library with school and homework and (the horror) being quiet, not necessarily with fun. But on Saturday, I grabbed David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, which I checked out because (1) I've never read it; (2) I may not talk myself into it or be able to finish it and I definitely don't want it in my house staring judgmentally at me if I don't; (3) I want to give it a try; and (4) it wouldn't work as a Kindle book anyway because of the footnotes. Taking it out of the library is basically the only model under which I'm likely to try that particular book. I also found the last three books in a highly frivolous Nora Roberts romance series (oh, settle down) from which I'd already read the first. They'd cost $12.99 each if I bought them electronically. That's forty bucks to read three more books that are ... all very much the same book as the first book, but I kind of wanted to read them, because ... whatever, it was the weekend. It's relaxing. It's a series. Don't judge. Anyway, borrowing them long enough to read them (which takes, in total, maybe twelve hours for all three) cost me ... nothing out of pocket. So let's review: E-book pricing versus paperback pricing versus zero dollars (beyond what I pay in taxes to support the library, which I'm paying anyway) — for the rest of the set. It was not a very difficult question. I also picked up the Tom Shales history of Saturday Night Live, which I'm pretty sure I've read, or at least looked over, but there it was, and why not? I also love the gigantic tomes about etiquette that Judith Martin (that's Miss Manners to you) writes — she's hilarious and smart — and they had one of those, so I picked it up. That's six books that I genuinely wanted to read, at least three of which I probably would have blown money buying and then felt bad about. What condition is the stuff in? The same romance about physical books that leads some people to inhale of the pages as if they're breathing in knowledge itself leads some of those same people not to like books that are beat-up. And make no mistake: In my public library, I found many beat-up books. In particular, I found that all those cheap romance paperbacks were beaten, mangled, shaken and stirred. Not so that you couldn't read them, but just so you knew they'd been read a lot. Oddly, I found this ... comforting. I picked up some of those horribly abused books and felt like I was putting my hands on tangible populism. Those books are there because they're read, and it actually made kind of a good reminder that the library was trying to help, that the idea was to serve readers. Whether you like genre fiction or not, the people who read it read books and support libraries and bookstores, and the proof is right there in all those spines that are half-unreadable because they're creased in so many places. (Oh, and one other thing: If you read romance novels from the library, you will learn that while you might not fold down the pages to mark the ... well, the more risque sections, some people do. I found this, again, delightful. You naughty people who live in my county.) In short, you are indeed dealing with shared books, and they feel like shared books. It's not the same feeling as owning a book yourself and filling it exclusively with your own marginalia and placing your bookplate in it, but it has its own charms. What do I do if the selection doesn't turn out to be so great locally? Consider for a moment our new I Will If You Will Book Club selection, Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Dream Country, which we'll get started on this week. As it happens, when I look it up in the online catalog, there are no copies at my branch. (Four copies across my library system are checked out; I dearly hope they are all to IWIYW readers.) But there are other copies at other branches, and right from my desk, I can ask my branch to get me one, and I can pick it up there. In other words "Dear Building Near Me: I want to read this book, and they have it at Building Not Near Me. Could you ask them to send it over, and then I'll pick it up on this particular day? Sincerely, Lazy N. Frugal." To which my library will say, electronically, "Dear Lazy: No problem! We look forward to seeing you." So in other words, depending on your system, there's an excellent chance that the selection is bigger than you think it is. Do I have to run back and forth all the time? The lending period at my library, for most stuff, is three weeks. And most things can be renewed online, up to a point. I mean ... they're trying to make it easy on you, they really are. Were you embarrassed when they saw you checking out romance novels? If it's been a while since you visited your library, you may be surprised to learn that many of them have automatic checkout with scanners, just like at the grocery store, so you don't have to show your books to anyone if you don't want to. Nora Roberts was my little secret. Well, not so much now, but you know. Do they have anything for me if I'm not so much a reader? I know you probably know that your library has DVDs. But somehow, in my mind, I envisioned a measly little table, like at a garage sale in the late '90s, with a few scattered, beat-up DVDs on it, all of which would be selected from the great list of ... things I don't care about. To my surprise, they have a nice fat shelf of movies. I was recently reading Wil Wheaton's beautiful piece about reuniting with the cast of Stand By Me and remembering River Phoenix, so when I saw Stand By Me on the shelf, I took that. I then realized that the documentaries (I love documentaries) were shelved with the books (weird, but understandable), so I went into the stacks again. There, I found Ken Burns' Baseball and — oh, joy — the fantastic King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters, a movie that I recently discovered, to my dismay, is not streaming on Netflix anymore, and which I hadn't seen in a couple of years. So there you have it: three movies and six books, all very much from the universe of stuff we talk about here on the blog anyway. No research papers, no homework, no garage-sale cast-offs. I was really surprised, at some level, when the detectors at the door didn't go off, even though I intellectually knew they wouldn't. What say you to e-readers and audiobook lovers? I'm glad you asked. I may have misspoken when I said on Saturday that my library had e-books I could read on my phone. It's not clear to me yet (watch the drama unfold in the comments!) whether I can actually do that. BUT! Some other readers can read them, and I can read on a PC, which isn't as bad a way to read as I used to think it was. (This is actually how I first discovered e-books, was reading on my PC before I owned a Kindle.) The e-book situation with libraries is in flux, you could say, as Lynn Neary recently reported. But it's not because your local library isn't trying. As for audiobooks, my library has those, too, and as with e-books, you can download them from your computer without even going to the library. You could actually be a thriving, happy library user without ever setting foot in my particular public library. The library is hermit-friendly! Is that it? It's ... not remotely. They had magazines, they did have encyclopedias and research materials, obviously, and basically, if you have a small child, they will do everything short of holding your kid by his feet and dipping him in fonts of wisdom. There's story time, there are tutoring rooms (which were in use when I was there), there's a book club (they're reading As I Lay Dying at the moment), and OH RIGHT, it's staffed with people who clearly would really like it if you came up and asked them questions about books or anything else. The point I'm trying to make is that as a pop-culture-adjacent person, you may think that public libraries are not particularly relevant to you. But I felt like since we've talked about movie pricing, e-book pricing, and a lot of other business models, it was only fair to bring to your attention my experience with this bizarre business model that's so crazy it just might work. [Note: It is a complete coincidence, you have my word, that I just figured out it's National Library Week. My finger purely accidentally landed on the pulse of library news.] [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

Rescue Chocolate

I just found this really great organization, Rescue Chocolate http://www.rescuechocolate.com/ that makes vegan chocolate and donates 100% of their profits to animal rescue organizations. This month, because of Easter, all of their proceeds will go to the House Rescue Society http://rabbit.org/ HRS rescues rabbits from shelters and educates people about the care and behavior of rabbits. They have launched a campaign called "Make Mine Chocolate" to encourage people to buy chocolate rabbits instead of live rabbits for Easter.

The chocolate rabbit pictured is one of the many vegan chocolate items for sale through Rescue Chocolate.

Song of Peace

Song of Peace
by George Bernard Shaw

Slaughtered to satisfy our appetites,
We never pause to wonder at our feasts,
If animals, like men, can possibly have rights.
We pray on Sundays that we may have light,
To guide our footsteps on the paths we tread.
We're sick of war, we do not want to fight,
The thought of it now fills our hearts with dread
And yet we gorge ourselves upon the dead.
Like carrion crows, we live and feed on meat,
Regardless of the suffering and pain
We cause by doing so. If thus we treat
Defenceless animals for sport and gain,
How can we hope in this world to attain
The PEACE we say we are so anxious for?
We pray for it, o'er hetacombs of slain,
To God, while outraging the moral law,
Thus cruelty begets its offspring - War.

My Diet

I've been on my new vegan/plant-based diet for a few weeks now and it's going pretty well. Here is what I eat on a typical day:
Breakfast: A smoothie with fresh orange juice, blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, a banana, and a scoop of Spirutein protein powder. Everything is organic, if available. I got the idea for doing a smoothie for breakfast from my favorite ex-president, Bill Clinton, who is also on a plant-based diet.
Lunch: A soy ham or turkey sandwich on Rudi's 7 grain bread with some greenery. Today I had Whole Foods vegan mock chicken salad with sprouts. Their mock chicken salad is to die for delicious and I would eat it everyday if I could. I also have a low sugar white or green tea, usually Honest Tea mango acai tea. Today I'm having Steaz lime pomegranate white tea.
Snacks: I allow myself 10 raw almonds a day as a snack and also fresh fruit. If I don't put a banana in the smoothie I will usually eat one around 10 am. I don't really love bananas but if they are not too ripe (a little on the green side) I am ok with one. If they are a little brown I put one in the smoothie.
Dinner: This is the meal I need to work on. I am content eating an Amy's frozen dinner every night but realize this is probably not the healthiest thing to do. This summer when I have Sunday's off I'm hoping to do a little experimenting in the kitchen, maybe even freezing a few things for dinner.
The thing I miss most on this diet is SALT. I'm really trying to eat less salt and I miss it. When I do buy Amy's dinners I try to buy the low-sodium ones but then I want to add salt (I don't). I also miss my Annie's Honey Wheat pretzels. I have no idea if I've lost any weight. I don't own a scale anymore. I probably haven't but I'm giving myself a year. I'm also planning to do more juice fasts. Last Friday I went out to eat with a friend. We went to Fendee's Mediterranean Grill on Westheimer and I had the very best falafel I've ever had. Good hummus too.
OOPS: Forgot to mention that I also have 1 cup of instant organic coffee in the morning with almond milk. I've tried giving up coffee before but I always go back. Sigh.

Juice Fast

I'm on the 4th day of my juice fast. One more day to go then I'm going to start my healthier plant-based vegan diet. I really hope I can stick to it this time.

UPDATE: It's 9:00 pm Friday night and my 5 day juice fast is over! I won't eat anything until morning but I made it.

IMDB to MARC Converter

Here's an interesting cataloging tool I found today that only a cataloging nerd would appreciate. You can find it here: http://amazon.libcat.org/cgi-bin/imdb2marc.pl? Just type in the name of a movie and it takes the information from the IMDB and converts it into a MARC record. I love the IMDB and have used it for years when cataloging DVDs and this tool makes it even more useful and fun.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and start my vegan, or plant-based diet (again). Plant-based is so much nicer sounding than vegan. I just finished listening to the audio book Veganist by Kathy Freston and it convinced me this is the way to go. I don't expect to be 100% but will do my best. I'm also going to try and start this week with a juice fast. I used to do this all the time but haven't tried in awhile. I would like to make it through 5 days. It was a lot easier when my SO would get me a juice every night. Now I have to make my own. Luckily I have citrus juicer and a vegetable juicer.

UPDATE: It's almost 8 pm Monday and I've made it through the first day of my fast! I honestly didn't think I would make it yesterday when I was planning the fast so this is great. The first day is always the hardest for me. I also took the pups on 2 walks. One was at 6 this morning. The weather is totally awesome. I have all the windows open.

UPDATE: It's 8:20 pm Tuesday and I made it through another day. Spent 4 hours at the dentist too.

Wednesday Update: I made it through another day! Don't know how I used to stay on these fasts for more than 5 days though. I'll feel really good if I make it through tomorrow.

Helping animals in Japan

After seeing the video on Yahoo today about the dog who wouldn't leave his canine companion I decided to send a contribution to World Vets, a non-government organization that provides veterinary assistance in 25 countries and is currently helping out with animal rescue in Japan. Here is a link to their website if you would like to help: http://worldvets.org/



The good news is that these 2 dogs have been rescued.

Jane Goodall

Last Wednesday I went to hear Jane Goodall speak at an event sponsored by the Progressive Forum and the Houston Zoo. It's been 50 years since JG first started observing and working with chimpanzies in what is now Tanzania's Gombe National Park. She spoke about all of the changes in the world in the last 50 years and how these chances have impacted animals, people, and the environment. My favorite part of the speech was when she talked about how she first became interested in animals and what a key role her mother played by encourgaging and supporting her. She also discussed her organization for young people, Roots and Shoots. The mission of Roots and Shoots is to "foster respect and compassion for all living things, to promote understanding of all cultures and beliefs and to inspire each individual to take action to make the world a better place for people, animals and the environment."