17 April 2012

New Web Site

www.vegankaren.com

New web site will be up and running by the weekend.

VeganKaren.com for all things vegan.

Your one stop vegan shop!

NEW WEB SITE:

Okay, the new web site is up and running.
This blog will stay here. You will be able to get great Vegan info here and updates on health and wellness.
You will not, however, get free recipes anymore. :(
They are available on the web site now.

www.vegankaren.com

I will take the "leg work" out of going vegan for you.

There are 28 Day Menu plans available and 7 day detox plans available as well.

I will even send you a juicer if you buy the 7 day detox plus!

So fret not, movie reviews will still be seen here.
Cycling info and fitness in general and all things vegan (sans the actual recipes)

See you at vegankaren.com!

15 April 2012

This blog is moving.

www.vegankaren.com will be up and running shortly.
Please enjoy all the blog posts you have come to expect plus MUCH MUCH more on the new blog.
See you there!

11 April 2012

Snowing....Coffee...Orioles....Biggest Loser...pizza and pancakes.

Waking up this morning, I came downstairs to look out the window and see snow flying all over.
I was hoping it was the lovely white flowers from the tree in the garden, however, it was snow.
GAH!
It's April.
I have seedlings sprouting on the back porch.
I want to plant stuff!!!!!!!!!
We had 80 degree days in MARCH! Now it's mid April and snow is flying.

Now, I live in an area that DOES get snow late in the season but after having such a mild winter, I am ready to start planting.
I want to work the soil and plant tomoatoes and lettuce and carrots and peppers. (Oh my)
The snow didn't fly for long, but it did fly.
The cats went out and promptly came back inside.
We have the gas fire going.
I wore shorts in March! Now I am wearing sweats!

Okay, I know, stop complaining, I can't do anything about the weather.

Have you tried Green Mountain Dark Magic coffee? We recently got a K-Cup coffee maker at work and I have tried the Dark Magic, regular and decaf and they are GREAT!
I love the K-Cup idea. I don't want one for the house, since I think it's too expensive for home use but for work it's perfect.
Work is a movie theater and of course, like in most theaters things cost a little more, but the coffee price is $2 a cup (10oz) but the best thing of all that I have found, with the K-Cups you can go as small as 4 oz or as large as 12 oz. Sooooooooo, I buy a cup of coffee at the $2 price. BUT, I make sure I buy it after all the customers have gone into the movies, so that I can brew my cup at 6 oz, that leaves me room for Soy Very Vanilla milk, AND when I drink that, since I haven't removed the K-Cup from the coffee maker, I run another 6 oz through the cup. TA DA! It's like getting a 12 oz cup of coffee, but I get to take my time and it's all warm! LOL!

How 'bout dem O's?
They are doing really well this season. Yay! That epic game with the Yankees last night was something! I am holding out the GREAT HOPE for this season. I think this will be the one!

When will the Biggest Loser (a show I used to watch all the time but have stopped watching with the exception of the last two shows since Michelle Obama was on it) stop letting meat industries sponsor the show and tell the contestants the truth about meat and dairy?
I am guessing that will never happen.
People need to be educated about what meat and dairy actually DO to your body. Then maybe we will see REAL healthy people coming off that show.
The weight loss would be HUGE without meat and dairy consumption.

We had pizzas again last night. This time I made the "no cheese" sauce for one and thai sauce for the other. Topped them with orange bell peppers, portabella mushrooms, spinach, corn, tofu, pineapple and the crust was made from whole wheat and buckwheat. They were awesome!!!!!!!

Buckwheat pancakes this morning with banana and walnuts (and a couple pecans, as I had a few left.) Also Very Yummy!!!

Good food for cold April days.
Ugh, I want to PLANT THINGS!!!!!!!!!

05 April 2012

Woody Allen and me...

Woody Allen and I have had quite a tumultuous affair over the years.
His sense of humor has dazzled me and sent me into fits of hysterics. Then sometimes I was bored so senseless that watching paint dry would have been preferable.
Manhatten Murder Mystery - LOVED IT!
Annie Hall - uh no thanks.
Sleeper - great!
Love and Death, Zelig, Radio Days - J'Adore!
Manhattan, Everyone Says I Love You and Mighty Aphrodite - BLECH! I never want to see them again.
But now..., this strange moment in time, this exact place in space, where my thoughts and Allan Stewart Konigsberg's thoughts intermingled for a blissful 94 minutes.
Midnight in Paris.
Ebert liked it with 3 1/2 stars.
Peter Travers gave it the same.
Pete Hammond of Box Office Magazine gives it 4.5 stars!
Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 93%, not so rotten.

I give it a 10 out of 10.

I was completely and utterly blown away.
And not for the reasons that everyone else was.
Yes, it was a "Valentine to Paris..." and it was a "daydream of American Lit majors."
It was also the most fleshed out story about someone who thinks "if only I lived THEN!"
I have been guilty of this most of my adult life... whether that time be a time of the past or possibly a time of the future (Thank you Douglas Adams for sending me in that direction!)
Midnight in Paris is superb in every respect.
Owen Wilson, whom I usually disdain, was perfectly fine in this lead role. I didn't have to so much become invested in him and his ideas since this IDEA was not foreign to me in the least, quite the contrary. This idea of living in another time, via a portal of sorts, is a lover to me.
I can remember the very first time travel movie that started this intrigue, or should I say obsession.
Planet of the Apes. The sight of the Statue of Liberty's head still gives me goosebumps.
I remember each movie or story that sparked the tiny ember that turned into a towering inferno in my brain.
Time After Time
A Christmas Carol (the book)
Somewhere in Time
Dr. Who
The Final Countdown
Time Bandits
Quantum Leap
The Time Machine (Books and Movie)
Back to the Future
Slaughter House 5
Peggy Sue Got Married (where she was going to CHANGE things!)
Frequency
Timeline
Even Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
This list can go on and on!
Of course The Restaurant at the End of the Universe allowed me to view time travel in a completely different light.
But my own ideas about being able to slip away and live two lives, one in the present and one in the years that I prefered (and yes, like Woody I have dreamed of the 20's but mostly I lived my fantasy in the 40's.)
This movie sang to me. A loud and playful song about dreams, desires and reality.
This movie didn't preach to me, it prodded me in the right direction.
I highly recommend this movie, as I feel it will be something different each of us.
And for anyone who had their bag packed with spare clothes and a towel (because you really have to know where your towel is!) should see this film.

03 April 2012

Are we waking up as a nation?

I am hoping the answer to this is yes. More and more we are seeing articles, online stories, documentaries and tv "magazines" spots on Heart Disease and Cancer. We are seeing the link between animal milk and cancer and animal products and heart disease. We, as a society, understand that eating these items is making us FATTER, giving us cancer and heart disease and simply put, KILLING US.
A recent report has given us the news that our children are going to be the first generation to live less years then their parents.
Take a moment to comprehend this.
If you are in your 30's today, and your children are in elementary school today, then if you live to be 70 years old, your child will not make it that long.
All of this due to heart disease, kidney disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes (which has been renamed due to all the kids getting it! It used to be called Adult Onset Diabetes, but with so many kids getting it they changed the name!!!)
As I watch these documentaries that explain to people who are grossely overweight that if they do not change now, they will not live to see thier children graduate High School.
These same people say they understand and that they want to change but they can't.
Those words "I CAN'T" have always made me insane. I have used them in life from time to time but it's been a lie. I could have, IF I WANTED TO. I just didn't want to. I liked NOT doing whatever it was that someone wanted me to do. LOL.
These fat people CAN change is what I thought.
Well, that's half true. They can change if they want, but the odds are against them. I am currently reading a great book called "The End Of Overeating." by David Kessler, MD.
It explains that the "opioids" in our brains that are released when we equate pleasure with something are released almost on a constant basis when we eat high fat, high sugar, high salt content foods.
There is no coincidence that the chain restaurants hire chemists as well as PR people.
These chemists KNOW the precise percentages of fat, sugar and salt that will equal a persons "bliss point" with food intake.
Once the chemists create the most saturated foods to get people to release opioids, thus creating a "need" for that food item, the PR gurus take over and write LAVISH dramas, aka: commercials, where they describe in vivid detail what each mouthful will taste like.
This onslaught bombards us daily. You can't watch CSI, House Hunters, CNN news, or even Grimm without being assailed by commercials for unhealthy foods.
At this very moment that I am writing this, I have another window up with my facebook page and RIGHT THERE, despite my blogs to the contrary, there is a Dairy Milk advertisement! (Yes, I do click the X button and then click the OFFENSIVE button - LOL - over the top, maybe, but proving my own point!)
I read recently that the sales of animal milk has been steadily dropping since 1990. Conversely, the sales of Almond Milk rose by 79% in 2011! YAY!
This has, of course, given the Dairy industry a fright of monumental proportions. They have decided to launch a barage to the FDA to ban the use of the word milk by anyone not using it for Cow's milk. Hmmmm, The Leche League should be thrilled by this!
However, even with this attack on the populace, we can still get a grip as a nation on our food consumption.
Changing to a plant based, whole foods diet will not only make us healthy, it will save our lives.
We all die. There is no changing that fact. But how we live until we do die can be dramatically different then what life is like without changing.
Wouldn't you like to be able to ride a bike, or go jogging, or maybe just get up off the sofa without having to maneuver to the edge first and then do the double push up to get up, until you are ancient?
I know I would.
Well, I will be able to do all those things, since I have embrassed life on a plant based diet, I will be able to ride my bike well into my 80's. Steve will be jogging along side my bike as well.
We will be active, right up to the point where we keel over. LOL.
I am hoping as a nation we wise up, put down the McDonald's fries and pick up the kale.
The cost of health care in this country is skyrocketing. We pay more than any other industialized nation for our health care cost.
This will cripple us completely soon. I won't say "in the future" because that future is not far enough away. Yes, 5 years from now is the future, but using that word makes people think they have PLENTY OF TIME to deal with it.
YOU DON'T!
The time is now.
We MUST deal with our health before we completely bankrupt ourselves.
And why not? We will feel better, have more energy and be happier!
Good Luck. (You won't need it, because you can do it!)

01 April 2012

The Innkeepers

So, Abbey and I watched The Inkeepers tonight. The trailer looked really good and spooky and I thought, WHAT THE HELL, I will pay for it. So we rented it on Dish on Demand.
Hmmmm, where should I start?
How about DON'T PAY FOR THIS MOVIE!!!!! EVER!!!!!
Now, I can say that the first 3/4's of this movie are really cool. The suspense builds and things are funny and spooky at the same time.
Sara Paxton is really good and believable as is Pat Healy. Kelly McGillis shows up (sans Tom Cruise or a jet fighter jacket, thank goodness!) and is looking VERY different these days. However, she is very good in her part. Her character is extremely interesting and even though she is a supporting character, she is well fleshed out.
The Woman and Child (AKA: Gozer and the demon seed) are there possibly as red herrings or possibly as a modern day illustration for the "myth" of Madaline.
The movie is slow but not annoyingly so. You are invested in the characters and Luke's slow decent into complete horror is very well filmed. (and acted)
Claire of course ends up doing the ONE THING she is told NOT TO DO.
Which since this is a horror movie, we expect her to do even while we are shouting at the screen NO NO NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING???? GAH! Don't go in there!!!!! GAAAHHHHH!
Now, I know what you are thinking, this movie is sounding awesome. Why did you tell me to never pay for it?
Well, the ending is why.
I think I can really consider myself a horror movie afficionado, after the GAZILLIONS of horror movies I have watched and the script that I and an old friend have knocked around once. So, I NEED A PAY OFF.
When you build up my interest and make me care about characters, then you damn well better tell me, show me, or make it so I can explain WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED!
S P O I L E R A L E R T ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
When the ending goes through the motions of wrapping things up, but doesn't really explain a thing, then it really can't call itself and epilogue now can it?
The little chapters breaking up the movie into parts was really cool.
When you get to Chapter Three: The Final Guest, you are really stoked to see what's going to happen.
He is perfectly creepy and insistant and HORROR-IFIC.
Sigh.
I really wanted to see what happened to her, or hear how it effected the other two characters, or at least have Kelly McGillis' character tell us that she knew it was all going to happen and WHY!!!!!!!
Unanswered questions are okay in a horror movie, as long as you have been giving the tools to figure it out for yourself.
We were giving the tools and a lot of other "half-tools" that we needed more info to process properly.
Ok, Madaline hung herself and was stashed in the cellar by the hotel owners so as not to cause a commotion in the town and for publicity.
But, we then hear that there isn't just one spirit, but three.
Really? Who are they? Why are they there? What's their beef?
This is very dissapointing.
The build up was cool, but the pay off simply wasn't.