Ashley Says

Win a Copy of Defy the Dark! Yay!

Thu, 09 May 2013 18:16:38 -0400

The in-fighting has to stop.

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:55:00 -0400

I read an article a couple of weeks ago about how if vegans stopped fighting against the HSUS the factory farming industry would have a real situation on its hands. This article got me thinking about all of the vegan in-fighting that I’ve seen since I’ve become vegan and it made me much more aware of how much of it is going on around me right now.

All I can say is this: We are on the same team. I know not all vegans are like this, but it seems that many of the people making comments online are very extreme (one way or another) in their veganism. Who cares if you eat oil? Who cares if you eat gluten? I may even eat an Oreo every now and again (gasp!) - who cares? Seriously? As long as you aren’t contributing to the suffering of animals I don’t care how you treat your body because it’s just that - yours.

Forgive me if I’m being too blunt, but seriously, we need to get over ourselves and stop thinking that one vegan diet is superior to another. If you went vegan for your health then of course you aren’t going to be eating tons of processed foods, however, not everyone goes vegan for the same reasons and I think that’s the most important thing we can take from this.

We should celebrate our differences and come together as one force so we can go up against our real enemies. Just as we practice compassion towards animals we should practice it towards each other.

— End rant.

More Books...

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 19:44:56 -0400

In the last couple of months I’ve read the following:

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Beauty Queens is a YA book about teen beauty queens who get stranded on an island and caught up in government conspiracy. While the book is definitely written towards teens the concept was cool and I ended up enjoying it.

The $100 Startup is a business and self-improvement book that is a must-read for anyone who has ever wanted to start their own business or work for themselves. Lots of practical tips, reality checks, and inspirational stories.

Meditations deserves a post of its own, which I will do in the near future.

Bookshelf Porn

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:01:39 -0400

Bookshelf Porn:

Why did I not know about this before?! I had so much potential for my life. Now I’ll be spending it down the rabbit hole that is this website.

2012 Book Update

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 09:24:42 -0400

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update to the books I’ve been reading so far in 2012 - mostly because I haven’t had much time to read :( Also, I’ve been sort of unmotivated to read a full book, opting for lots of magazines and blog reading. However, I’m back in action, vowing to read a book a week for a while (we’ll see how long that lasts).

I was able to knock another book off the list though, The China Study is done. It was sooooo dense that it took me quite a while to finish it, and it was a bit boring, to be honest. However, I am almost finished with a similar book Healthy Eating, Healthy World by J. Morris Hicks and while it does cite a lot of research by people like Campbell, it is so much more engaging and interesting to read. Glad I picked that one up.

Another book that I finished that wasn’t on the list is A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. While there was a lot of hype about it, I actually thought it got off to a pretty slow start. But once it picked up I was completely engaged with all of the characters and felt vested in them, which is something that’s rare for me. Definitely recommend it. And while you could argue that Egan simply uses every literary trick in the book (literally) to put this story together, it all works, even if it does seem excessive at times.

I’ve been adding quite a bit to my list since the beginning of the year, but I think Alcetis is next on the docket.

Walking Warriors

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:29:10 -0400

I sent out a recurring meeting request for Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am - 10:10am to everyone in the wellness group so that we could get up from our desks for our breaks and take a nice walk around the building.

What started as 2-3 people is growing every week - yesterday we had 7 people join us for our walk. Not bad numbers considering much of our office isn’t even in by 10am. I’m hoping the numbers will continue to grow.

Sitting has been proven to shorten our lives and take a toll on our health - why shouldn’t be try to combat that by walking for a few minutes each day? Also, it’s the first step in showing people that exercise doesn’t have mean putting on running clothes and working out hard for an hour or more. Exercise can simply be taking a leisurely stroll during your 10 minute break at work. Simple steps…

Running for Wellness

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:43:11 -0400

Took some people from the wellness group on a run last week. One of the girls ran her first mile without stopping for the first time in her life! The other ran the entire 2.5 miles without stopping when just 6 months ago he couldn’t go more than .5 without being out of breath and in pain!

So exciting to see progress in the people that are trusting me to guide their journey to better health and wellness. Love seeing where they are at to start with and enjoy in their small victories along the way

Wellness Warriors - First Meeting

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:39:18 -0500

Today was the first Wellness Warriors meeting at work. I had a great turnout (20 people in a company of 70) and everyone seemed really excited about it. Today was just informational - I also handed out a survey to see what the needs of the group were. Looking forward to reading through the surveys and planning our first meetings and activities!

Paying it Foward

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:39:32 -0500

Paying it Foward:

More risks, bigger leaps, making a difference one small step at a time. Check out my newest story involving my Leapyear Project.

Hunger Games Trilogy = Done.

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:38:29 -0500

I finished up the Hunger Games trilogy this weekend. Even though I have some serious problems with the third book, Mockingjay, overall, it was a great series.

I have to say that one reason I take issue is because it becomes more like Harry Potter in the third book. Katniss being all self-pitying and assuming that everyone does everything because of her and that all of the catastrophic events are of her doing gets a little old, just as it did in Harry Potter.

Also, the first person narrator makes it difficult to continue once you stop caring about Katniss. At least with Harry Potter you see things from the third person, which allows you to form a deeper relationship with the secondary characters. You never see Gale, Prim, or Peeta’s motivation for their actions, therefore it makes it hard to root for any of them. When you start despising the main character in a first-person narrated story it’s really tough to enjoy it - at least for me.

Anyway, enough about the small stuff. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the series and am happy to have read it. Now I will be back to reading my normal non-fiction and historical literature :)

Wellness Group is a Go

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:46:07 -0500

I got the green light from my boss today to start my wellness group at work. I’m so excited to start sharing my knowledge with my coworkers - as many of them have been very curious about health and wellness topics lately. I’ve been getting a lot of the same questions so I finally reached out to my boss about starting this group.

After some planning and discussion I got the ok to start getting people signed up and start planning some of the group meetings. Here are a few of the activities I have been brainstorming about doing with the group:

Guided group discussions about health/fitness related topics
Presentations on various related topics (as decided on by the group)
Doing a grocery store tour to show people how to shop/where to find things
Training for the Gorilla run (a work sponsored charity race)
Mini-cooking sessions – showing people how to prepare certain foods/recipes
Creating shopping lists based around planned menus

I’m really pumped for this to get off the ground. It’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since I got my nutrition certification and I’m so glad I took the leap to actually writing up and submitting the proposal!

Another book bites the dust...

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:04:55 -0500

I finished up another book this weekend: Catching Fire - the 2nd in the Hunger Games trilogy - I also started the 3rd - Mockingjay.

I’m really pleased with my reading progress so far this year. I feel like I might actually read all of the books I wanted to this year, which is great because then I can start adding new titles! Any suggestions?

Serious Eats - Vegan Experience Wrap-Up

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:16:37 -0500

Serious Eats - Vegan Experience Wrap-Up:

Some very interesting final thoughts from a writer at Serious Eats who went vegan for a month. Be sure to check this out!

Leapyear Project on Cowbird

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:43:55 -0500

Leapyear Project on Cowbird:

Hi everyone! Just wanted to let you know that I’ll be posting a lot of my day-to-day experiences involving my Leapyear Project over on Cowbird. It’s a fantastic site and it allows for a beautiful storytelling experience! I hope you’ll take a look and follow my journey throughout this year!

One Weight at a Time

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:17:32 -0500

One Weight at a Time:

My first steps towards achieving my Leapyear project goals.

My valentines day lino cut. Test prints tomorrow.

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:22:35 -0500

My valentines day lino cut. Test prints tomorrow.

Leapyear Project

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:54:35 -0500

So, yesterday I stumbled upon this movement called The Leap Year Project. If you want to read up on the whole thing, you can check out their site, but basically it boils down to finding something that is a risk for you and taking the LEAP! into it this year (as 2012 is a leap year).

For me, it couldn’t have come at a better time. My rage was set off yesterday by the announcement that Susan G. Komen would pull all of it’s breast cancer screening funding from Planned Parenthood (for obvious, conservative reasons which they claim are untrue). I was not only upset by their blatant political move, but also by the way that this would continue to marginalize the poor. The gap continues to widen between the haves and have-nots and it’s a frustrating thing to watch. Should access to healthcare really be something that politicized and monetized? I have a hard time digesting the fact that in order to live a healthy life you have to have money and support the ‘right’ political parties. In fact, it makes me physically sick to think about.

But I realized my rage was deeper than this one incident.

Over the last year I’ve transformed my life through improving my diet (first going vegetarian, then vegan) and my fitness (I ran my first 5k and 10k last year). I was so profoundly changed by these events, that I decided to help others do the same by getting certified as a Nutrition and Wellness Consultant. Because of these things, I’ve become so much more aware of the nutrition and health issues around me.

Everyday I see people who are overweight, sedentary, lacking medical insurance, and struggling to live the life they’ve always dreamed of. And it’s this that sets off my rage. My rage is not guided at the individuals who are struggling, but at a system that has done it’s part to fail them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing personal responsibility here, but the system hasn’t helped them at all - it’s probably made things worse.

With the Leapyear Project for support, I’ve decided to take my rage and channel into actually working to improve upon these issues, rather than just sit with my feelings and get more frustrated than I am already.

My risk for 2012 and the Leapyear Project is pretty straightforward: Improve the health and wellness of my community via group discussion, one-on-one consultations, film screenings, and other forms of outreach. The two main things I want to accomplish with this project are 1) Help everyone in my community understand how diet and health are related and how they can take charge of their own health without having to rely on the broken healthcare system and 2) Support local organizations that are already doing their part to better the health and wellness of those in our community (Planned Parenthood included).

This project is a risk for me, because it may subject me to a lot of negative criticism about the validity of a vegan diet, my personal morals, and various other deeply personal values that I hold near to my heart. However, for me, the risk is worth the potential reward: an awakened awareness of how we are in control of our own health and the refusal to politicize a basic human right to living a healthy life.

I will be chronicling most of this journey here, on twitter, and several other media sites. I’m open to your thoughts and suggestions - but I will not support hatred - so please think before you respond.

I will be posting more specific goals and tasks over the next week or so. I look forward to working on this project and hope you will take a LEAP! of your own this year!

Photo

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:32:01 -0500

Susan G. Komen Pulls Planned Parenthood Funding

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:41:31 -0500

Susan G. Komen Pulls Planned Parenthood Funding:

Ok, this really rubs me the wrong way. Firstly, SGK has already ‘pinkwashed’ everything possible - thereby profiting from a serious disease which they are supposed to be helping finding a cure for. Now, they’ve decided to pull funding for an organization that uses those monies for breast cancer exams for low-income women. Nice work SGK - just what we need, a bigger gap between the healthcare of the rich and poor.

Kitchen painting done. Red is no more. Kind of sad about that.

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:29:21 -0500

Kitchen painting done. Red is no more. Kind of sad about that.