A few months ago, we decided to cut out dairy and eggs.  Since we were already vegetarians, this essentially meant that we were going vegan.  In order to make it a little more manageable, we treated it like a trail run and gave ourselves permission to reevaluate after a few weeks. 

We thought the cheese would be the hardest part.  Eggs weren't really a big part of my life (Serial had them occasionally) so I didn't think that would be a challenge, but cheese... well, cheese is insanely good.  How would we ditch that? 

Much to our surprise, it wasn't that hard.  Since we eat something like 95% of our meals at home, we simply stopped buying dairy and we haven't looked back.  Neither of us miss eggs and we've found healthy substitutes for cheese that satisfy those cravings (side note, those dairy cravings drop significantly when you stop eating it for a bit).  There are tons of soy cheeses out there, and they taste fine, but we prefer to make our own nut cheese or purchase vegan cheese that's made of nuts (rather than soy). 

Eating at restaurants is a little trickier.  We're lucky that we live in Chicago because there are a few really awesome vegan restaurant choices (Chicago Diner & Soul Veg are two of our favorites).  When we feel like going out for a meal, we usually pick one of those two.  (We plan to do  a few restaurant reviews of the vegan restaurants we have tried, so stay tuned for those).

Occasionally though, we find ourselves in a non-vegan restaurant, usually because we are out with friends.  In these situations, we just order a vegetarian meal and call it a day.  We usually leave the cheese off, but it's never really a guarantee that something wasn't prepared with dairy (butter, eggs) in the back.  We just try not to stress too much about it. 

Once a month-ish, we abandon all cheese rules and order something like pizza.  I don't care that it takes away our "vegan" title.  It's all in (extreme) moderation and totally keeps us sane.  Sometimes you just want some pizza, you know? 

So that's where we are at these days.  100% vegan at home.  95% vegan overall.  And entirely healthier because of it.  I think we've found a good balance and I'm excited for the warm weather to pick up.  We just naturally eat more fruits and greens in the summer and many of our meals are raw. 

Two linkups in one week?  Not sure what got into us, but we are cranking them out.  This one is from my girl Elle Noel who is kind of a fitness beast.  Seriously, she has my dream body.  And she got it by losing 60 pounds the healthy way and then toning, toning, toning.  Go check her site out.

This linkup is focused on getting to know the significant others behind bloggers.  Now I know Serial blogs here too, but most blogs are run by one person so you rarely hear from their significant others.  We don't fit the common mold of a blog so these questions aren't a perfect fit for us, but whatever, I love a linkup!

OK, so now for the confession.  We are a day late on this one.  Oh well.  Here we go!

Serial's Answers
1. What are your thoughts on your girl's blog? I love it...greatest blog in the universe!
2. Do you know what IG stands for? How about OOTD? No, thankfully....
3. How long would you say you've been together? 4 years!
4. Does her working out and eating healthy make you want to join in? Staying fit and eating healthy is how i keep my vibrant glow...
5. Is there anything she can do to inspire you to workout/eat healthier (or are you a healthy eater already)? Thankfully she prepares excellent tasting healthy meals, it's easy to eat...
6. What do you love best about fit/ healthy life? My overall endurance and what that allows me to do comfortably...
7. What do you like least? The lack of Ben and Jerry's...
8. How long did it take for you to agree to answer these questions? It took me only 1 minute to agree and 2 days to actually do it...

If you like what you read, we would love to hear from you in the comments section!  It's fun to get feedback and it helps us create future posts.  And be sure to stay in touch on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS! 

Today we're linking up with Holly and Jake to participate in their second Finish the Sentence linkup.  I've been following Holly for a long time now and I never miss a post of hers, so of course I want to do her linkup! 

You know how you can just tell someone is friendly and funny in real life, even though you only know them through their blog?  Well, that's Holly.  She's got a biting sense of humor online, but you can just tell if you ever actually met her in person she would be the nicest chick in the room.  Same with her Hubby Jack. 

Alright, let's get to the linkup!  I even convinced Serial to do it too :-)

Jill's Answers
1. If calories didn't count, I would eat... endless amounts of desserts.  Like, an entire cake every single day. 
2. On my Prom night.... I was too tan and too blond.  It was damn fun.
3. When I go to the store, I always buy... if it's Target, I couldn't tell you.  I black out and somehow end up back at the car with a cart load of stuff I didn't even know I needed.  If it's the grocery store, bell peppers & veggie burgers.
4. Family functions typically... are fun and make me want to live near Chicago forever and ever.  Then I realize it's cold and flat here and I go back to day-dreaming about a home in the mountains.
5. I think my blog readers... found me through the coffee crate table post (oh the power of Pinterest) or our gear lists. 
6. I'd much rather be.... in the middle of a Saturday.  Which basically means sleeping in, going for a run or hike with Rooney and Serial, then watching a movie and baking in the kitchen.  If it's my super duper ideal Saturday, my brother stops by for dinner. 
7. I have an obsession with.... blogs.  I read SO MANY.  And dogs.  I torture myself by looking at pictures of dogs that are up for adoption and then getting so emotional that I downright smother Rooney with hugs and kisses.
8. My work friends.... are my real friends.  I work from home and so do majority of my work friends which means everyone has a good work/life balance and is HAPPY.  Happy people make great friends.
9. When I created my Facebook account...  I did it primarily to creep on everyone's pictures.  But c'mon, that's what everyone does on FB.
10. My least favorite word is... amazeballs.  It's not even a word, but don't bother telling a blogger that.
11. I really don't remember.... what it's like to not have a dog.
12. Justin Bieber.... is just never going to make sense to me.  I like my Justins in Timberlake form only.

Serial's Answers
1. If calories didn't count, I would eat... Ben and Jerry's Half Baked for dinner and deep dish pizza for dessert...
2. On my Prom night.... Katie Holmes was in my prom group...yes, I'm from Toledo, OH...
3. When I go to the store, I always buy... Craft Beer! Can't stop, won't stop!
4. Family functions typically... lead me to a nap...
5. I think my blog readers... love to check out my hiking gear list!
6. I'd much rather be.... drinking a craft brew and eating vegetarian soul food while hanging out with my college friends in Ann Arbor...
7. I have an obsession with....Soccer...Futbol is life!
8. My work friends....keep things interesting...
9. When I created my Facebook account....I birthed a monster...I'm on there way too much... 
10. My least favorite word is...secretion
11. I really don't remember....the last time i ate meat...
12. Justin Bieber....is thankful he's 13 years younger than Justin Timberlake...

If you like what you read, we would love to hear from you in the comments section!  It's fun to get feedback and it helps us create future posts.  And be sure to stay in touch on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS! 

Things have been hectic lately, y'all.  I'm starting a new job, we've had family in town and we're looking for a new home.  Lots of stuff going on and I've neglected this blog. 

But worry not, we have lots coming up in the next few weeks.  I've even got a little planner dedicated to the blog schedule.  That's serious business for me.  I've got giveaways, recipes, and fitness goals to share plus restaurant, product & gear reviews in the works.  So stay tuned.

In the meantime, we've been cleaning up the site a little bit and incorporating a few new pages so we thought we'd share the love tonight.  Click on any of the pictures below - I hope you enjoy these sites as much as I do! 

For you hikers out there, 'tis the season for trail journals!  There are so many people hitting Springer and attempting thru and section hikes.  Follow along and enjoy.  (note, if I've missed your blog, please leave it in the comments and I will add it to the page).

I'm addicted to blogs.  And Pinterest.  And Target, chocolate, my dog, magazines... wait, what was I saying?  Oh right, blogs.  My RSS feed is jam-packed and I have a couple of favorites that I follow faithfully.  Hopefully make your RSS feed a little happier too. 

And what kind of girlfriend would I be if I didn't boast about Serial's other sites??  He's passiontate about hiking and craft beers.  So it makes sense that he writes about them both and here they are!

If you're on Pinterest, you already know about the "Hey Girl" meme craze.  And if you're not, it's basically just taking a picture of Ryan Gosling and creating a funny little sentence...on second thought, this is hard to explain.  Let me just show you a few examples.

Funny right?  For Valentine's day this year one of my favorite blogs, Domestic Imperfection, hosted a link-up party and asked everyone to create their own Hey Girl meme with a picture of someone in their life.  You can look through the ones other bloggers posted here.  Some of them are so funny - I laughed out loud a bunch. 

And then, of course, I wanted in on this Hey Girl action.  Yeah, I'm late for the Valentine's deadline, but she extended the link-up through Saturday because of the popular response so I figured, why not?  So, here they are - enjoy!

So what do you think??  Let me know if you have a favorite :-)

It's been a few weeks since I talked about my health goals for this year (i.e. my plan to stop eating everything and anything just because it's the holidays) and I've done a pretty good job of sticking to them.  I haven't been super strict, but I've kept to the plan and started running again, listening to Jillian Michaels and counting my calories with the Lose It app.   The thing is, I expected to be feeling healthier by now.  Not transformed or anything, but heading in the right direction. 

It's just not happening yet.  I don't feel stronger and my energy level isn't increasing.  I don't feel the things I usually feel when I stick to my plan.  So... maybe it's time for a new plan. 

I've been a vegetarian for as long as I can remember.  I've consumed meat in my life, but I can't remember what it's like.  I just remember that I stopped liking it at some point.  I've dabbled in veganism a few times in the past, but I always stopped because, well, cheese is delicious. 

Lately I've been thinking about going dairy-free (and therefore vegan) again, and it's been nagging at me.  I just can't shake the feeling that it's the dairy causing my plan to stall.  I'm not going to dwell on it, but there's an argument to be made that we don't need dairy in our diet.  Humans are the only mammal to drink another mammal's milk and the only ones to continue drinking milk past adolescence.  Why? 

I don't have the answers, but I'm curious enough to do a trial period without dairy and see if I gain any insight.  So that's what I'm going to do.  I'll start with a week or two and see how I feel.  I won't miss eggs, but I will definitely miss cheese.  I know there are vegan cheese substitutes, but I'm not crazy about those.  They are processed and don't taste that great.  I'd rather make my own substitutes from nuts and nutritional yeast.  I also don't want the lack of dairy to lead to an increase in soy.  I do consume soy, but I try to keep it minimal. 

I don't have any more details than that right now.  I'm going to cut out the dairy and see how I feel.  Simple as that.  Anyone else new to veganism?  How is it going?  Any veteran vegans out there with tips for substituting cheese?  I'd love to hear them. 

I woke up and instantly knew today would be a lazy, lazy day.  We were up late last night celebrating a friend's birthday, it's cold outside, there's football on all day and Rooney isn't acting like a crazy fool.  Any one of these reasons would be enough for me to commit to my pajamas all day long, but all of these reasons together?  Good luck getting me out the door.

So while I'm enjoying cup after cup of coffee and catching up on laundry, I thought I'd share some of what's on my mind these days. 

• I can't title my post "Lazy Sunday" without linking to this video.
  
• I made quiche for the first time last weekend and then again this weekend.  It's easy and delicious.  I don't know why I haven't been making it for years.  I'll post the recipe I use this week.
• I forget sometimes that Rooney is a big dog.  Last night we had two friends over and they both walked in the door and said "whoa that's a big dog!"  I guess he just seems like a puppy to me.  Although once when we were at a campground this summer, my mom had taken Rooney for a walk and I caught a glimpse of them from across the lot and before I realized it was them, I thought to myself "good god that dog is huge" only to realize afterwards that it was my dog.  And come to think of it, the other day he did knock me on my ass pretty easily so maybe I'm just in denial.
  

Happy Sunday, everyone!  May it be full of lazy cuddles on the couch. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season and taking a chance to appreciate their friends and family.  We certainly are!  It's been a busy week, but a great one.  We started the week in Chicago and celebrated with my parents and my brother.  They had decorated everything and it felt like Christmas as soon as we walked in the door.

This collage of pictures is on the side of my brother's fridge and has been since last Christmas.  They're older pictures of us all that I used for gift wrapping last year.  Instead of writing the To and From on each gift, I used pictures and it was super fun to look through them all together.  So my brother hung them up and they've been there ever since.  It was nice of him and brings warm memories each time I see it.

We spent most of our time eating, relaxing, chatting...and eating some more.  Rooney found a chair that's exactly his size and promptly curled up in a ball.  Oh and see that blanket he's on?  My mom has been crocheting a ton lately and we're all benefiting with luxurious and huge blankets.  She taught me the basics and I've been practicing.  I made a lot of mistakes at first (uh, see the picture below), but I'm starting to get the hang of it now.  Kinda. 

After our Chicago holiday we got together with some of the thru-hikers from 2012 and had a mini reunion.  We are super lucky that a couple of our good friends from the trail live in Chicago and a few more live nearby.  So we planned a weekend and had a ton of fun.  There was a LOT of trail talk (something we don't get to do that often because it bores most people or they don't get what we're talking about) and a boatload of laughs.

Then we packed up again and drove to Michigan to celebrate the holiday with Serial's family.  We stay with his sister and brother-in-law and their three kids when we're over there and it's so great.  They have a dog too so Rooney plays a bunch and we get a chance to catch up with everyone.  His niece is young and loves to chat and is always ready to play with toys or run around playing make believe which makes for a really fun visit. 

And the magical part... she was excited for Santa!  I hadn't witnessed a kid waking up to Santa gifts in years and it was special to watch.  She was so excited! 

Now we are back home and happy to be relaxing together on the couch.  Tomorrow I'm heading back over to my brother's to soak up more quality time with my family before my parents head back to AZ.  It has been such a fantastic holiday so far and we still have more to come!  My girlfriends are planning a night out next week, our Chicago hiker friends are planning a game night (you know, cause we're big nerds) and my family is having a New Years Eve this weekend.  Yep, the theme for us this month is over-scheduled and ridiculously happy.

Hope everyone is enjoying the end of this year, no matter how you celebrate it!

Last week we were focused on getting ready for the holiday festivities that are starting up this week.  Since we're from two different cities we try to balance the holidays with both sides of our families which means we do Thanksgiving with one side and Christmas with the other.  This year we're heading back to Detroit to spend Christmas with Serial's family so we're doing an early celebration with my immediate family this week. 

We've been busy little elves working to get together our gifts and clean our condo.  It actually felt pretty good to be so productive and now I feel like we can just relax and enjoy this time with our families.  The downside?  I neglected my blog.  Big time.  So, in an effort to avoid getting coal in my little blogger stocking, I thought I would do a little recap post and promise to be better about posting this week.  Forgive me?

Good, here we go!

I've been sewing a bunch this past week and true to form, Rooney is curious and doesn't want to be left out of anything.  I set up shop on the new table I built and since it's right behind our couch, he just lays there and stares at me.  My own little floppy ears stalker. 

What have I been sewing?  Pillows for our condo (we have zero decorations up so I thought it would be a quick and easy fix to make it look less like a dorm room) and gifts for the holidays.  I'm going to do a few simple tutorials on all of these, once the gifts have been given.  I'm not a sewing expert, but you don't really need to be for small projects like these.  You could even sew them by hand if you don't have a machine. 

This weekend I treated myself to a new book.  I'm typically a thrift store or used book shopper when it comes to my reading (or the kindle .99 specials), but I have been thinking about this book since it came out and just couldn't hold out any longer.  My hands-down favorite blog is Young House Love so when they put a book out, I was anxious to get my little DIY hands on it.  I read through it cover-to-cover as soon as I got it home and it was worth every last cent.  I love it so much and can't wait to tackle the projects in it. 

I've been whipping up goodies in the kitchen and experimenting with a few different raw dessert recipes.  I like to make them up as I go so sometimes they are a big fat failure and other times they are delicious.  This raw carrot cake that I threw together was a winner.  I'll be writing that one up soon, promise.  If you're craving something sweet and raw right.this.second, check out the pumpkin bars or double chocolate bars that I made. 

I also got to squeeze in a visit with my bestie's family before the holiday craziness started.  Her little one is almost 6 months old so they're enjoying the first Christmas happiness that comes with having a little one that oohs and ahhs at the sparkly tree.  While I was there we had a chance to hang the frame and the height chart that I made for her nursery.  They look so cute in her nursery! 

We've also been continuing our quest for day hikes in the Chicago area.  It's our substitute for the woods.  We are lucky that we have a car to get to all of these various places and I love the time we spend time together outside in the fresh air, but we do miss the mountains.  I'm going to start doing a post for each of the parks and areas we visit, just in case others are looking for ways to get away in the area. 

We've also been cleaning house.  We don't have tons of "stuff" but it felt like we did because our space is small and we weren't really organized in our closet space.  So, I spent a day just pulling everything out of all of the closets and placing things into three piles.  Everything was marked as sell, keep or store away.  It felt awesome.  Yesterday I took two big containers to our friends' house to store in their garage attic (how awesome and sharing are they for letting us do that) and put everything we were keeping back into the closets, using hooks and shelving we had.  Today I'm going to post all of our "sell" items on ebay and craigslist to make a few extra bucks and free up space.  It's so great.  I love a good organization project. 

So that's it, friends.  That's what we've been up to.  Hope you all have been enjoying the holiday prep and finding time to relax with your loved ones.  Have a great week!