32 Things Before 32 // #32 Ignore Haters

This is a harder one to post about because I don't have physical proof of accomplishing it, just my story. My entire life I have struggled with always wanting everyone to like me. I've always wore my heart on my sleeve and been hurt many times because of it. Over the years though I learned that when something bad happens to me, I just become a little bit stronger. Last year when my vegan lifestyle was more fresh and new to me I really had a hard time adapting emotionally. I didn't know how to ignore negative comments or reactions that I would receive from people. I didn't get what the big deal was. Yes, I don't eat animals, what's the problem?


I would seriously just fall apart. I know now that people are going to dislike me because of my values and beliefs. There is always going to be haters. It doesn't matter what you do or say. Over time I realized that people feel attacked personally if you talk about not eating animals. Some people view it as you are trying to be pushy and change them. I have never wanted to make someone feel that way. I just like giving information to people. Plus I just simply get excited when I talk about it. I feel like I am glowing and I have a smile from ear to ear. I get so happy when someone asks me questions about the food I eat and why. It's so nice when someone is curious and listens to what I have to say. I've learned to just focus on the people who are willing to accept me for who I am and not treat me like a freak or a crazy person. Why waste so much energy on those who don't care or show interest? This was the lesson I needed to learn and I feel like in the last 6 months I have.


I used to stress over influencing family and friends to go vegan. It's hard to influence the people I love since they live 1,200 miles away. The best way to prove to people that eating a plant based diet isn't hard is by cooking for them. Since I can't cook for them on a regular basis, they will never understand that I don't just eat tofu and carrots. When I post things about animal rights on Facebook they can just choose to ignore me. Which would cause me to get very sad sometimes. I could never understand why no one cared. One of the reasons Cody and I visited Ohio back in April was to hopefully talk to our families about adapting our diet. I didn't expect my family to want to go join Peta and become animal activists, but I would love for everyone to be healthier. Once I was there with the people I love I decided not to bring it up. It's like the saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink." One of my blogger friends said that to me once and it's stuck every since.



During our visit we fed people good vegan meals, they saw how happy we are and how healthy we have become,....done. All I ever hope to do is inspire people and lead by example. Conversations were started with family but ended fairly quick. It just proved to me that I need to let things be. Even though it's hard on me at times, I definitely learned from it as well. Things don't seem to be bothering me as much. I still struggle with watching people eat meat or even seeing it. I don't know if that will ever change, maybe just get easier over time. I do, however, not worry about what people think or say when I tell them I don't eat animals. I also will straight forward tell them why. Which leaves me with this video below. I stumbled across it by accident. This guy is vegan and he took the words right out of my mouth. I found it very inspiring. He speaks out about why vegans shouldn't be scared of speaking their minds.

Skip ahead to 2 minutes and 15 seconds. That is where he starts talking about vegans.

I speak my mind when it's appropriate and I'm never mean or pushy. That doesn't get you anywhere in any aspect of life!! I have always treated people the way I want to be treated. It's so simple yet very powerful. A few months back I had someone tell me that I was going to live a life of depression by being vegan. This was said to me because one day I was really sad over animals being killed for food. As if we don't all get sad about something that happens in the world from time to time. We are human aren't we? Those words were said to me as a personal attack.

Funny thing is, it did the opposite. It made me learn to "Ignore Haters" and I think I am stronger now. I am just going to keep being me. Which is actually a rather happy person I think. If I inspire some people along the way then that's just an added bonus. I hope that this post wasn't just another vegan one to you. I think we all have things in our lives that we are passionate about and wish that others were as well. Just lead by example and always wear a smile on your face. It's contagious. ;)

Things on my list I have accomplished so far:
#3 Learn to Knit | #26 Dye My Hair Pink | #24 Biking in Ohio
#20 Kick My Coffee Addiction | #29 Surprise Someone | #23 Visit A Farm Sanctuary

You can view the full list HERE.
Or check out my labels below to find similar posts like this one.

32 Things Before 32 List // #20 Kicking My Coffee Addiction

If you are a coffee lover, the first thought you may have when reading the title of this post is, "Why the heck would anyone want to kick their coffee addiction?" Maybe addiction also seems like a harsh word and I should say "habit". Honestly for me I know it's an addiction. I crave it. I threw this on my 32 Things List because I knew the amount of coffee I was drinking most days was out of control. This is something that I have struggled with for YEARS!


There I am in a coffee shop in Solvang, California back in 2011. Boy did I enjoy that vanilla latte that day! My coffee habit started back in high school. I would drink a hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning and then drink a cold iced coffee on the way to school. I was even known to take caffeine pills on top of that, something I am not proud of now! My poor little heart. Fast forward through the years, on my 21st birthday I didn't even drink. Instead I had a group of friends over for a card night. We stayed up late and drank coffee. My friends and I would go out to restaurants just to drink coffee.

A few years back when Cody went through basic training I decided that I wanted to cut my coffee drinking way down. I was working at IKEA where they provided their co-workers FREE coffee all day long. I would drink up to 6 cups just while at work. That's not counting the coffee I had before work. I will say, I got a lot done when I was at work jacked up on caffeine! While Cody was gone I went on this health kick. I actually got my coffee intake down to one cup in the morning and it was only half-caff.

French Pressed coffee, my favorite way to drink coffee now.

While I was in Texas attending Cody's Graduation, I fell off the wagon. I went to Starbucks and got a vanilla latte. After that one latte, I started drinking them often again and picked up my bad habits. Back to all the free coffee at work (IKEA), back to more then one cup in the morning and goodbye half-caff! For this post I was able to pretty much click on any of my Flickr photo sets and find an image of me with a coffee cup either in my hand or next to me...

Drinking coffee in 80 degree weather at Disney World!

So it's only March and I'm already posting about kicking my coffee addiction. I didn't expect to start cutting back on coffee so soon in the year. At the beginning of February we fell in love with a new brand of coffee. We had been drinking the brand Millstone and some Starbucks. We tried a new coffee from a local coffee shop in town, DAZ BOG. This coffee is amazing. It's for true coffee junkies. It's so dark and strong. After drinking it everything else tastes watered down. I tried drinking some Millstone that we had left over and it tasted like water. I poured it down the drain because I hated it that much.

Well something strange happened to me after I started to drink DAZ BOG. I suddenly had a million pimples on my face. My whole chin and forehead were covered. It looked almost like a red rash on both sides of my face. At the time I was drinking on average two cups of coffee in the morning and then two cups of decaf in the afternoon. I craved it so I would just settle for decaf to satisfy my cravings during the day. I couldn't figure out what was causing the breakouts! It was driving me crazy. The light bulb went off over my head and I thought, "Maybe it's the coffee?"


I thought maybe since this coffee is stronger then other brands it was the reason I was breaking out. It's been a little over a week and I have increased my water intake and I'm down to only one cup of coffee in the morning. My skin has drastically cleared up. I would be happy with only one cup of coffee from now on. Or maybe even switch to tea with caffeine in it for some mornings. My energy level seems to have already increased and I'm not crashing as much. This isn't the first time I've gave up HUGE amounts of caffeine. When I have in the past I always find myself feeling better without it. Problem for me is coffee tastes amazing. I love it. That's why I don't plan to fully give it up. It's a treat now. I just have to have strong will power. I'm curious to see how I do when I go on vacation. Dun dun duunnnn....

A road trip without lots of coffee??? This will be a first for me. I just keep telling myself I WANT CLEAR SKIN!
Are you a coffee drinker or a coffee addict?

See my full 32 Things Before 32 List HERE.

4 Simple Goals Before 2013 // The Results

You may or may not remember me posting about my 4 SIMPLE GOALS BEFORE 2013. I wasn't sure if I even wanted to do a RECAP post about it, but after reading Kitty's post I decided to. She inspired me to share my results. So here we go...


FAIL! This is the only goal I feel I completely failed out. I feel like you can always make time for things that are important to you. I failed at making time to workout. I will say that my job physically wears me out daily. When I get home I have very little energy. I walk what feels like miles at work. I don't feel too badly about not working out. I just know it's better for me. Especially since I want to bike so much this year. I need to "train" for my first real season of cycling. I have worked out a little bit this month. I am also already starting to not drink as much caffeine/coffee. I am heading in the right direction, just not before 2012 ended. HA! Oh well. Next goal...


This is a tricky one to answer. I started out really good in October and into early November. Then we ended up buying a house so quickly that my life and schedule was turned upside down. Most of my time management issues have to do with my blog. I love my blog, but it takes up so much of my time. Too much. I didn't fail this goal, but I still need to figure out better ways to manage my time I take to do posts. Also trying to keep up with all the reading of other blogs has gotten really hard for me. I want to visit you all, but there just isn't enough time in the day!! Blog Lovin' is helping me out a lot right now with keeping up with my reading list. I am trying to do most my blog posts on only a few days of the week. (Freeing up the other days.) Still struggling though. I need time for real life. LOL


This goal I did. Only one huge hill, but it counts. Gosh, it burned so bad! Our last bike ride that we took in October we went a different way on the trail. There was this long long hill that I never thought I would be able to climb up. Of course Cody blasted by me. I yelled obscenities the whole time I was peddling up the hill. Cody keep yelling at me not to stop and I just kept going. I did make it to the top without stopping. It just was painful and took what felt like an eternity. This is why I need to workout more. We now have a bike trainer in our basement. My bike is hooked up to it and you just peddle like a spin bike. It's so freakin hard! I can't wait to be able to climb mountains on my bike. It will all be worth it in the end.


This I felt was a goal that may have seemed strange to people. Since I moved 1200 miles away from my parents I don't see them EVER. I don't feel like I talk to them enough and it's sad. Time goes by so fast and I don't ever want to regret not keeping in better contact with them. We have talked more on the phone since October and emailed more. I hope to start taking the time to write letters and call more often. I think it's really important. So, I didn't fail at this goal but there is room for improvement.

We all have goals for 2013. I think we just have to focus on the really important stuff. Don't put way too much pressure on yourself to do a million things. Of course I say that and I have my 32 Things list. HA! I want to be really ambitious this year. I think if Cody and I decide to start trying for a baby it may be this fall. I want to do a lot of things this year that may not be so easy with a mini me running around. :)

What is your number 1 thing that you WILL accomplish in 2013??

WHAT? I'm 31 Years Old!

It's my birthday. Now I feel like I can officially say that I'm "in" my thirties. It doesn't really seem to have an effect on me in any type of a negative way. When I was in my twenties I would dread turning 30! I sure as heck don't feel like I'm as old as I am. (I do still wear Hello Kitty!) Lately I have also been thinking that if I could introduce myself to the 15 year old me, what would the young me think???

This year I have gained so much self esteem through my blog. Doing the outfit posts (as cheesy as they seem sometimes) has helped me feel more confident. Going Vegan has also helped me lose weight naturally which also makes me more comfortable in my own skin. I also started cycling this year. What a great year I had at age 30!


I can't wait to see how much more I grow and change this year! It's exciting. I feel like I have so much to live for everyday. Inspiring others, making them laugh and having a smile that I hope is contagious.


When I was in high school I dressed "different". I was considered "alternative" or some called me goth. I didn't wear a lot of black clothing though. I wore lime green platform shoes, vinyl and hardly ever matched. I'd wear pretty much anything from the thrift store. I find myself more and more drawn to the bright clothing as I get more confident with myself. In the past I used to only wear black. Now I pass all the black up when shopping. I would be making the 15 year old me proud. :)


When I was 15 I got picked on for the way I dressed. Now I get picked on for my Vegan diet. I still cry when I am bullied and my feelings are hurt. The difference now is that I have learned to stand up for myself. If you read my long blog post a few weeks back about being called an Obnoxious Elitist, you will be glad to hear that I reported the harassment to his supervisors. I stood up for myself because I felt it was the right thing to do. It is also expected of you to report stuff like this when it involves the military. I'm not sure what else will happen. I just hope he leaves me alone. That's all I want. He can eat his meat and I'll eat my veggies. End of story.


It's fun to watch yourself grow and change. I used to be so scared of change, but now I find it so exciting. Life is good and I feel it just getting better. What am I going to do for my birthday??? I am probably going to go thrifting. I love to shop and that's what I feel like doing. If it was warm I would bike.

32 THINGS BEFORE 32

Yes, I am jumping on the bandwagon and making my own list of things I would like to accomplish by my next birthday. I never got around to doing a 30 Things Before 30! Now that I am 31 years old I thought I would do a list for before 32. As a child I hated having my birthday at Christmas time. Now it doesn't bother me at all. It's actually kinda nice that it's at the end of the year really. It will make doing a 32 Things Before 32 list easier. I get to start it at the beginning of a year and set some awesome goals for myself!

My list consists of things that are some what simple to do, to things that are a bit harder. I really wanted to challenge myself. Posting it on the blog makes it feel so "official". I now have an audience watching me saying, "Well? How's that list going???" I am super excited for the next year and exploring my list. I was just going to type it out, but that wasn't fun for me. I've added some photos. There are some links throughout the list, so feel free to scroll over everything and explore further if you'd like. I can't wait to start marking some of this stuff off the list!




So what do you think? I love the last one. ;)
Have you made lists for yourself? Please share them and how is your progress going???