Vegan Finds, Vegan RVing, Nature, Volunteering, & Playing Catch-Up

First I want to say THANK YOU for those who commented on my last post and sent words of encouragement.  I truly appreciate you all!  This post will be more on the positive side.  I have LOTS of vegan finds to share with you over the last several months.  As well as some of the volunteering, family, nature, and camping posts to share!  So...here...we...go!  The photo above is one of the new vegan butters I found.  Since I found this months ago it could very well be old news but I think it's still worth posting!  Country Crock jumped on the plant-based train and came out with this new 'butter' made from Avocado Oil.  I have to say I do like it.  I found this one at my local Tops Market.

These next TWO photos are vegan yogurts I found.  The flavors were good but they were a tad on the thin side.  I believe I found these at Wegman's.

Of course, I LOVE Lemon Meringue flavored things so I had to try this one at the very least!

Here are 4 of the dressings and such that got me thru this season of camping!  I have been trying to follow more and more vegan RV'ers and vegan campers to connect with, too!  I know I have posted the Daiya dressings before but I don't think I have featured the Field Organic Goddess Dressing or the Annie's Lemon & Chive but I enjoyed all 4 of them!

Here is a shot of my cabinet for the camping season.  Of course there were other trips to the grocery store in between but I thought it was worth a corner in this blog post.  I tried the new Daiya Bac'n & Cheddar and I wasn't that much of a fan but at least I can say I tried it once.  It was too salty for me.  I'm just now getting to the point were I am eating the soups because it cooled down for a few days.  Rice is always a good choice.  Trinity and I shared the organic applesauce.  There are some Nature's Bakery items in there and a few Coconut Silk Milk's in there, too!

On to the snacks!  My father went to a snack and candy show and brought back a bunch of munchies for me.  Over the last several years he has noticed more and more vegan options!  YAY!  This was one of the new flavors back in April from Vegan Rob's!  I have to say I LOVED them!  A nice kick!  Addicting!  YUM!

And speaking of addicting...THESE GUYS!  OMG!  I adore them!  The only negative?  I can't find them around here!  Maybe that is for the best...I would eat them TOO MUCH then if they were readily available.

While camping this year we found MANY birds nests!  And some of them were in the strangest places!  This one was behind our camping in between the fence and the water hook-up.  It was built AFTER we hooked-up.  I checked on it each time I went to the camper and the eggs were so small!  Too small to be Robins.  After researching it for a bit, I found out these were Chipping Sparrows.  3 out of the 4 eggs hatched and I was actually able to see them fly out of the next a couple of weeks after they hatched, too!

Another thing that happened in the spring was another Refugee Hike.  Once again I helped with the food - as did my mother!  These kids were AMAZING!  The youngest was about 14 and the oldest of was 24.  There were also a few chaperones, too.  Unfortunately, I missed the canoe trip they did in early August because of the volunteering I do at our fair.

Also in the spring, I was inducted as a new Zonta Board Member.  I'm pictured here in the black shirt with red scarf.  I really LOVE being a part of the Zonta Organization.  My only regret was that I didn't join sooner.  In addition to being on the board now I am the Service Committee Chair for a 2nd year in a row.  This year I am also on the Advocacy and Media/Communications Committee (as I was last year) and new-for-me this year is becoming a member of the Fellowship Committee, too!  I'm VERY excited about the new year!

You may remember that last year our club started collecting bras for Free The Girls.  We have continued to do so and have collected 2,001 bras so far.  I doubt we will be slowing down anytime soon!

These next TWO photos are from some of our Suffrage Centennial Committee Meetings.  We have been discussing and planning various events with several other organizations around our county to celebrate 100 years of Women's Right to Vote.

Many of the ladies have been purchasing and making banners, sashes, flags, and more!  It's really neat to see!  Tonight we actually have an actress coming to town to portray Susan B. Anthony.  I will try and take pictures and blog about it soon!

And, finally, here are some photos from Warren County Serves that took place in Mid-May.  It's a group that formed a year or so ago and they lost many of their members even before the first annual event.  I've always wanted to do something like this to encourage and promote volunteerism in our area so I ended up joining the group!  We had projects that included beautification at our local Humane Society as well as tagging and sorting at the thrift shop they have on the other side of town.  There were several parks that also did beautification projects during that weekend.  There is a community house for those with mental and physical disabilities that a group helped scrape, paint, and stain steps, too!  We also have an organization in our county that houses and pairs service dogs and emotional support dogs to those who have PTSD and other emotional difficulties and that group helped clean-up their parking lot, outside of the building, and such.  Another place that had volunteers was our fairgrounds.  We did a LOT of painting, and I mean a LOT.  And others helped with cleaning some of the buildings and landscaping.  There were other projects, too, these are just a few.

I'm already pondering my post for tomorrow.  I still have a lot of catching up to do.  Let me know if you think these posts are too long or if you prefer them.

LOTS of Vegan Finds, Volunteering, Family & Friends!

Continuing with my updates - I'm jumping right in with the 6X6 Photo Splashes!  Hope you don't mind!  Many of these photos are from quite a while ago but I thought they were still worth a mention!  This past summer we spent a lot of time at the fairgrounds.  It seems each year we spend more and more time there.  Each weekend.  Many evenings!  Starting in Mid April and going thru Mid October!  We did a LOT of potlucks and community dinners.  It really does feel like a Commune down there at times - that is the part I like!  PLUS...I can share some vegan dishes that non-vegans seem to enjoy!  As you can see I was rocking the Florida Crystals this year!  It's a nicely labeled vegan sugar!  

I did get a few of the Grainful meals for the camper freezer.  They came in pretty handy.

I made a lot of Tomato Salads...Tomato and Onion...Tomato, Onion, Cucumber...Tomato, Onion, Sweet Pepper...you name it!  

The photo on the bottom-center was a few of us doing Voter Registration at a local high school.  The League of Women Voters always partner-up with the official Voter Registration Guru at our local courthouse!

And then you can see some more propagation experiments with that last photo!

A while back I noticed that our local Walmart started carrying more Sweet Earth products INCLUDING the Veggie Lovers Pizza!  I have to say this is a WONDERFUL Vegan Freezer Pizza, folks!  I can't wait to grab another one!  It was SO flavorful and I LOVED that it had 2 sauces on it!  YUM!

In the fall I did try and take more photos around town and you can see one of them with the railroad/bridge in the center.  Another thing I tried to get back into was Meditation.  I'm still trying with that!

I think I fell back on TOO MANY Vegan Mac & Cheeses this past fall - including the one you see here.  I do remember that one being a squash base and it turned YUMMY!

I also found some more Enjoy Life snacks at Tops.  Maple Sweet Potato?  I just HAD to!  Glad I did, too, they were tasty!

Here you can see a photo of my wonderfully adorable niece Trinity!  More photos of her to follow - because she's too cute - NOT to brag about, eh?

Another silly selfie on IG with a filter that gave me eyelashes.  

Another photo from the fairgrounds from this past fall when we started seeing mushrooms popping up everywhere!  I just LOVED the colors!

The two photos on the bottom of 'this 6' on the right and on the left were from the Annual United Fund Kickoff!  Some places have the United Way and we have United Fund here.  It's pretty much the same idea...local charities and fundraising each year.  This is the 2nd year I was the Slowest Potato Peeler.  Now it's going to be 'a thing' and I will have to make fun of myself and it from now on!   It's all in good fun, tho!

The one in the center-bottom was the first of many Free The Girls IG posts!  More on that in coming posts but in short...it's a new service project for our local Zonta Club.  We have an ongoing drop off location for new and gently used bras for Free The Girls - based in Indiana - and they help survivors of trafficking start their own retail business in their own communities!  The 3 countries they have programs in currently are Mozambique, El Salvador, and Costa Rica!

In a RARE Day Off this past fall...I met up with my parents, sister, and Miss Trinity for a trip to Erie.  We found this artist and sculpture guy who reused and recycled items and placed them in his front yard as works of art - and BOY - were they!  It's FREE to visit!  Here you can see 6 photos of the outing!  

Of course Trinity has to have unicorn stuff because I'm her aunt!  There was a car that was made into a spider...they often light that up with each season.  There was a 'dude' they dressed up like a Pirate for Halloween.  A wasp.  A 2-headed Dinosaur.  And a Flag Wall made out of License Plates!

Total Evolution in Warren now carries Earth Below Kombucha which is locally brewed in Emporium, PA, and I have to say I have enjoyed each flavor I have tried so far!  I can't wait to try more!  They have a tap installed at Total Evolution!  Woot!  

Here you can see more about FTG (Free The Girls) and another Zonta Club post!  I will be blogging about many of our service projects soon!

I was telling you how I was trying to get more and more into plants!  Well, I started my parents in on a few, too!  You can see their green and pink one is doing better than mine!

I was able to find another BOOCH at Whole Foods Co-Op in Erie a while back, too!

Oh yeah...and a skeleton dressed up like a clown in a coffin from the Auto Art place in Erie is above, too!

More teasers, here, but I told you we took a trip to Indiana!  I will be posting more about that soon - PROMISE!

Trinity is pictured above in one of the first FORTS we made!  She LOVES them!  And BOY do we make some good ones!

Also this past fall I really needed to do some reflection so I went over to Kinzua Dam and took some photos!

I know I was telling you a while back about the new vegan line at ALDI well here is another Salad Dressing I found!  It was VERY GOOD!  It was a Tahini Goddess!  

In the center on the bottom, you will see a group of people eating!  This was our 3rd gathering for the group we welcome from Erie from the Multicultural Resource Center.  We finally have a name for our group!  Welcome To Warren County Committee!

This Refugee group was 9 to 13-year-olds and they were so fun!  I was so excited to spend more time with them this time around!  They were Refugees from Syria, Eritea, Ukraine and a few adults from Ukraine, Bhutan, and Kyrgyzstan.

And just to finish up a few random catch-ups...the 3 top photos here are from our League of Women Voters Annual Membership Meeting in the fall.  We went to a small local museum that I had not been to but was glad I did go!  It was a neat place.  

Then another photo of my parents plant I started them on, one of the photos from our Indiana road trip, and a random photo from a live remote broadcast prior to us leaving for our trip.

I'm Back & Will Be Catching Up for a LONG Time!

I didn't fall off the face of the Earth, really.  I am back and I want to thank everyone for all the notes in the meantime.  Life has gotten in the way - yet again!  It will take me a VERY long time to get back into the swing of things are caught up so for the foreseeable future I'm sure to have a lot of mishmashy type posts.  Hope you don't mind!

One of the main reasons I have been avoiding a blog post is because we lost our dear Paco to his immune issues back in Early May.  He was just shy of his 7th birthday.  It all happened so fast and I'm not sure if I can fully explain everything that happened within the 12 hours of it actually happening.  Plus it was very graphic when it did happen because he was dealing with clotting issues.  Not only was he dealing with his ITP but he also had IHMA.  Up to this point he had dealt with 1 immune disease but that dreadful night he developed a 2nd one.  In addition, he was developing Cushing's again.  Because he was on a high dosage of long-term steroids he was losing muscle mass, too.  Since he was diagnosed at about 2 and a half we knew something like clotting could be in his future but NOTHING prepared us for what actually took place.

Eventho, I haven't been able to take down his pen area YET I was able to 'keep busy' and that seemed to help a little bit.  I know it sounds weird but I have to keep busy to deal with certain things.  It's not that I'm running away from my problems - it just helps me to focus on multiple things to help me heal in the meantime.   

I'm not sure if I blogged about this before my hiatus or not but back in March, I traveled to the Capitol Building.  It was my first time there.  It was a rainy day but I'm glad that I was part of it.  It was a Rally for Fair Districts and to stop Gerrymandering which is a HUGE problem in our state.  Over the past several months it's been a whirlwind and eventho we didn't get the results we had hoped we are still fighting for VOTING RIGHTS!

The county I live in doesn't have a large Refugee population but we neighbor a city that does.  Back in January and February our League of Women Voters invited the director of the Multicultural Resources Center to do a Refugee 101.  We wanted to do this because there is a lot of misinformation and incorrect assumption about how Refugees come to America and integrate into life in a new country.  The feedback was positive and a group of citizens decided to start hikes for Refugees locally since we are smack dab in the middle of the Allegheny National Forest and have other natural beauties in our area.  So...the middle of May we hosted our first of 2 hikes.  The first one was for Refugee Kids.  Ukraine, Syria, Somalia, Eritrea (a country bordering Somalia), and Nepal were the countries they fleed from.

A little over a month later we hosted another hike.  This time for a group of Senior Citizen Refugees.  Some of the participants were part of a sign language group, too.  Within this group were mostly people from Bhutan and Pakistan.

In the beginning of the Summer another outing we had was to Erie, PA, where we went to a Food Truck Festival in hopes to have one locally some day.  I was thrilled that there were vegan options!

Another thing that has been on my mind is a local tragedy.  K9 Choper - our local K9 Officer - passed away from his injuries during a training day.

During the end of June I was a committee member for the annual car and craft show at our fairgrounds and I was pleased to see more vendors that offered vegan friendly products.  One of them being these Vegan Lip Balms.

Of course we have been busy with work, too, an have had many live remotes lately including a few at local businesses and during fair week.  More on fair week in a future post but here is a neat snapshot from Employee Appreciation Day at a local business.

Another thing that has been keeping us busy has been trading in our vehicles on new ones!  Here is the new Fiat I traded my old one in for.  I LOVE it!

A few months ago I became a Zonta Member, too!  It's been fun so far and I'm looking forward to getting involved with more of the service and advocacy end of things.  Each summer they have a Summer Surprise and members don't know what it is until they get there.  This year we went to the Lucy-Desi Museum.  We had dinner in The Tropicana that they set up to look like the real TV set.  There were also recreations of the sets from I LOVE LUCY, too!  Since I'm in radio I found this tidbit extra interesting!

In other news...our local mall is going thru a major redesign and revamp.  They are turning it from a shopping mall to a strip/plaza type thing.  A co-worker has gotten me into indoor plants more the last year or more and she was upset when I told her that the indoor plants at the mall were going to be trashed.  We asked the project manager if we could take some and he said YES so we are trying to save some of them.  More on that in upcoming posts, too!

And before blogger gives up on me I think I will end this post right here.  But I will be regularly blogging again so please check back.  I really didn't scratch the surface of the stuff I have to share with you and I know I will be adding more to the list very soon!  Thanks again for staying with me the last couple months!  I appreciate you all!