New Year, New Goals

I'm not usually one for setting resolutions for the New Year. I feel that it usually leads to me being disappointed in myself if I don't follow through. I am all about setting new goals, at any time of the year. But I thought the beginning of a brand new year would be a great time to set two new goals for myself! The first being to become a vegetarian. Again. I attempted this the year before last, and was a vegetarian for 7 months. I had some very personal health problems arise leading to my doctor "strongly recommending" me to start eating meat again. It wasn't terribly hard for me to not eat meat during those 7 months. There are so many alternatives nowadays. Did you know they make vegetarian sausage?! My main reason for becoming vegetarian was and is the fact that I love animals and it has become hard for me to eat meat knowing where it comes from. Sometimes I would literally lose my appetite while in the middle of eating because I would start thinking about exactly what it was that I was eating. Which leads me to my second goal starting this year, to purchase products that have been deemed "Cruety-free". I am including everything from makeup to laundry detergent. Unfortunately, this is proving to be more difficult than I imagined. Most of the "big-name" brands out there still test on animals. It blows my mind that in this day and age this is something any company feels the need to practice. I think comedian Ricky Gervais summed up my thoughts on the subject when he said:

I've decided to document my journey and share with anyone who may find it useful.