What's happening?

Well, it's Thursday night and I've been thinking about my week. It's been sort of productive despite the fact that I've had a cold for most of it. I've managed to get rid of some junk at work that I've been holding on to for quite some time for God knows why. I've also finally managed to bring myself to put out two of the four plastic bags of clothes that have been sitting in my apartment for about a month now - I just felt so guilty about throwing them out when they could go to someone in need but that would take way too much research and dare I say it, effort. So I'm slowly making a dent in heaps of 'things' that I've managed to somehow accumulate over the past four years. I never considered myself to be a pack rat but I may have to reevaluate that after digging through my desk this week. Man, I have stuff from when I first moved here that I swear I haven't looked at since it went into the suitcase in 2004! At work, I still have papers from my training workshops. If I ever had any doubt of it before, I now know what my biggest fault is: procrastination. Yes, folks. I can see you all nodding in agreement. Don't worry. I know it to be true. I accept. I'm going to try my best to change it...yes yes, the joke must be made. I'll change it, LATER.

Beyond, a little cleaning and consuming mass amounts of tea and garlic (um not together), I've been thinking a lot about what I'm going to make for Christmas dinner - seems kind of random but seeing as it's my first vegan Christmas I thought I'd contribute a few dishes to the standard holiday fare. I'm quite excited about this. You'd be amazed about how long this can actually entertain me. I've thought of three dishes so far - haven't fully developped the exact recipes(that's going to take a few more google searches) but I've some basic ideas. Here they are:

-cranberry, walnut wild rice
-gingered carrots
-dill and red potato salad
-meatless tourtiere and homemade ketchup for the topping (for those of you not familiar with tourtiere it's a traditional French Canadian meat pie - obviously I'm going to attempt a meat-free version)
-something with pumpkin (pie? soup? - still waiting for inspiration)
-a vegan version of my Mother's macaroni salad
-and a vegan version of my Pepere's scalloped potatoes

(That's more than three!) Sounds good though doesn't it? I can't wait to get into the kitchen. Some of you might be thinking, well what about the turkey? Well, I've read a lot about something called tofurkeys but have yet to encounter it. For me turkey was such a small part of the holiday fanfare that I don't feel that it's necessary to replace it with anything but the STUFFING is a whole 'nother matter. Now I'm thinking about a yummy stuffing with lots of fresh herbs and spices. Adding that to my list now. I'm so (can't believe I'm actually going to use the following word) pumped about making a completely cruelty free Christmas meal that I could just break into song and dance.